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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Desert kite | 1/2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_kite | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T07:14:25.325383+00:00 | kb-cron |
Desert kites (Arabic: مصائد صحراوية, romanized: maṣāʾid ṣaḥrāwiyya, lit. 'desert traps') are dry stone wall structures found in Southwest Asia (Middle East, but also North Africa, Central Asia and Arabia), which were first discovered from the air during the 1920s. There are over 6,000 known desert kites, with sizes ranging from less than a hundred metres to several kilometres. They typically have a kite shape formed by two convergent "antennae" that run towards an enclosure, all formed by walls of dry stone less than one metre high, but variations exist. Little is known about their ages, but the few dated examples appear to span the entire Holocene. While the majority view holds that these structures were traps for hunting game animals such as gazelles, which were driven into the kites, a minority view suggests they were used for managing livestock.
== Appearance ==
Desert kites are stone structures with a convergent shape, composed of linear piles of stones. The structures have lengths ranging from less than a hundred metres to several kilometres and heights of less than one metre, even accounting for erosion. There often are gaps in the lines, which were presumably either purposeful (left by the builders) or the consequence of lines being formed by alignments of cairns rather than a continuous row. There are a number of different shapes that are referred to as "desert kites", but common features of all such structures are the lines forming two walls ("antennae") that converge into an enclosure ("head") with attached cells. Different regions have different prevalent kite types. Sometimes the existence of these cells is considered essential for a desert kite to be considered as such. Research published in 2022 has shown that pits several metres deep often lie at the margins of enclosures, which have been interpreted as traps and killing pits. The kites enclose surface areas with a median of 10,000 square metres (110,000 sq ft), but much larger and much smaller sizes are also known.
They are typically found in areas with elevated but flat topography or topographically complex terrain, but are rare or absent from sloping terrain, mountainous regions, or within endorheic basins, although they occur at the margins of mountains. Often, the terrain within the kite is much more open than the outside terrain, lacking vegetation and rocks. In general, the visibility of the kites from their inside is poor, which appears to be a purposeful feature of their construction; for example, the ends and entrances of the kites often coincide with slope breaks (places where the slope changes). Within a given region, the kites tend to have a preferred orientation. They are absent from humid climates and from certain hyperarid areas, and their use may have been influenced by Holocene climate changes. Their often enormous size and conspicuousness in arid or semiarid terrain renders them visible in aerial images, while their construction in rough terrain makes them almost invisible on the ground. Sometimes, natural features like cliffs are used in conjunction with the artificial walls to form a kite. Clearing vegetation around the lines or using rocks with a different colour from the background has been documented in volcanic terrain. In Arabia, cairns and linear stone alignments have been found associated with kites.
== Dating ==
Dating kites is difficult; various dating methods like radiocarbon dating and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) have yielded ages ranging from the early to the late Holocene, and there are sporadic reports of their use in travel records. The early Holocene kites are the most complex man-made structures of that time. Some kites have been overprinted by later archaeological structures, destroyed, eroded or submerged, or built out over time to form more complex shapes. In some places, structures like cairns, tombs or square walls occur alongside kites.
== Occurrence == Kites are known from the Middle East and Central Asia, with examples known mainly from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt and Libya. Kites have also been found in Mongolia and South Africa. As of 2018, there were over 6,000 known kites in Asia and the Middle East, and in some parts of Syria there are as many as 1 kite every 2 square kilometres (0.77 sq mi), to the point that they are partially overlapping or form complicated structures. Similar large enclosures that were presumably used as traps have been found in Europe, where they were dated to Mesolithic and Neolithic age; North America, where structures known as drive lines have been used into the 19th century AD; South America; and Japan.
== Function ==