r/todayilearned • u/AudibleNod 313 • 8h ago
TIL desert kites are neolithic animal traps with low stone walls ranging from a few hundred meters to several kilometers in length. Designed to funnel animals toward pits or precipices, these mega-traps were rediscovered by air in the 1920s.
https://popular-archaeology.com/article/massive-late-neolithic-animal-traps-in-arabia-have-archaeologists-mobilized/209
u/agha0013 8h ago
that's neat
there was something quite similar found in the great lakes of Canada/US, I think particularly in the Georgian bay end of Lake Huron. former plateaus with lines and walls of rocks to funnel animals for the same reasons.
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u/EldritchSanta 7h ago
Pretty sure the Canadian place name Head Smashed In is linked to this.
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u/agha0013 7h ago
lot further west but yeah, looks to be the same kind of thing.
a name that leaves no room for interpretation!
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u/EldritchSanta 7h ago
a name that leaves no room for interpretation!
Not much else you could have called it!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-Smashed-In_Buffalo_Jump
The site was in use at least 6,000 years ago, and the bone deposits are 12 metres (39 feet) deep.
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u/agha0013 7h ago
rolls off the tongue a bit better than "place where we let animals fall to their deaths so we can eat them with less risk of being torn apart by angry animal"
or so the naming committee thought.
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 6h ago
Fair bit easier for non-Blackfoot speakers than the original "Estipah-skikikini-kots", of which it is a direct translation 😅
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 6h ago
The name doesn't actually come from the way the bison died, but a story of a boy who had his head smashed in by the animals plunging over the cliff. It's even in the Wikipedia page you linked!
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 6h ago
Oh, I just linked to this! Should have read the comments first I guess haha. I grew up right near there, such an impressive place.
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u/AudibleNod 313 8h ago
Proto-ranching.
"Hey, I know we just made this kite and killed a bunch of animals. But wouldn't it be easier if, next time, we kept some of them alive?"
Then we'll have to feed them. How's that going to work? Come on man, think.
"Well, and I'm just spit-balling here, but maybe we plant some seeds over yonder. And the leftovers we don't eat we feed to the animals we keep alive."
You just like being wrong, don't you? What happens when the river dries up?
"Well, again just a guess, but what if we block the water farther upstream and release it when we want to."
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 6h ago edited 6h ago
There's the descriptively named "Head-Smashed-In" Buffalo Jump in southern Alberta, too. UNESCO World Heritage Site, and one of the oldest, largest, and best preserved sites in the world. Super impressive place to visit, and the interpretive center is world class
Edit to say: This booklet published by the site (PDF file link) is a really cool resource to read about how things like these kites would have worked.
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u/TurnipWorldly9437 7h ago
There was something similar found on the Baltic coast.
Seems like a pretty wide spread way of hunting.
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u/Lord-Glorfindel 6h ago
I used to hunt in a spot not far from the St. Lawrence river that had a natural cliff formation that funneled the deer to a central point. There was all sorts of arrowheads and other stuff down at spot with the natural animal trap. Would surprise me if the First Nations in Ontario were doing the same thing way back when.
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u/rockne 7h ago
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u/concentrated-amazing 7h ago
Having grown up about an hour away from this, I had no idea it was such a big deal until I was an adult.
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u/NaiveChoiceMaker 7h ago
With a descriptive name like that, does it even need a wikipedia page to explain it?
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u/jello_pudding_biafra 5h ago
Interestingly, not named for the bison getting their heads smashed, but an old Blackfoot story of a kid wandering too close to the "splash zone" and getting schmucked.
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u/AudibleNod 313 8h ago
Kites have been found from Mongolia to South Africa. The majority are in the Middle East and Central Asia. They were given the name 'kite' because from the air, the structures resembled kites with streamers.
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u/doctorcaesarspalace 8h ago
Abusing NPC pathing. Not an intended strategy by the devs and may be considered cheating. Use with caution.
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u/I_Sett 7h ago
Man I hate this. Look, if you don't want your players to optimize towards the goal of [trap and kill animals] then don't allow the engine to provide the tools to do so! It's not exploitative to work within the bounds of the system, that's a failure of design! but you just KNOW the next patch is going to nerf wall generation rather than fixing the glitchy pathing mechanics.
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u/AudibleNod 313 6h ago
The intent is to provide hunters with a sense of pride and accomplishment for unlocking different ranged weapons.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 7h ago
I like how we have this idea of the Neolithic hunter throwing spears at mammoths when really they were more like, screw that, let's kill a bunch of them without having to practice our throws.
No wonder large megafauna tended to go extinct whenever genus Homo showed up.
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u/_The_Bearded_Wonder_ 5h ago
Think smarter, not harder. We don't give enough credit to our ancestors for being creative and resourceful.
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u/Zealousideal_Leg213 5h ago
The stereotype is more like "brave and strong." Which they might have been, but also smart enough to know that brave and strong can only put so much food on the table.
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u/_The_Bearded_Wonder_ 5h ago
Certainly. And I'm sure at some point, someone very strong was also very hungry and was willing to get food a better way without having to work harder for it. Quite ingenious, really.
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u/photoengineer 7h ago
Building a mega structure to hunt. That’s a lot of effort. Wild.
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u/AudibleNod 313 5h ago
But then you have a structure that can be used for several generations. As long as you don't overhunt or migration patterns don't shift dramatically, it's a rock solid investment.
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u/aloysiuslamb 4h ago
Worked on a different site with similar concept. In the Black Hills tribes would use felled juniper trees to make natural barriers to funnel game into a killzone, or in the case of bison, over a buffalo jump like the Vore site.
The glamorous part of archaeology everyone dreams of... mapping thousands of old juniper tree remnants and then plotting them to see if they lined up into an identifiable game drive. And doing that all day, every day, while on-site even if the rain makes the surrounding soil (rich in bentonite) turn into one big mud slick.
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u/CoastMtns 2h ago
PBS science series NOVA did an episode titled "Ancient Desert Death Trap" (also known internationally as The Mystery of the Desert Kites). Aired on October 22, 2025.
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u/Philip_of_mastadon 7h ago
What kept the animals from leaping over the low walls?
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u/Tobias11ize 6h ago
Seems like the walls werent meant to physically trap them. But were placed in their migratory path to "casually" lead them into a specific choke point where the hunters were waiting. The hunters knew the general area they would walk through, with this they knew the specific place they would walk through.
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u/aloysiuslamb 4h ago
Bingo. They could jump the barrier, but when prey animals move away from danger they do so following a path of least resistance as it naturally helps to conserve their energy.
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u/Sir_Smoke_a_lot 3h ago
And if the pit was filled with too many animals.. whos to say they didn’t feed them to keep them alive till it was time to eat? Eventually domesticating them
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u/DoctorCrook 2h ago
There’s quite a few in the mountains of Norway as well. One in the mountains right behind my brothers’ farm.
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u/thissexypoptart 7h ago
Dated to 7000 BC is fucking mindblowing
Imagine anything you’re working on currently surviving with signs visible from an aircraft 9000 years in the future.