Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008)

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by kobeya on Friday December 02, 2016 @02:18PM (#13091429)

That's a bit deceptive I think. It's the only lasting permanent structure that we know of from that carbon-dated time period. But different parts of the world advanced at different rates, and central asia is one of the oldest hotbeds of civilization, so it makes since that neolithic structures in this region are older than elsewhere.

There are other structures that seem to have been built by hunter-gatherers. Stonehenge comes to mind. The construction dates of Stonehenge aligns with the absolute dates of civilizations elsewhere in the world, but in the British isles it was still a time of hunter gatherers.

There is also much archaeological evidence for large, permanent "meeting point" structures built with wood columns and dirt fortifications. What makes Gobekli Tepe interesting is that it is stone (albeit a very soft stone that didn't need complex tools to work with) and therefore we have more than just holes in the ground and oddly shaped hills to look at.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by neffy on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:17PM (#13091924)

Stonehenge also appears to have been part of a much larger permanent settlement.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-wiltshire-34156673

And Stonehenge is far from being the only examplar of its kind. There's a big one in Scotland:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callanish_Stones

And another in Brittany:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnac_stones

It seems like back in the Neolithic, there must have some kind of pan-euroasian craze for menhir based construction.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by dalbasal on Friday December 02, 2016 @08:12PM (#13093637)

This site is a lot older than stonehenge. Taking the oldest and youngest proposed dates for the two sites, and Stonehenge is still closer to the present than to Gobleki Tepeh. Ancient Britons were farmers. They lived in village communities that we can picture forming larger societies with religion, organisation and (fabulously impressive) masonry skills.

Gobleki Tepeh predates known agriculture and permanent settlements. It really is a singular site, with genuine mystery.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by vanderZwan on Saturday December 03, 2016 @06:50AM (#13095355)

To further put this in perspective: estimates of Göbekli Tepe age are somewhere around 9000 years old.

Wooly Mammoths went extinct 4500 years ago.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by injvstice on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:18PM (#13091929)

I am not sure where it's established that Stonehenge was built by hunters/gatherers. But if it is true, it would be pretty impressive, given the absence of long distance communication and a low population density per mile (you need 32 mi2 to support 100 people). Aligning a population spread over potentially hundreds if not thousands of square miles behind a single goal is mind boggling (not the least being that if you were to get 10,000 people to agree and bring them to build Stonehenge, the land could not support them without some form of farming or agriculture.)

Ref: https://persquaremile.com/2011/08/17/hunter-gatherer-populat...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Gobekli Tepe: The World’s First Temple? (2008) by kobeya on Friday December 02, 2016 @03:51PM (#13092170)

Depends on what you mean by "Stonehenge." The iconic stones are a late neolithic construction, but the site itself is very old. The visible portion today is built on top of a much older ritual structure.

I don't think you'd need 10,000 people to construct a structure like Stonehenge, especially when you consider that these were built over vast intervals of time (hundreds of years per structure, thousands for the entire site).

[ Parent | on HN ]