Scientists baffled as hundreds of 7,000-year-old stone structures on edge of Saudi volcanoes are found after being spotted on Google Earth
The formations could be thousands of years old and were found clustered in the remote desert wilds of in the Harrat Khaybar region
HUNDREDS of mysterious and ancient stone structures have been discovered on a lava dome in Saudi Arabia thanks to Google Earth.
The formations - named "gates" because they resemble field gates - could be thousands of years old and were found clustered in the remote desert wilds of in the Harrat Khaybar region.
Archaeologists are baffled about the purpose and even the exact age of these gates, reports.
They were detected by satellite and were found on the side of a volcanic dome that once erupted with basaltic lava.
David Kennedy, a professor at the University of Western Australia, wrote in a paper set for the journal Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy that the gates "are stone-built, the walls roughly made and low."
He added that they appear to be the oldest man-made structures in the region and there is no obvious explanation what purpose they serve.
However, when they were built, the landscape would have been more hospitable for humans.
Professor Kennedy added: "Gates are found almost exclusively in bleak, inhospitable lava fields with scant water or vegetation, places seemingly amongst the most unwelcoming to our species."
Volcanologists Vic Camp and John Roobol mapped a lava dome in the Harrat Khaybar in the 1980s - before the gates were discovered.
Camp said lava covered some of the structures before the lava domes became inactive.
He told LiveScience: "We see several areas where the younger lavas are devoid of such [stone] structures, although surrounded by several [stone structures."
He estimates that some of the gates around the lava dome were built around 7,000 years ago.
Other stone structures have been found in the area and were dubbed "kites" and "wheels" for their shapes.
