The new study shows that individuals who built massive desert kites in the past first made scale plans of them, yielding an 8,000-year-old schematic.

According to the study, the engravings, which are believed to be between 7,000 and 8,000 years old, show adjacent desert kites, gigantic construction used to catch animals. The capacity to transfer huge expanses onto a small, two-dimensional surface constitutes a breakthrough in intelligent behavior and contributes to a better understanding of how kites are designed and produced.

Desert kites were first sighted by airplanes in the 1920s. They are complex archaeological structures made up of walls up to 5km long that converge in an enclosure to catch animals surrounded by pits. Such constructions are only visible as a whole only from the air, yet this necessitates a new manner of representing space.

The researchers said, “The oldest known plans to scale in human history are reported in our study. The engravings, dated between 8,000 and 9,000 years old, were discovered in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. They depict nearby desert kites that were human-made mega structures used to trap wild animals”.

The researchers continued, “Although human constructions have modified natural spaces for millennia, few plans or maps predate the period of the literate civilizations of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt”.

“The ability to transpose large spaces onto a small, two-dimensional surface represents a milestone in intelligent behavior. Such structures are visible as a whole only from the air, yet this calls for the representation of space in a way not seen at this time”, the researchers added.

Also read: Study Finds Dogs Brain Unexpectedly Grown Larger