AMMAN, Feb 23, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian 
desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is 
thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide.

  The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters 
and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-
scale hunting trap.

  The giant game traps the model represents -- so-called "desert kites" -- 
were made of long walls that converge to corral running gazelles into 
enclosures or holes for slaughter.

  Similar structures of two or more stone walls, some several kilometres 
(miles) long, have been found in deserts across Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey 
and Kazakhstan.

  The Neolithic-era ritual site was discovered inside a larger campsite last 
October by a joint French-Jordanian team called the South Eastern Badia 
Archaeological Project.

  The nearby desert kites in Jibal al-Khashabiyeh are "the earliest large-
scale human built structures worldwide known to date," said a statement by 
the SEBA Project.

  It hailed the "spectacular and unprecedented discovery" of the ritualistic 
site, believed to date to about 7000 BC.

  It featured two steles with anthropomorphic features, the taller one 1.12 
metres high, other artefacts including animal figurines, flints, and some 150 
arranged marine fossils.

  The wider, decade-old research project aims to study "the first pastoral 
nomadic societies, as well as the evolution of specialised subsistence 
strategies". 

  The desert kites suggest "extremely sophisticated mass hunting strategies, 
unexpected in such an early timeframe," said the project's statement.

  The sacral symbolism was most likely meant "to invoke the supranatural 
forces for successful hunts and abundance of prey to capture," it said. 

  The teams of researchers have also found campsites with circular dwellings 
and large numbers of gazelle bones.

  The project is a collaboration of Jordan's Al Hussein Bin Talal University 
and the French Institute of the Near East.

  French ambassador Veronique Vouland-Aneini hailed the "outcome for both the 
scientific world and Jordan", saying "it provides us with a priceless 
testimony of the historical life in the Middle East, its traditions and 
rituals".