Archaeologists discover 9,000-year-old site in a desert in eastern Jordan

A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said they found a nearly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.

The ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites”, or mass traps, that are believed to have been used to corral wild gazelles for slaughter.

Such traps consist of two or more long stone walls that converge towards an enclosure and can be found scattered across the deserts of the Middle East.

Excavation by a team of French and Jordanian archaeologists has unearthed more than 250 handmade artefacts, including small animal figurines believed to have been used in rituals to invoke supernatural powers for successful hunts.

The objects, including two stone sculptures carved with human faces, are thought to be some of the oldest artistic objects ever unearthed in the Middle East.

“The site is unique, first because of its preservation state,” said Jordanian archaeologist Wael Abu-Azziza, co-director of the project. “It’s 9,000 years old and everything was almost intact.”

The expedition found long stone walls several kilometres in length, close together, which were used to confine gazelles in an enclosed area where they could more easily hunt.

Experts say that similar sites in the desert have also been found in the Middle East and South and West Asia, but the latest discovery is the “oldest, largest and best preserved” site ever discovered.

The researchers said in a statement that the shrine “sheds an entire new light on the symbolism, artistic expression as well as spiritual culture of these hitherto unknown Neolithic populations”.