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Walls, ramps and pits: the construction of the Samar Desert kites, southern Negev, Israel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2010

Dani Nadel*
Affiliation:
Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel (Email: [email protected]; [email protected])
Guy Bar-Oz
Affiliation:
Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel (Email: [email protected]; [email protected])
Uzi Avner
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University, Arava Institute and the Dead Sea-Arava Research Centre, Eilat 88133, Israel (Email: [email protected])
Elisabetta Boaretto
Affiliation:
Radiocarbon Dating and Cosmogenic Isotopes Lab., The Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan 52900, Israel; Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel (Email: [email protected])
Dan Malkinson
Affiliation:
Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel (Email: [email protected])
*
Author for correspondence

Abstract

Archaeological investigations of ‘desert kites’ in south Israel show them to have been animal traps of considerable sophistication and capacity, constructed in the Early Bronze Age or earlier. Extensive stone-wall arms gather in gazelles from their habitual trails and canalise them into a sunken enclosure, cunningly hidden from view of the galloping herd until it was too late…

Type
Research articles
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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