Since its discovery 20 years ago, the archaeological site Gobekli
Tepe (Belly Hill) in southern Turkey has turned traditional theories on the
origins of civilization on their heads. Traditionally it was supposed that the
development of farming (the Neolithic Revolution) and animal husbandry created
food surpluses that could be appropriated by armed chieftains to pay for the
(non-food-producing) craftsmen and scholars who made cities and temples
possible. The elaborate and massive megalithic complex at Gobekli Tepe (stones
are over 6 meters tall and weigh more than 20 tons) was built 12,000 years ago by
hunter-gatherers. The last Ice Age hadn’t yet wheezed its last chilly breaths. It
was thousands of years before Stonehenge.
Klaus Schmidt, lead archaeologist at the site, speculates
that the requirements of building the site and others like it demanded more food for all the
craftsmen, artists, quarry workers, and other laborers than could be provided
by hunting local game and picking berries. He suggests that the construction of
the site pushed the development of farming and husbandry in
order to provide the necessary surplus rather than the other way around. Yet
there are no signs at all of permanent settlement – no villages or urbanism anywhere
nearby in space or time – so nomadic hunting and gathering was still the
general rule for social organization. The temple came first, not second.
Nonetheless it still might have sparked the Neolithic Revolution.
Exactly how the original denizens of the site actually used it
is unknowable. This was 7000 years before the Sumerians invented writing so
they left no records. The sculpted artwork at the site tells us little. Mostly
the images are of predators and dangerous creatures: snakes, lions, spiders,
scorpions, and such. This is unlike the cave paintings of Europe which feature
prey animals like gazelles and bison. What this means is anyone’s guess, but
the prevalence of bringers of death in the imagery might be evidence of
religious significance. Presumably it is a temple of some kind. What is almost
certain is that this was a site at which large numbers of people(s) festivated
regularly. Such get-togethers are a common feature of hunter-gatherer life everywhere
(including in historical times among Native American tribes) and it must have
happened here: a kind of “if you build it they will come.”
I’d be willing to bet gold coin that the meetings at Gobekli
Tepe took place on an equinox or solstice. Prehistorical people were amazingly
good observers of the sun and the moon, and the cycles of both parallel certain
realities of human existence. It is hard not to see an analogy to a human life
in the progression of a year from spring to winter. This is what led Robert
Graves to argue in The White Goddess
(still an indispensable tract to understanding the origins of Western
mythology) that “All true poetry is about love, death, or the changing of the
seasons.” You can write verses about other things, he said, but they don’t
really amount to poetry.
I can understand this. On this past Saturday I had an equinox
party at my house. I’m not a neo-pagan or someone with an astronomical fetish,
yet I often host solstice and equinox parties. I usually say that this is to
avoid conflict with the celebrations of others (such as Memorial Day and Labor
Day), but I also am acutely aware of the seasons and of the passage of life. A
couple of dozen people of different tribes (political, national, and
class) with very little in common attended. Yet we all found a
way to get along. I recommend giving such a mixed event a try. When you are
feeling sour about your fellow human beings – which is very easy to do – it
helps remind one that we are a single species after all.
On a personal level, it also happens to remind me that autumn
is my time of life, though I'm figuring (perhaps self-delusionally) September.
Eric
Clapton – Autumn Leaves
Perhaps it was built for...wait for it, aliens? Just kidding. I've been watching to many Unsolved Mysteries lately and some other such related stuff. I don't believe in that stuff, but you have to wonder what went on with some of that, unless...it's totally made up, which might be the case.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's hard to wrap one's mind around civilizations so early. I felt the same way when going out to Stonehenge or the Roman baths in Bath. At least with Bath there was a practicality to it all. But I guess you could say the same for the other places if you recognize them being built for religious or celebratory reasons.
Whoever organized the construction must have been a genius. This was before there was a construction industry with professional craftsmen and established methods: there were no cities or even permanent villages that needed them. Lifting and setting those stones required extensive leverage, which had to be invented on the spot – perhaps some kind of simple crane or block-and-tackle. It’s really remarkable.
DeleteThere is something reminiscent of the megalith in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” isn’t there?
Wow I've never heard of these ruins. I need to do some research!
ReplyDeleteThat this could be done by hunter gatherers is just amazing. The stone is mostly limestone, which is workable with stone tools, so they chose their quarry well.
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