World's oldest geoglyph made by children: Enormous moose symbol visible from space built 6,000 years ago using tiny tools

The origins of an enormous rocky moose, which is only clearly visible from the sky, has baffled archaeologists since it was discovered in 2011, the Daily Mail reports.

But now experts say that children from a lost civilization helped to create the huge antlered artwork 6,000 years ago.

The moose, which lies close to Lake Zyuratkul in the southern Ural Mountains of Russia, is the world’s oldest known geoglyph.
It is made from stone and predates Peru's famous Nazca Lines by thousands of years.

The geoglyph was found in 2011 using satellite images of the area and is older than British equivalents such as the White Horse in Uffington, Oxfordshire or the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, archaeologists have confirmed.

‘The most interesting development is that tools found at the site indicate it was worked on assiduously by children as well as adults in a large-scale community accomplishment,’ The Siberian Times reported.

Stone tools uncovered in recent archaeological digs at the site show that some were made to fit the hands of children who took part in a massive community effort to construct the moose, which stretches for about 902ft (275 metres) and depicts an animal with four legs, antlers and a long muzzle.

Stanislav Grigoryev, a senior researcher from the Chelyabinsk History and Archaeology Institute, said: 'Judging by the different sizes of the tools - from 17cm-long and weighing about three kilograms to some being just two centimetres - we can assume they were used by both adults and children.

'We can also assume it means that everyone participated in creating the moose.

'But it was not a kind of slave labor of children. They were involved to share common values, to join something important to all the people.'

Some 155 implements have been found near the geoglyph, mostly for digging or breaking stones.

The moose was discovered by chance in 2011 by local researcher Alexander Shestakov after he spotted it trawling through satellite images from Google Earth.

Originally it would have been visible from a nearby ridge but the growth of trees since ancient times means that it was substantially hidden.

Despite the discovery of small tools, scientists are still puzzled about exactly who built the moose and why.

They assume it was made to impress the gods in ancient times, but local archaeologists have failed to find evidence of ‘a culture with sufficient refinement’ which would have been able to construct it between 3,000BC and 4,000BC.

‘The figure would initially have looked white and slightly shiny against the green grass background,’ said Dr Grigoryev.

Researchers hope that they will unearth ceramics at the site, giving them clues as to the identity of the mystery civilization.

‘It may help if we find ceramics on the site. Ceramics could help us with the date and with understanding who these people were that created the geoglyph,’ he said.

‘It's not quite clear who the builders were. It is obvious that its creation has a big social importance. Geoglyphs are the symbols of unity.’

Local archaeological digs by the nearby lake found no evidence of a population likely to have built the moose.

‘People have lived here since the Neolithic era but there was no sign of large social structures, nor that they did anything other than hunting and fishing,’ Dr Grigoryev.

‘So it puzzles me very much. It is a kind of mystery: who built this and for what purpose?’

The research team found traces of two ancient fireplaces at the site of the moose, both used only once, possibly in a significant ritual, he said.

‘The geoglyphs in Nazca are younger as are those in the UK, though there might be some of comparable age in Britain,’ he added.

‘But at the moment Zyuratkul's is the most ancient, and is the world's largest figure image.

‘By figure image we mean geometrical or zoomorphic figures, because there are very long lines in Nasca, and here we speak about the figure. So it's not the largest geoglyph, but the largest figure image.

‘It could become a tourist attraction and with a museum, but we need to think how it might be implemented."

Some 50 geoglyphs with various shapes and sizes, including a massive swastika, were recently discovered across northern Kazakhstan.