Numbered in thousands, these giant stone structures all around the Arabian peninsula desert, mainly in northwest Saudi Arabia, were both amazing and enigmatic. Differing in size and shape, they continued to confound with many claiming that they were traps or pens or burials.

Now the puzzling aspect of these structures are being seen in a new light through a new paper published in the journal of Antiquity. This paper, while putting a timeline on these prehistoric constructions, supports that they were some of the earliest monumental ritual structures in the world.