Gobekli
Humanity has always searched for god. The more people come together with that goal in common, the higher the collective energy. Mountains can sometimes be moved, and sometimes temples can appear seemingly out of nowhere, as if sprung from the very ground itself.
The ongoing argument concerning the rise of civilization is centered almost wholly around the domestication of plants and animals. The prevailing view of V. Gordon Childe’s principle “that social structure and organization were bent to the demands of technology.” (Childe 1954:23-4), is now directly challenged by what archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is determining from the excavation of Gobekli Tepe; “that far from causing sedentism, agriculture actually responded to it.” (James 2007:784). The archaeological fieldwork surrounding the excavation site of Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest man-made temple, brings forth no evidence of an organized, socioeconomic settlement that supported the labor necessary to construct such a grand ceremonial complex. Even the secondary contextual evidence of the immediate area surrounding finds only the activity areas of small groups of hunter gatherers from that same time period.
The discovery of Gobekli Tepe, dating back 12,000, years is now the main counterpoint to the argument that complex, permanent settlements had to form first in order to support the construction of large scale cultural monuments.
Six miles from the ancient city of Urfa, Gobekli Tepe, Turkish for hill with a navel, rises 1,000 feet above the Urfa plain. It is surrounded with vistas as far as the eye can see, the 360 degree panorama being comprised of the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Karadag Mountains to the east, the Harran plain to the south, the sightline finally being broken only by the crags that hide the Euphrates river valley to the west. It lies at the northernmost tip of the Fertile Crescent, which is said to be the cradle of civilization. The entire site is spread over 22 acres of plateau,
The ongoing argument concerning the rise of civilization is centered almost wholly around the domestication of plants and animals. The prevailing view of V. Gordon Childe’s principle “that social structure and organization were bent to the demands of technology.” (Childe 1954:23-4), is now directly challenged by what archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is determining from the excavation of Gobekli Tepe; “that far from causing sedentism, agriculture actually responded to it.” (James 2007:784). The archaeological fieldwork surrounding the excavation site of Gobekli Tepe, the world’s oldest man-made temple, brings forth no evidence of an organized, socioeconomic settlement that supported the labor necessary to construct such a grand ceremonial complex. Even the secondary contextual evidence of the immediate area surrounding finds only the activity areas of small groups of hunter gatherers from that same time period.
The discovery of Gobekli Tepe, dating back 12,000, years is now the main counterpoint to the argument that complex, permanent settlements had to form first in order to support the construction of large scale cultural monuments.
Six miles from the ancient city of Urfa, Gobekli Tepe, Turkish for hill with a navel, rises 1,000 feet above the Urfa plain. It is surrounded with vistas as far as the eye can see, the 360 degree panorama being comprised of the Taurus Mountains to the north, the Karadag Mountains to the east, the Harran plain to the south, the sightline finally being broken only by the crags that hide the Euphrates river valley to the west. It lies at the northernmost tip of the Fertile Crescent, which is said to be the cradle of civilization. The entire site is spread over 22 acres of plateau,
References: http://essayweb.net/history/ancient/gobekli.shtml, accessed October 25th, 2010. http://www.dainst.org/index.php?=642&sessionLanguage=en, accessed October 25th, 2010. James, N. 2000 The Cradle of Agriculture. Science 288(5471):1602-1603. http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/449/gobekli_tepe_paradise_regained.html, accessed October 26th, 2010