# 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:** 2
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/21 "2018-08-30T18:33:25Z")
To be fair, what Jasmine said or recalled from that program was that there might be no _visible_ evidence of human existence after a thousand years. I think the idea is that things like quarries would be flooded and things aboveground would be covered by trees and other plants. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/22 "2018-08-30T18:44:47Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > To be fair, what Jasmine said or recalled from that program was that there might be no _visible_ evidence of human existence after a thousand years. I think the idea is that things like quarries would be flooded and things aboveground would be covered by trees and other plants. I understand that. But even that is clearly nonsense. As I said, ruins in arid areas are still visible after millennia. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/23 "2018-08-30T18:54:13Z")
Plus, the changes in the landscape we’ve made for roads will be around for dozens of millennia (Roman roads are still found in many places). We’ve cut passages through rock, tunnels, mines (as mentioned) The bottom of many skyscraper will still be visible. assorted bridge piers, breakwaters… Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse are carved out of pretty solid rock. They aren’t going anywhere. I’d be surprised if there’s no trace of the Hoover dam or similar. If someone said a million years, I’d believe it - provided we were talking superficial looks, not talking about deep archaeological exploration. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/24 "2018-08-30T19:05:30Z")
Jonathan Chance has started a great thread over at IMHO about what would last millions of years. Perhaps we could get back to Gobekli Tepe? What I thought interesting is that all those hypothesis from Archaeologists about how civilization developed are now pretty well down the drain. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/25 "2018-08-30T20:16:51Z")
Let’s get one thing clear - whatever culture built Göbekli Tepe was \*not \*a civilization, and may have had little influence on the civilization that \*did \*develop in the region millennia later (or, it might, but there aren’t any clear cultural traces one can point to). For now, it’s basically _sui generis_, and while it does have a lot of interesting things to say about the development of religion and community behaviour pre-agriculture, it hasn’t overthrown everything else we know about the PPNA and settlement growth. Nothing’s “down the drain”, that’s rank hyperbole. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/26 "2018-08-30T20:18:55Z")
For what it’s worth, I have no idea why the OP called me out. I don’t know any more about archaeology than the next guy, and in fact this thread is the first I’ve heard of this particular site. I don’t think that **Stranger on a Train** knows particularly much about the topic, either, but I can’t speak for him. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/27 "2018-08-30T20:25:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Let’s get one thing clear - whatever culture built Göbekli Tepe was \*not \*a civilization, and may have had little influence on the civilization that \*did \*develop in the region millennia later (or, it might, but there aren’t any clear cultural traces one can point to). For now, it’s basically _sui generis_, and while it does have a lot of interesting things to say about the development of religion and community behaviour pre-agriculture, it hasn’t overthrown everything else we know about the PPNA and settlement growth. Nothing’s “down the drain”, that’s rank hyperbole. Not true. wiki: _Göbekli Tepe is regarded by some as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change the understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, “Göbekli Tepe changes everything”.[2][43] If indeed the site was built by hunter-gatherers as some researchers believe then it would mean that the ability to erect monumental complexes was within the capacities of these sorts of groups which would overturn previous assumptions. Some researchers believe that the construction of Göbekli Tepe may have contributed to the later development of urban civilization. As excavator Klaus Schmidt put it: “First came the temple, then the city.”[44]_ > **[Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple?](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/)** > > Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey's stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization P\*redating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization… To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies. The immensity of the undertaking at Gobekli Tepe reinforces that view. Schmidt says the monuments could not have been built by ragged bands of hunter-gatherers. To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed. Hence the eventual emergence of settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago. “This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later,” says Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder, who excavated Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement 300 miles from Gobekli Tepe. “You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies.” - > **[Turkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?](https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2018/08/03/turkeys-gobekli-tepe-is-this-the-worlds-first-architecture)** > > Scholars say the organisation needed to build the 12,000-year-old temple may mark the beginnings of class society and patriarchy \*Göbekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers, apparently before the Agricultural Revolution when fully permanent settlements came into being with plant cultivation and animal herding. Rather than architecture being the product of organised societies, as has long been thought, there is new thinking that, in fact, it may have been the organisation needed to build on such a scale that helped usher in agriculture and settled society. - ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2018, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/28 "2018-08-30T20:28:58Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For what it’s worth, I have no idea why the OP called me out. Perhaps it seems appropriate, based on your name? ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/29 "2018-08-30T20:33:31Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > For what it’s worth, I have no idea why the OP called me out. I don’t know any more about archaeology than the next guy, and in fact this thread is the first I’ve heard of this particular site. I don’t think that **Stranger on a Train** knows particularly much about the topic, either, but I can’t speak for him. You’re both pretty darn strong on science and presenting facts and not opinions. That was my thought when I read the Op. ---
**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:** [August 30, 2018, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/30 "2018-08-30T23:45:39Z")
I’ve been fascinated by the site (which was _not_ a city) ever since I first heard of it a few years ago, but there isn’t really a heck of a lot known about it yet, and only a small percentage of it has been excavated. This is one of those cases where we are probably decades away from having a good overview. [Here](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gobekli-tepe-the-worlds-first-temple-83613665/) [are](https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2011/06/gobeki-tepe/) two of the better articles on the site, if you haven’t seen them. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/31 "2018-08-31T04:12:05Z")
Of course we know so little about prehistory… One point I wonder about is about the “Venus of Willendorf”. This is a small carving of limestone. The anatomically correct overall body shape details suggest it is based on real life - which means that at least some women even 30,000 years ago were eating enough to become 21st century America level of obese. Again, very different from our hunter-gatherer subsistence image. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/32 "2018-08-31T05:21:46Z")
I guess this destroys my theory that in early March of 11787 BC every human chipped their flint points into flint plowshares and planted wheat and stopped living in small tribal groups constantly moving to maintain their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. So someone will have to develop some kind new concept of humans gradually changing from nomadic hunter gatherers into civilized farmers. Or is that idea just too far out to be reasonable? ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/33 "2018-08-31T06:57:34Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I guess this destroys my theory that in early March of 11787 BC every human chipped their flint points into flint plowshares and planted wheat and stopped living in small tribal groups constantly moving to maintain their hunter-gatherer lifestyle. So someone will have to develop some kind new concept of humans gradually changing from nomadic hunter gatherers into civilized farmers. Or is that idea just too far out to be reasonable? A new concept has already been developed and is now widely accepted among scientists and professionals. It simply hasn’t filtered through to the general public yet. See the [article](https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/) I posted above. (Skip to Part 4 of the article if you’re not interested in how this relates to theories of inequality and ideas of primitive ‘innocence’ presented in some pop-sci bestsellers.) > [@](#): > > … > > Before the beginning of what’s called the Upper Palaeolithic we really have no idea what most human social life was like. Much of our evidence comprises scattered fragments of worked stone, bone, and a few other durable materials. Different hominin species coexisted; it’s not clear if any ethnographic analogy might apply. Things only begin to come into any kind of focus in the Upper Palaeolithic itself, which begins around 45,000 years ago, and encompasses the peak of glaciation and global cooling (c. 20,000 years ago) known as the Last Glacial Maximum. This last great Ice Age was then followed by the onset of warmer conditions and gradual retreat of the ice sheets, leading to our current geological epoch, the Holocene. More clement conditions followed, creating the stage on which Homo sapiens – having already colonised much of the Old World – completed its march into the New, reaching the southern shores of the Americas by around 15,000 years ago. > > So, what do we actually know about this period of human history? Much of the earliest substantial evidence for human social organisation in the Palaeolithic derives from Europe, where our species became established alongside Homo neanderthalensis, prior to the latter’s extinction around 40,000 BC. (The concentration of data in this part of the world most likely reflects a historical bias of archaeological investigation, rather than anything unusual about Europe itself). At that time, and through the Last Glacial Maximum, the habitable parts of Ice Age Europe looked more like Serengeti Park in Tanzania than any present-day European habitat. South of the ice sheets, between the tundra and the forested shorelines of the Mediterranean, the continent was divided into game-rich valleys and steppe, seasonally traversed by migrating herds of deer, bison, and woolly mammoth. Prehistorians have pointed out for some decades – to little apparent effect – that the human groups inhabiting these environments had nothing in common with those blissfully simple, egalitarian bands of hunter-gatherers, still routinely imagined to be our remote ancestors. > > To begin with, there is the undisputed existence of rich burials, extending back in time to the depths of the Ice Age. Some of these, such as the 25,000-year-old graves from Sungir, east of Moscow, have been known for many decades and are justly famous. Felipe Fernández-Armesto, who reviewed Creation of Inequality for The Wall Street Journal, expresses his reasonable amazement at their omission: ‘Though they know that the hereditary principle predated agriculture, Mr. Flannery and Ms. Marcus cannot quite shed the Rousseauian illusion that it started with sedentary life. Therefore they depict a world without inherited power until about 15,000 B.C. while ignoring one of the most important archaeological sites for their purpose’. For dug into the permafrost beneath the Palaeolithic settlement at Sungir was the grave of a middle-aged man buried, as Fernández-Armesto observes, with ‘stunning signs of honor’ … Such findings appear to have no significant place in any of the books so far considered. Downplaying them, or reducing them to footnotes, might be more easy to forgive were Sungir an isolated find. It is not. Comparably rich burials are by now attested from Upper Palaeolithic rock shelters and open-air settlements across much of western Eurasia, from the Don to the Dordogne. > > … > > No less intriguing is the sporadic but compelling evidence for monumental architecture, stretching back to the Last Glacial Maximum. The idea that one could measure ‘monumentality’ in absolute terms is of course as silly as the idea of quantifying Ice Age expenditure in dollars and cents. It is a relative concept, which makes sense only within a particular scale of values and prior experiences. The Pleistocene has no direct equivalents in scale to the Pyramids of Giza or the Roman Colloseum. But it does have buildings that, by the standards of the time, could only have been considered public works, implying sophisticated design and the coordination of labour on an impressive scale. > > … > > Still more astonishing are the stone temples of Göbekli Tepe, … > > … > > A wider look at the archaeological evidence suggests a key to resolving the dilemma. It lies in the seasonal rhythms of prehistoric social life. Most of the Palaeolithic sites discussed so far are associated with evidence for annual or biennial periods of aggregation, linked to the migrations of game herds – whether woolly mammoth, steppe bison, reindeer or (in the case of Göbekli Tepe) gazelle – as well as cyclical fish-runs and nut harvests. At less favourable times of year, at least some of our Ice Age ancestors no doubt really did live and forage in tiny bands. But there is overwhelming evidence to show that at others they congregated en masse within the kind of ‘micro-cities’ found at Dolní Věstonice, in the Moravian basin south of Brno, feasting on a super-abundance of wild resources, engaging in complex rituals, ambitious artistic enterprises, and trading minerals, marine shells, and animal pelts over striking distances. Western European equivalents of these seasonal aggregation sites would be the great rock shelters of the French Périgord and the Cantabrian coast, with their famous paintings and carvings, which similarly formed part of an annual round of congregation and dispersal. > > Such seasonal patterns of social life endured, long after the ‘invention of agriculture’ is supposed to have changed everything. > > … ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/34 "2018-08-31T07:47:11Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not true. > > wiki: Ian Hodder of Stanford University said, “Göbekli Tepe changes everything”.[2][43] If indeed the site was built by hunter-gatherers as some researchers believe then it would mean that the ability to erect monumental complexes was within the capacities of these sorts of groups which would overturn previous assumptions. I’ve already dealt with why this is such an ignorant assumption. If that’s what the “Göbekli Tepe changes everything” argument is based on, it’s based on a provably invalid assumption. > [@](#): > > Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey’s stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization… > To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies. I’m afraid science doesn’t - or better, shouldn’t - work that way. Yes, there is now a novel theory of the rise of religion vs civilization. But Göbekli Tepe doesn’t \*prove \*it. You know what would? finding more like it. We don’t \*know \*it’s a temple. It could be a memorial complex to a dynasty of “Big Men”, built by slaves. And don’t tell me HGs can’t have slaves, or social stratification, because that’s trivial to show. > [@](#): > > The immensity of the undertaking at Gobekli Tepe reinforces that view. Schmidt says the monuments could not have been built by ragged bands of hunter-gatherers. To carve, erect and bury rings of seven-ton stone pillars would have required hundreds of workers, all needing to be fed and housed. Like I said before, this just displays Schmidt’s ignorance of the much more complex non-agricultural societies that have existed. > [@](#): > > Hence the eventual emergence of settled communities in the area around 10,000 years ago. “This shows sociocultural changes come first, agriculture comes later,” says Stanford University archaeologist Ian Hodder, who excavated Catalhoyuk, a prehistoric settlement 300 miles from Gobekli Tepe. “You can make a good case this area is the real origin of complex Neolithic societies.” Nowhere in there do I see any explanation, or even an attempt at one, for the \*millennia \*gap between Göbekli Tepe and the Anatolian city-building civilization. So if one can “make a good case”, he should make it, with \*evidence \*of cultural continuity. Not just state it like it’s already been done. > [@](#): > > [Turkey's Göbekli Tepe: is this the world’s first architecture?](https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/is-this-the-world-s-first-architecture) > \*Göbekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers, apparently before the Agricultural Revolution when fully permanent settlements came into being with plant cultivation and animal herding. Rather than architecture being the product of organised societies, as has long been thought, there is new thinking that, in fact, it may have been the organisation needed to build on such a scale that helped usher in agriculture and settled society. Only an archaeological ignoramus would think HGs couldn’t build permanent settlements. I’ve already cited 3 such cultures in this thread. Once again, let me state that I find Göbekli Tepe fascinating, and I do think it has a lot to teach us. But I find the argument that it’s a “total upset of everything we know” is based on utter ignorance of other complex HG cultures, and I have no respect for that. ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/35 "2018-08-31T07:55:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Nowhere in there do I see any explanation, or even an attempt at one, for the \*millennia \*gap between Göbekli Tepe and the Anatolian city-building civilization. I just want to clarify that I mean between the founding of the one, and the founding of the other. I’m aware there’s “only” a half-millennium gap between the final Göbekli Tepe infill and the founding of Çatalhöyük. ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/36 "2018-08-31T08:04:44Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > A new concept has already been developed and is now widely accepted among scientists and professionals. It simply hasn’t filtered through to the general public yet. > > See the [article](https://www.eurozine.com/change-course-human-history/) I posted above. > > (Skip to Part 4 of the article if you’re not interested in how this relates to theories of inequality and ideas of primitive ‘innocence’ presented in some pop-sci bestsellers.) You can even see traces of this locally - [Kasteelberg](http://www.academia.edu/1090915/Feasting_on_Kasteelberg_Early_herders_on_the_west_coast_of_South_Africa) on the Cape West Coast has clear evidence of seasonal gatherings to feast (of seals, in this case) with continuity of locale from at least semi-sedentary HGs (as evidenced by potsherds) through to early sheep herders. The theory there is also that the feasts themselves served as loci of attraction for population densification, and the cultural developments were a resultant. So, in a site like Göbekli Tepe, the implication is that the people were all there anyway \*primarily \*for the feasting (rather than the feasting being a byproduct of having to feed labourers who were \*initially \*there for religious reasons). Then they go bored… ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/37 "2018-08-31T08:14:56Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Of course we know so little about prehistory… One point I wonder about is about the “Venus of Willendorf”. This is a small carving of limestone. The anatomically correct overall body shape details suggest it is based on real life - which means that at least some women even 30,000 years ago were eating enough to become 21st century America level of obese. Again, very different from our hunter-gatherer subsistence image. The Venus figurines (there are many similar ones) don’t really show modern obesity. More likely a combo of pregnancy and steatopygia through a highly stylized lens. ---
**Author:** ![Grim\_Render](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a87d85/32.png) [@Grim\_Render](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grim_Render)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/38 "2018-08-31T09:34:11Z")
Interesting things about Göbekli Tepe and its environments: Genetic fingerprinting of the worlds first, or one of the first, agricultural crop, Einkorn wheat has shown that it converges on a domestication point about 9500 BC. And a location within 30 km of Göbekli Tepe. A days walk. Apparently the back-fill of the Göbekli Tepe contains a lot of remains of pestle and mortars, implying large-scale consumption of plant matter. We are getting more and more information about the mysterious Basal Eurasians from DNA these days. It appears the DNA percentage gets higher the closer old remains are to the Ur-Schatt valley (Persian Gulf today). These people seem to have stayed fairly isolated genetically until about 15 - 13 000 years ago when the DNA expands outwards. I would be totally unsurprised if we get DNA from the builders of Göbekli Tepe and it shows a higher percentage of Basal Eurasian than even the Natufians. Basal Eurasian DNA seems strongly associated with the transition to sedentary life in the Levant. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 2018, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/39 "2018-08-31T11:54:16Z")
For a long time it was thought that the end of the last glaciation about 12,000-10,000BP was a “special” time. That all sorts of stuff happened around then and soon afterwards. People entered the Americas, agriculture was developed, etc. Things like Göbekli Tepe, evidence of earlier humans in the Americas, especially early pottery finds like [Jomon Pottery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C5%8Dmon_period#Earliest_pottery) (c1650BP), etc. are telling a different story. One of the things with sciences like archeology is that you tend to look where you expect to find something. The list of places to look should be expanding now as it’s clear that there was a lot more going on well before the last glaciation ended. ---
**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:** [August 31, 2018, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508/40 "2018-08-31T12:49:16Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > Of course we know so little about prehistory… One point I wonder about is about the “Venus of Willendorf”. This is a small carving of limestone. The anatomically correct overall body shape details suggest it is based on real life - which means that at least some women even 30,000 years ago were eating enough to become 21st century America level of obese. Again, very different from our hunter-gatherer subsistence image. And it wasn’t just a one-off–[similar things were being made across Europe and Asia over a period of 25,000 years or more](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_figurines). Of course, depictions of naked chicks aren’t _that_ suprising. What I find more weird is the theme of [pooping animal atlatlii](http://rockartblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/a-unique-theme-in-paleolithic-portable.html?m=1). (That is a great blog, BTW–well worth browsing.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gobekli-tepe-what-do-we-really-know/820508.md?page=3)