Guest speaker: Dr. Yorke Rowan

Dr. Yorke Rowan will present "Desert Kites: The Enigmatic Traps from the Air and on the Ground," on behalf of the Classics department and the Archaeological Institute of America.

Enigmatic features of the desert that caught the eye of early 20th century aviators, "desert kites" seemed to be the shape of a child’s kite. Widely recognized as vast chains of animal traps, these lines of rocks are clearly visible from the air but easily missed when walking across the landscape. Similar traps are known from Kazakhstan and Armenia to Saudi Arabia, but this lecture will focus on one of the main concentrations recognized in the Black Desert of Jordan. When were they built, how did they function, and what do they tell us about changes in the ways people adapted to change during the Neolithic?