About 11,000 years ago, when the last fringes of the ice age receded, people started coming to Finland to try and see if they could find something to eat here too. The Mesolithic, or Middle Stone Age, lasted thousands of years in Europe.
The lush regions of the Middle East already saw the beginning of the youngest, or Neolithic, stone age. A whole new way of life was emerging alongside gathering, fishing and hunting. Agriculture revolutionized human history.
In Finland and elsewhere, the buildings of the population that moved in search of food were homes that could be easily erected and dismantled. At the same time, in southeastern Turkey in Anatolia, the world’s oldest stone buildings were built with columns and statues that defy many people’s understanding of the knowledge and skills of the people of that time.
The construction of Göbeklitepe, located near the city of Şanlıurfa, is calculated to have started around 9500 BC. The use of the area and at the same time phased construction continued for about one and a half thousand years.
After Göbeklitepe, about 60 kilometers away, another large and possibly slightly older built area, Karahantepe, and numerous smaller ones have been found around them. They, too, help to draw the timeline of the new culture, says the professor of archeology at Istanbul University Necmi Karulin in the studies conducted.
Göbeklitepe and its sister areas are located in a corner of the world, where those who hiked had no need to continue their journey in search of food. After the Ice Age, the climate was warm, nature flourished and there was plenty to eat.
The exchange of thoughts and experiences in the growing group undoubtedly produced new ideas. Since there were plenty of resources, it was also possible to invest in construction, which was not necessary for life support. The projects had a social value that humanity could finally afford.
Before long, it was invented to try a new kind of durable building material, mud bricks, which harden when they dry in the sun.
Established life started the path to the world as we know it now with parliaments and other social structures. At the same time, it was the beginning of the end, says Professor Necmi Karul surprisingly.
Moving in groups of twenty people, Stone Age man was part of the animal kingdom. The new social order made him see himself as separate from other animals, Karul concludes. The result was problems that we are now trying to overcome.
– They are fantastic places, absolutely incredible, but there humans also raised themselves for the first time above the rest of the animal kingdom, to become the center of all living things, explains the director of Göbeklitepe and Karahantepe research.
The evidence of the change in thinking can be seen in the carvings and statues: at first they were mainly animals, but over time they started making large human statues, says Karul.
The limestone bedrock and flint of the area favor construction at the foot of the Taurus Mountains. Tools made of silicon bit into soft limestone. The result was both detailed animal and human sculptures and columns weighing tens of tons. The tallest one found is six meters.
Some of the columns were shaped from the rock directly in place, some were brought from further away. Scholars debate the technique and amount of labor needed to move and erect the pillars, six millennia before Stonehenge was built.
The columns stand surrounded by mud brick walls, always in the same order: the two tallest in the middle facing each other, the smaller ones around.
At first, the buildings were circular and oval-shaped, then a corner was invented. The passageways between the buildings bear witness to architectural pre-planning.
According to some hypotheses, the buildings worshiped the starry sky and did not have a roof. However, more and more researchers are in favor of roofs made of wood and patched with mud. Covering buildings tens of meters in diameter required quite a lot of engineering skills.
Each building was in use for only a few centuries. Then a funeral was held for it, as Professor Necmi Karul says. The building was filled with stones and earth, and a new one was built on top. The areas that grew layer by layer were eventually left in the ground as humps. “Tepe” is the Turkish word for hill.
According to the established opinion, man only started making permanent buildings after he settled down to take care of his fields and livestock. Tepet challenges the marching order of that Neolithic revolution.
When they started their big project, their builders were still hunter-gatherers, although they knew the usefulness of the wild barley and wheat in their surroundings. The thousands of millstones found in their wake testify to that.
However, a big change was coming. It can be seen in the morphology of cereal grains over the next centuries, says Professor Necmi Karul. Over the past two years, researchers have sifted through six thousand liters of soil to get clues about the life of Tepeje.
In addition to the domestication of grain, the domestication of domestic animals was also beginning.
– They drove herds of animals into small valleys and blocked the way back. It was the beginning of domestication. Among the animals they chose those that were eaten. Usually they were old males. Females were allowed to be, because it was understood how the herd reproduces. It was sustainable development, says Karul.
Göbeklitepe was already found in the 1960s during a mapping trip by anthropologists from Istanbul and the University of Chicago. They noticed fragments of limestone slabs on the hill, but concluded that they were a memorial to the cemetery of a medieval monastery.
Three decades later, a German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt read the report, decided to visit the place and concluded that the hump rising to a height of 15 meters could only be the work of human hands from a very distant past.
Since no hearths, garbage pits, or other typical evidence of habitation were found, Schmidt concluded that Göbeklitepe was a ritual site where people gathered from a wide area to honor ancestors, if not even the earliest deities.
In many sources, Göbeklitepe is still called the oldest temple in the world. For Schmidt, it was a “cathedral on the hill”, where the people who had their camps in the valleys came to just to participate in the rites. Necmi Karul disagrees.
– The temple is an easy explanation, but there had to be more than one purpose. The large space made it possible to gather for different reasons, maybe to make decisions, maybe to exchange news or play music. Rites were just one reason, he says.
There were also people living in the area. The found houses testify to that. However, nothing can be said for certain about those who lived there.
Archaeological excavations at Göbeklitepe began in the 1990s, at the end of Karahantepe’s last decade. Göbeklitepe is a UN Scientific and Cultural Organization UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Excavations continue, but only to a limited extent, as the goal is not to reveal areas but to accumulate information. The work is just at the very beginning, says Professor Necmi Karul.
– At first it was thought that all areas would be similar to Göbeklitepe. Of course, some things are repeated everywhere – T-shaped columns, phallus statues, numerous foxes – but we also find differences all the time.
The development of natural science archeology gives, among other things, archaeobiologists and -zoologists many new methods for laboratory work. Last year, 150 people from different parts of the world searched for answers to Tepeje’s riddles, says Karul.
There is no access to the genetic origin of the builders of Göbeklitepe and its sister areas, at least not yet with current methods. Human remains have indeed been found, for example skull fragments – and they show signs of modification – but the climate of the area has not favored the preservation of ancient DNA.
A rich and rich pictorial culture, on the other hand, is available to interpreters, if only we could read what, for example, a picture in which a person seems to be carrying a living leopard on his back means.
What about the story of the lost bird that spread its wings? There are dozens of other animals in the same T-pillar. Everyone looks in the opposite direction like a bird that seems to defy a snake.
Perhaps the picture contains a story, the meaning of which was clear to those who sat on the stone benches of Göbeklitepe. Maybe it wasn’t ritualistic, but perhaps the folklore of the time.