So, I have a mild interest in OopArts and other similar phenomenon, as well as some experience with geology from being a former Army construction engineer to give you a frame of reference.

This is an image of the Baigong Pipes area of formation. As you can see the patterns here are regular and crystalline in appearance. While the wiki article notes that the "pipes" contain ferric oxide....rust, they also mention silica dioxide, which is found in one of the most common minerals on earth, quartz, and calcium oxide, which is better known as quicklime, which only occurs during chemical processes before it returns to calcium carbonate...which is whats in your antacids.

Now, both calcium carbonate, and silica dioxide manifest themselves in a crystalline, formation, now, along with what we know about the geology of the area, which is part of the Tibetan Plateau, is actually part of where continental drift has closed a few ancient (like 250 million years ago) oceans, and is in a formerly volcanic area, which means there is a high probablity it is Felsic material.

Essentially, what you are looking at, is extremely long, iron rich, crystalline mineral deposits.

However, from my digging around as well, it appears that they were unknown or unremarkable to people until the last few decades as the region this is found in has historically been part of nomadic, and relatively unsettled region, so it's possible some nomadic group found the place, but never thought much of it, and moved on.

OopArts of specifically the geological type, tend to be more modern in origin to their "discovery" as opposed to things such as the Baghdad Battery, which are items that are clearly ancient but are given unusual interpretations by amateurs who are unfamiliar with history and technology. They also tend to suffer from...I forget the word...but the psychological principle of associating items with more familiar items that are actually completely unrelated, like seeing a face on the side of a cliff doesn't mean it's carved, just the rocks were shaped that way.

In this particular case, the pipes are like the Wolffsegg Iron, or Klerksdorph Sphere. Naturally occurring items that almost, kind-of-sort-of look like something we already know and recognize, but are so unusual, that we associate them with things we can understand.

I am not a historian and I am not sure how to reference this

What I will say is that I am a professional geologist.

I searched for some images of the pipes so i could get a look. These features look clearly in the photos I have found to be an example of columnar jointing. This is a characteristic phenomena that forms as molten rock pools and cools slowly producing hexagon shapes. The photos I found show the pipes side on so they look like ribs but a more well known example would be the Giants Causeway in Ireland.