Ancient Desert Kites | The Largest Prehistoric Man-Made Structures

Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe are huge, complex settlements that date back to between 10,000 and 12,000 years ago. There was clear social organisation people had well-developed and varied skills, and for this reason, many find it hard to believe they still hunted and gathered their food.

But evidence suggests they did and the people that created these settlements also created desert kites - the largest man-made structures of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. They are huge, elaborate hunting traps, so effective that they continued to be used for thousands of years.


Desert kites can be a few hundred metres to several kilometres in length and in this video, I'll be telling you all about these magnificent structures, how they worked and where they can be found in the Taş Tepeler landscape.


00:00 - Introduction

00:27 - Pre-Pottery Neolithic Settlements

01:22 - Gazelle Hunting

02:34 - Desert Kite Hunting Traps

04:31 - Taş Tepeler Kites

06:33 - How Desert Kites Work

10:46 - Curious Desert Kite Zig-Zag

12:15 - Kites and the Landscape

12:50 - Associated Structures

13:27 - Finding Kites on Google Earth

14:04 - Concluding Remarks



Matt Sibson
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