New Evidence Challenges Old Assumptions About Gobekli Tepe

Gobekli Tepe most likely was not a temple, as archaeologists first proposed when they announced the site in 2008. Sadly, archaeologists tend to lump every stone surface they cannot explain into the category of temples, shrines, and altars. This is not science but simple wishful thinking based on reading too many badly argued theories. Just because someone takes the time to paint or carve an animal onto a surface does not mean that it’s a sacred emblem used in worship. We have documented thousands of primitive and not-so-primitive societies who found non-religious and semi-religious uses for animals and animal-like things in architecture and art across the world.

An article published last year threw up a credible scientific challenge to the notion that Gobekli Tepe must be a temple; archaeologists have now found sufficient evidence to indicate that the site was probably inhabited for long periods of time. It is even rationally conceivable that the site could have seen continuous use if not permanent habitation from about 9500 BCE to 8000 BCE, when it appears that it was abandoned and covered over with dirt. We have known for some time that Einkorn wheat originated in the same area and was most likely the first form of wheat to be cultivated.

Gobekli Tepe, sitting on a mountaintop, may have represented mankind’s first attempt at civilization. There was an abundant source of food close by, we have discovered a substantial number of houses in the area, and the site was used for at least 1500 years if not longer. The animals could be family totems, memorials of great hunters or events, religious icons, or teaching symbols of a primitive language. We have too little information to determine their functions and importance in the society that made them.

Gobekli Tepe — and its apparent rapid or sudden demise around the year 8000 BCE — now comes into startling contrast with another artifact of our past that has just been re-evaluated in a new way. The Indo-European language, long thought to have taken shape in the steppes of what is now southern Ukraine around the year 6000 BCE, may in fact be older and may also have originated from Anatolia (modern Turkey), in approximately the same region or very close to it where Gobekli Tepe (and perhaps similar communities waiting to be found) was located.

The idea that Indo-European (or whatever gave rise to what we think of as Indo-European) may be 10,000 years old (or older) suddenly forces us to look at Anatolia as possibly the cradle of the Neolithic Age (or the Western Neolithic Age), perhaps the source of all modern human agricultural culture. If the region was fertile enough to support a permanent population that had learned how to cook wild Einkorn wheat, agriculture may have arisen as a consequence of simply gradually harvesting more and more Einkorn and not as a product of radical experimentation.

The transition to a culture that spoke Indo-European AND practiced agriculture may reflect a radical change in the environment which triggered a massive cultural upheaval, forcing clans and families to uproot themselves or adopt new customs and practices in order to survive. Gobekli Tepe itself may have arisen as a consequence of the ending of the Younger Dryas climactic period (lasting from Circa. 10,800 BCE – 9500 BCE). The Younger Dryas was the last gasp of the glacial period which covered Europe, North America, and much of Asia with ice. Gobekli Tepe’s occupation coincides with the Pre-Boreal or Boreal period (approximately 9500 BCE – 8000 BCE), which was similar to modern temperatures.

These warming temperatures probably made living on high hills and low mountains much more hospitable. The communities would have enjoyed sufficient protection from migrating herds, wandering hunter-gatherer bands, and rival nascent urban cultures to last for centuries. Starting around 8500 BCE the climate changed again, becoming much warmer than today in what we call the Atlantic period. The Atlantic period began to decline around 4800 BCE and thus represents a very long climactic period (nearly 4,000 years) in modern human experience.

After Gobekli Tepe was abandoned people began settling the islands in the Mediterranean Sea, colonizing the British Isles, expanding agriculture to other plants, and we find the appearance of domestic dogs in Europe. It was also during this time that the English Channel was formed (Circa. 6600 BCE), the Black Sea (until then a fresh water lake) was enlarged, and the Persian Gulf was formed when these areas were inundated by their neighboring seas (Circa. 6000 BCE). These inundation events may have given rise to the stories of world-wide floods. The flooding of the Black Sea may further have forced the migration north of some of the Anatolian peoples who were speaking Indo European.

The Atlantic period gave rise to many ancient settlements, such as Jericho, that survived into historical times. What is interesting is that modern human culture appears to have changed in radical ways — and expanded outward from proto-civilization areas — with climate change. This should not be surprising, though I say it is interesting, because we are better able to respond to climactic events than people were 10,000 years ago. We have the numbers and the resources to rebuild whole cities even after they have been flooded or destroyed by earthquakes. Ancient peoples may have been more inclined to move on, especially if they already knew of other areas where their food sources were readily available.