This is GNU ELF linker extension used particularly by LibC code. If input object files contain section named XXX and the XXX is a valid C identifier, and there are undefined or weak symbols start_XXX/stop_XXX, linker should define start_XXX/stop_XXX symbols point to the begin/end of the XXX section correspondingly.
For example, without support of this extension statically linked executables for X86_64 and Mips (maybe other) targets do not flush IO buffers at the end of executing.