These cairns with a thin tail-like appendage are widespread in the Middle East everywhere from Syria down to Somalia, in the Horn of Africa. Because they resemble jewellery pendants, they have been given the name "pendant" in English archaeological literature. Again, the question is when, by whom, and why these monuments were built. Is there a grave under each of these mounds, or were such markers also erected for other reasons? If these are all graves, then the huge distribution area must have been inhabited by so many people that I find it hard to believe the current theories that only small groups of hunter-gatherers lived in these areas thousands of years ago.
Images courtesy of Google Earth™
