Göbekli Tepe and the need to rethink prehistory

[Flinn]

I guess by now almost everybody has heard about Göbekli Tepe.

From one side I'm surprised how little relevance it is given to it by mainstream media (atl in Italy), from the other I can understand that, if confirmed, many of the discoveries made there will revolutionize most of what we have believed so far about the evolution of human civilization and in general about prehistory. I can also understand that maybe the Turkish government is not really keen about having many foreign researches in the area (I genuinely don't know, I'm just speculating), but in any case I can see a level of apathy from western researchers that is quite unsettling, to be honest. This only adds fuel to the narrative of pseudo archaeologists/historians such as Graham Hancock, and that's unnerving as well, especially considering how popular the man is now, mostly thanks to his participation on the Joe Rogan's podcast.

What I'm trying to say here is that official historiography needs to speed up the procedures, so to say, as much as possible, atl in terms of news coverage of what it's being discovered, what reputed historians are saying about those discoveries and so on and on. I do get that academic protocols are extremely slow and that all the needs for peer reviews and the likes are slowing everything down in dramatic ways, but that's a problem that should be addressed as well: I know this is coming as a controversial statement, but science (in general I mean) really needs to adapt to modern times, lest it will be subject to constant beating as it happened during the Covid pandemic.

Anyways, sorry for the rant. Backing to the matter in topic, what is being discovered so far is pretty shocking:

- the oldest part of the site could be as old as 13.500 years, it predates the oldest known monumental building so far discovered, the Sumerian Ziggurats, by atl 5000 years. For comparison, that's a gap in time just like from pre-dynastic Egypt to today!
- this is not the only site in the area showing similar discoveries, there might be tens of them, some have even been excavated, in particular Karahan_Tepe, which is said to be a "twin" location to Göbekli Tepe.
- evidences shown that the people living there were still hunter gatherers, and that fully counters the concept that "cities" and sedentary lifestyle is a direct result of agricultural revolution (see it as: abundance of food generated by the agriculture allowed people to divert their full attention from the needs of survival, thus having the possibility to specialize into artisan/art jobs).
- previously believed to be "only" a religious site, it has been later demonstrated that it was an actual dwelling, with houses (even including some 2 stories ones), burials, as well as a system of water tanks and distribution with conduits.
- the site has been inhabited over a span of atl 2000 years, and abandoned around 8000 BC latest; originally it was speculated that the site was intentionally buried, like to be preserved, but subsequent studies have shown evidenced of floods and other natural events which might have forced the last population to leave the place

Personally, I found the idea of a 10.000 old "civilization" (we might argue about the implications of this term, whether it requires or not the presence of a written form of communication, for instance, as well as recorded laws, a social hierarchy etc) to be very shaking of what we have been believing so far, though I have to be honest the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me.

First, I'm not surprised at all that under very positive conditions (abundance of food, no matter if hunted/gathered or farmed/bred; stability of climate; relative stability of population size; lack of external competitors) humans have the ability to prosperate and socially evolve very fast. Second, the fact that we are way too confident about our "knowledge" to be superior and to necessarily include all that was known in the past, it's a silly misconception, IMO.. I don't have to go that far to prove the idea: all I have to do is to think of some knowledge my grandparents had about agriculture, or some group of skills like woodworking, which are already lost in my generation, roughly 50 years after..). Besides, admitting that humanity was able to build similar monumental structures millennia before the Ziggurats and the Pyramids, helps put in perspective those later megalithic structures: in other words, it look less amazing to think that the Egyptians built the Great Pyramid "only" like 8000 years after Göbekli Tepe, doesn't it? Not a case the good Zahi Awass is on the side of those who completely negate the historical authenticity of those sites..

[sumskilz]

The megalithic architecture at Göbekli Tepe has been C-14 dated to ~9,000–8,000 BCE using matter sealed in the lime plaster/mortar used for floors, so beginning ~11,000 years ago. This would be during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic when the transition from foraging to agriculture took place in the Fertile Crescent. You might see dates 500–600 years earlier than that, but those were uncalibrated dates that didn’t consider old wood effect. I have seen Turkish archaeologists throw around 12,000 years ago as the date of earliest occupation, but I don’t know what that or any earlier date is based on.

In any case, there have been no domestic plants found in the earliest phase of occupation. That’s to be expected, considering the date, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t cultivate plants that were at that point indistinguishable from the local wild varieties. Presumably, cultivation began with small scale supplementary gardens, as there is evidence for elsewhere.

[Flinn]

In any case, there have been no domestic plants found in the earliest phase of occupation. That’s to be expected, considering the date, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t cultivate plants that were at that point indistinguishable from the local wild varieties. Presumably, cultivation began with small scale supplementary gardens, as there is evidence for elsewhere.

ah that's a good point, indeed it will take generations for the cultivated breeds to see a sensible genetic modification from the original wild breeds.. but that in any case anticipates the beginning of agriculture by thousands of years, does it not? Or am i missing something? (I probably am, I mean I've been taught that agriculture becomes a thing around 5000 BC, with the Mesopotamians, but according to your statement it happened 6000 years before)

However, I know you are a historian, so what do you think of the lack of comments from western historiography? Not my words, but as far as I know most keep a prudent silence in wait for more evidences to come. I'm genuinely curious about your opinion.

[sumskilz]

ah that's a good point, indeed it will take generations for the cultivated breeds to see a sensible genetic modification from the original wild breeds.. but that in any case anticipates the beginning of agriculture by thousands of years, does it not? Or am i missing something? (I probably am, I mean I've been taught that agriculture becomes a thing around 5000 BC, with the Mesopotamians, but according to your statement it happened 6000 years before)

However, I know you are a historian, so what do you think of the lack of comments from western historiography? Not my words, but as far as I know most keep a prudent silence in wait for more evidences to come. I'm genuinely curious about your opinion.

The earliest morphologically domestic emmer and barley date to ~10,350–10,050 years ago. Both were found in the Levant. Ancient chickpeas and lentils are more difficult to identify as morphologically domestic, but large storages of them appear in the Levant about that same time. Goat herding also started in the Zagros Mountains about that time.

The charred remains of bread made from wild einkorn wheat have been found in the southern Levant as far back as 14,500 years ago, so hunter gatherers had apparently been making bread a few thousand years before domestication.

I guess you could say that agriculture is necessary for but not sufficient for civilization, at least how it’s been traditionally defined. Sumer gets the credit because they were the first to develop writing.

[Flinn]

The earliest morphologically domestic emmer and barley date to ~10,350–10,050 years ago. Both were found in the Levant. Ancient chickpeas and lentils are more difficult to identify as morphologically domestic, but large storages of them appear in the Levant about that same time. Goat herding also started in the Zagros Mountains about that time.

The charred remains of bread made from wild einkorn wheat have been found in the southern Levant as far back as 14,500 years ago, so hunter gatherers had apparently been making bread a few thousand years before domestication.

I guess you could say that agriculture is necessary for but not sufficient for civilization, at least how it’s been traditionally defined. Sumer gets the credit because they were the first to develop writing.

You see, this is a kind of info that is lacking in "our" history, ATL as far as I know no one is being that specific about those dates (I'm talking about middle and high school history, not University grade, though I honestly dunno if the latter actually has a similar level of detailed info anyways). However, let's say that actual historiography already considered possible a first form of agriculture back in those days, and we'll be good.

It still remains that those settlements predates the oldest known cities so far of thousands of years. I mean, the water distribution system is a pretty advanced feature, under certain conditions it's even very surprising: the Romans did have aqueducts back in 500 BC, but in the village were I live now fresh water on pipes arrived only on the 1950's.. that's just an extreme example I know, but gives the idea that only a well organized society can and will take care of stocking and distributing fresh water for public use. I also wonder how they managed to cut those stones, shape them and carve them, supposedly (and there's no evidence to make us think otherwise) they must have used stone tools; also, while it seems that the quarries used to obtain those stones aren't that far away (atl compared to other cases) it is still surprising to think how they might have moved and placed those heavy stones (largest are 15 tons IIRC).

Also, previously I forgot to comment on this

The megalithic architecture at Göbekli Tepe has been C-14 dated to ~9,000–8,000 BCE using matter sealed in the lime plaster/mortar used for floors, so beginning ~11,000 years ago. This would be during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic when the transition from foraging to agriculture took place in the Fertile Crescent. You might see dates 500–600 years earlier than that, but those were uncalibrated dates that didn’t consider old wood effect. I have seen Turkish archaeologists throw around 12,000 years ago as the date of earliest occupation, but I don’t know what that or any earlier date is based on.

Indeed. One thing that I quickly noticed is that since when the first info about carbon dating appeared, both the English and Italian pages of wikipedia stated that "but that might have been applied (the plaster) way after the site has been built, so that it might be much older".. I honestly find it a stretch, to say the least.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

My take away from Gobekli Tepe is that there were probably more complex societies and political entities going back to "pre-history". This seems clear from Gobekli Tepe but also sites like Stonehenge.

A really obvious one here is the Bronze Age Tollense Valley in Germany which shows a level of sophistication that does indicate that even though these were tribal societies, they were not the disparate tribal people which we associate with that era. It actually isn't too surprising.

If we look at the Americas at the time of European contact... these people were practically in the stone age yet we see some rather advanced political entities like the Aztec Triple Alliance, the Incan Empire, the Iroquois Confederacy, some weaker tribal coalitions like the Huron-Wendat, the Powhatan, and so on and so forth.

Even archaeologically we can see the development of several pre-Incan states in Peru and the surrounding countries. Cahokia is a really obvious one, as a city in the Mississipi going back centuries. The one that disturbs our perception of these societies and places is the fabled, and now more or less confirmed, ancient cities of the Amazon.

So yes, fabulous megaliths aside, it seems that peoples were organizing, forming villages and cities, abandoning cities, changing from nomads to pastoralists to agrarian societies and vice versa, as well as creating intricate networks and political entities between cities, villages, and tribal peoples.

If Europeans had not documented it, we probably would not know that the Iroquios Confederacy existed as a polity, nor the Comanche or Apache etc. Archaeology would have a hard time proving it. We can assume that this has been the case in the Old World for millennia as well.