Archaeologists excavating an ancient stone site in Saudi Arabia have discovered thousands of animal bones and human remains dating back approximately 7,000 years.
The team found horns from a variety of animals at the site, including cattle, goats, and horned animals.
These discoveries indicate that people gathered around the stone structures to perform rituals and events. It seems that these rituals included the offering of animal horns and skulls.
More than 1,000 ancient rectangular stone structures, called mustatils ("rectangles" in Arabic), have been documented in Saudi Arabia, but the exact time and reason for their construction remained a mystery. In 2018, the Royal Commission for AlUla, a region in northwestern Saudi Arabia, launched a project to document and study the mustatils and other archaeological finds in the region.
The newly excavated mustatil measures 131 by 39 feet (40 by 12 meters); the stone walls are up to 6.6 feet (2 meters) thick, but the original height of the walls, which subsequently collapsed, is unclear.
Horns extracted from mustatil, including cattle horns (a, c and d).
The human bones found in the mustatil belong to at least nine people: two infants, five adults, a teenager or young adult and a child, the article said. The human remains date back several centuries after the animal remains were placed in mustatil. "This is a collective burial," and it is unclear whether the people buried here are related to the builders of the mustatil, Abu-Azizeh said.
Source livescience.com
