Take that, Khufu and Druids
March 5, 2010 6:21 AM Subscribe
"Many people think that it changes everything…It overturns the whole apple cart. All our theories were wrong." The site isn't just old, it redefines old: the temple was built 11,500 years ago—a staggering 7,000 years before the Great Pyramid, and more than 6,000 years before Stonehenge first took shape.
(single page, Wikipedia, google image search)
This post was deleted for the following reason: Gobekli Dupe -- cortex
No one knows who they were... or what... they were doing.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:28 AM on March 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:28 AM on March 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
No one knows who they were... or what... they were doing.
This is their story.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:31 AM on March 5, 2010
This is their story.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:31 AM on March 5, 2010
No one knows who they were... or what... they were doing.
Archaeologists will probably say that about us 12,000 years from now.
posted by bwg at 6:31 AM on March 5, 2010
Archaeologists will probably say that about us 12,000 years from now.
posted by bwg at 6:31 AM on March 5, 2010
"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."
Hm. So, they pursued mysticism, meditation, and the priesthood early on, eh?
I always prefer to research the wheel and pottery ASAP, then rush straight to building my first library. Hopefully, I start off with either agriculture or fishing and mining for production, and don't have to go after animal husbandry too soon.
As for building military units, that can usually wait.
posted by markkraft at 6:34 AM on March 5, 2010 [7 favorites]
Hm. So, they pursued mysticism, meditation, and the priesthood early on, eh?
I always prefer to research the wheel and pottery ASAP, then rush straight to building my first library. Hopefully, I start off with either agriculture or fishing and mining for production, and don't have to go after animal husbandry too soon.
As for building military units, that can usually wait.
posted by markkraft at 6:34 AM on March 5, 2010 [7 favorites]
Oh FFS. I didn't even check my own tags! I thought this was new news. Delete away.
posted by DU at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2010
posted by DU at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2010
No one knows who they were... or what... they were doing.
Archaeologists will probably say that about us 12,000 years from now.
I'd be willing to say that about us right now.
posted by dortmunder at 6:52 AM on March 5, 2010 [6 favorites]
Standing on the hill at dawn, overseeing a team of 40 Kurdish diggers, the German-born archeologist waves a hand over his discovery here....Disputes are normal at the site—the workers, Schmidt laments, are divided into three separate clans who feud constantly.
Is it still the case that archeologists rule like white slave-drivers over a huge team of native laborers wearing rags? At least this guy found something for his story to be about.
posted by fuq at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2010
Is it still the case that archeologists rule like white slave-drivers over a huge team of native laborers wearing rags? At least this guy found something for his story to be about.
posted by fuq at 6:54 AM on March 5, 2010
Wow, I got that line way wrong. It's "but their legacy remains..." not "this is their story..."
Apologies for botching that one so badly.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:55 AM on March 5, 2010
Apologies for botching that one so badly.
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 6:55 AM on March 5, 2010
You fail at Spinal Tap, (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates. Your punishment is to get stuck inside a giant plastic pod and then pop out at the wrong moment.
posted by jokeefe at 7:00 AM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by jokeefe at 7:00 AM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]
Hmmm . . . deliberately buried.
What I don't understand is how they carbon date stone pillars.
posted by Man-Thing at 7:02 AM on March 5, 2010
What I don't understand is how they carbon date stone pillars.
posted by Man-Thing at 7:02 AM on March 5, 2010
The site is such an outlier that an American archeologist who stumbled on it in the 1960s simply walked away, unable to interpret what he saw.
Oops.
posted by sallybrown at 7:02 AM on March 5, 2010
Oops.
posted by sallybrown at 7:02 AM on March 5, 2010
NO, we're not gonna do fackin' Stone 'enge!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2010
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2010
Also, if
So far Schmidt has uncovered less than 5 percent of the site
couldn't all his theories turn out to be bunk?
posted by sallybrown at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2010
So far Schmidt has uncovered less than 5 percent of the site
couldn't all his theories turn out to be bunk?
posted by sallybrown at 7:04 AM on March 5, 2010
What I don't understand is how they carbon date stone pillars.
Yeah, I'm not sure either. Normally you can do this by the associated material (firepits, trash, etc). But the article says the site doesn't have any of that. Maybe there's like an ash layer on top from a known volcano eruption or something like that?
posted by DU at 7:07 AM on March 5, 2010
Yeah, I'm not sure either. Normally you can do this by the associated material (firepits, trash, etc). But the article says the site doesn't have any of that. Maybe there's like an ash layer on top from a known volcano eruption or something like that?
posted by DU at 7:07 AM on March 5, 2010
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
This theory really doesn't make much sense. I prefer the view of domestication outlined in Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which states that animals which are actually suitable for domestication (will breed in captivity, aren't man-eaters, can be kept together in herds, etc) are rare in nature and having them on your continent is a matter of luck. More to the point, domesticating animals is both non-obvious and difficult. So it seems wildly improbable to me that a civilization would build a huge monument that takes a large investment of resources to make and to maintain, if they couldn't even imagine having those resources in the first place.
If they were able to decide to domesticate plants and animals, wouldn't hunger have been a sufficient motivator, rather than tending to this unsustainable temple?
posted by lostburner at 7:11 AM on March 5, 2010
This theory really doesn't make much sense. I prefer the view of domestication outlined in Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which states that animals which are actually suitable for domestication (will breed in captivity, aren't man-eaters, can be kept together in herds, etc) are rare in nature and having them on your continent is a matter of luck. More to the point, domesticating animals is both non-obvious and difficult. So it seems wildly improbable to me that a civilization would build a huge monument that takes a large investment of resources to make and to maintain, if they couldn't even imagine having those resources in the first place.
If they were able to decide to domesticate plants and animals, wouldn't hunger have been a sufficient motivator, rather than tending to this unsustainable temple?
posted by lostburner at 7:11 AM on March 5, 2010
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posted by DU at 6:23 AM on March 5, 2010 [1 favorite]