Story here.
That’s a fascinating find, but I’d hardly say it’s going to change everything. It is going to shake up the field a lot, that’s for sure. That’s a good thing. I love the quote from the Wikipedia article - “First came the temple, then the city”. Succinct summary of how this turns conventional thought on the development of culture and society. Thanks for the “find”, LOUNE.
Of course, it’s worth noting that only around 2% of the site’s been excavated so far, so the alien spacecraft may still be waiting to be found… 
Well, it’s got possibilities. It’s also older than any similar thing they’ve found.
I’d also really like to see a cite better than that site (which is very, very, pro-nutcase: it claims that ghosts are real, that we faked the moon landings, people have psychic powers, and that a number of cryptozoological beasties are real.) Claims that all of science is about to be rewritten because of [insert wild theory of the day here] are pretty much par for its course.
Oddly, they seem to buy that we’re not being visited by aliens, though.
Googling for more hits tends to find lots of credulous articles and claims that Gobekli Tepe is actually the Garden of Eden, but very few scholarly articles–much more from places like “the Oneness Committment – co-creating a happy world.”
Neat.
I remain unconvinced. While the discovery of a pre-agricultural society that worshipped Izod golf shirts may be hugely significant in archaelogical and fashion circles, I am forced to question whether such a revelation will truly change “everything.” Will it affect my suspicion that my supervisor stole my Swingline stapler? Will it change the fact that I’m allergic to cats? Will it miraculously bring forth tasty fruit on my thus-far barren Japanese plum tree? I suspect not.
It is exactly this sort of heavy reliance on needless hyperbole and exaggeration that has earned archaeology its longstanding reputation as the oft-inebriated bullshit artist of the sciences. Well, that and their tendency to explain everything by freely invoking crystal skull technology. Plus of course the constant inebriation.
It’ll make you want to huff cats. It has the power to change everything, including diapers.
Don’t fuck with archaeology, fella.
I can’t believe how changed everything is. Red is yellow and purple is ointment. Wee-haw!
Archaeology turned me into a newt!
A newt?
I got better.
Explain to me again how sheep’s bladders can be employed to prevent earthquakes?
This thread is getting very silly!
In all seriousness, isn’t this an earthshaking discovery, at least in the realm of archeology? If a civilization was sufficiently developed that long ago, to build what was found, and the dating turns out to be accurate, one would have to wonder what happened between the time it was built, and the traditionally accepted time, thousands of years later, when the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations got going.
It’s very interesting, but it doesn’t shake archaeology to pieces. There are quite a few contemporary sites that exhibited settled human habitation at the end of the Pliestocene.
There’s Abu Hureyra in present day Syria, where it’s believed you can see the transition from a sedentary hunter gatherer society to an agricultural one.
The first town we know about is Jericho which seems to have started up around 8000 BC, with city walls built c. 7500 BC.
A few more thousand years later, there was megalithic building going on on Malta.
4800 BC - Tumulus of Bougon
4500 BC - Barnenez
4000 BC - Anta Grande do Zambujeiro
3300 BC - Carnac
3000 BC - Stonehenge
There’s a lot of stuff still out there, even after more than 5,000 years. An awful lot more has simply disappeared.
I feel pretty jaded by the way that everything automatically gets lumped into the ‘for ritual purposes’ category.
I’m sure a lot of mundane, huddle-together-against-the-weather-and-darkness type of dwellings get miscategorised as ‘holy temples’, simply because while people are huddling together against the weather and darkness, they will find things to do with their hands - such as carving amusing little statues of animals and people, or scratching geometric patterns or pictorial art into the walls.
People have always done this - and sometimes it is inspired by ritual, but a lot of other times, it’s just a way of whiling away time when you’re not required to be working, or the prevailing conditions don’t permit active work.
We have ornaments, toys, knick-nacks, art and fancy decorative embellishment - our ancestors in modern history had ornaments, toys, knick-nacks, art and fancy decorative embellishment - our ancestors in ancient history seemingly only had ‘objects and markings of ritual significance’. Doesn’t make sense.
IANIJ, but I think the term “for ritual purposes” is used a sort of cop out term these days. You use it for any building you can’t otherwise pin down. Houses are easy to spot. A flint knapping factory is a give away, but if you find a large building with no obvious purpose, you’re left with two options:
“I have no freakin’ idea what this building was used for - maybe it was a temple, maybe it was a pub, or maybe a bus stop, but other than the fact it looks like it was probably important back in the day - not a single idea pops into my head. Look, I’m as clueless as you are”
or
“It was probably used for ritual purposes”
Option 2 is the preferred answer.