Mysterious Stone Structures Unveiled in Western Sahara

By: Yassmine ElSayed

CAIRO, Feb. 5 (SEE) - Livescience.com reported that hundreds of stone structures dating back thousands of years have been discovered in the Western Sahara, a territory in Africa little explored by archaeologists.

The structures seem to come in all sizes and shapes, and archaeologists aren't sure what many of then were used for or when they were created, archaeologists report in the book "The Archaeology of Western Sahara: A Synthesis of Fieldwork, 2002 to 2009" published 2018.

Between 2002 and 2009, archaeologists worked in the field, a territory almost controlled by Morocco, surveying the landscape and doing a small amount of excavation. They also investigated satellite images on Google Earth.

Joanne Clarke, a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia, and Nick Brooks, an independent researcher, said that the stone structures are designed in a wide variety of ways. Some are shaped like crescents, others form circles, some are in straight lines, some in rectangular shapes that look like a platform; some structures consist of rocks that have been piled up into a heap. And some of the structures use a combination of these designs.

For instance, one structure has a mix of straight lines, stone circles, a platform and rock piles that altogether form a complex about 2,066 feet (630 meters) long, the archaeologists noted in the book.

Though the archaeologists are unsure of the purpose of many of the structures, they said some of them may mark the location of graves. Little excavation has been done on the structures, and archaeologists have found few artifacts that can be dated using a radiocarbon method. Among the few excavated sites are two "tumuli" (heaps of rock) that contain human burials dating back around 1,500 years.

Research suggests that Western Sahara was once a wetter place that could sustain more animal life than it does today. Archaeologists documented rock art showing images of cattle, giraffe, oryx and Barbary sheep while environmental researchers found evidence for lakes and other water sources that dried up thousands of years ago.