Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: , Potbelly Hill; known as is a Neolithic archaeological site near the city of Şanlıurfa in Southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. Dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, between c. 9500 and 8000 BCE, the site comprises a number of large circular structures supported by massive stone pillars – the worlds oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are richly decorated with abstract anthropomorphic details, clothing, and reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists rare insights into prehistoric religion and the particular iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft)-high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell also includes many smaller rectangular buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.

The site was first used at the dawn of the Neolithic period, which in Southwest Asia marks the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture, but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice-versa. Göbekli Tepe, a monumental complex built on the top of a rocky mountaintop, far from known sources of water and to date produced no clear evidence of agricultural cultivation, has played a prominent role in this debate. The sites original excavator, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, described it as the worlds first temple: a sanctuary used by groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers from a wide area, with few or no permanent inhabitants. Other archaeologists challenged this interpretation, arguing that the evidence for a lack of agriculture and a resident population was far from conclusive. Recent research has also led the current excavators of Göbekli Tepe to revise or abandon many of the conclusions underpinning Schmidts interpretation.


First noted in a survey in 1963, the importance of the site was recognised by Schmidt, who directed excavations there from 1995 until his death in 2014. Since then, work has continued under the auspices of Istanbul University, Şanlıurfa Museum, and the German Archaeological Institute, under the overall direction of Turkish prehistorian Necmi Karul. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, recognising its outstanding universal value as one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture. As of 2021, less than 5% of the site has been excavated.


Göbekli Tepe was built and occupied during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN)—the earliest division of the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia—which is dated to between 9600 and 7000 BCE. Beginning at the end of the last Ice Age, the PPN marks the beginnings of village life, producing the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in the world. Archaeologists have long associated the appearance of these settlements with the Neolithic Revolution—the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture—but disagree on whether the adoption of farming caused people to settle down, or settling down caused people to adopt farming. Despite the name, the Neolithic Revolution in Southwest Asia was drawn out and locally variable. Elements of village life appeared as early as 10,000 years before the Neolithic in places, and the transition to agriculture took thousands of years, with different paces and trajectories in different regions. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic is divided into two subperiods: the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, to which the early phases of Göbekli Tepe belong, is dated to between 9600 and 8800 BCE; the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, to which the late phases of Göbekli Tepe belong, is dated to between 8800 and 7000 BCE. It was preceded by the Epipalaeolithic and succeeded by the Late Neolithic.

Evidence indicates that the inhabitants were hunter-gatherers who supplemented their diet with early forms of domesticated cereal and lived in villages for at least part of the year. Tools such as grinding stones and mortar pestle, found at Göbekli Tepe, were analyzed and suggest considerable cereal processing. Archaeozoological evidence hints at large-scale hunting of gazelle between midsummer and autumn.


Radiocarbon dating shows that the earliest exposed structures at Göbekli Tepe were built between 9500 and 9000 BCE, towards the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period. The site was significantly expanded in the early 9th millennium BCE and remained in use until around 8000 BCE, or perhaps slightly later (the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, PPN😎. There is evidence that smaller groups returned to live amongst the ruins after the Neolithic structures were abandoned.

Schmidt originally dated the site to the PPN based on the types of stone tools found there, considering a PPNA date most probable. Establishing its absolute chronology took longer due to methodological challenges. Though the first two radiocarbon dates were published in 1998, these and other samples from the fill of the structure dated to the late 10th and early 9th millennium – 500 to 1000 years later than expected for a PPNA site. Schmidts team explained the discrepancy in light of their theory that this material was brought to the site from elsewhere when it was abandoned, and so was not representative of the actual use of the structures. They instead turned to a novel method of dating organic material preserved in the plaster on the structures walls, which resulted in dates more consistent with a PPNA occupation, in the middle or even early 10th-millennium BCE. Subsequent research led to a significant revision of Schmidts chronology, including the abandonment of the theory that the fill of the structures was brought from elsewhere, and a recognition that direct dates on plaster are affected by the old wood effect. Together with new radiocarbon dates, this has established the sites as absolute chronology as falling in the period 9500 to 8000 BCE – the late PPNA and PPNB.


The plateau Göbekli Tepe is situated on has been shaped by erosion by quarrying in both the Neolithic and later periods. There are four 10-metre-long (33 ft) and 20-centimetre-wide (7.9 in) channels on the southern part of the plateau, interpreted as the remains of an ancient quarry from which rectangular blocks were taken. These are possibly related to a square building in the neighbourhood, of which only the foundation is preserved. Presumably, this is the remains of a Roman watchtower that was part of the Limes Arabicus, though this is conjecture. Most structures on the plateau seem to be the result of Neolithic quarrying, with the quarries being used as sources for the huge, monolithic architectural elements. Their profiles were pecked into the rock, with the detached blocks then levered out of the rock bank. Several quarries where round workpieces had been produced were identified. Their status as quarries was confirmed by the find of a 3-by-3 metre piece at the southeastern slope of the plateau. Unequivocally Neolithic are three T-shaped pillars that had not yet been levered out of the bedrock. The largest of them lies on the northern plateau. It has a length of 7 m (23 ft) and its head has a width of 3 m (10 ft). Its weight may be around 50 tons. The two other unfinished pillars lie on the southern Plateau.



Archaeologists disagree on how much labour was needed to construct the site. Schmidt maintained that the work of quarrying, transporting, and erecting tons of heavy, monolithic, and almost universally well-prepared limestone pillars was not within the capability of a few people. Using Thor Heyerdahls experiments with the moai of Rapa Nui as a reference, he estimated that moving the pillars alone must have involved hundreds of people. According to these experiments, one moai of similar size to a T-shaped pillar from Göbekli Tepe would have taken 20 people a year to carve, and 50–75 people a week to transport 15 km. Schmidts team has also cited a 1917 account of the construction of a megalith on the Indonesian island of Nias, which took 525 people three days. These estimates underpin their interpretation that the site was built by a large, non-resident workforce, coerced or enticed there by a small religious elite. According to other estimates, just 7–14 people could have moved the pillars using ropes and water or another lubricant, with techniques used to construct other monuments such as Stonehenge. Experiments on the site have suggested that all the PPNB structures currently exposed could have been built by 12–24 people in less than four months, allowing for time spent quarrying stone and gathering, and preparing food. These labour estimates are thought to be within the capability of a single extended family or village community in the Neolithic. They also match the number of people that could have comfortably been inside one of the buildings at the same time


The stone pillars in the enclosures at Göbekli Tepe are T-shaped, similar to other PPN sites in the region. But unlike at these other sites, many of the pillars are carved – usually in low relief, but sometimes also in high relief. Most carvings depict animals: serpents, foxes, and boars for the most part, but also aurochs, gazelle, mouflon (wild sheep), onager, crane, ducks and vultures. Insofar as they can be identified, the animals are male, and often depicted with an aggressive posture


Abstract shapes are also depicted, mostly an upright or horizontal H-shaped symbol, but also crescents and disks. Depictions of humans are rare; pillar 43 in enclosure D includes a headless man with an erect phallus. However, the T-shape of the pillars themselves is anthropomorphic: the shaft is the body, and the top is the head. This is confirmed by the fact that some pillars include—in addition to animal reliefs—carvings of arms, hands and loincloths.


The two central pillars occupied a special place in the symbolic architecture of the enclosures. Those in Enclosure D represent humans, with arms, a belt, and a piece of cloth that hides the genitals. The sex of the individuals depicted cannot be clearly identified, though Schmidt suggested that they are two men because the belts they wear are a male attribute in the period. There is only one certain representation of a woman, depicted naked on a slab.

Importance

Göbekli Tepe is regarded by some as an archaeological discovery of great importance since it could profoundly change the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Some researchers believe that the construction of Göbekli Tepe may have contributed to the later development of urban civilization, or, as excavator Klaus Schmidt put it, First came the temple, then the city.

It remains unknown how a population large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and compensated or fed in the conditions of pre-sedentary society. Scholars have been unable to interpret the pictograms, and do not know what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site. The variety of fauna depicted – from lions and boars to birds and insects – makes any single explanation problematic. As there is little or no evidence of habitation, and many of the animals pictured are predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation. Alternatively, they could have served as totems.

The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and totem poles. It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one.

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