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kangnkodos
Maybe they were made to be walked, like a labyrinth?
blacksmith_tb
The abstract of the actual paper[1] says they spotted the geoglyphs on gMaps, which I think is here[2].

1: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S23522...

2: https://goo.gl/maps/hu1URcRkGZMdRdSf6

marcosdumay
Google maps is paywalled now?
Cthulhu_
Is it?
marcosdumay
Looks like if you are logged with a corporate account, it is. But I don't know if this is new.
feniv
A simple explanation for it would be a farming layout for irrigation.
ketanmaheshwari
Native of Thar here. Not from a farming family but it is extremely likely that this is for farming. Land tend to be arid and barren so selected passages that are low lying are cultivated just before monsoon season in the hope that water logging in the monsoon will irrigate it to get some crop.

I also translated the only book about the culture of Thari people from that region. Pdf link for anyone interested: https://github.com/ketancmaheshwari/dhati-book/raw/master/ma...

baybal2
Depends on the age.

If it comes from time before agriculture, then it might be a remaining of an ice age hunting trap.

grandchild
It says in the article that they're fairly recent (around 150 years ago). So agriculture seems likely.
baybal2
Then, most likely they are.
mhuffman
Yes, and it looks like a "space filling" pattern with enough room between to do something like farming. It does not look like an abstract artwork.
michaelsbradley
Could be yet another example of ancient human recordings of enigmatic and intricate "light shows" in the heavens:

Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity

https://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/PerattTPSv31-2003...

Part 2:

https://plasmauniverse.info/downloadsCosmo/Peratt,et,al,TPSv...

Related publications:

https://plasmauniverse.info/NearEarth.html

JPLeRouzic
Thanks for the links. At first I thought it was from some fringe web site, but actually it is from IEEE!
dukeofdoom
Thinking how much products have improved due to how cheap it is/was to manufacture in China for world wide sales. And the massive wealth gains made by the regular people in that Country. I'm supper excited what what India will do in the next half century. The potential art and innovation that will come out of that place is staggering. Millions of people will be lifted out of poverty and live up to their intellectual potential.
webmobdev
Most of the nuclear tests by India was done in these regions in underground tunnels. Could this be somehow related to that?
d13
Maybe they should ask the people who live there?
graderjs
I heard these sorts of designs could have been used for fishing, or other types of hunting / farming.

Basically the fish are herded and funneled into some pattern where they are caught, maybe when the tide recedes or when they enter a choke point. Or maybe it's irrigation channels that somehow got cooked into the landscape permanently.

Thar desert is relatively flat, and close to the coast and rivers, so it's not inconceivable that it could have born more water in the past.