02/2026 Media coverage and a new paper co-authored by Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz on the topic of desert kites

Congratulations to Prof. Cheryl Makarewicz et al. on their new paper "Earliest evidence for the use of desert kite mass-hunting structures in southeastern Jordan during the late pre-pottery neolithic B" published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. The paper presents the earliest robust dates for desert kites based on radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating of three desert kites from Jibal al-Khashabiyeh in southeastern Jordan, placing their construction firmly in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. The study also confirms that the circular features around the kite enclosures are deep pit-traps for capturing game, supporting their interpretation as large-scale mass-hunting installations built by organized hunter-forager communities in the southern Levant, roughly contemporary with the rise of large farming villages in the Jordanian highlands.

The topic of the desert kites of Jibal al-Khashabiyeh discussed in this article is also the subject of a documentary that first aired last summer. The documentary also features Prof. Makarewicz, who provides insights on the zooarchaeology of these sites. The German version is available here on ZDFinfo, (the section with Prof. Makarewicz begins at 37:48), the BBC version here, and the NOVA version here.