The June 2011 issue of Quaternary International contains papers from a symposium on "Reindeer and Humans" at the conference of the European Association of Archaeologists in 2009 in Riva Del Garda in Italy. Among the papers--and all of them are fascinating--is a paper describing rock art from the Alta site of northern Norway that illustrates mass hunting of reindeer using a process very similar to that in Syria called "desert kites".
Rock Art Depicting Reindeer Corral at Alta in Norway. Photo by Jensvins
This type of hunting involves the construction of two parallel fence lines slowly constricting to a vee, at the apex of which is a corral or pit. The hunters work cooperatively, herding the animals between the fences into the corral where they are either slaughtered en masse, or kept to be killed as needed. Two archaeological examples are from the Varanger peninsula from far northern Norway that date to ~6000 years ago; four other similar constructions are from southern Norway dated to the 13th century AD.
While you can't call something that's from the Varanger peninsula above the arctic circle a "Desert Kite", the pattern is clearly something that hunter-gatherers of the Mesolithic were well aware of, perhaps in many parts of the world.
Helskog K. 2011. Reindeer corrals 4700-4200 BC: Myth or reality? Quaternary International 238(1-2):25-34.
- Domestication of Reindeer, including summary of the recent research
- Desert Kites
- Humans and Reindeer, special issue of Quaternary International edited by Knut Helskog and Svein Indrelid
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