This cryptic megalithic site is thousands of years old, but its origin story is still not fully known.
Nestled in the mountain ridges and hilly slopes of northern Laos lies one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries. Strewn across about 30 square miles, in seemingly random formation, are thousands of large stone jars. Popularly called Laos’s Plain of Jars, this unique place became aArchaeologists have spent years hypothesizing the purpose and origin story of these megalithic vessels, which range from 3 to 10 feet in height and can weigh up to 14 tons.
Using a variety of techniques including radiocarbon dating, team members in Australia concluded that vessels in the Plain of Jars were placed there as early as the late second millennium BCE. The human remains, on the other hand, seem to come from between the ninth and 13th centuries. That’s a pretty large age difference. It’s possible that the jars have always been used for burials, and that scientists only managed to find younger evidence. But it’s impossible to rule out other theories.
While this new research is illuminating, the study authors note that there are still plenty of jar sites in Laos that have not been examined. Those untouched jars could potentially hold new information that might reveal more of the history, and finally close the book on these jars’ mysterious origin story.Hannah Seo is a science contributor at Popular Science. She started as an intern in 2020 and has since regularly contributed to both Popular Science’s website and quarterly magazine.
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