Göbekli Tepe ( ; Kurdish: or , 'Wish Hill') is a Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira) in modern-day Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around to at least , during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is known for its large circular structures that contain large stone pillarsamong the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists insights into prehistoric religion and the iconography of the period. The high, tell is covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods.
The site was first used at the dawn of the southwest Asian Neolithic period, which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world. Prehistorians link this Neolithic Revolution to the advent of agriculture but disagree on whether farming caused people to settle down or vice versa. Göbekli Tepe, a monumental complex built on a rocky mountaintop with no clear evidence of agricultural cultivation, has played a prominent role in this debate.
Findings published in 2019 suggest a settlement at Göbekli Tepe, with domestic structures, extensive cereal processing, a water supply, and tools associated with daily life. This contrasts with a previous interpretation of the site as a sanctuary used by nomads, with few or no permanent inhabitants. No definitive purpose has been determined for the megalithic structures, which have been popularly described as the "world's first temple[s]". They were likely roofed and appear to have regularly collapsed, been inundated by landslides, and subsequently repaired or rebuilt. The architecture and iconography are similar to other contemporary sites in the vicinity, such as Karahan Tepe.
The site was first noted in a 1963 archaeological survey. German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt recognised its significance in 1994 and began excavations there the following year. After he died in 2014, work continued as a joint project of Istanbul University, Şanlıurfa Museum, and the German Archaeological Institute, under the direction of Turkish prehistorian Necmi Karul. Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, recognising its outstanding universal value as "one of the first manifestations of human-made monumental architecture". , around 10% of the site has been excavated. Additional areas were examined by geophysical surveys, which showed the mound to contain at least 20 large enclosures.
Geography and environment
Göbekli Tepe is near the village of Örencik in Şanliurfa Province in the Taş Tepeler ('Stone Hills'), in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains. It overlooks the Harran plain and the headwaters of the Balikh River, a tributary of the Euphrates. The site is a tell (artificial mound) on a flat limestone plateau. In the north, a narrow promontory connects the plateau to the neighbouring mountains. The ridge descends steeply into slopes and cliffs in all other directions.
The climate of the area was wetter when Göbekli Tepe was occupied than it is today. The site was surrounded by an open steppe grassland, with abundant wild cereals, including einkorn, wheat, and barley, and herds of grazing animals such as wild sheep, wild goat, gazelle, and equids. Large herds of goitered gazelle may have passed by the site in seasonal migrations. There is no evidence of substantial woodlands nearby; 90% of the charcoal recovered at the site was from pistachio or almond trees.
Like most Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) sites in the Urfa region, Göbekli Tepe was built at a high point on the edge of the mountains, giving it a wide view over the plain beneath and good visibility from the plain. This location also gave the builders good access to raw material: the soft limestone bedrock from which the complex was built and the flint to make the tools to work the limestone. The prehistoric village acquired drinking water through a rainwater harvesting system, consisting of carved channels that fed several cisterns carved into the bedrock under the site, which could hold at least of water. Additionally, the local water table may have been higher, activating springs closer to the site that are dormant today.
Excavations have taken place at the southern slope of the tell, south, and west of a mulberry that marks an Islamic pilgrimage, but archaeological finds come from the entire plateau. The team also found many tools that remain.At the western escarpment, a small cave was discovered, and a small relief depicting a bovid was found. It is the only relief found in this cave.
Dawn of village life
Göbekli Tepe was built and occupied during the earliest part of the Southwest Asian Neolithic, known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, ). Beginning at the end of the last Ice Age, the PPN marks "the beginnings of village life", producing the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in the world. One of the earliest known sites is Körtik Tepe, dated to 10,700-9250 BCE, which may have been a predecessor of the PPN artistic and material culture in Upper Mesopotamia, including Göbekli Tepe and the other Taş Tepeler sites. "Considering the prosperous sedentary life, building tradition and imagery-based symbolic trends and cultural influence since the Younger Dryas, it is apparent that Körtiktepe (and likely other unexcavated Late Epipalaeolithic sites in the region) was an important predecessor of the PPNA culture in the Upper Tigris Basin, which later flourished with Hallan Çemi, Çayönü, Demirköy Höyük, Hasankeyf Höyük, Çemka Höyük, Gusir Höyük and Boncuklu Tarla. It is also likely that, if not the predecessor, Körtiktepe at least had a great influence on the animal symbolism at the dawn of the Neolithic, with a lasting effect on subsequent PPN sites such as Göbeklitepe, Karahantepe, Jerf el Ahmar, Dja'de el Mughara and Nevalı Çori in the Middle Euphrates Basin, as well as Nemrik 9 and Qermez Dere in the Middle Tigris Basin."
Archaeologists have long associated the appearance of these settlements with the Neolithic Revolution—the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture—but disagree on whether the adoption of farming caused people to settle down, or settling down caused people to adopt farming. Despite the name, the Neolithic Revolution in Southwest Asia was "drawn out and locally variable". Elements of village life appeared as early as 10,000 years before the Neolithic in places, and the transition to agriculture took thousands of years, with different paces and trajectories in different regions. Archaeologists divide the Pre-Pottery Neolithic into two subperiods: the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA, ) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, and ). The earliest phases at Göbekli Tepe have been dated to the PPNA; later phases to the PPNB.
Evidence indicates the inhabitants of Göbekli Tepe were hunter-gatherers who supplemented their diet with early forms of domesticated cereal and lived in villages for at least part of the year. Tools such as grinding stones, mortars, and pestles found at the site have been analysed and suggest considerable cereal processing. Archaeozoological evidence hints at "large-scale hunting of gazelle between midsummer and autumn."
PPN villages consisted mainly of clusters of stone or mud brick houses, but sometimes also substantial monuments and large buildings. These include the tower and walls at Tell es-Sultan (Jericho), as well as large, roughly contemporaneous circular buildings at Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori, Çayönü, Wadi Feynan 16, Jerf el-Ahmar, Tell 'Abr 3, and Tepe Asiab. Archaeologists typically associate these structures with communal activities which, together with the communal effort needed to build them, helped to maintain social interactions in PPN communities as they grew in size.
The T-shaped pillar tradition seen at Göbekli Tepe is unique to the Urfa region but is found at most PPN sites. These include Nevalı Çori, Hamzan Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, Sefer Tepe, and Taslı Tepe. Other stone stelae—without the characteristic T shape—have been documented at contemporary sites further afield, including Çayönü, Qermez Dere, and Gusir Höyük.
Chronology Radiocarbon dating shows that the earliest exposed structures at Göbekli Tepe were built between 9500 and , towards the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period. The site was significantly expanded in the early and remained in use until around , or perhaps slightly later (the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, PPNB). There is evidence that smaller groups returned to live amongst the ruins after the Neolithic structures were abandoned.
Schmidt originally dated the site to the PPN based on the types of stone tools found there, considering a PPNA date "most probable". Establishing its absolute chronology took longer due to methodological challenges. Though the first two radiocarbon dates were published in 1998, these and other samples from the of the structure dated to the late 10th and early 9th millennium – 500 to 1,000 years later than expected for a PPNA site. Schmidt's team explained the discrepancy in light of their theory that this material was brought to the site from elsewhere when it was abandoned, and so was not representative of the actual use of the structures. They instead turned to a novel method of dating organic material preserved in the plaster on the structure's walls, which resulted in dates more consistent with a PPNA occupation, in the middle or even early . Subsequent research led to a significant revision of Schmidt's chronology, including the abandonment of the hypothesis that the fill of the structures was brought from elsewhere, and a recognition that direct dates on plaster are affected by the old wood effect. Together with new radiocarbon dates, this has established the site's absolute chronology as falling in the period 9500 to – the late PPNA and PPNB.
Building phases The preliminary, later abandoned, stratigraphic model by Klaus Schmidt consisted of three architectural layers. The large circular enclosures were attributed to Layer III, dated to the (PPNA). The smaller rectangular structures and the abandonment of the site were assigned to Layer II in the (early to middle PPNB). Layer I consisted of all post-Neolithic activities up to the modern surface.
The revised chronology consists of eight phases that span at least 1,500 years. It details the history of the large circular enclosures, including events that led to their alteration or abandonment, and the evolution of the domestic buildings surrounding them. Phase 1: The earliest settlement phase dates to the second half of the and includes the first versions of enclosures A to D and round-oval domestic structures, which indicate a (semi) sedentary lifestyle. Phase 2: In the second phase (early ), significant modifications of enclosures A-D were undertaken: New walls were erected, which incorporated the first monolithic T-shaped pillars. An increasing number of domestic structures were built, still mostly oval-round, though with a rising tendency for a rectangular floor plan.