Original subtitles

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: In the midst of the Arabian desert lie huge,

enigmatic structures; spectacular geometries

only visible from the sky.

They're large, they're in many cases they're kilometers long.

NARRATOR: But what are they? And why are they here?

BILL FINLAYSON: There's still, I think, a number of enigmas

as to what the kites are really doing.

(scraping rock, chiseling)

NARRATOR: Rediscovered a century ago, it's only now,

with new technology,

that scientists are fully revealing their secrets.

CHERYL MAKAREWICZ: I've never seen this kind of density of material.

It is unbelievable.

NARRATOR: Bringing to life an ancient people.

WAEL ABU-AZIZEH: This is obviously a very important,

once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

So we are extremely happy.

MOHAMMED TARAWNEH: Beyond expectations.

(chuckles)

(exclaiming)

RÉMY CRASSARD: Yes, we have it!

Awesome.

TARAWNEH: This is really something new.

And this is something never been found somewhere else.

No one ever expected to find such a great discovery.

NARRATOR: Archeologists are finally decoding

these massive structures engineered by

a hunting society.

"Ancient Desert Death Trap."

Right now, on "NOVA!"

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Criss-crossing the Arabian desert

are huge geometric structures...

...often several miles in length.

The low stone walls run through the landscape like giant scars.

Spotted from planes in the 1920s,

they were soon nicknamed "desert kites"

because the pilots thought that many of their shapes

resembled children's kites.

Spectacular examples exist in Harrat Khaybar,

a vast volcanic desert in Medina Province, Saudi Arabia.

For more than a decade,

archeologists Rémy Crassard and

Wael Abu-Azizeh have been studying these features.

(camera clicking)

Now they are heading back to the site,

armed with the very latest technology.

Their aim?

To put a century's worth of theories to the test.

Asking exactly when were these desert kites constructed?

And why?

CRASSARD (translated): We can go see nearer the enclosure, if you like.

NARRATOR: Because these megastructures are so vast,

the only way to see

the entire picture is from above.

In this case, with a drone.

♪ ♪

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): Look, here.

You can clearly see these two lines converging

towards the enclosure...

...which is a kind of triangle.

NARRATOR: Even though some of these kites are hundreds,

even thousands of miles apart, they share common features.

(translated): The common point between all these structures

is the big walls that converge on very large enclosures,

dotted with surrounding cells.

So we have a kind of general model

for these structures,

which are found in extremely different places.

These megastructures have long walls, sometimes called arms,

or antennae, which can be up to three miles long.

And they converge at a vast enclosure

that's usually a little bigger than a football field.

The edge of each large enclosure is dotted

with several smaller, often circular compartments,

each just a few feet across.

Most kites follow this structure,

with slight variations depending

on their location and local terrain.

But what are they for?

OLIVIER BARGE (translated): The first idea about their use

was that they were defensive structures,

something involving the Romans.

Then we considered buildings for rituals.

NARRATOR: In those early days, there was also a suggestion

that they could have been animal traps.

(translated): The researchers were unable

to decide between

these hypotheses due to a lack of fieldwork

that could distinguish one function

from another.

NARRATOR: To better understand the kites,

researchers formed a multidisciplinary task force

called GLOBALKITES,

involving several fieldwork projects.

They want to find as many kites as possible and map them

to confirm their use and identify

the people who built them.

Today, thanks to satellite imagery,

it's easier than ever to find these sites.

Just how many are out there?

(dogs barking, bell ringing)

Geographer and cartographer,

Olivier Barge, is one of the scientists responsible

for mapping the kites.

BARGE (translated): One of them is really impressive...

This one.

You can see it has...

one, two, three, four levels;

so it's a gigantic structure.

Over time, and with practice,

you end up finding the places where they were hidden.

We've found several

constant elements,

such as the terrain and types of vegetation.

Today, we have an inventory of more than 6,600 of them,

and across a territory that is super vast--

more than 3,500 kilometers long, which was a huge surprise.

NARRATOR: This is a colossal rate of discovery.

Just 20 years ago,

there were only a few hundred known kites.

Now this number has risen to more than 6,600.

Almost 900 of them are in the Khaybar region of Saudi Arabia,

the rest span an area reaching from Saudi Arabia to Kazakhstan,

via Jordan, Syria and Armenia.

But that's not all.

Ancient structures sharing some similarities

show up even farther away

in Israel, Yemen, Egypt and Libya.

The more scientists find, the more questions they have.

There's many things that are puzzling about the kites.

I mean, one is, why did you make such a huge system?

Why do you have to have so many?

So there's still, I think,

a number of enigmas as to what the kites are really doing.

NARRATOR: And satellite images

can only tell us so much.

The people who know these structures best,

are those who live alongside them.

♪ ♪

Historian Saïfi Alshilali grew up in Khaybar

and spent much of his childhood among the kites

without knowing exactly

what they were.

CRASSARD (in English): You were the first to discover the Khaybar's kites, right?

I believe so, I believe so, because

we usually walked around

with my, with our fathers,

grandfathers when we were children.

We just saw ruined walls. Yeah.

NARRATOR: What were these extraordinary structures used for?

Saïfi took part in a major conservation project in 2006

using privately restricted satellite images,

but today, the GLOBALKITES project

is using freely available data with a higher resolution.

In that image, they-- those ruins changed into shapes,

looks like sometimes... CRASSARD: Pantaloons.

ALSHILALI: Pantaloons!

sometimes it looks like arrows.

And that, you know, instead of giving me clues,

put more question marks in front of me.

♪ ♪

(translated): In general, the local population,

the Bedouins who live in these regions,

are aware of the existence of these structures.

But don't have a precise idea of their function.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: So scientists have searched for clues.

Some of the most important

have been ancient carvings and rock art.

In northeast Jordan,

one carving is especially interesting.

Discovered in 1951 on a pile of rocks

known as the Hani Cairn,

it dates back to a period between the first century B.C.

and the first century A.D.-- and it's remarkably well-preserved.

On it, we see a drawing of a kite.

The arms, enclosure, and circular compartments

are all clearly identifiable.

but there's something else on the carving

that hints at what the kites were used for.

(translated): The drawings

on the stone that was found at the Hani Cairn

are of four-legged animals,

but we can't tell whether they're domesticated or wild.

So the question of purpose remains open.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The theory of kites being used

as animal pens dates back to the time of their sightings

in the late 1920s.

But whether they were used to catch wild animals,

or to house domestic livestock

has long been up for debate.

Finding an accurate age for the structures would help.

Dating could reveal more about the climate,

flora and fauna at the time: all crucial elements

in determining the function of these megastructures.

But that's not easy.

There's very little natural material in kites

that can be radiocarbon dated.

So how do scientists go about dating such complex structures?

(translated): Excavations must be carried out

to find archaeological levels which can be dated

on the basis of organic materials such as charcoal.

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): We decided to start digging in the kites

to obtain more information; because until then,

no digs had been carried out at these structures.

NARRATOR: Rémy Crassard and Wael Abu-Azizeh

are excavating a site in Khaybar.

They search for an area where soil layers are undisturbed

and more likely to hold ancient materials

that they can collect and date.

CRASSARD (translated): Here you can

clearly see one of the circular cells

around the enclosure.

And this one seems pretty deep.

(translated): Yeah, I think it's worth digging here.

(scraping, sifting)

NARRATOR: They focus on the sheltered spaces

inside the circular compartments,

where sediments can accumulate over time.

But after a few days of digging,

they still have not found any organic material,

like charcoal, to test with radiocarbon dating.

Instead, there are only minerals, like sand and stone.

Can they be used to find out how old the kite is?

CRASSARD (translated): Do you think we can insert a tube here?

DEPREUX (translated): I think this is a better place.

CRASSARD (translated): Okay.

NARRATOR: Bruno Depreux is a geo-archeologist

and an expert in sediments.

To date this kite,

he uses optically stimulated luminescence,

or OSL dating.

(tapping continues)

DEPREUX (translated): OSL allows us to date

the sediment, the last time the sediment

was exposed to sunlight;

so it gives us the date the sediment was deposited.

NARRATOR: And the results?

At least 7,000 years old with some,

like those in Jordan, as old as 9,000 years.

(translated):These kites dated from the Neolithic--

from a period 7,000 years B.C.E.

NARRATOR: The results support a hypothesis

that kites emerged during the late Stone Age,

a time called the Neolithic period.

They are some of the oldest large-scale structures

in human history...

♪ ♪

...built several thousand years before

the standing stones of Stonehenge,

the first Egyptian pyramids,

and the geometric figures of Nazca.

But what does this dating tell us

about how the kites were used?

The Neolithic period was a time of great change.

Between about 10,000 B.C. and 5,000 B.C.,

the peoples of the near east gradually transitioned

from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle

to living in more settled communities,

where farming and herding were the main sources of food.

They domesticated animals,

a major turning point in the history of humankind.

FINLAYSON: Kites are an accident of the history

of research in the Neolithic in a sense

that in the way we use the term, because

we know the Neolithic has new sorts of stone tools,

has farming, has domesticated animals,

has pottery and everything.

NARRATOR: So what role did the kites play during this transition?

Were their builders hunting to survive?

Living solely off of domesticated animals?

Or a mixture of both?

With such a wide timeframe, scientists have to look

for other clues beyond the kites.

Luckily, some other nearby sites

have provided a wealth of information

about how these Neolithic peoples lived.

♪ ♪

The cradle of Neolithic life

was in this part of the Middle East,

sometimes known as the Fertile Crescent:

a great belt of arable land,

to the north of the Arabian Desert.

It was here that some of the first great civilizations,

like Mesopotamia, emerged.

♪ ♪

Archeological research in the Fertile Crescent

has revealed evidence of herding by nomadic peoples

around the same time that the kites were being built.

We know those herders used enclosures--

but were they similar at all to the kites

found out in the desert?

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): Our research told us that the dimensions

of these enclosures were very different from those

that were generally used by nomadic pastoral populations

to keep their domesticated animals.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The kite enclosures measure

nearly two-and-a-half acres,

orders of magnitude larger than the enclosures

used by the region's herders;

much too big for simply

penning cattle and goats.

This, combined with the fact

that these structures are open-ended,

suggests they may have had another purpose.

While there may have been some domesticated herding

around the time the kites were built,

it was far from a universal practice.

It took thousands of years for domestication

to resemble what it is today.

So some Neolithic peoples certainly hunted.

Whether this was alongside keeping domestic animals

or as their main way of sourcing food, is still unknown.

But why would they build these megastructures for hunting here,

in an arid desert where potential prey animals

seem to be nonexistent?

To find out more about the climate and the environment

during the Neolithic period,

the scientists leave the kites

in search of preserved soils rich in organic matter.

Can they provide insight into what the desert was like

some 9,000 years ago?

The Khaybar Oasis is an ideal spot for this kind of study.

Geo-archeologist Bruno Depreux takes samples of the soil

at various depths where he knows

they correspond to the age of the kites.

A few weeks later in his lab in Lyon, France,

Bruno analyzes these core samples

taken from the oasis soil.

DEPREUX (translated): Colors give us our first clues in interpreting past landscapes.

Here we have sediments that are greenish

and then others veering on black.

So around 7,000 years B.C.E.,

soils were much richer in organic matter,

which testifies to more vegetation

and much less of a desert landscape than there is today.

This means that the rivers and streams,

which have since dried up, were constantly filled with water.

So there was more wildlife, more vegetation,

and more significant sources of water.

NARRATOR: The results of the core samples reveal

what the landscape looked like during the Neolithic period.

The difference is staggering.

Around 7,000 B.C.,

riverbanks were lush and closer to the kites.

The basalt plateaus were covered with trees.

With these conditions,

the area was probably full of wildlife.

A good place for hunting.

Back in Khaybar,

Rémy Crassard and his team continue their investigation

into one of the kites,

digging in the circular compartment.

They confirm a previous finding

that these large holes, surrounded by dry-stone walls,

can be as much as several feet deep.

But what was their use?

Initially, they were thought to be stone circles

with no specific purpose.

The excavations reveal that the walls of the pits

were clad with stones.

In some cases,

rocks weighing over 200 pounds each,

topped the structure.

It would be the perfect way

to prevent trapped animals from escaping.

Combined with previous clues;

the shape of the kites

and information about what this location was like

in Neolithic times, this discovery confirmed

that the kites were used as hunting traps.

CRASSARD (translated): They're not what we originally thought:

mere stone circles attached

to the enclosures and antennae.

They're pits that we're now calling "pit-traps,"

because we've realized

that animals fell down them and were trapped.

NARRATOR: But this discovery also raised new questions.

Why were the kites so big?

What was the purpose of the various parts?

How did the megastructures work?

What animals were they trying to trap?

With the pits fully excavated,

the team of archeologists widens their focus

to look for clues about the builders

of these megastructures.

But the excavation is nearing its end,

and they've found no traces of human settlements

near the kites.

So they decide to continue their investigation elsewhere.

♪ ♪

Several hundred miles away,

in Khashabiyeh, southeastern Jordan,

the team identifies a very promising excavation site.

Nine kites,

all dating back to roughly 7000 B.C.,

have been recorded in this area.

But in 2023, the team found something remarkable;

the first traces of a human settlement complex

near a kite...

...a major discovery

that could revolutionize our understanding

of how these mega-traps functioned,

and help scientists unravel exactly

who was responsible for their construction.

Rémy Crassard joins the dig,

co-directed by Wael Abu-Azizeh

and Jordanian archeologist Mohammad Tarawneh.

♪ ♪

The team of the south eastern Badia archaeological project

focuses their research on one of the main areas

with signs of human occupation.

CRASSARD (translated): It's an incredibly rich dig,

because we've found thousands,

tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands

of stone objects in knapped flint.

NARRATOR: But as the dig goes on,

the archeologists not only find traces of human activity,

they unearth what looks like a dwelling.

So, as you can see, we have here

a very well-preserved

habitation site.

We have three occupation units

agglutinated next to each other, and they are centered around

a central space.

Into each one of these habitation units,

you will find maybe one or two hearths

where people were cooking.

NARRATOR: From their findings,

the team has created reconstructions.

They believe the site was once made up of half-buried huts,

circular in shape, one up against the other,

and covered with a roof made of sticks.

Finds within these houses have also provided clues

to the way these ancient people lived.

Evidence of cooking on a fire,

grinding ingredients with a wheel and pestle,

and knapping flint.

(cracking)

In all, the archeologists have identified

nine habitation sites.

By mapping them out, they soon realize

that each one could correspond to a different kite,

strategically located next to an antenna.

Fragments of charcoal found in the hearths

date these dwellings to 7000 B.C.--

the same time these kites were built.

TARAWNEH: This is actually one of the most important part is

dating the kites and dating the occupation sites

and to have them linked together from the same period

and we achieved that through Carbon 14

so now we have just enough evidence to link them together.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But what else can these sites reveal

about the people who once lived here?

Who were they?

(sand shifting)

♪ ♪

JUAN SANCHEZ-PRIEGO (speaking French):

ISABELA CARRIÓ (speaking French):

(speaking French):

PRIEGO:

CRASSARD:

PRIEGO:

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The team has found several thousand knapped flints,

like this blade.

It shows these people were skilled tool makers.

With distinct and unique tools,

pottery, artwork, evidence of religious practices

and the kites themselves,

the archeologists realize that they have discovered

a previously unknown people.

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): We have all the elements--

the architecture, the material culture--

to allow us to identify

this culture as a distinct culture in its own right.

♪ ♪

We wanted to give this culture a name,

and to do so, we used a local place name,

Tal'at Ghassan,

to come up with "Ghassanian,"

the Ghassanian culture.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The Ghassanians were Neolithic hunters

who designed monumental traps to catch wild animals.

But the team still isn't exactly sure how the kites worked.

♪ ♪

(sifting)

After a few weeks of digging,

they finally unearth the clue they've been waiting for.

(scraping)

(speaking indistinctly)

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): It's an animal bone.

We've found some in some fairly dense pockets.

NARRATOR: Away from the kites, but close to the dwellings,

the archeologists uncover pits filled with bone fragments.

The pits are more than six feet across

and about four inches deep.

Inside are thousands

of small burned bones.

One pit alone

contains more than 7,500 bones and fragments.

They are sent for further study.

In north Germany, at her lab in Kiel University,

zooarcheologist Cheryl Makarewicz analyzes the bones.

(objects shifting on desk)

All right, so,

you can see this incredible amount of material

coming from one relatively small context.

And so all of this

was the result of processing of the carcasses.

And everything is concentrated

in a kind of midden, or a, a dump,

and this is just one bag from one small context.

So imagine, that we have actually hundreds of these bags.

NARRATOR: Cheryl compares the shapes of the bones

to animals we know today,

and finds nearly all the bones are from just one species.

MAKAREWICZ: So, at Khashabiyeh,

99.9% of the animal bones that we encounter,

they're from gazelle.

NARRATOR: Gazelles are small antelopes.

Today several different species roam in herds

across parts of Asia and Africa.

(rattling)

So the question for Cheryl is,

were the Ghassanian people who lived

9,000 years ago actively hunting these animals?

The answer lies in the sheer number of bones.

MAKAREWICZ: In this case, we're--

we're counting the number of,

first phalanges.

The first foot bone, basically.

Now, if we take a look here at this...

this forelimb from a sheep,

which has the same exact bones as a gazelle.

You can see here

that in the foot bones--

that's these three here--

there are two of each type.

So, two first phalanges, two second phalanges,

and two third phalanges.

And so, what we're doing,

is we're counting the numbers of these,

and then-- in that we're finding in the faunal deposits,

and then we're simply dividing by

the number of these bones

that we find in the animal itself;

in this case, eight.

So...

if we have eight first phalanges,

we have at least one individual.

And in the case of Khashabiyeh,

we have probably around 150 animals or so.

NARRATOR: There is no way

that this many gazelles could have died nearby

from natural causes.

But how do we know

they were trapped inside the kites en masse

rather than being individually hunted

over a longer period of time?

MAKAREWICZ: So there was almost no sediment,

in between the bones themselves.

It's just this incredible,

dense concentration of these kinds of faunal remains.

And what we excavated through this very carefully,

and it became very clear that

this was one depositional event.

And I've never seen

this kind of density of material

in a single depositional context.

It is unbelievable.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: For the researchers, there's no doubt:

these animals were hunted,

and to capture hundreds of gazelles at a time,

the hunters needed a mega-trap, like a kite.

♪ ♪

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): Hunting inside the kites was mass hunting,

because 100 or so animals were captured in one go.

So that means extremely abundant

hunting by-products, like meat,

which needed to be butchered.

(speaking French)

(translated): And we've found traces of this

at the occupation sites in Khashabiyeh.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: By building kites,

the Ghassanians were able to hunt

at a near-industrial level.

♪ ♪

But many questions remain.

What were the long stone walls for?

And how did the Ghassanians use them to catch their prey?

♪ ♪

TARAWNEH: They were living with the animals,

watching the animal behavior,

understanding the nature and the environment around them,

so they understood how,

how to deal with these animals.

NARRATOR: By observing gazelles,

the ancient hunters likely noticed

that they naturally followed lines on the landscape:

ridges, rivers, ravines,

even features with no height at all.

FINLAYSON: Gazelle follow

straight lines in the landscape.

And you can still see this behavior today.

So each individual one-- the sum of the kites--

has a series of long, long walls that lead into it.

They're designed to bring gazelle in.

They'll come in by themselves,

and then you wait for them at the head of the kite.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It was thanks to

a deep understanding of gazelle behavior

that these Neolithic people were able to prepare

the perfect traps.

♪ ♪

Scientists have also long suspected

that the kites are all positioned

along the gazelles' migration routes.

♪ ♪

Olivier Barge has gone to Khashabiyeh, in Jordan,

to check the orientation of this region's nine known kites.

And to get this aerial footage,

the team is using another kind of kite.

(winding)

♪ ♪

(camera shutter clicking)

BARGE (translated): It's important to have aerial photos,

because we can then treat these photogrammatically

to obtain a digital description of the kites.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: These digital maps

provide researchers with a wealth of information.

The region's topography

combined with the kites' positioning

provide clues to how these mega-traps worked.

With these maps, Olivier sees that

the arms of the nine Khashabiyeh kites

all open to the east;

the direction from which the gazelles may have migrated,

drawing them in.

♪ ♪

This shows that the gazelles

could have entered the kites naturally.

Then, the kite walls gradually narrowed,

ushering them towards the enclosure.

♪ ♪

(gazelles running)

But then what?

How were they ensnared?

(dirt crunching)

(crunching, rattling)

(translated): We're now at the far end of the antennae,

and the walls have really narrowed.

We'll go on a bit further.

We can't see too far ahead.

The vice tightens,

and now...

we enter the enclosure just below.

The animals were running at full pelt,

and they didn't realize they were inside an enclosure

until they were already inside it.

(gazelle hooves thundering)

NARRATOR: Olivier Barge and the global kites team

have noticed that this kite appears to have been

deliberately positioned across two breaks in the slope.

The first high point hides the enclosure...

...and the second hides the pits.

And in other cases, when the topography

of a kite would've made it impossible

to naturally mask the enclosure and pits,

the hunters devised other ways:

they constructed stone ramps or small walls.

Taking the height of a gazelle's shoulders,

the archeologists calculated its field of vision

and determined that a 20 inch-high wall

would've been enough to hide the pit.

(booming)

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): The construction of the kites

called for knowledge of the environment

and the topography of the terrain.

And once the gazelles had fallen into the pits,

there was no way out.

NARRATOR: So what happened next?

How did the Ghassanians manage to butcher

150 gazelles at once?

MAKAREWICZ: So people were probably coming together

not only as people living on the settlement,

but people coming together and processing these as a group.

So we could imagine 20 people,

30 people, 50 people,

to really rapidly process those carcasses.

♪ ♪

Still, at the same time, the question still remains,

what are they doing with these animals?

What are they doing with the meat?

What are they doing with the skins?

CRASSARD (translated): We don't have any real answers

to those questions yet; but it most probably

involved trade with populations further away,

because there was too much meat and by-products

for the local population alone.

♪ ♪

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): During the digs,

we found seashells used as beads,

which indicates that they traded with people

on the Mediterranean or the Red Sea.

Even if you're a local and distinct culture,

you're part of the Neolithic world.

You're clearly speaking to people.

You're trading with people, you're in contact with people,

you're getting new ideas from them,

you're giving them new ideas.

And the whole area is,

in a sense,

very much like our world.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: But one mystery continues to puzzle the researchers.

(translated): What's astonishing

and very hard to explain,

is the symmetry

of such gigantic structures.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: It's only from above that they can see

what a technological feat this truly is.

♪ ♪

CRASSARD (translated): How did prehistoric populations,

with no access to aerial vision,

manage to build huge structures?

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Once again,

it's the dwellings close to the nine kites

of Khashabiyeh, in Jordan,

that provide the team with potential clues.

♪ ♪

(indistinct conversing)

they find a large flat stone

with intriguing carvings.

(indistinct talking)

(straining)

(relieved sigh)

(group exclaiming)

(brush sweeping)

TARAWNEH: Decorated nose.

(excited noise)

It's simple, but very expressive

at the same time. Yes.

NARRATOR: The team has already discovered two other similar stones.

Within these pictures,

they suspect there might be hidden images of kites.

(group talking indistinctly)

♪ ♪

(chuckling): Right.

These two... Well, actually,

yeah, with the eye to represent the enclosure.

That could make sense, that's amazing.

(muted audio)

NARRATOR: They suspect this could be a representation of a kite.

Carved on a standing stone.

Was this used as a building plan?

we should compare with the actual kite... The actual kite,

the closer one. Near the, near the site.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: This carving suggests

the shape of the nearby kite.

♪ ♪

And it's not the only stone that follows this pattern.

Another stone, with a different image,

maps out another kite,

with one of the pits acting as the mouth.

It too was found near the kite it matches.

Could this be a coincidence?

The team thinks it seems unlikely.

They suspect that each of the nine habitation sites

in Khashabiyeh may have one.

♪ ♪

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): Our hypothesis

was based on mathematics.

Mathematics allowed us to quantify

and formally establish the similarity with the kites,

far beyond the simple hunch that we had to begin with.

NARRATOR: Here's one of the carved plans

selected for mathematical study.

A specially designed computer program

allows the researchers to compare

the image of the layout to its nearby kite.

And it isn't the only one.

The computer is able to take into account

small similarities and differences

that are difficult to see with the naked eye.

It then calculates the degree of similarity

between the actual kites

and the plans on the stones.

Despite 9,000 years of erosion,

the carved plan most closely matches

kites near the drawing,

not those for more distant regions.

One kite shares over 75% similarity.

The main inaccuracy is that the pit-traps

are significantly exaggerated compared to their actual size,

but if done to scale, they would be too small to carve.

And one carving is more than 81% similar

to its nearby kite.

Such close alignments suggest that each plan

corresponds to a nearby kite.

CRASSARD (translated): These are the oldest scale plans

in the history of humankind.

The oldest scale plans

that we knew of before these dated from

only the second millennium B.C.E.,

in Mesopotamia.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: Rémy and the team believe

that the Ghassanians produced scale plans

around 5,000 years earlier than the Mesopotamians did,

and the team has found no evidence

of mathematics or written language.

♪ ♪

Without these, it would be especially impressive,

given the complexity of the topography

at the Khashabiyeh site.

With hills and vast rocky outcrops,

it is impossible to see

the layout of the entire kite

from one spot.

♪ ♪

(group chatting in non-English language)

(all applauding)

(exclaiming, cheering)

(translated): We're all here together

to share this great moment in time.

(cheerful chatter)

(flames roaring)

TARAWNEH: I'm proud as a Jordanian

of, you know, excavating Jordanian sites,

especially these sites turned out to be extremely important,

not only for Jordan, it's worldwide.

It's scientific research.

We are adding a lot for, you know, scientific knowledge.

So that's really important for us.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: The global kites team

has found hundreds of new kites

using satellite imagery,

and their excavations have also uncovered

an entirely new people--

the Ghassanians.

Their discoveries have put Jordan and Saudi Arabia

on the archaeological map once more.

(flames crackling)

♪ ♪

(brushing)

(mumbling indistinctly)

NARRATOR: But just as the team

is beginning to close the dig sites,

there is one more surprise.

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): We've found four

anthropomorphic standing stones.

Two here,

and two back there--

which stand inside a structure

that is composed of two lines of stones,

which you can see here.

And they join to form a small circular cell.

In fact, it all forms

the structure of the kite

which is close to this occupation site.

NARRATOR: The Ghassanians had taken things one step further.

This is not a plan,

but a small-scale model built of stone.

Once again, its shape resembles a nearby kite.

♪ ♪

The archeologists also find some unusual remains

between the two arms of the model.

CRASSARD (translated): What's interesting here

is that this prehistoric population

collected objects from nature

and stored them in this scale model.

(speaking French)

(translated): At the back of this compartment,

there's an ensemble with some very large fossils,

and flint nodules

with a very particular inward-curved shape.

So they're all objects that stand out in the terrain.

NARRATOR: These Neolithic people gathered shellfish fossils

from millions of years ago, when the desert was a sea.

CRASSARD (translated): So they were like curiosity collectors,

going around, picking up objects

that are a bit strange, a bit different...

And that makes us think that we're dealing with

something that's ritualized, probably.

And certainly something symbolic.

NARRATOR: Inside the model kite, the archeologists also find

stones blackened with soot:

evidence of a hearth.

For the team,

this isn't merely a model of the kite,

but possibly a site with a ritual and spiritual purpose.

(indistinct talking)

TARAWNEH: The whole kite model here,

it's oriented, it was the main entrance

of the whole unit,

and all the anthropomorphic figures

are also orienting towards

the same direction as the kite.

♪ ♪

ABU-AZIZEH: I think it is obviously something ritual,

related to their beliefs, yes.

Because I think the symbolism

is very strong, and suggests also

a very strong tie with the,

with the desert kites,

which was most probably

something very important in their life.

♪ ♪

(scraping, brushing)

NARRATOR: With this discovery,

the archeologists are now confident

that the kites not only had a major role

in the economic life of the Ghassanians,

but in their cultural and spiritual life, too.

This is obviously a very important,

once-in-a-lifetime discovery.

So we are extremely happy.

TARAWNEH: Beyond expectations.

(laughs)

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: A few months later,

the team is back in Khaybar, Saudi Arabia.

♪ ♪

The determination of Rémy Crassard and his team

has finally born fruit.

Here, too, they have found a habitation site

close to a kite.

♪ ♪

CRASSARD (translated): Very recently, we were fortunate

to discover a very old dwelling,

dating from 7000 B.C.E.,

which is exactly the same date

as the sites currently being dug

in Khashabiyeh.

It's really an exceptional discovery,

and it's just what we were looking for

and expecting to find.

♪ ♪

NARRATOR: With these remains,

the archeologists hope to identify

the people behind the kites of Khaybar too.

Could they also be Ghassanians?

ABU-AZIZEH (translated): We've made some great discoveries.

The big question now is:

How far did this Ghassanian culture stretch?

How far can we follow the presence

of the Ghassanians through the deserts of the Middle East?

♪ ♪

(hooves thundering)

NARRATOR: When they first started investigating the kites

more than a decade ago,

the researchers never imagined

they would rediscover a forgotten people.

Inventors who designed and built mega-traps

taking hunting to an almost industrial level.

♪ ♪

Creators of the earliest known models and scale plans,

and builders of some of the earliest known megastructures

in human history.

(group exclaiming)

An ancient, ingenious people,

forgotten no more.

♪ ♪

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♪ ♪

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