by VorJack
Newsweek is running an article about an incredible archeological find in southeastern Turkey. Called Gobekli Tepe (“potbelly hill,”) it appears to be the oldest temple ever discovered. If the current archeological team is correct in i’s dating, then the temple was originally constructed in 11,500 BCE.
By most estimations, this is before the invention of pottery, metal tools and the development of animal herding. It’s 6,000 years older than Stonehenge, 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid. Çatalhöyük, considered humanity’s first true city (population 6,000+) and which lies about 300 miles away, wouldn’t be constructed for another 4,000 years.
The primary spokesman for the archeologists is Klaus Schmidt, both in the Newsweek article and in an older Smithsonian article. I may be wrong, but he’s being a little too effusive about the nature and purpose of the site, given that only 5% has been excavated. Since as of yet the site shows no sign of habitations or living arrangements, Schmidt is arguing that this was a purely religious site for people where were still largely nomadic and unsettled.
Schmidt’s thesis is simple and bold: it was the urge to worship that brought mankind together in the very first urban conglomerations. The need to build and maintain this temple, he says, drove the builders to seek stable food sources, like grains and animals that could be domesticated, and then to settle down to guard their new way of life. The temple begat the city.
Obviously, this turns a lot of the current thinking on it’s head. It was thought that people would settle into villages, then begin to develop the trappings of culture like art and religion.
It’s still early days yet. We could be seeing a repetition of something that happened at Çatalhöyük, where an early archeologist claimed to have found numerous signs of Goddess worship. This grabbed a lot of attention, and he had to walk those statements back when it came time for the final report. Still, when the archeologists returned, they found that Çatalhöyük had become a sacred site and a destination for Goddess worshipers. A strained dialogue continues to this day.
I can’t remember the name of the author but there is a book out there called “Uncorking the Past”. In this book it explains the authors view on how alcohol was responsible for the first settlements. Could these to factors be combined or did they develop independently in different parts of the world?
I know good scotch keeps me civilized.
Seriously, I always liked the ‘fermented’ theory of human social evolution. The original smallest groups probably started collecting grains and storing them for the future. All it would take is making a paste, and letting some wild yeast settle in it. A good buzz would be enough to launch a few religions, thus kick starting larger habitation, codified rules and cohesive communities.
[Sorry John, no evangelizing please.]
Obviously the date for this template is wrong — how could it of existed before the earth was even created? Scientists and their inaccurate dating methods…
;)
You beat me to it! But look, god is the reason for civilizations, food production, and animal husbandry… it all makes sense!
The dating is wrong because Satan put it there to mislead us. It’s a PAGAN temple, after all!
Cynic that I am, I really doubt that people were driven to live in large groups because they needed to worship together. If this were true, then why haven’t we seen small tribes in the Americas or Africa coalesce? Many of these groups have religions very similar to those of neighboring tribes. No, I’m going to go with the drive to control resources and territory as the motivation, religion as a means to this end. Think in terms of Shaka Zulu’s wars or the Arabs conquering the Middle East. Maybe beer brewing was responsible for settlements larger than a few families, but the same could be said for the desire to have a steady supply of meat.
Anyway, whatever the age or size of this site, I hope it will shed more light on the megalithic culture.
This was built back in the days before paganism, when all of Mankind knew who the True God was. Ergo, this must be a temple to Yahweh.
(Wooo! Still got it!)
You are correct mike. I told them to build it and worship me or I would smite them.
Well, something smote then anyway, from the looks of things.
I only smited (smote?) people at the time they were writing the bible. Other than that I’ve pretty much kept to myself.
“…I’ve pretty much kept to myself.”
LOL! I’ll say!
You’re on the right track. Sheck out the comments on this archeological site by Andis Kaulins, a Von Daniken successor who finds Hebrew footprints instead of alien ones:
From his Lexline journal:-
“I am still working on my formal write-up of my Gobekli Tepe decipherment which will show that Göbekli Tepe is astronomical in nature and oriented to the stars ca. 3800 B.C.
I conclude that this location near Urfa is where the Hebrew Calendar began. Gobekli Tepe is only 12 kilometers (about 7.5 miles) from Urfa (currently called Sanliurfa or Edessa), the legendary birthplace of the Biblical Abraham, and only 38 kilometers (23.75 miles) from his later residence at Haran. (see Am Anfang war Anatolien)
I initially dated the installation of the standing stones by what I have deciphered to be the relief depiction of the appearance of Halley’s Comet on one of the stones, which by its location on that stone can only be ca. 3800 B.C.”
Geez….eggheads….
Can’t you see it’s a chariot drive thru for wine….?
Spoilsport.
“In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, lived a strange race of people… the Druids. No one knows who they were or.. what they were doing… but their legacy remains, hewn in the living rock of Stonehenge.” -Nigel Tufnel
This is what bugs me about archeology over all the other disciplines of science. The jumping to conclusions.
Astronomers will gather 100% of the data, and bang their heads together for years before offering up a paper, much less a press release. Yet here is this guy, with only 5% uncovered, and he is already making pronunciations about what it means, when it was built, etc.
I think that popular historical archeology (like the big hubbub over King Tut when he was discovered), and movies like Indiana Jones have created a mythology about archeologists. They seem to expect to stick their shovel in the dirt and uncover instant knowledge. I’m sure in university, they are trained to be careful and slow excavators, but that mythology is still stuck in their craniums. Science journalism is no better, I think they encourage scientists to make this bold early predictions.
That point aside, I look forward to seeing future papers written after most of the site is uncovered. No doubt we will have to ‘rewrite the story of human evolution’ many times before the dig is complete.
Bluntly archaeologists do it because they have to. It’s not a well funded discipline, and if you want to get money to keep digging, you big up your site as The Most Important Archaeological Discovery Ever. Doesn’t matter if it turns out not to be once you’ve dug, point is you got the money to dig.
Good point. Money is always a problem in research.
Its a shame that science can’t profit the way sports does. The separate ‘teams’ of science should licence official logos, and have competitions for who can make the most interesting discovery.
“Obviously, this turns a lot of the current thinking on it’s head.”
Except that Göbekli Tepe has been under excavation since the 1990s, and well enough known to get into popular science books a few years ago (I heard about it through reading ‘After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000 – 5000 BC, which was published in 2006). So it only overturns current thinking if that thinking either (a) predates the 1990s or (b) is being thought about by people who know nothing about prehistory.
I like this blog, but your consistent ahistoricity gets irritating.
Also, it should be its, not it’s in that quote.
Except that Göbekli Tepe has been under excavation since the 1990s
I’m aware of that, but for better or worse we’re stuck using current articles and other such media for information. These are always going to be at least a decade behind the cutting edge of any technical field, be it archeology, science or history.
Both the Newsweek and Smithsonian articles discuss “new findings” that are “beginning to reshape the slow-moving consensus of archeology.” There didn’t seem to be any point in discussing the fact that this transition in thinking has been ongoing for a while now. Most of us are unaware of these discussions, and bringing them up now seemed an unnecessary distraction.
I like this blog, but your consistent ahistoricity gets irritating.
That’s a heavy load to lay on someone who’s a public historian. Most of the posts I write are either directly pertaining to history or else informed by history. I do make mistakes. I do take shortcuts, as in this case, as I see those as necessary for condensing complex stories down into blog posts. But I am never unmindful of history.
Religion was NOT the cause of the people coming together to assist each other in survival.
Religion was the result of the gathering of people wanting answers to questions that the stability of ‘gathering together’ made relevant. As a solitary person trying to stay alive around tigers, g0d is irrelevant. Gathered together and free time on our hands allows questions to be asked and religion is formed and when ever an activity can lead to money/power it then gets corrupted and distorted, ie look at religion now.
And religion gives quick easy answers, science did not occur in any formal way until people had time to look at things in a slow methodological way.
“Religion was NOT the cause of the people coming together to assist each other in survival.”
I agree. I believe fear and paranoia – and the need for emotional and physical support – drove people into tightly-knit groups.
“Religion was the result of the gathering of people wanting answers to questions that the stability of ‘gathering together’ made relevant.”
Maybe, in part, this is correct; however, I think something else was going on. I believe our ancestors were under a lot of stress. Naturally, mental-health may have been a problem. Disorders like paranoia would have been common – after all, they had a lot to fear. To some extent, paranoia would have served their survival, e.g., “something” is in that cave(the cave was empty) – don’t go there!
As time progressed – and as their mental-health deteriorated – those “somethings” that had manifested in the paranoid minds of our ancestors, were given names – and became viewed as living entities whom brought disaster, disease, suffering and death. So, these manifestations of their paranoid minds became something else to fear. The paranoia had now evolved into animistic paranoia[god belief].
Over the centuries, with its dogma and bizarre rituals, religion evolved as a form of medication: where practising appeased the imaginary woo-woo – easing the anxieties manifesting within the paranoid minds of the animists. Needless to say, failure to practise risked inviting the wrath of woo-woo – increasing their anxieties and fears.
Religion, of course, is the by-product of animistic paranoia: a condition where sufferers imagine that something unseen is out to harm them. Religion was the result of a worsening of the animistic condition: the development of religion was the development of an obsessive–compulsive personality disorder. Because of the nature of these conditions, puritanical forms of OCPD would have also developed; making those who suffered from these conditions increasingly fearful – stressed – and dangerous. As their conditions became more severe, their religions became more extreme.
I believe the above is from where religion sprang.
CybrgnX: When were human beings that solitary? Human beings have always been social animals…and small clans were still interested in these kinds of issues.
Brian M:
When in the clan sized mode solitary hunting or small group hunting was common.
When the solitary hunter is out ‘there’ his main concern is the successful hunt and avoiding the tiger. He cares nothing for the questions of morality or g0d.
With the clan he has time to talk and think around the fire with his mates. But they are still too small and any ‘science’ is involved with a better spear. There are none to spare ask the BIG questions. So religion has the power. When groups really got big, there where resources to spare to get to the BIG questions but religion wasn’t about to give up its power base without a fight.
At least that’s the way I see when looking back thru history. And I freely admit to taking some things on authority.