Stone structures in the Syrian Desert

to just capture and then kill animals, but also for the conservation of food, keeping the game alive, in small huts at the end of the kites. The kites were probably the first step from hunting to the intentional breeding of animals [7,8]. Other scholars do not agree with such conclusions [9]. It impresses the number of kites that we can still identify: it is seems to be in the thousands, distributed on the Arabian and Sinai peninsulas and, northward, as far as Turkey. Over a thousand have been recorded in Jordan alone [3]. The earliest desert kites are dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period of 9th-11th millennia BP. It is the radiocarbon analysis on charcoal within the kite pits helping to date the site [3]. As we discussed in the paper on Arabia [10], an interesting fact is necessary to note [7]. In the Khaybar area, Arabia, there are some remains of Neolithic villages very close to the hunting desert kites. Linking the "desert kites" with "human villages" could be a mistake, because wild animals are avoiding places where people live. Since the Khaybar area is full with ancient burial structures, sometimes placed inside the desert kites, a possible conclusion is that these burial mounds are more recent than the desert kites [7]. Because this conclusion is coming from the observation of satellite images, it seems that the satellites, and in particular the Google Maps, can help the archaeological researches providing a portrait of the human collective activities in the early stages of civilization. On the Syrian Desert too, we see smaller circular stone structures and mounds in or near the desert kites (see Fig. 2 for instance). We could then ask ourselves what are the remains in this desert of the human settlements at Neolithic times. For what concerns this question, interesting news was announced last year [11]. Robert Mason, an archaeologist with the Royal Ontario Museum, discovered near the Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi monastery, some tombs and stone circles, defining this site as a Syria's Stonehenge From stone tools found there, it's likely that the features date in the Middle East's Neolithic Period, roughly ranging from 8500 BC to 4300 BC. In Western Europe, the first structures built of stone date back approximately to 4500 BC. The Syrian site is then quite older than the European sites. Edward Banning of the University of Toronto says that more fieldwork is necessary because it is possible that the landscape that Robert Mason has identified could be an example, in the Neolithic period, of burial practices out of the settlement, that is, an off-site cemetery [11]. The report in [11] is continuing reporting a suggestion by Julian Siggers, of the Royal Ontario Museum: remembering that agriculture spread from the Near East to Europe, he is proposing the possibility that the stone landscapes, that is the creation of stone circles, have travelled with agriculture. On the other hand, Banning is replying that stone structures are found throughout the world and that people in Western Europe could have developed the stone landscapes independently of the people in Middle East. According to Edward Banning, the site studied by Mason is not unique [11,12]. "Archaeologists have detected, via satellite photos, what appear to be cairns and stone circles in other areas, including the deserts of Jordan and Israel. However, he admits that most of these things have not received a lot of archaeological investigation." It is quite interesting what Ref.11 is telling, that the satellites are revealing so many structures, that probably, it is impossible to investigate all of them, and then many are not receiving specific investigation. We can by ourselves check the existence of stone circles in the Syrian Desert, using the Google Maps or Acme Mapper for instance. Here again, these map services are excellent to reveal the landscapes of the past. From Fig. 4 to Fig. 8, I am proposing some images of stone circles, sometimes with radial structures inside. There are also complexes composed by several stone structures (a collection of images at [13]). To date the petroforms [14] that we see in the Syrian Desert, a huge fieldwork in the desert is necessary. Since this work needs time and financial support, the satellite imagery, as the Google Maps are clearly demonstrating, is a quite good source of information to locate the sites, propose their preservation and plan archaeological expeditions, with the support of contemporarily geophysical researches, which are surely performed in this area full of oil resources.

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