The 'swastika' one is interesting to me-with the curved entranceways they look kind of like funnels. Could it have been used as a place to herd and trap animals? For example people have used naturally occurring box canyons to trap horses-could the natives of this region, lacking natural canyons, been doing the same thing?
Google Maps link to one of the figures: <a href="https://goo.gl/maps/sFgt17ZiYhF2" rel="nofollow">https://goo.gl/maps/sFgt17ZiYhF2</a>
This stone circles are pretty interesting to me: <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/25%C2%B038'08.5%22S+30%C2%B021'18.8%22E/@-25.6364635,30.3544043,592m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/place/25%C2%B038'08.5%22S+30%C2%...</a><p>If you fly around this coordinates you can also find a lot of them:<p><pre><code> 25 55′ 53.28″S, 30 16′ 13.13″E
25 47′ 33.45″S, 30 40′ 38.76″E
25 38′ 07.82″S, 30 21′ 18.79″E
25 39′ 22.42″S, 30 17′ 03.25″E</code></pre>
There have been a lot of cool discoveries in the last few years, particularly since google earth became available but generally with the easy availability of satellite imagery. It's even got a name now - satellite archaeology. From what I've read - at the high end it includes some cool processing using non-visible wavelengths (e.g. infrared). But my understanding is that so far, it is still a lot of people looking at pictures and saying "that looks like people did it!".<p>Does anyone know of any efforts to automate via image/pattern recognition - something like (off the top of my head) Comparing features that meet a certain regularity threshold to maps of "known things" and flagging places that might be significant and unknown? Seems like a fun project to devote some time/effort to.
The large square with the diagonals is an interesting puzzle mathematically (or culturally?). The square is 17 hills on a side (or 16 units of distance). The diagonals are 11 hills from corner to center (or 10 units of distance) or 21 hills corner to corner (20 units of distance). You wouldn't build something this big and this regular without planning it, so those numbers made sense to someone at the time.
Given that the history channel believes the stone walls in New England could only have been built by aliens, I can't wait to see what they come up with for this.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tpLjyx-_g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tpLjyx-_g</a>
Compare with the petroglyphs and geoglyphs discussed in Dr. Anthony Peratt's 2003 paper, <i>Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity</i>:<p><a href="http://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003clr.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003c...</a><p>The timeframe (8,000 years old) mentioned in the article generally fits with the timeframes given in Peratt's paper. So perhaps these earthworks are further evidence of ancient peoples recording (in some sense) a stupendous "light show" that defied explanation and ordinary human experience.<p>Additional publications on the same theory, by Peratt and other researchers:<p><a href="http://plasmauniverse.info/NearEarth.html" rel="nofollow">http://plasmauniverse.info/NearEarth.html</a>
I wish they'd list the coordinates. I think I found some formations, searching for the "swastika" near Urpek village. In the upper left corner there is a bunch of green dots similar in size to the ones in the square, etc. They look like gardens.<p><a href="https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0857785,65.2126098,636m/data=!3m1!1e3" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/@50.0857785,65.2126098,636m/data...</a>
It's really surprising to me that these are big enough to be seen from space but are only now just getting recognition. Looking forward to hearing about what we can discover from these earthworks!
"Spotted on Google Earth in 2007 by a Kazakh economist and archaeology enthusiast, Dmitriy Dey, the so-called Steppe Geoglyphs remain deeply puzzling and largely unknown to the outside world."<p>Makes me wonder what else exists that we know nothing of. Specifically I wonder what can be found in the Amazone region, the Sahara (well all of Africa really), and now uninhabited parts of Russia.<p>PS. Can't we get some archeological Kickstarter (platform) going?
As most of the other comments here, I do believe these are footprints from villages and structures that have worn away with time. The ones with circles were probably areas where huts and other dwelling units were placed.
I've seen very similar ground constructs on the valley of Palpa (next to the Nazca lines in Peru )<p>The most popular theory is that they were used as ceremonial places.
TL;DR People in the old days got bored as fuck and made cool shit.<p>Sure we often put it down to religion, but the reality is we can chose to do what ever we want to worship our gods and some people chose to do stuff that's interesting and cool.<p>People are people, who doesn't want to make cool big things that last a long time.<p>I like it.
Those amazed by this discovery may find these other mounds also interesting: <a href="http://www.thequantummachine.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.thequantummachine.com</a>
I got lost a the word "space-age". I don't mean to be the pedantic one. Sorry. But why would an outlet like the NYTimes use a word that means 1976 when they don't mean it. Meh.<p><i>returns to article</i>
The Discovery (or History) channel, I forget which, has a facinating series of shows on Ancient Aliens.<p>This story reminds me of a story in the above mentioned series about a group of researches who appeared to have been killed by some force in Siberia. Upon further investigation, there appears to be some domes buried in the ground in Siberia.<p>The domes are theorized to have killed the researchers. In the show, they said an autoposy was done and some of the researchers were killed from the inside out. In other words, there was no visible trauma to their skin but their rib cage bones had been shattered.<p><a href="http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread544351/pg1" rel="nofollow">http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread544351/pg1</a>
<a href="https://soipost.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/what-is-the-purpose-and-who-built-these-mysterious-structures-in-siberia/" rel="nofollow">https://soipost.wordpress.com/2013/12/29/what-is-the-purpose...</a>
<a href="http://www.utaot.com/2013/02/27/scientists-prove-ancient-alien-cauldrons-in-siberia-are-real/" rel="nofollow">http://www.utaot.com/2013/02/27/scientists-prove-ancient-ali...</a><p>I don't get much of an opportunity to talk about these things at work or within my family. They think I'm nuts. But this really fascinates me too.