Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - How Göbekli Tepe Changed History

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

In 1994, a German archeologist named Klaus Schmidt was investigating a site in southeastern Turkey which had been know to be a source of ancient stone tools. What he found was far greater. His discovery totally upended the world of archeology and has changed everything we thought we knew about early human civilization. Learn more about Göbekli Tepe and how it changed our views of early human civilization on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1994, a German archaeologist named Klaus Schmidt was investigating a site in southeastern Turkey, which had been known to be a source of ancient stone tools. What he found was far greater. His discovery totally upended the world of archaeology and has changed everything we thought we knew about early human civilization. Learn more about Gobeckley Tempe and how it changed our views of early human civilization on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment you, your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle,

cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension. Nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet. their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing. You can listen to nothing much happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by Skillshare. I've mentioned before how Skillshare is videos to cover almost any subject you'd wish to

learn about. Well, if you're interested in launching your own podcast, Skillshare can help you out there as well. They have videos on every aspect of podcasting, from how to select a microphone, to how to get everything set up on the back end to how to edit your show. With Skillshare premium, you can have unlimited access to everything for as low as 825 per month. Go to everything-dash-everywhere.com slash Skillshare to get a free two-week trial of Skillshare or just click on the link in the show notes. Once again, that's everything-everywhere.com slash Skillshare. When Klaus Schmidt began his excavation of Gobeckley-Tempi in 1994, he had no idea what he was

going to find. And by the way, the name Glebakli Tempe in Turkish means pot-belly hill. The spot was a hill that had been previously noted in an archaeological survey conducted by the universities of Istanbul and Chicago in 1963. They noted the presence of stone tools, as well as some stones sticking out of the ground, which they thought were gravestones. Based on work at previous sites, Schmidt realized that the stone sticking out of the ground might not be headstones, but could be ancient monoliths.

As he began his dig, he realized that his hunch was correct. The stones weren't gravestones, but were in fact carved ancient monoliths. As the dig progressed over the years, they discovered a much larger complex. There were multiple monoliths with elaborate carvings on them. Some of them had pictures of animals and people. The large megalith stood about 15 feet or 5 meters tall. These were surrounded by circular walls, and there were at least 20 of these circular enclosures that have been discovered so far.

The largest megalith which has been discovered is 7 meters or 23 feet tall and is estimated to weigh 50 tons. The entire complex is located on the top of a hill which has a great view of the surrounding countryside, and it isn't near any source of water. There were cisterns found at the site which were designed to collect rainwater. Whoever built this clearly had some form of societal organization and the ability to move large stones in addition to doing artistic carvings. If this was all there was to Gobeckley-Tepi, this would still be an incredible find. However, there was more, much more. They found embers from cooking fires on the site and did radiocarbon dating on them. They were also able to date many of the tools found at the site.

What they discovered was astounding. They were dated as being 11,000 years old. This made Gobeckley-Tepi, the oldest known stone structure, ever made by human beings. 6,000 years older than Stonehenge, older than the pyramids, older than everything. The only known human structures which have been found

that are older are earth and mounds. It's believed that the site was some sort of temple or religious site. Klaus Schmidt called it the world's first cathedral on a hill. There was even more to the story, however. Gobeckley Tempe appears to be some sort of temple complex. What hasn't been excavated so far doesn't include any dwellings.

Gobeckley Tempe isn't a city. Moreover, there's no evidence of any agriculture. There are no agricultural tools that have been found, nor has there been any evidence of cultivated grain. On top of that, the animal bones which have been found at the site are not from domesticated species of animals. There are animals like deer, gazelle, wild pigs, and geese. Today, the area around Gobeckley Tempe is very arid, bordering on a desert.

11,000 years ago, however, it would have been a lush grassland. The implication of all of this is that Gobeckley-Tepi was built by hunter-gatherers. This is the fact that has upended everything we know about early civilization. Prior to the discovery of Gobeckley-Tepi, the oldest evidence of human civilization came from the Middle East, particularly in Mesopotamia. These were both the first cities, as well as some of the first agricultural settlements. The theory up until now has been that agriculture allowed for the creation of cities. Humans took up farming, which allowed for a surplus of food.

That surplus of food freed up other people to do things that didn't involve the production of food, which pretty much took up all the time of everyone before agriculture. It was agriculture that allowed for kings, priests, and standing armies. It also made it possible to feed workers to create monumental structures. The flip side to this argument is that it wasn't possible for hunter-gatherers to build such massive structures. They weren't in one place long enough to build anything substantial, and they couldn't afford to feed the people required to build such monuments. There was also the assumption that early hunter-gatherers just didn't have the social

complexity to create something so elaborate. There was always some doubt in the story, however. It was a chicken and egg type of problem. Did people settle because of agriculture, or did agriculture develop because people became settled. What Gobeckley Tempe suggests is that the creation of structures and the development of rituals predated the rise of agriculture. But wait, there's even more. An analysis of the site has indicated that there was more to the site than just being a temple. It might have been used for astronomical observations. Given what we know of other extremely old structures like Stonehenge,

this shouldn't be surprising. But this sets the date at which we know humans were observing the stars back by thousands of years. Moreover, researchers at the University of Edinburgh think that the engravings on the megalis might tell the story of a comet impacting the earth, which could be an allusion to one of the greatest disasters in human history. I'm going to do a future episode on the Common Impact Theory and how it might have caused a massive rapid rise in sea levels at the end of the last ice age, and it could have been the basis of the flood mists which exist all over the world.

In addition to the use of the site as an observatory, a team of his research, Israelis believe that the three main excavated circles that Gobeckley Tempe form an equilateral triangle. This indicates that they were planned rather than created haphazardly over time. In fact, they may have been created, or at least outlined, all at once. Also, it indicates that they had a basic understanding of geometry. There are a dozen other sites around Turkey with stone sticking out of the ground, which might be similar to Gobeckley-Tepepe. If and when these sites are excavated, and when more of Gobeckley Tempe is excavated, we will know even more about this period in history. As of right now, it's estimated only 5% of Gobeckley Tempe has been excavated. Not

everything about Gobeckley Tempe is cut and dry. There are still debates about if people lived on the site and what exactly the site was for. Today, Gobeckley-Tepi is a major tourist attraction. A giant roof has been constructed over the excavation site to protect it from the elements. A nearby museum has many artifacts on display from the site, and it was finally and deservingly declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2018. As we learn more about Quebec-Tempe and similar sites in the region, we will learn even more about our early ancestors and the rise of civilization. The interesting thing is, as we find more artifacts and ruins, our understanding always goes backwards. The time when humans built things or had an understanding of things always seems to get older. Thanks to Gobeckley-Tepi, our knowledge of early human civilization has gone back several thousand years,

and based on what we might find in the future, it could yet go back even further. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you too can have it read on the show.