NASA has released satellite images of a desert in Kazakhstan in a bid to help uncover the mystery of a prehistoric settlement.

The images reveal stunning mega geometrical patterns created by long-gone unknown peoples in the vast empty steppe of Turgai region, located in the northern parts of the country, some 8,000 years ago.

The earthworks, a total of 260, are colossal figures of squares, crosses, lines and rings that can be recognized only from a very high vantage point.

The biggest of all, located near a Neolithic settlement, is a giant  400-meter square, composed of 101 raised mounds each about 12 meters across and one meter high.

How ancient people built such massive earthworks without the capability of mounting to a very high altitude to appreciate them and what they actually are remains a question.

“I’ve never seen anything like this; I found it remarkable,” said Compton J. Tucker, a senior biospheric scientist for NASA in Washington, who provided the archived images.

It has been suggested that the Mahandzhar culture, a Stone Age tribe living in the steppe from 7,000 BC to 5,000 BC, could have erected some of the older structures, whose purpose might never be known.