Remaking History?

Göbekli Tepe in 2011

Göbekli Tepe is the oldest human-made structure yet discovered. It is believed to be more than 12,000 years old. The site is located on a hilltop in southeastern Turkey, and appears to contain no less than 20 round structures / buildings located just below the earth’s surface, only four of which have been completely excavated to date which began in 1995. Each building has a diameter of thirty to one hundred feet (about 10–30 meters), and is decorated with massive T-shaped limestone pillars. Local Turkish residents simply call the place Göbekli Tepe which means “Potbelly Hill” and it is destined to remake history as is currently believed by today’s Archeological Community.

Upon the lower half of many of the pillars there are carved detailed reliefs or “pictures” of animals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelles, donkeys, as well as snakes and other reptiles, plus insects, spiders, and birds, most often (and curiously) those of the vulture variety.

During the period in which these structures were built (around 9500 BC) man-kind would have still been in the Stone-age. The tools which were apparently used for the construction effort (many of which have been found at the site) are made from flint. Prior to this find, archeologists did not believe at this early date; that man-kind had the knowledge, ability, or skill to create such structures.  In fact, the ruins are so old that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture.

The life style of the day would have been that of “hunters and gatherers”, who were dependent upon food (fruits, animals, and vegetables alike) that grew “wild” in the area; the construction effort would have required an enormous workforce which in turn necessitated a continuous supply of food for the artisans and workers. Although today’s landscape appears unable to support wild life as depicted upon the various carved reliefs, 12000 years ago the environment was most probably quite lush.

So as to give you some sense of prospective for the era (9500 BC) I’m describing here, you may recall that the first metropolis or city that we know about was that of early Mesopotamia some time around 5300 BC; the large stones you see today at Stonehenge are believed to have been placed there some time around 2300 BC; and most Egyptologists believe that the largest pyramid at Gaza was completed by 2560 BC.

For some reason, around the beginning of the 8th millennium (7000) BC, the attitude toward “Potbelly Hill” changed dramatically. Perhaps with the advent of agriculture and animal husbandry, new realities toward human life in the area developed, and the “stone-age zoo” (as some archeologists call it) depicted on the pillars apparently lost whatever significance it had had for the region’s more recent community. However, the complex of structures were not simply abandoned and forgotten to be gradually destroyed by the elements. Instead, each enclosure was deliberately buried under as much as 650 cubic yards (up to 500 cubic meters) of debris.

Why exactly such an action was taken is a mystery as well, since this action alone surely required an enormous effort in manpower, but the good news is, this action preserved the sites for future generations to marvel about.

Sources ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe                   http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2010/02/18/history-in-the-remaking.html