# Gobekli Tepe: What do we really know? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 30, 2018, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508 "2018-08-30T06:54:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/201 "2020-04-27T13:25:30Z")
Surely, jumping from the commonness of porn during as far back as recorded history goes, to the assumption that it _wasn’t_ common in the Stone Age is even more excessive leaping. Stone age peoples were not like us in every way. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the default assumption should be that they were like us in most ways. It is the differences that need evidence, not the similarities. Even if we never found any “Venus figures” at all, the default assumption should be that they were similar to us. And the presence of the “Venus figures” only reinforces that default assumption. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/202 "2020-04-27T14:35:22Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Surely, jumping from the commonness of porn during as far back as recorded history goes, to the assumption that it _wasn’t_ common in the Stone Age is even more excessive leaping. > > Stone age peoples were not like us in every way. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the default assumption should be that they were like us in most ways. It is the differences that need evidence, not the similarities. Even if we never found any “Venus figures” at all, the default assumption should be that they were similar to us. And the presence of the “Venus figures” only reinforces that default assumption. Porn is short for pornography which is lewd writing. They didn’t have writing, so they didn’t have pornography. This may seem like a nitpick but I don’t think it is. The concept of private life (your own room to jerk off in, for example) is very modern. Generally speaking tribal people did almost everything in view of everyone else. Being alone, ever, is a rarity in tribal cultures we know about. I could far more easily buy the idea of, say, a tradition of arousing public dancing, than arduously created figurines specifically for private male masturbation, so urgent and important a need that they are ubiquitous throughout the prehistoric record where there are very few other images at all. The Venus figurines are but part of a vast array of similar female figurines, many with all sorts of clearly goddess or priestess attributes – holding snakes, riding on cows, accompanied by deer, crowned with a moon etc. The Venus figurines are not separable from the others in any way other than they are simpler and older. The progression is not toward more realistic erotica, but toward more complex iconography. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/203 "2020-04-27T14:38:12Z")
I read somewhere once about these clay phallic symbols found in one or more cave sites with other clay art. Until some researcher started trying to make things with clay themselves, and learned to roll a bit of the clay in their hands to test for consistency… ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/204 "2020-04-27T15:04:04Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Surely, jumping from the commonness of porn during as far back as recorded history goes, to the assumption that it _wasn’t_ common in the Stone Age is even more excessive leaping. And again I ask, for my own edification, for examples of porn from early recorded history. > [@](#): > > Stone age peoples were not like us in every way. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the default assumption should be that they were like us in most ways. It is the differences that need evidence, not the similarities. Even if we never found any “Venus figures” at all, the default assumption should be that they were similar to us. And the presence of the “Venus figures” only reinforces that default assumption. There were recent Stone Age people in New Guinea and other places. Did they have porn? I also wonder about the default assumption that Stone Age people are like us in most ways. 21st-century culture has huge differences from 19th-century culture. I’d guess that, by reasonable criteria, Bronze Age culture is closer to 19th-century culture than it is to Early Stone Age culture. (The Venus figurines come from “the Early Stone Age.”) ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/205 "2020-04-27T15:23:35Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > Porn is short for pornography which is lewd writing. They didn’t have writing, so they didn’t have pornography. This may seem like a nitpick but I don’t think it is. … It is not only a nitpick it is incorrect. Google: > [@](#): > > printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings. > **[Definition of PORNOGRAPHY](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography)** > > the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement; material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement… See the full definition > [@](#): > > Definition of pornography > 1: the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement > 2: material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement > 3: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction > **[Pornography | Definition, History, Meaning, & Facts](https://www.britannica.com/topic/pornography)** > > Pornography, representation of sexual behavior in books, pictures, statues, films, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. The distinction between pornography (illicit and condemned material) and erotica (which is broadly... > [@](#): > > Pornography, representation of sexual behaviour in books, pictures, **statues** , motion pictures, and other media that is intended to cause sexual excitement. Please note the word I bolded. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/206 "2020-04-27T16:09:40Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > the default assumption should be that they were similar to us. To repeat myself - if the premise is “they were so similar to us”, how did they find any of these \*\*\*extremely abstract \*\*\*examples (all “Venus figurines”) sexually arousing?: > [@MrDibble](#): > > [So hot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines_of_G%C3%B6nnersdorf#/media/File:Gonnersdorfp1100214.jpg)! [So sexay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Buret%27#/media/File:Buretj_(venus_figurine).gif)! [Mmm, baby](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Monruz#/media/File:Lat%C3%A9nium-dame-Monruz.jpg)! [Could it \*be \*any more smutty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westray_Wife#/media/File:Westray_Wife_20110529.jpg)? I hear [coneheads are the latest fetish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Savignano#/media/File:Savignano_face.jpg)! > > My point being - many paleolithic figurines are so stylized that it’s really hard to see anyone getting off on them. Although - there’s a fetish for everyone, I guess (pun intended) ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/207 "2020-04-27T16:31:11Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > It is not only a nitpick it is incorrect. > > Google: > > [Pornography Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography) > [Pornography | Definition, History, Meaning, & Facts | Britannica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/pornography) > > Please note the word I bolded. I suspect the point is that the origin of the word includes _writing_: > [@](#): > > Pornography, which has been used in English since the middle of the 19th century, comes from the Greek pornographos (“writing about prostitutes”), and initially referred to visual or written matter designed to cause sexual arousal, a meaning that is still the most common one employed today. > **[Definition of PORNOGRAPHY](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pornography)** > > the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement; material (such as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement… See the full definition But even the orginal use of the word in the 1800s included visual representations. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/208 "2020-04-27T16:44:24Z")
The earliest undisputed visual pornography I know of comes from Pompeii. Unless someone’s going to argue that explicit pictures on the walls of a brothel aren’t porn? Or if you want writing, there’s plenty of that going back to the origins of writing. Though a lot of those get claimed as being religious, too (yeah, the Song of Solomon is totally about God, and God loves us because he thinks we’ve got great tits). ---
**Author:** ![Fleetwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fleetwood/32/271_2.png) [@Fleetwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fleetwood)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/209 "2020-04-27T17:22:45Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > The concept of private life (your own room to jerk off in, for example) is very modern. Generally speaking tribal people did almost everything in view of everyone else. Being alone, ever, is a rarity in tribal cultures we know about. So, the circle jerk is one of the oldest forms of masturbation? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/210 "2020-04-27T18:28:28Z")
OK. Zero known “porn” from the Bronze Age, or even the Early Iron Age. Zero porn from present-day Stone Age cultures as in New Guinea. But the Venus figurines from the Early Stone Age with their consistently exaggerated visual motifs, often carved from ivory or even semi-precious gemstones, are “porn” by default. Got it. There are professional archaeologists who develop opinions on such matters. What portion of them treat the Venuses as “porn”? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/211 "2020-04-27T18:38:50Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > OK. Zero known “porn” from the Bronze Age, or even the Early Iron Age. Zero porn from present-day Stone Age cultures as in New Guinea. But the Venus figurines from the Early Stone Age with their consistently exaggerated visual motifs, often carved from ivory or even semi-precious gemstones, are “porn” by default. Got it. > > There are professional archaeologists who develop opinions on such matters. What portion of them treat the Venuses as “porn”? Is a discussion of ancient porn relevant to Gobekli Tepe? Could we start a new thread on that issue? ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2020, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/212 "2020-04-27T21:56:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > OK. Zero known “porn” from the Bronze Age, or even the Early Iron Age. Zero porn from present-day Stone Age cultures as in New Guinea. But the Venus figurines from the Early Stone Age with their consistently exaggerated visual motifs, often carved from ivory or even semi-precious gemstones, are “porn” by default. Got it. > > There are professional archaeologists who develop opinions on such matters. What portion of them treat the Venuses as “porn”? Very few in the literature I’m aware of. Explanations tend to either emphasise fertility or authority. And yes, sex is involved in both of those, but is not the main objective. I can’t define pornography but I know it when I see it [as has been said]. That’s because its a cultural construct, and is the ‘other’ in particular forms of gender and power relationships. These exist in our society, but if you want to claim some ancient object, like a Venus figure or a turnip shaped like a thingy, is pornographic you need to first come up with a reconstruction of a society where pornography can meaningfully exist as a category. Not easy. And back to Gobekli Tepe. Just going off the plan, I’d be more convinced that the lower two enclosures [B, C] are built as mirror twins, and that a later third [A] intended to be of equal size fits snugly along their axis, rather than arguing purposeful design. That should be testable. Maybe they’ve looked at the evidence and rejected that, but its a more parsimonious explanation. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/213 "2020-04-28T02:42:33Z")
Let’s attack it from the opposite direction - the lack of porn, whether Mesopotamian, or Egyptian, carved on Gobekli, or pre-agricultural suggests it wasn’t as much of an obsession - despite the fact that fertility must have figured immensely in the life of early man. Perhaps that was because society did not put restrictions on sexual activity so men were less frustrated. Harari’s “Sapiens” suggest in one chapter that the thing that tied many different tribes or groupings together, that allowed even hunter-gatherers to congregate to create the Gobekli site, was a common mythos - that the ability to have common beliefs or fictions or imaginings, the ability to conceptualize the abstract in detail, was what allowed humans to take the next step from individual wandering tribes to much enlarged groups with a common purpose. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/214 "2020-04-28T03:12:47Z")
> [@Ulfreida](#): > > They had dogs. . Yes, that was rather my point. The person quoted in that article claimed hunter-gatherers couldn’t domesticate anything; which is obvious nonsense, because dogs predate agriculture. > [@Ulfreida](#): > > Maybe. But we are now removed from the previously ubiquitous human sense that the numinous is everywhere, that sexuality is holy and potentially dangerous, and that women hold a (dark) power men don’t have. That’s at least five different claims: that at some point in the past all humans everywhere (“previously ubiquitous”) believed that: 1. the numinous is everywhere 2. sexuality is holy 3. sexuality is potentially dangerous 4. women hold a power that men don’t have 5. women’s power is “dark”. There may well have been humans in the past who believed all five of those things simultaneously – I think there are people now who believe all five of them, at least for some possible interpretations of the term “dark”, which can mean all sorts of things. But “previously ubiquitous”? How could we know? We have for the most part not got the faintest idea what members of non-literate cultures believed. We’re almost certainly never going to know what they were thinking (though it’s a fascinating question, or rather questions). What we do know is that they were thinking. I’m nearly as puzzled by the article’s surprise that ancient humans knew some practical geometry as I am by the assumption that three buildings in a triangle with a fourth one nearby symbolizes heirarchy. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/215 "2020-04-28T04:07:33Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. the numinous is everywhere > 2. sexuality is holy > 3. sexuality is potentially dangerous > 4. women hold a power that men don’t have > 5. women’s power is “dark”. I’m also going to disagree. I think that’s reading too much into things. My unstudied opinion is that: sex was “magical” in that the randomness of reproduction meant that there was more to it than simply having intercourse, so assorted peoples made up their own stories as to what else was involved. Sex was dangerous, simply because unattached men or women are loose cannons. Nothing brings out a fight between men than fighting over a woman - so the concept of marriage, ownership, assigning a couple, ensured that there was a right and a wrong in any crossed relationships. I’m going to guess that abstinence was less of an issue in communal hunter-gatherer tribes, where once a person passed puberty and could pull their weight in their role, they were roughly equal in status with the rest of the tribe and could get down to the business of making babies. In contrast, once agriculture came along, a couple could not become a family and feed offspring unless there was a field of their own to farm; as land became scarcer with population growth, it was imperative that reproduction be restrained until then - hence rules against premarital sex, about knocking up someone’s unmarried daughter and sticking gramps with the need to feed, etc. Plus, it was a lot harder to splinter off in a disagreement within the community when it required land, tools, seed, etc. and no land was available. Men and women exert a significant power by force of personality, given the right personality - however, men often won with the trump card of physical force. If there is a darkness attributed to it, it is the observation of other men that a man obsessed with a woman may behave far differently than they do with pother men - but this is the obsessive power of love/infatuation/twitterpation. Women tend to have the same irrational response in some relationships, it’s just that in patriarchal societies the myth of the dominant group probably carries more weight. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/216 "2020-04-28T09:39:35Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > In contrast, once agriculture came along, a couple could not become a family and feed offspring unless there was a field of their own to farm; as land became scarcer with population growth, it was imperative that reproduction be restrained until then - hence rules against premarital sex, about knocking up someone’s unmarried daughter and sticking gramps with the need to feed, etc. Plus, it was a lot harder to splinter off in a disagreement within the community when it required land, tools, seed, etc. and no land was available. Availability of land was not usually an issue. Populations were small and there was a lot of land. Generally, you could just clear more land if you wanted it, but it took a lot of work. Availability of plough animals was a constraint. Usually people lived in extended family groups, and the more children the better, to work the land. I’m not aware of any society anywhere before modern times that wanted to constrain population growth, quite the contrary. But it’s not a good idea to generalize about agriculturalists, or hunter-gatherers, or pastoralists. Circumstances were different in different places and at different times, cultures were different, social structures were different. Simple, glib, over-arching theories don’t really cut it. The reality is always more complex, and the people who come up with glib theories are usually not professionals in those fields. If you say “rules against premarital sex” you need to specify in which societies, where, in which centuries. Marriage is a general human institution, and ensures that children are provided for, but a guy getting a girl pregnant would certainly be regarded as a very powerful reason to marry, or even as a de facto marriage in most societies. ---
**Author:** ![lynne-42](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lynne-42/32/3138_2.png) [@lynne-42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lynne-42)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/217 "2020-04-28T10:17:00Z")
I see that a lot of the ideas from my research and last three books summarised above by Zeke N. Destroi, who is now banned. I hope not for quoting me! I regret not seeing that post earlier. The idea that hunter-gatherer societies aren’t capable of large collaborative projects should have been rejected long ago. I am delighted to see many comments along those lines here, such as the reference to _The Ten Canoes_. There is also an assumption that the building of Gobekli Tepe meant that they were no longer egalitarian because there must have been a hierarchy. There is no society on earth, nor any reference to one, which was totally egalitarian with no leaders. Cultures such as Australian Aboriginals are egalitarian (mostly) when it comes to material possessions. They are most certainly not egalitarian when it comes to knowledge. Elders go through many levels of initiation which ensure that knowledge is acquired only by those ready for it, and jealously guarded. Power comes from control of that knowledge. That is why my PhD thesis was titled _When Knowledge Was Power_. If you take those ideas into archaeology, the purpose for a lot of ancient monuments becomes clear. I am a science writer - it is all about pragmatism. I have just completed a manuscript with an Australian Aboriginal co-author on songlines, which shows exactly how knowledge was memorised and kept accurate over millennia (scientific evidence shows accurate information retained over 7,000 years). Knowledge was (and is) owned and controlled according to very strict rules. The book will be published in November. Everything at Gobekli Tepe fits the profile of a ceremonial site beautifully designed for the maintenance, teaching and performance of a knowledge system memorised using very sophisticated techniques. It is those mnemonic techniques which are my area of expertise. I am disappointed to see articles still representing hunter-gatherers as primitive and unable to manipulate their environment. There is so much evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/218 "2020-04-28T19:17:00Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > I see that a lot of the ideas from my research and last three books summarised above by Zeke N. Destroi, who is now banned. I hope not for quoting me! I regret not seeing that post earlier. > > The idea that hunter-gatherer societies aren’t capable of large collaborative projects should have been rejected long ago. I am delighted to see many comments along those lines here, such as the reference to _The Ten Canoes_. > > … > > I have just completed a manuscript with an Australian Aboriginal co-author on songlines, which shows exactly how knowledge was memorised and kept accurate over millennia (scientific evidence shows accurate information retained over 7,000 years). Knowledge was (and is) owned and controlled according to very strict rules. The book will be published in November. > > Everything at Gobekli Tepe fits the profile of a ceremonial site beautifully designed for the maintenance, teaching and performance of a knowledge system memorised using very sophisticated techniques. It is those mnemonic techniques which are my area of expertise. I am disappointed to see articles still representing hunter-gatherers as primitive and unable to manipulate their environment. There is so much evidence to the contrary. Thank you for this interesting post! No, Zeke was banned for hate speech. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/219 "2020-04-28T19:47:10Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > I see that a lot of the ideas from my research and last three books summarised above by Zeke N. Destroi I was the one who summarised some of your ideas, in post #180 above. Zeke then quoted my post. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2020, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/220 "2020-04-28T22:03:18Z")
> [@lynne-42](#): > > There is also an assumption that the building of Gobekli Tepe meant that they were no longer egalitarian because there must have been a hierarchy. There is no society on earth, nor any reference to one, which was totally egalitarian with no leaders. Cultures such as Australian Aboriginals are egalitarian (mostly) when it comes to material possessions. They are most certainly not egalitarian when it comes to knowledge. Elders go through many levels of initiation which ensure that knowledge is acquired only by those ready for it, and jealously guarded. Power comes from control of that knowledge. That is why my PhD thesis was titled _When Knowledge Was Power_. If you take those ideas into archaeology, the purpose for a lot of ancient monuments becomes clear. I am a science writer - it is all about pragmatism. > > I have just completed a manuscript with an Australian Aboriginal co-author on songlines, which shows exactly how knowledge was memorised and kept accurate over millennia (scientific evidence shows accurate information retained over 7,000 years). Knowledge was (and is) owned and controlled according to very strict rules. The book will be published in November. > > Everything at Gobekli Tepe fits the profile of a ceremonial site beautifully designed for the maintenance, teaching and performance of a knowledge system memorised using very sophisticated techniques. It is those mnemonic techniques which are my area of expertise. I am disappointed to see articles still representing hunter-gatherers as primitive and unable to manipulate their environment. There is so much evidence to the contrary. What types of knowledge gave the people who had it the most power? How do they determine who is ready for the next level of initiation? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508.md?page=12)