Giant stone hunting traps
Scattered across the remote Ustyurt Plateau, a vast desert landscape shared by Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, are dozens of immense stone structures shaped like arrows. These geoglyphs, known locally as "arans," are so large they are difficult to perceive from the ground. They were first identified by archaeologists in 1952 and later studied in detail using aerial photography in the 1980s. The individual layouts measure between 800 and 900 meters long, with some guide shafts extending their total length to 1.5 kilometers. The width of these formations can reach from 400 to 600 meters.
The structures consist of low stone walls or ramparts, now eroded to about one meter in height but likely much taller originally. These walls form a bag-like shape with two splayed arrows at one end, their tips forming elongated triangles. All the identified arrows point north. The tips of the arrows often terminate in pits up to two meters deep, sometimes with ten-meter diameter rings. The leading hypothesis is that these were sophisticated, large-scale hunting traps. Nomadic tribes would have used them to funnel herds of migratory animals like saiga antelopes and kulan (Asiatic wild ass) into enclosures or pit traps.