G.T. is very old and quite possibly one of the first in that area. I'm a minister not an archaeologist so I'm going to answer you from an alternate perspective than the one being touted.

First the holes I believe are in the narrative.

1. G.T. as the first city post “hunter -gatherer civilization.
1. is much too large and sophisticated to be the first anything. Just because older smaller communities haven't been found it doesn't mean there aren't any just waiting to be found. An argument from silence isn't one, and there is a lot of silence here.
2. GT's level sophistication in architecture, engineering and art is too much for a first step, or even an early step, is too great. It is simply not possible.
3. This level of technology is marveled at but no explanation given. The sudden appearance of sophistication needs explaining, lots of explaining.
4. There are a lot of assertions presented as fact. “We know this thing, and we know that thing, but they don't. Suppositions and 1assumptions are used to create a senario, a desired politically safe scenario. Stepping outside the proscriptions; not allowed.
5. Thus it is “farewell to the scientific method, we hardly knew ye.”. Too much is based on supposed factual discoveries from past digs, without challenge. Not now and not then.

What is known

• G.T. is old, very old.
• G.T. has architecture, engineering and art far beyond what it should have. The further back the dating is pushed the more primitive the findings should be, but at GT we have the opposite.
• I love archeology and wish I could have had the opportunity to participate.
• I respect archeologists but feel they have tied an arm and a leg behind them in slavery to a very closed minded system.

Göbekli Tepe, which means "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish, is a site that dates back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, between 9500 and 8000 BCE. It is considered to be the world's oldest known megalithic complex, predating Stonehenge by more than 6,000 years. But who built it and why?

The answer is not easy to find, as the site remains shrouded in mystery and controversy. The first excavator of Göbekli Tepe, German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, believed that it was a "world's first temple", a place of worship and pilgrimage for nomadic hunter-gatherers who had not yet settled down or developed agriculture. He argued that the site was a catalyst for the Neolithic Revolution, the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and civilization.

However, other archaeologists have challenged this interpretation, pointing out that there is no conclusive evidence for a lack of agriculture or permanent settlement at Göbekli Tepe. They suggest that the site may have been a communal center for social gatherings, rituals, feasts, or ceremonies, rather than a strictly religious sanctuary. They also note that the site was not built by a single civilization, but by different groups of people over several millennia.

The most striking feature of Göbekli Tepe are the circular stone enclosures that contain huge T-shaped pillars, some of which are more than 5 meters tall and weigh up to 10 tons. The pillars are decorated with reliefs of animals, such as lions, bulls, foxes, snakes, and birds, as well as abstract symbols and human-like figures. Some of the pillars seem to represent anthropomorphic deities or ancestors, wearing belts, loincloths, necklaces, and fox skins. The meaning and function of these carvings are still unknown, but they provide a glimpse into the prehistoric worldview and imagination of the people who made them.

The site consists of more than 20 enclosures, but only a few have been fully excavated so far. The enclosures are not arranged in any apparent order or pattern, and they vary in size and shape. Some of them have only two central pillars, while others have up to 12. Some of them have stone benches along the walls, while others have none. Some of them have entrances marked by porthole stones or carved animals, while others have none. The enclosures were not used at the same time, but were built on top of each other over centuries. The older ones were deliberately buried under layers of soil and rubble, perhaps to preserve them or to mark the end of an era.

Göbekli Tepe is not only a remarkable monument of ancient engineering and artistry, but also a testament to the creativity and complexity of human culture at the dawn of history. It challenges our conventional notions of what constitutes civilization and religion, and invites us to explore the origins and diversity of human expression and experience.

Not much.

We're talking about a society that flourished about 12000 years ago and some 6500 years before the invention of writing. To put that into perspective, more time has likely passed between the construction of Gobekli Tepe and the invention of writing than has passed between the invention of writing and now. All we have so far is speculation based on the design of the site, the decoration, other objects found there, and analogues between other sites in the same region.

So here's what we know for sure:

Humans had the capacity to construct large, complex structures using non-native materials by c. 10,000 BC, prior to the discovery of agriculture and the invention of pottery, and about 500 to 1000 years earlier than previously believed. It was abandoned and deliberately filled in sometime between 8000 and 7000 BC.

That's about it. Everything else is speculative at this point. The archaeologist leading the excavation thinks it's a temple complex, possibly used for funeral rites. If so, it may mean that religion led to humanity settling down for the first time. However, there are archaeologists who believe that this was a residential complex, based on analogues with other Pre-Pottery sites in the Middle East.

The art suggests parallels with the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures of Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and the Levant, which suggests contact between them, but it's tough to say how far that goes. In particular, some of the stones show carvings of humans without heads, which offers an interesting parallel with the decorated skulls found at Jericho, but it's tough to say whether or not there's a connection there.

My best advice? Ask again in about ten years when more of the site has been excavated.

It was not according to the current site archaeologist, Dr Lee Clair, see:

This assumption was made and put forward by the orginal site archaeology, Klaus Schmidt, which was reasonable based upon what was known at this time, noting that the site was NOT fully excavated. Since then, more of the site has been, that suggests that earth movement is responible for filling in the majority of the enclosures, an issue which hampers work on site to this day. Some enclosures or more parts thereof being purposefully filled in as the use of the site changed (it was used for two millennia and over this time the use of these buildings is thought to have changed in different periods).

The current thinking is the site was more simply eventually abandoned, this early culture simple did not have a ‘use’ for it, this is around the time when farming really took off. Land slides are responsible for filling in the majority of the enclosures.

The view has changed, see video, this includes: the ‘temple’ description being too restrictive, the site is now thought to have been inhabited and the enclosure are thought to be semi-subterranean - enclosures entered into from above by ladder (with earth naturally wanting to close in)!

My own view is that there are multiple phases and different peoples used the site differently at different times, from a prehistory wonder where tribes met, feasted, traded their surpluses, met partners, recorded the stories of the age in stone and likely recorded astronomical periods/cycles.

If you look at the development of prehistory Anatolia, the site makes sense. What is extraordinary is this monumental structure (Jerrico being the only other known example at this time), but other than this, everything is contextually right. I much prefer this view of building upon previous knowledge and emerging technologies, rather than a strange obelisk landing and inspiring primitive stone tool holders (AKA 2001), these people were much more sophisticated than this. If you look at the surrounding area around this time in context, people are starting to settle and did build early villages in the surrounding area. The technology shown on site is contextually representative of what was going on, the oddity is for an unknown reason they built a very significant stone structure, as yet, for an unknown reason, but what likely became a centre (that brought about a change in behaviour and are tittering on the cusp of this).

The view that this must be built for religious purposes, I personally think may be incorrect, maybe it was not dissimilar to building the pyramids, it was done out of (hunting) season, over a long period of time, people actually having spare time to build something (others harvesting wild grain and enjoyed the beer brewed - bonus - a collective achievement), this actually did mark their own time, WE MADE THIS! I don’t think people have changed that much in 100,000 years (the environment has however fundamental change in which humans operate, but how people actually think, I think less so, if anything we’ve become more lazy).

Occasionally, someone comes up with a great idea that others identify with, get behind and get organised. Let’s build a monument, lets go to Mars, are these ideas really that different? These people did something significant, it should be celebrated, nudging humanity forwards.

No, they aren’t related.

Gobekli Tepe was built and occupied during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN)—the earliest division of the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia—which is dated to between 9600 and 7000 BCE.

The Neolithic sites of PPN are home to some of the ancient temples in the world.

Reconstructed view of World’s oldest Temple in Gobekli Tepe:

This is what it looks like:

Aerial View of the structures of Gobekli Tepe:

The Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) represents the early Neolithic in the Levantine and upper Mesopotamian region of the Fertile Crescent, dating to c. 12,000 – c. 8,500 years ago, (10000 – 6500 BCE).

The PPN sites are spread through out Turkey :

• These sites are basically Neolithic. That is, they belong to Stone Age people.
• The Site marks the appearance of the oldest permanent settlement.

Indo European migrations to Turkey :

Vedic civilization was an Iron Age Civilization, that was given rise by a group of people who migrated into the subcontinent. This migration is called the Steppe migrations or Indo European migrations Which began around 3300 BCE.

The Indo Europeans did migrate to present day Turkey.

A group of Indo Europeans (Anatolians) gave rise to the Hittite empire, in modern day Turkey.

Later, another group of Indo Europeans- the Indo Aryans Mittanis (another group of Indo Europeans) migrated to the same region, through the Iranian plateau and gave rise to Mittani Aryan kingdom.

Mittani kingdom:

This map shows the rough timelines of the migrations :

So, the Indo European migrations to Turkey happened much later than PPN period.

Vedic civilization:

A group of Indo Europeans (Indo Aryans) who migrated into Indian subcontinent gave rise to Vedic civilization. It is linked to the PGW - Painted Grey ware culture.

Since the Vedic Aryans had just begun to settle down in the Gangetic plains, the PGW was largely a rural pastoral culture, with few large cities and mainly villages.

Their houses didn’t have proper home plans. Mud walled houses were common.

The PGW gave rise to NBP (Northen Black polished ware) Culture. Which is known as a the Second Urbanization of the Indian subcontinent (the first being Indus Valley civilization)

NBP was an advanced Urban culture. With proper city planning and kiln burnt bricks were used for buildings.

Ring wells and Baked brick drains from post Vedic (NBP culture )

So, there is actually a gap of 8400 years between Gobekli Tepe and Vedic civilization of Indian subcontinent (1200 BCE)

The Neolithic hunter gatherers of PPN aren’t anyway related to Steppe pastoralists.

Note : Please don’t forget to read Ranjiv Kurup’s answer to this question, trust me, it’s amusing.

Footnotes

Quite a lot. According to its primary excavator, Dr. Klaus Schmidt, Gobekli Tepe (meaning ‘Pot-Belly Hill’) (a site in south-central Turkey) was a pre-Neolithic site that served as the world’s first temple. He suggests that it may have been created around 10000 BC. It sits atop a rounded hill (thus its name) and consists of numerous structures made from concentric rings of raw fieldstone.

The main ring of each structure features monolithic stone slabs about 15 feet high, some of which are embedded in the walls, and some of which are free-standing. Most of the slabs are roughly T-shaped, with a large rectangular portion on the summit of each slab (the head). Each circular structure includes an entrance, walled walkway that leads to a door that has been carved from a monolithic piece of stone and set into the wall. There are no windows and no roof. Some of the slabs feature animals that have carved in relief (sometimes very high relief), including birds and carnivorous animals. The most impressive slabs are the free-standing ones that feature very simplistic relief carvings of people with depictions of arms, hands, and breech-cloths.

Schmidt believes that these enigmatic structures served as ‘temples’ of some sort; basically gathering places for peoples/tribes from miles around to perhaps bring offerings periodically.

One of the strange features of these ‘temples,’ is that sometime after each one was completed, it was completely back-fillled with dirt and rock and a new, smaller temple was built on the mound that was thus created. This went on for centuries, building and back-filling, with each successive structure being smaller than the one beneath it until the uppermost structures were very small affairs with monoliths only a few meters in height.

Then the site was abandoned after covering over the last structure, to be revealed only in the 20th century.

The really remarkable feature of Gobekli Tepe historically is that if Schmidt is correct in that the site was begun in 10000 BC, that would predate the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution by several thousand years. That means that it was built by Paleolithic people. Paleolithic people were supposed to be Hunters-and-Gatherers only, subsisting only through chasing down game on the plains and gathering wild grains wherever they could be found. Gobekli Tepe shows, on the other hand, indisputable evidence of agricultural cultivation of grains in 10000 BC. Thus, Schmidt believe that agriculture was invented here during the Paleolithic Era as a necessity for maintaining the large numbers of people that would have built, maintained, lived, and gathered here for religious purposes.

If that is true, then the history of Mankind needs to be revised. The traditional sequence of evolution of human society/civilization is: Hunter-gather > Agriculture > Cities > Religion.

With Gobekli Tepe as evidence, it now seems like Religion came after (or during) the Hunter-Gatherer era and was the reason for the development of agriculture (as a way of feeding the masses that gathered at the places of worship and serving as sacrifice or food for sacrificial animals.

Thus, Gobekli Tepe is a game-changer (and most people don’t even know about it).

To date, the identity of the civilization that constructed Göbekli Tepe is a mystery. Archaeological evidence suggests the site was built around 9600 BCE, which astonishingly places it before the advent of settled agricultural societies as we understand them. These weren't farmers who decided one day to dabble in a bit of monumental architecture; these were hunter-gatherers who hadn't yet discovered the art of the plow or the nuances of crop rotation.

Imagine a group of prehistoric humans, still attuned to the rhythms of nature, coordinating their labor and skill to quarry massive limestone pillars, transport them without the wheel or beasts of burden and erect them in complex configurations. The purpose? Perhaps ritualistic, possibly astronomical, but no one knows for certain.

In an era where agriculture had yet to revolutionize human life, the construction of Göbekli Tepe is nothing short of an archaeological enigma. The energy, time, and social organization required to build such a site suggest a society that is far more complex than previously thought. Yet we have no written records, no Rosetta Stone to translate the thoughts of these ancient architects. They were a pre-literate society, so their stories, if ever told, were whispered into the winds and etched into the memories of oral traditions long forgotten.

Some suggest they were a transitional society the Natufians, who were known to inhabit the Levant region during the Mesolithic era and exhibited signs of early social complexity. Others wonder if they might represent a still-undiscovered culture. What's clear is that whoever they were, they defied our preconceptions about what pre-agricultural societies could achieve.

First, I'm rather taken aback by the other answers I've read to this question on Quora.

I know no archaeologist has written that leadership at Gobeliki Tepe was provided by escapees from Atlantis or that the site was established by Noah.(at least no real archaeologist).

So, here goes my attempt to summarize their real findings.

Gobeliki Tepe was a series of religious or cultural gathering places(temples? kivas?) dug into the hill of the same name.

Some have been excavated, others only identified through non invasive means(ground penetrating radar, etc).

There are, I believe, eleven of these “temples" total. There are other sites in the region which may eventually reveal similar structures--they appear similar on the surface.

The sites that have been excavated are dated to around 11–12000 years ago.

That date is right at the period when the last Ice Age began to subside and the earth began to warm up.

Anatolia, the region where Gobeliki Tepe sits, was wetter than today; it was a rather greener, more savannah-like landscape. There were numerous game animals and there were hunter gatherer groups which lived off the animals and native plants.

Prior to the discovery of Gobeliki Tepe, the archaeological record suggested a change from hunter gatherers who moved with the seasons or the herds, to a more and more settled community life that led to first villages, then towns, then cities.

The change from the hunter gatherer lifestyle to settled farmers who domesticated native plants like wheat—in this region—was dated to about 10,000 years ago.

The domestication of plants and animals led to more and more specialization (people making pots and trading them for food, for example), which led to trade, and the modification of the environment(irrigation canals to grow more crops, etc), which led to more stratification of society(leaders, chiefs, kings, etc.) to organize the labor force for public projects.

These last formed an arrangement with spiritual leaders to give the seal of the gods on their authority to rule.(lots of rituals to honor/placate the gods, temple building to elevate the priests above other men and enhance their spiritual authority while they, in turn, enhanced the king's authority as “chosen" to rule).

This led on to the kinds of civilizations we recognize; writing flourished, so that tribute, taxes, and trade goods could be assessed, and the affairs of state conducted with more formalized bureaucracy.

The nation state(or city state) was born. Empires followed.

Gobeliki Tepe turned this well accepted narrative on its head.

This site has these circular stone enclosures with carving and niches in the walls(walls dug into the earth then lined in stone with openings to apparently go in and out) plus very large stone pillars in the center; pillars which are carved with representations of clothing(buttons, belts,etc), so that they seem to be large humans with no heads.

Also some of the pillars have carved or carved relief representations of animals(foxes, lions, birds, snakes, etc. )and of scenes involving animals(one famous scene is of vultures, with one carrying away a human skull).

So we have what seems to be a kind of temple to the gods(or perhaps cultural symbols; I personally think the animal carvings are clan symbols--perhaps the clan who made the pillar or donated it?) or some sort of shamanistic center for honoring dead ancestors?

Whatever it was to these people, nothing like this is found in the archaeological record for literally thousands of years later.

Stonehenge dated to 8000 years later; and we are all impressed with it's size and complexity. These buildings were built when the people who built them didn't even have permanent houses, pottery, etc, and would not have them for two thousand more years.

No domesticated plants or animals. We previously thought hunter gatherers spent most of their time trying not to starve. But these people had time to create very realistic art, plan and build these buildings(which were roofed).

Lately archaeologists have discovered other buildings on the site, adding to it's complexity.

They have found the remains of large feasts which occurred at the site and have also found that the sites were not deliberately buried as originally thought, but gradually covered by erosion.

Still, multiple buildings were built on this site by large groups of workers, fed in large numbers, ànd this activity kept up for at least 2000 years.

This site has led to the idea that civilization(the gathering of people into complex,specialized interactive communities) did NOT start with agriculture and the need for heirarchical organization to build irrigation canals, followed by religion and rulership working together in ordering society--a theory which was believed to be absolute truth for many, many years of academic research.

Gobeliki Tepe's archaeologists hold out the possibility that the organization of people in a heirarchical manner instead began much earlier. And to fulfill a fundamental human need: the need to worship.

Is faith the beginning of civilization?

That, to me, is the fundamental question posed by the artifacts at Gobeliki Tepe.

Remember most of this site has not yet been excavated; we really don't know for sure how far back in time these monuments started to be built. Or what other sites in the region will reveal.

Gobeliki Tepe started a new appraisal of our Stone Age ancestors, but the research is by no means complete.

The same site was used for thousands of years so there is no guarantee they were always the same people, but the earliest use was in a period where they still would have been hunter-gatherers using some wild wheat so we talk of “cultures” rather than “civilization” since the latter is reserved for places with cities, writing, and agriculture. And the answer to “which culture” is “unknown”, but it may have been rural predecessors to the future Mesopotamians. Or the people who would later take farming westward. Or not in either or both cases.

Since only a few skull fragments and no DNA has been found there isn’t much to go on.

Mesopotamia is not a civilization but a geographic region. And it seems Gobekli Tepe was built by hunter-gatherers, which weren’t civilized (that is — had no cities and no writing system) so it does not belong to any civilization at all. But geographically it is located in the Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Seriously we don’t know. This is a couple of thousand years before the invention writing.

My personal guess is that Gobekli Tepe was a site used occasionally, perhaps annually by semi-nomadic people (the better phrase is probably Transhumant - which means people who move between a group of fixed locations with the seasons). We know it was deiliberately buried - my guess is that it’s what they did each time when they left and then one year they didn’t come back. But it’s just a guess.

Ohhh - Mega City. No. It wasn’t a city. It was a place where people gathered. It’s common for groups of nomadic hunter-gatherers to live in groups of 20–50 but marry outside that group. So you need gatherings of larger kinship groups to sort out marriages, catch up with the extended family, exchange goods, and religious festivals are a classic event for this to happen. SO I think Gobekli Tepe was a place where these groups new to meet up for a few weeks at a fixed time every year and catch up and party.

No, it isn’t. Any settlement or complex of human constructions can’t be named a city.

A city is a complex that includes residences separated into neighborhoods indicating the segregation of professions, a "headquarters," and public spaces such as squares, warehouses, etc. Jericho from 8,000 BCE and on, for instance, does fulfill these requirements.

from Ancient Jericho: The First Walled City In History

On the other hand, although we don’t know yet what GT and the similar sites as Karahan Tepe were, we do know that they were not cities because no residents have been unearthed in none of them (so far at least).

For the time being, the dominant theory about them is they were gathering places for the predecessors of the Natufians (funny that we haven’t named them yet as Nick Deakin observed) judging from the homogenous decoration of each perimeter, indicating that each of them was hosting a different tribe.

Reconstruction of Gobekli Tepe from Zero point in time.

The excavations are still in progress in all these fascinating sites and will be for a long, so, stay tuned for new findings.

footnotes

To begin with Kobekli Tepe The Göbekli Tepe excavations – Frequently Asked Questions

Are there archaeological sites older than Göbekli Tepe if so what are their significance?

Yes hundreds if not thousands of them. However they don’t have the same indications of organization that GT does.

Some of the older sites are:

Blombos Cave a 100,000 to 70,000 year old site in South Africa

Blombos Cave - Wikipedia

It contains the earliest known rock drawings

Manufactured shell beads

A collection and processing of ochre

Shanidar Cave a site 35,000–65,000 years old

Shanidar Cave - Wikipedia

Contains the remains of thirty five HSS and ten Neanderthals, possible first indication of purposeful burial

Tell Qaramel a site 12,000 years old

Tell Qaramel - Wikipedia

Denisovan Cave

Denisova Cave - Wikipedia

First discovery of a unknown human ‘cousin’

The Hobbit skeleton found 50,000 years old

Unexpected human cousin

Homo floresiensis - Wikipedia

Lascaux cave 17,000 old

First found and best collection of ancient art

Lascaux - Wikipedia

Cave of Altamira 36,000 years old

Cave art

Cave of Altamira - Wikipedia

Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) 10,000 years old first known settlement

Tell es-Sultan - Wikipedia

Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave 37,000 years old

Chauvet Cave - Wikipedia

Cave of El Castillo 40,000 years old

Oldest known cave paintings

Cave of El Castillo - Wikipedia

Theopetra Cave 135,000 years old

Theopetra cave - Wikipedia

Cave settlement containing the oldest known human made structure

At ~12,000 years old, Göbekli Tepe is definitely the oldest series of structures found, not just one single building.

Göbekli Tepe are excavations of multiple structures built by neolithic people with stone tools. These Stone Age people hadn't even advanced to making pottery yet, but they were capable of advanced engineering and carving beautiful decorations and reliefs on these structures.

It wasn’t a city, let alone a megacity. It wasn’t even a town or village. Gobekli Tepe was a “ritual site.” Yes, that’s vague, but we haven’t really nailed down what it was for. We don’t know what it was used for, only to some extent what it was not used for. It was a collection of paved areas surrounded by low walls and taller pillars. It didn’t have hearths, clear indications of fully enclosing walls, adequate garbage pits to indicate habitation, or other things we’d expect of residences. It doesn’t have remains of things like kilns nor waste products like stone tool debitage, so it doesn’t look like an industrial site. Our best guess is that it was maybe something like a temple or pilgrimage site. What were those round areas for, though? Straight-up religious ceremonies? Political or legal arguments? Wrestling matches? Dunno, but with signs of everyday living, industry, and other kinds of physical activity not present, some kind of social activity is what’s left.

Anyway, we don’t know why it was abandoned or buried either. Maybe religious preferences changed and Gobekli Tepe represented an old order the people there wanted to leave behind. Maybe some kind of spiritual cycle was seen to come to an end and it was time to respectfully lay the old site to rest. Maybe there was a social revolution of some kind and burying the site was symbolic of the destruction of the old ways. It does seem to be a purposeful burial, but there are many potential purposes which might be served by burying the site.

Doesn’t it rewrite history?

Gobekli Tepe proved that primitive humans have been underestimated and that human civilization is much older than we thought. It is incredible that people of that time could create megalithic monuments of such art, a trend that was continued for thousands of years. And just think that Gobekli Tepe has not revealed all its secrets yet, as only a small part has been excavated.

Whenever someone said that the story of Atlantis may hold some truth he was laughed at and was called a pseudo-scientist. Well, with Gobekli Tepe having the same age with Atlantis (according to Plato 9.600 BC) who is laughing now?

I expect that Gobekli Tepe has a lot more to say and that this is not the last time history is being rewritten.

I would like to provide a different perspective to this by pointing out some essential social structs and crucially important points of history of religion.

Let’s first understand a few points:

1. Leading archeologist of Göbekli Tepe, Klaus Schmidt (d. 2014), referred to the site as a temple.
2. The site dates back to 10,000 BC; that is, right after the end of the last ice age.
3. We see that in the same region, about 1000 years after the fall of the importance of Göbekli Tepe temple complex, agricultural revolution took place.
4. The temple complex lost its importance after the agricultural revolution indicating people who learned agriculture and gathered their herds could leave the old lifestyle and old religion for new settlements of agriculture where they found more food, safety, wealth and freedom.
5. Göbekli Tepe temples are in layers which differ by 1000 years apart. This indicates that the power system and religion which are represented by Göbekli Tepe temple kept re-emerging several times, giving rise to building of new temples.
6. The Göbekli Tepe temples were buried by ancient people purposefully and intentionally! We might argue that this was due to the agricultural revolution which fundamentally changed lifestyle and required another power and belief system.

The aforementioned power system is the Pharaoh System. This system that reemerges in new forms in all ages is based on three pillars:

1. The ruler prototype
2. The chief architect priest prototype
3. The extremely wealthy prototype

The main properties as well as psychological characteristics of the society that falls prey to such a system is given in more detail in my book “Masks of Exploit: Göbekli Tepe & Pillars of the Pharaoh System”.

We think that the society that built Göbekli Tepe fell prey to a power system and it cannot be understood without analyzing it with a perspective of history of religions and theopolitics. Critical thinking of these are desperately needed also today. In order to say no to the pharaoh systems, and not to fall prey to it as humanity, we must be able to decipher the pharaoh systems of all ages.

Less than some might think.

Gobekli Tepe does not in itself represent a civilization. Civilization is still some thousands of years away. It’s not a city or even a settlement; it’s something which archaeologists might call, with deliberate vagueness, a “ritual site.” It’s a place which has fairly clearly been constructed for some kind of social purpose by a significant number of people. And just what is that purpose? We don’t know. It’s plausibly a site for religious ceremonies, though it could instead or also be for legal and political activity (say, a gathering site for trials and dealing with regional alliances, along the lines of Scandinavian Things), regularly scheduled coming of age, marriage, and other life-cycle rituals, or even a sporting or performance venue. We don’t have a lot of evidence to go on, so anybody who confidently tells you what it was for is speaking in advance of sufficient evidence.

Its significance is that it represents a considerable investment of coordinated labor. Such things aren’t uncommon in history and prehistory. Irrigation networks, sizable settlements like Catalhuyuk, and the like are all products of coordinated labor. However, up until now, we’ve only expected that kind of coordination from settled, agricultural societies. What Gobekli Tepe represents is that kind of coordination among hunter-gatherers. With their much less dense populations and necessarily nomadic lifestyle, we don’t expect them to build permanent sites like Gobekli Tepe, but here we are [1]. Gobekli Tepe, then, indicates that at least in some places, social and political coordination of large numbers of people started before agriculture, rather than, as previously believed, the other way around. Both were still necessary to reach the point of the development of civilization, but this is a notable shift in the early history of the process.

1. Though, it should be noted, these particular hunter-gatherers were already on their way to a sedentary lifestyle. For various reasons, they already practiced a semi-sedentary lifestyle with long-term seasonal camps, so they weren’t the stereotypical, always-wandering peoples we tend to think of when we talk about hunter-gatherers.

There are three factors that make Göbekli Tepe so important and unique. Its architecture, age and its anticipated purpose.

Its age is unique because there are no known human-made structures that are older than Göbekli Tepe. The site has been dated to around 10,000 BCE which predates other well-known ancient sites such as Stonehenge and the Great Pyramids of Egypt by thousands of years…

And its architecture is unique. To express it visually, we were thinking that humanity could only do below between 3000 BCE and 2000 BCE.

But we found out that the humanity was able to do below 7000 years before Stonehenge.

And its anticipated purpose is unique. Historians have always thought that while people were doing agriculture, they developed the culture of cooperation, formed the society, and religions were developed for social rules and the temples of these religions were built.This building, which is thought to have a religious purpose, belongs to the time before agriculture is known. In other words, people may not have come together for doing agriculture and later formed religions, but religions may have existed before agriculture when humans were still hunters-gatherers.

Why on Earth did our ancestors decide to bury the Gobekli Tepi site? One reason is that those sculptures are extremely fragile, being made of thin upright stones. So if they thought a catastrophic incident was soon to happen, they could do something to ensure its survival.

But conventional science such as Archeology and Astronomy would say that nothing unusual happened in our Solar System for millions of years. They all follow something called Uniformitarianism. This is a belief that what happens now is a template for what happened in the past. No major cosmic catastrophes could have occurred 8000 years ago because it doesn’t happen now and the Earth would still be wobbling! This is due to a totally gravitational mentality which has ruled science for 100 years.

So was there a catastrophic event? Some researchers say yes!

People could clearly see the dramatic changes occurring above their heads. It did not take much to figure things were going to get dicey. The first astronomers were those who plotted the course of the new star as it seemed to approach. Instead of useless theories they gave practical warning to populations to dig underground cities and make cave homes. Obviously Gobekli teams took this warning seriously!

You may read that gas giants could not possibly shine, because “their mass is too low”. The problem with gravity is that it is seen as being a fixed quantity. Whereas it must be variable if Bertie’s equation is true. E = mc^2 says that mass is proportional to Energy. A star emits energy which gives one gravity/ mass value (G), but a gas giant is a very low energy star, thus it will appear low mass. A simple explanation, which needs only a couple of extra ingredients: plasma and electricity for completeness.

We must understand that gravity alone is a very feeble force. Out in space the most common force is electricity, particularly in association with plasma. Every magnetic field is generated by electric current flow. The currents are massive to power galaxies and stars. Anyway, an electrically stabilised universe can change shape very rapidly, if the situation needs. So when Saturn and its little family of planets was sucked in the Sol system there were consequences.

We now can see the evidence of ‘Ice Ages’, which could also have included global floods. Many strange geological features could result from the catastrophic transition period, these include coal seams and odd balanced rocks. Stories of a global flood could be related to that period. Estimating the length of period would be impossible as there was no steady cycle to measure time. However finally the waters went down and the devastated landscape was revealed. Life returned gradually and the few human survivors began to rebuild their lives in a totally new environment.

We must assume that the Gobekli crowd never made it, or were too busy trying to rebuild their lives to bother digging up the old temple. There’s a suggestion for you!

Footnotes

Göbekli Tepe was abandoned possibly as much as two thousand years before Çatalhöyük was founded. It’s remotely possible that the people involved in each were related, but there’s no apparent cultural continuity. The site of Nevali Çori, now at the bottom of an artificial lake created by damming the Euphrates, is closer to contemporary with Göbekli Tepe, though still significantly later, and much closer geographically. It may well have been created by the same culture.

Whether these and related sites represent the oldest civilisation depends entirely on your definition of “civilisation”. They were not literate, show no signs of heritable social stratification or, at least in the case of Göbekli Tepe, permanent habitation.

No. Gobekli Tepe isn’t a civilization as historians, archaeologists, and other social scientists use the word.

“Civilization” is used to describe a particular kind of society. The key factor in determining whether or not something is a civilization is right there in the name. Civilization comes from the Latin civis, which means city. Civilizations are characterized by certain kinds of social complexity like craft specialization and status hierarchies, but first and foremost by the presence of cities.

Gobekli Tepe isn’t a city. It’s not even a village or town (there are minimum size requirements for social scientists to regard something as a city). It’s some kind of ritual center, perhaps a temple of some sort. It represents a surprisingly early capability to coordinate a significant amount of labor from across a sizable area. But that’s not the same thing as civilization.

There are several ancient sites similar to Göbekli Tepe in terms of their age and significance. Some examples include:

1. Çatalhöyük (Turkey): Located in central Turkey, Çatalhöyük is one of the world's oldest known cities, dating back over 9,000 years. It was a large Neolithic settlement characterized by its densely packed mud-brick houses. The reasons for its abandonment are not entirely clear but may include factors such as environmental changes, social shifts, or resource depletion.

2. Stonehenge (United Kingdom): Stonehenge, located in England, is a famous prehistoric monument constructed around 5,000 years ago. It consists of large standing stones arranged in a circular pattern. While Stonehenge was not entirely abandoned, its original purpose and the reasons behind its construction remain subjects of debate and speculation.

3. Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan): Mohenjo-daro was an ancient city of the Indus Valley Civilization, dating back around 4,500 years. It was one of the largest urban settlements of its time, featuring advanced urban planning and sophisticated drainage systems. The decline and eventual abandonment of Mohenjo-daro are believed to be linked to factors such as environmental changes, economic decline, or social unrest.

4. Angkor Wat (Cambodia): Angkor Wat is a vast temple complex in Cambodia, built during the Khmer Empire in the 12th century. While it was not completely abandoned, the decline of the Khmer Empire and the shift of the capital led to the gradual decline of Angkor Wat as a religious and political center.

The reasons for the abandonment of ancient sites like Göbekli Tepe and others can vary depending on the specific historical and environmental circumstances. Some possible factors include:

1. Environmental Changes: Shifts in climate, water availability, or natural disasters could have affected the sustainability of settlements, making them uninhabitable or economically unviable.

2. Social or Cultural Shifts: Changes in social structures, power dynamics, or religious beliefs may have led to the relocation or abandonment of sites. Political instability, conflicts, or the rise of new centers of power could have played a role as well.

3. Economic Factors: Depletion of local resources, changes in trade routes, or shifts in economic systems could have made settlements less viable, leading to their abandonment.

4. Natural or Human-Induced Disasters: Natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods, or volcanic eruptions, as well as human-induced factors like warfare or invasions, could have contributed to the abandonment of ancient sites.

It's important to note that the specific reasons for abandonment can vary greatly from site to site, and in many cases, they remain speculative or subject to ongoing research and investigation.

I think not, it is in South Anatolia and is probably associated with the early development of the Anatolian Neolithic era. The development of agriculture in West Asia probably involved at least three different peoples co-evolving economically and culturally. They were Anatolians, Levantines and Iranians (mainly in the Zagros area). But these people were, until the mature phase of the Neolithic era, reasonably isolated from each other at least genetically, but also probably in part culturally, too. Göbekli Tepe seems to be too old to be associated with southern influences from Mesopotamia or the Levant. Agriculture did not start in Mesopotamia, but in the Levant, and was firstly associated with the Natufian and Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures, which were mostly in the Syro-Palestinian lands. Anatolia became heavily mixed with Levantine/Southwest Asian and Iranian ancestry after the Neolithic, but most of that happened during the Copper and Bronze Ages.

Civilizations only developed some 5,000 years after the oldest structures in Anatolia, and as we know the "Levantine" and "Iranian" competitors also developed very much during that long period, so I think that at present we unfortunately cannot be sure who or even if just one population was responsible for the development of urban civilization in Mesopotamia. But considering the predecessors of that process that culminated in the Uruk period, with many cultures overlapping, displacing and/or changing each other (probably at least partly due to foreign influences) - examples are the Halaf, Samarra, Ubaid and Uruk itself, including Sumerians, who recoed that they were an immigrant conqueror population, not indigenes of Mesopotamia -, I would place my betw on a mixed origin, Mesopotamia benefitting from the best knowledge and technologh produced in Anatolia, Iran and the Levant and forming a sort of confluence of the most advanced cultures of the continent back then.