Gobekli Tepe is an amazing find! Archaeology not being my strong interest I’m amazed I found this story. In the years to come, hopefully, much will be divulged about ancient man. At this pint I find it quite audacious to refer to the find as a temple. Man’s insecurities must always find a way to justify his religious beliefs. While accepting the reported age of the find I do see in the photos that the pillars and the circles of carefully placed stones surrounding them were placed at different times, and not to bury the site, as the carvings of the people that made them would not have them covered. It appears to me that the pillars stood alone until they were protected by the inhabitants at a later date, and then ultimately buried. I also find it very hard to believe that hunter-gatherers would willingly take the time to erect such structures, but I’m not 12,000 years old so what do I know? And Bas-Relief just popping up as an art format that time. The large carvings of the crocodile, boar or man is one thing but to level off whole areas of a pillar just to show a fox is quite another. The whole scenario leaves me with wonder. How did they move such massive stones? What tools did they use to excavate them, to carve them?

This is in response to Jay Eye on March 1,2012. You mean Urfa (real name Edessa, Urfa is the name given to the city by the Turks who are not the original inhabitants of that area) that's right, but you might not know that Edessa is of Macedonian origin, the name was given by Alexander the Great. The original name which is known of today's Urfa is "Orhai", but out of this Urfa was only a small city in the surrounding of today's Harran wich is only 45 km far away. The name for Harran is known to be not changed in the last 4000 year's (originally Harranu) Out of this the history in this area seems to be very complex. For ex. the first turkish tribes has appeared 3000 years ago in Anatolia. The Hitit's, the Assyrian etc. but what was in the origin ? It has to be imagined that after the stone age where the Human beeing has lived in the mountain area of the East-Taurus, that they have must moved by the climate change. But it is up today not known who were the first inhabitants. If it's assumed that they where the Assyrians it would be again wrong. From the date oh Göbekli Tepe up to the Assyrians is an important period of 8000 years ! which can't be explained so simple.

I like to add a suggestion to the many others for the use of these fabulous structures. I my opinion they are simply too monumental to be used as housing and there is no religious symbols or altars or anything else associated with temples, and shamans usually perform their business in a tent or on the ground. I would instead like to suggest that the building served a practical secular purpose. There were possible groupings between these communities akin to tribes, and tribal eldest would need a place to meet on a regular place to settle disputes, make laws regulating the interaction between the tribes, decide on legislation and dispense justice. A modern equivalent would be the Icelandic "Althing" which happens to be the oldest functional parliamentary institution in the world. Besides the above functions, the meetings were also major social events where people from all over Iceland came together and lived in temporary camps. All this would explain the lack of large mounts of bones, cookery utensils etc necessary for a settled community. The ornamentation was, well, ornamentation, illustrating the daily life of a hunter society. The worlds oldest parliament?

I have been fascinated by this find since I first read of it.

The baa relief animals are of special interest to me because I have a book* with bas relief figures from the Inca highlands (Chimor) of almost 10,000 years later, and they are not as sophisticated, in my opinion, as those found on Potbelly Hill.....Are there any thoughts on other non-West Asian sites with similar bas relief figures?

*Treasures of the Incas, The Glories of Inca and Pre-Columbian South America, by Jeffrey Quilter,
2005 ISBN 978-1-4351-2723-4

In 2009 my son and I visited this site and also the museum in Urfa where some of the artifacts are preserved. Last week there was a National Geographic special about the site and the extent of the new escavation is quite revealing of what was only speculation when we were there. More work will only reveal more answers and probably more questions to be answered.

The geogaphy is fascinating. the hill itself is elevated over a valley and the known climate history is that this area was quite fertile after the end of the ice age about 15,000 BC, but there was a later climate shift that led to the near desert climate that exists today.

I think you should all spent an hour or two studying Assyriology and the Assyrians of the Ancient Near East before writing such articles that claim this discovery to be a 'temple' without providing solid evidence. Yes it's a great discovery but please do your research on Urfa (real name Edessa, Urfa is the name given to the city by the Turks who are not the original inhabitants of that area) and Edessa (also know as Urhai in the Assyrian Aramaic language) was the 1st known Christian city during the time of Jonah when the Assyrians (and Ninevites) converted to Christianity. Using this data as a starting point will guide you on your way of understanding the people of that region during that era. Maybe then you will mention the name of these 'prehistoric people' in your article and pay some respect to their achievements. Peace

This is in response to Joe on Dec. 13.. "people like this" wow there is a great deal of judgement in your comment.. I can appreciate your discomfort and I am certainly not saying I am in agreement with the post you are talking about yet I value what it adds to the conversation. May I ask why you fear your children's exposure to contrasting ideas? I would urge you to appreciate the growth that is born out of contrast and trust your children's ability to discern what is truth for them. And perhaps their brilliant, individual take on something will inspire someone else and so on and so on in this beautiful co-creative dance we are participating in. Personally, I feel our public schools are more concerned with churning out people who follow orders and believe everything that is presented to them rather than encouraging original thought. What will it take for our scientists to embrace this discovery and the implications that the history of man on Earth is much longer and more varied than previously acknowledged? What might we learn or remember that will assist us is solving the great challenges we face today? I thank you for prompting me to ask these questions.

I wonder if there is a way to help the financial side of the excavations in order to complete the exposition of the site for a later and I guess much larger time for analisys?.

If there is such an innitiative, I would like to take part of it, if possible.

Greater coverage and more academic interests may help for this purpose.

The comment by Bruce Horton (March 6, 2011) is a good example of what science is up against. People like this send their kids to school with your kids, and insist that what they believe is put out in front of your kids as coequal to science.

I believe there are many great sites yet to be discovered, over the thousand of years many site we lost and buried, just look at the great cities of South America that are buried.

Who knows what great treasures are hiding from us, with satellites and deep ground ultra sound detection, we are just scratching the surface of our history!

Not being an archaeologist I can't give answers, only bring questions. First: why is the largest portion of the column on the top? Any natural carved pillar gets smaller on top. These actually extend beyond the pillar. If I were going to build a bridge this would be what I'd do. If the "ceiling" or roof were natural materials like wood, they would be long gone. Could an analysis of the rubble and sand show signs of wood fibre?
Second: Just last night I watched a program about the unearthing of a ship wreck in the Black Sea on the other side of Turkey.The possible changes, catastrophic or slow, connected to the Black Sea and the peoples nearby may be related to this structure.
Third: The sophistication of many of the carvings on the pillars don't remind me of the work of a hunter-gatherer culture that only moves from place to place, never building, carving only amulets to hold or wear around the neck with necklaces of shells and beads. They seem abstract due to a fullness of technique and a long history of sculptural art and building history rather than to an ignorance. Where are the stone carvings that could predate these ones? Were all the previous carved structures made from wood and so disappeared?
Fourth: The animals they sculpt may be wild but they don't scare you to look at them. Nor do the animals painted many thousands of years earlier around 33,000 years, in caves all around Europe. Humans that can do art at those levels and for so many thousands of years, are perfectly capable of painting and sculpting gargoyle "fear" creatures, grimacing faces, pain, agonizing death scenes. The idea that this site was built to placate terrifying gods doesn't seem right here.
I'd give anything to actually make the trip to see these signs of our race, when we built more than we destroyed.

Absolutely amazing discovery, what disturbs me is we immediatelly want to label it something like a "temple" when we have no idea what it really is. Questions like why would it not just be abandoned instead of being covered up,almost like leaving it for when someone returns later.

Nothing springs from nothing, the people, the skills, the material needed would take time to accrue. What prompted its building at a time when primitive man needed all of his time and energy just to survive as a hunter gatherer, what would cause them to stop, learn skills, and build such a monument?
This could not be the builders first building, it appears too sophisticated, where were earlier models?

One thought that occurred to me is that when people had no use for a construction, from the colliseum in rome to the Sphinx, they simply left them, the didn't cover them up, many times they reused the building material. Maybe this was built by someone not a local, someone who didn't want it either discovered or reused, who when they were through with it found burying it quite appropriate.

So many questions, so few real answers, I look forward to reading more about amazing find, we should not jump to conclusions.

Mike

A great find, yes. I think we need to leave the bible out of this dig and this discussion of the dig, except to say that this dig is perhaps further evidence that the human race did not begin in the garden of eden. It is for us here and now a step farther back in human history, and it closes a little bit more the gap in the record between neolithic humans and those responsible for Lascaux and the other painted caves.

Another commenter suggested that space men built Gobleki Tepe. I think this is nuts. I think that believing that space men did it reveals a disbelief in the ingenuity and vast imagination of human beings. We as a race have done incredible things when rightly inspired. One person with the right idea at the right time can alter a society.

This is a great find and I hope in time it is all unearthed and revealed. Even so unless the builders documented this in some sort of way that is readable we will never know for sure the how and whys of this place. Educated guesses sometimes seem like they might be right. I don't think I would necessarily call this place a temple just yet when it so much resembles what may be a Chieftains Spa or just a tribal hang out! Good luck working with this the rest of the way which will continue i'm sure for years.