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Humans

Stone Age South Africans built huge rock funnels to trap animals

By Michael Marshall

21 May 2021

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A site near Keimoes, South Africa, where Stone Age rock walls were found

Professor Marlize Lombard

Stone Age hunters living in what is now South Africa built long rock walls that acted as traps, funnelling fleeing prey animals into kill zones where they could be easily dispatched.

While these “desert kites” are common in the Middle East, it was thought that southern African hunter-gatherers didn’t build them and instead left little or no mark on the landscape.

“I predict that there may be many more kite sites in southern Africa,” says Marlize Lombard at …

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