At around 12,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe in south-east Turkey has been billed as the world’s oldest temple. It is many millennia older than Stonehenge or Egypt’s great pyramids, built in the pre-pottery Neolithic period before writing or the wheel. But should Göbekli Tepe, which became a Unesco World Heritage Site in July, also be regarded as the world’s oldest piece of architecture? — The Art Newspaper
Archaeological research of the ancient Göbekli Tepe ruin site in present-day Turkey suggests that the impressive monolithic structures, believed to date back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic era (10th–8th millennium BCE), might in fact be the first known example of architecture. "Rather than architecture being the product of organised societies, as has long been thought, there is new thinking that, in fact, it may have been the organisation needed to build on such a scale that helped usher in agriculture and settled society," The Art Newspaper writes.
10 Comments
That lil' carved cougar-lizard just charmed me.
And look at the cool shade structure built over the site, too!
Great site, nonsense article.
In fact the labor necessary to produce such works presupposes organized systems of food production that enabled such work to take place.
Reference Guns, Germs, and Steel, in which Jared Diamond makes a convincing case for geography as the organizing element of agriculture and animal domestication that led to "modern" human societies. He places this in the Fertile Crescent around 14-15,000 years ago (towards the end of the last Ice Age), a few millennia before the constructions at Göbekli Tepe.
That ancient cultures left little to no evidence of their existence - or that such evidence hasn't been found - does not mean these cultures did not exist.
This sounds more logical to me than the article does, Miles.
I think you'd enjoy The Dawn of Everything if you haven't read it yet.
Miles Jaffe, good comment. Except the Last Glacial Maximum ended 22,000 to 19,000 years ago (depending on whose numbers you go by). A deep but short ice period - the Younger Dryas - ran from about 12,800 to about 11,500/11,600 years ago. In between were two stadials (warmer periods), the Allerod and the Bolling, separated by a very brief cold turn called the Older Dryas. The sea levels began rising at over 1,000 mm per century with the Bolling-Allerod. That rate held until about 10,000 years ago.
GT at 12,000 years ago appears to have been about smack dab in the middle of the Younger Dryas. Which is kind of odd, since Greenland ice cores indicate a drop of about 14°C for much of that cold period.
Your use of the word, "system" is apropos. Such complexes can not be built without organized construction systems, design technologies, planning systems, or a separation of labor (a system in and of itself).
And remember, they have only uncovered maybe 5% of the site.
Again, a good comment. A good critique.
* The site currently referred to as south east Turkey. Turkey has been there only for a minuscule amount of historical time. It's necessary to mention this every time you write about ruins in that country, because this site, the culture that has produced it, has nothing to do with Turkey, and by leaving a critical historical context out you're creating false associations of the term "Turkey" and "ancient civilization." The site, in the old Roman and Greek maps, is known as Armenian Highlands. Before the Armenian Kingdom, the civilization of Urartu, the predecessors, and ancestors of Ancient Armenian Civilization, were there.
Antiart, good points. Yes, no such place as Turkey existed until about 100 years ago. And your mention of the Armenian Highlands is interesting, though, because Armenia is far to the NE of present-day Turkey. But, yes, GT is on highlands. I understand that it has an unhindered view in almost all directions. To the north 180° or so, I know for sure. That implies a military purpose, but the age - in our reckoning of history - would argue that no armies existed. I don't know, but think we might need to be open to the possibility of organized armed conflict. The elevation also could make it a good site for astronomical observations, too. That conjecture has been made by at least one researcher.
This site is only about 150 km NNE of the (Tell) Abu Hureyra site in Syria, on the Euphrates, which is now under the Tabqa Dam reservoir. AH also dates near to that time, according to some. It is commonly labeled as Epipaleolithic, on the "periphery" of some society. Military sites are often on a society's periphery, so that conjecture is not contradicted on that issue.
I just now google a bit and saw dates for AH of 6500-6000 BC, 11,500-10,000 years ago, and somewhere in the 20,000-10,000 years ago window. The Abstract for one paper by longtime AH field researcher, Andrew Moore, reads:
"THE IMPACT OF ACCELERATOR DATING AT THE EARLY VILLAGE OF ABU HUREYRA ON THE EUPHRATES
A. M. T. MOORE
ABSTRACT. The early village of Abu Hureyra is significant because of its great size (ca. 11.5 ha) and long sequence of occupation (ca. 11,500-7000 BP) that spans the transition from late Pleistocene hunting and gathering to early Holocene farming, and the cultural change from Epipaleolithic to Neolithic. The 40 accelerator dates obtained for Abu Hureyra provide new information on the development of agriculture in Southwest Asia. The dates have demonstrated that the site was inhabited for much longer than the few conventional radiocarbon dates for the site had suggested. The gap between the Epipaleolithic and Neolithic villages seems to have been brief. A change in climate and vegetation, dated at ca. 10,600 BP, during the span of occupation of the Epipaleolithic village, precipitated an adjustment in the foraging way of life of its inhabitants just before the inception of agriculture. Dating of individual bones and seeds has shown that the wild progenitors of sheep and several cereals were present near Abu Hureyra in the late Pleistocene and early Holocene, well outside their present areas of distribution. This has implications for where those species may have been domesticated."
Thus, GT's agricultural base, suggested by Miles Jaffe above, perhaps was not so far away, in time, if at all. And if 150 kms is a long way, it also suggests that other, closer, agricultural sites could easily have existed for GT.
*bump* Hello, just was wondering and stumbled upon this thread.
Very interesting talk. Does anybody have information regarding the status of GT's uncovering? If I worded that correctly. I'm a 19 year old surrounded by people who have no interest's in finding the answers of human origin. Very difficult to find information when you question what is and isn't credible, but I've found my fine line and feel ready. I've prepared many months and almost a year of research. I'd now like to move forward. I want to get involved now. I don't need college. I want a architect to notice my passion and convey my message better than what I can. Please. Even more information posted here would help.
(There are a lot of ancient civilizations buried in Turkey or you can call it Türkiye, the official name. It is a great country to be an archeologist in my opinion and have acquaintances who are. The committed young archeologists end up with great research projects and fieldwork. Anatolia is a very fertile place and no wonder it was home to many civilizations including the Turks last thousand years.
I am from Izmir or Symrna which itself said to be four thousand years old city. It is fascinating the central commerce area/network is still the same area for a couple of thousand years and the newer buildings are always built on the old ruins. The Turkish Republic is hundred years old this year. It was built on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire by the same people. The Ottomans as a ruling system had a glorious and regrettable history as all the past and present empires.
Turkey and Turks do exist and it is real that they settled in Anatolia. They built an empire with magnificent buildings. And often overlooked, but they also preserved countless ancient and significant buildings in one way or another.)
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