Göbekli Tepe or Gobekli Tepe in today's Turkey is occupied between c. 9500 and c. 8000 BCE. People of the prehistoric settlement leave massive works commemorating their presence, and a candid glimpse into the lives of Neolithic people.
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The people of Gobekli Tepe predate the Neolithic pottery makers, emerging at the beginning of the Southwest Asian Neolithic Period. The Neolithic era itself dates from c. 10,000 to c. 2200 BCE.
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About 9700 BCE the Holocene period begins. The stage is characterized by
stone tools shaped by polishing or grinding
dependence on domesticated plants or animals
settlement in permanent villages
appearance of such crafts as pottery and weaving.
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Settlement of Gobeki Tepe begins c. 9500 BCE. The city is one of the most important archaeological sites of early human settlement.
In this stage, humans are raising and cultivating their own resources and no longer depend on hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. These become supplements to agriculture and farming, as they still are in many places today.
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One of the outstanding features of Gobekli Tepe are large circular structures containing massive stone pillars. They are the world's oldest known megaliths.
Many pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details such as human figures, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals. T pillars have a prominent cross stone and might feature spread arms or a loincloth hinting at a link between humanity and the spiritual.
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The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is abundant with ancient domestic structures, houses and outbuildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns of the Neolithic era. Some previous activity is also evident.
The beginning of the Southwest Asian Neolithic c 10,000 BCE marks the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements throughout in the world. This evolves into a time now called the Neolithic Revolution.
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The Neolithic Revolution is linked to settlement and the beginning of agriculture. Historians disagree as to what came first - the settling or the agriculture.
Most tribal societies go though a pre-settlement phase of nomadic or semi-permanent occupation of the lands. They encourage environments of growth for native plants and adopt animals into their lifestyle.
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The first domestic animal is the dog, about 12,800 BCE. Goat, sheep and cow are domesticated c. 8800 BCE. Chickens are domesticated in East Asia c. 5,800 BCE, and donkeys in Africa c. 5000 BCE, and the dromedary camel in Arabia c. 4-3000 BCE.
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The horse is domesticated around 3300 BCE in central Asia as a work animal. Among invertebrates, the silkworm for silk and the western honey bee for natural sweet honey are domesticated c. 2800. Silk won't make its way to the West until first millennium CE.
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Excavations show Göbekli Tepe as an active settlement, based on such evidence as domestic structures and features, water supply installations, and Neolithic tools used in a domestic capacity.
Klaus Schmidt, the first excavator of the site, describes it as a sanctuary used by groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers from a wide area. He posits there are few or no permanent inhabitants.
No specific reason is attributed for the megalithic stones erected at the site. Schmidt describes them as the world's first temples and asserts they are intentionally and ritually backfilled.
Recent stratigraphic studies, however, show the area is subject to landslides which damage the pillars. Evidence indicates the megaliths are repaired or modified in the wake of these destructive forces. Thus they clearly have meaning to the people of this place.
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Göbekli Tepe is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as of 2018, in recognition of its universal value as "one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture". By 2021, less than 5% of the site has been excavated.
Göbekli Tepe is in the Taş Tepeler or Stone Hills, the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. Both Tigris and Eurphrates rivers begin in the Taurus Mountain Range. Gobekli Tepe overlooks the Harran plain and the headwaters of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates.
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Like most Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the Urfa region, Göbekli Tepe is built on a high point on the edge of the mountains, giving it both a wide view over the plain beneath, and good visibility from the plain.
This location also yields limestone, a favored stone for carving and building; and flint, which can be shaped into sharp-edged tools or weapons. Prehistoric and later quarrying for limestone is evident.
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Excavations are at the south slope of the tell, and west of a mulberry tree indicating an Islamic pilgrimage. Finds come from throughout the plateau. Remains of tools are unearthed, and a cave is discovered to contain a small carved relief of a bovid.
Elements of village life appear as early as 10,000 years before the Neolithic in such as the Ufra (Edessa) region, taking settlement back to Paleolithic or Old Stone Age times. The transition to agriculture happens over millennia.
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Early Neolithic villages consist of groups of stone or mud brick houses. Occasionally large buildings and monuments are found. They include the tower and walls at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), as well as large, roughly contemporaneous circular buildings at Göbekli Tepe.
Archaeologists typically associate these structures with communal activities. Other cities or settlements from the pre-pottery Neolithic age include Nevalı Çori, Çayönü, Wadi Feynan, Jerf el-Ahmar, Tell 'Abr 3, and Tepe Asiab.
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Social activity within the structures as well as the collaborative efforts needed to build them help strengthen the interactive bonding and growth of communal groups.
When Göbekli Tepe is inhabited, the climate is warmer and wetter than today. Encompassed by open steppe grassland, the city is a primary location for wild cereals such as einkorn, wheat and barley.
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Grazing animals include wild sheep, wild goat, gazelle, and the ancestors of wild horses. Gobekli Tepe is a seasonal migration point for gazelle. About 90% of remnants found in fire places come from pistachio and almond trees.
There are no woodlands nearby. In the distant past, however, the climate fosters the growth of forests in the region. Gobekli Tepe undergoes periods of more or less settled activity. Early hunter gatherers of Göbekli Tepe supplement their diet with domestic cereal.
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For at least part of the year the people live in gatherings or village environments. Finds such as grinding stones, mortars and pestles suggest cereal processing. Evidence also indicates large-scale gazelle hunting between midsummer and autumn.
The village builds a sophisticated rainwater harvesting system. This consists of carved channels feeding a number of cisterns cut from bedrock.
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The cisterns can could hold at least 150 cubic m (5,300 cu ft) of water. At the time the local waters are also more abundant. Springs feed into the site during its period of activity but have now dried up.
In 2017, fragments of human crania with incisions are discovered. Archaeologists interpret these as part of the widespread Neolithic skull cult.
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Special preparations of crania include plaster applied to human skulls. Other examples of a Neolithic skull cult appear at sites such as 'Ain Mallaha, Tell es-Sultan (Jericho) and Yiftahel, northern Israel.
Flint artifacts are easily found scattered at the site. Tools resemble those of other Northern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlements.
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In 1963, when the site is first discovered, over 3,000 Neolithic tools are found. Most are made of excellent quality flint, with a few obsidian. Cores, various blades, flakes, scrapers, burins (engraving tools), and projectile points, are among the common tool types.
Another space shows a workshop with almost 700 tools. Retouched artifacts are the most common finds followed by scrapers, perforators and artifacts with gloss. Heavy duty tools, burins, flint arrowheads and spear heads are also found.
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Lifestyle, artwork, food production and preparation, tools and irrigation are evidence of an interactive culture at Göbekli Tepe thousands of years ago. Building indicates presence of tradespeople, long-term workers, and social support.
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