12,000 year old megalith circles turn knowledge of ancient humans upside down

apeiron

This is a plausible line of speculation, but there is some evidence that does not tally.

It does seem that Schmidt may have further evidence to support some kind of excarnation ritual.

But against that, there is the likelihood these circles were roofed, the fact that many animals are represented in the carvings, rather than just vultures, and that vulture bones are among the "feast debris" - which does not suggest a particularly reverential attitude.

Another plausible explanation of the carvings is that they are constellation maps - http://timothystephany.com/gobekli.html

This is probably too literal, but it demonstrates how many different explanations might be the case. Which is why there is a fascination of course - it gives us a nice little detective case, trying to put ourselves back into an ancient mindset.

arildno

Remember that, due to past unpleasant experiences, either to themselves or colleagues, many professionals have deliberately developed a perhaps unjustified, but understandable, technique towards ALL strangers:
Rather than detailing their objections to some particular hypothesis, they respond in a friendly manner in order to prevent potential stalkers from developing a hostile attitude.

I do NOT, in any way, consider yourself, due to your postings, to be a crackpot of potential stalkjing behaviour, but mention this in order that you'll take Dr. Schmidt's response as just that, the cautious, self-serving response to someone he simply CANNOT know who is, or whether you might pose some risk to himself or his immediates.

You'll need to look at Dr. Schmidt's subsequent scientific publications to see if you ACTUALLY made an impact on his professional views. He might well have been honest with you, but do not be disappointed if his articles does not seem influenced by the alternative hypotheses you transmitted to him in private e-mails.

Evo

Seems Schmidt thinks differently.http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html

SimsStuart

Judaism predates Christianity and Islam by thousands of years, yet they are still closely related. I would postulate that what we are seeing at Gobekli Tepe is the beginning of formalized burial rituals that led to the theology that became Zoroastrianism. And since Zoroastrianism strongly influenced Jewish theology (the notion of heaven and hell, for example) and modern Hinduism, what we are potentially seeing is a truly startling continuity of beliefs that affect billions of people today. Very exciting.

arildno

irrelevant. Since Judaism provably has existed continuously, something that is utterly unattested bettwen thetime of Gobekli Tepe monuments and the emergence of Zoroastrianism.

Evo

But there are no signs of human burials ay Gobekli Tepe. Just animals. Zoroastrianism started around the 6th century BC, Gobekli Tepe, ended in 8,000 BC. And unlike the continuation of Judaism to Christianity to Islam there was no overlap of Gobekli Tepe with any of those religions.

So unless it comes from an authoritative published source, no more pulling the thread off topic. Thanks.

thorium1010

I suspect going by the symbols on the stone it was place of rituals, what exactly the rituals were is speculation. Again going by the date and period, ritualistic practices probably would have been very common.

Would these ritualistic practices probably been animal sacrifice i think is a reasonable hypothesis, considering animal sacrificial rituals were common in the region including parts of Mesopotamia and early Judaism. But there is a large separation in time between organized religion and these early practices. This finding indicates a continuous process of development of rituals which were later modified according to need of the time and development of theology in the region.

Edit : I am not an expert in the field. I am only speculating here. But it is a interesting hypothesis on the origins of ritualistic practices.

apeiron

He certainly seems to have changed his mind and most recent media reports indicate no human remains found there.

In 2007 he says:

Then in 2008, it is more about feasts/sacrifice...

Then in 2011, he is only quoted as hoping still to find human remains...

So that seems to knock excarnation on the head.

Other interesting factoids that crop up in reports are a lack of fertility symbols (removing another common ritualistic function), the pillars face south-east (so a definite orientation), and the hill is a long way from water (making it more of a puzzle that hunter gatherers might be able to camp there for long).

SimsStuart

First, let’s get our facts straight – Zoroastric text dates back to about 600 BC, but given the complexity of the theology found in the Avesta, we can be sure the belief system stretches much father back in time. Zoroastrianism emerged out of a common prehistoric Indo-Iranian religious system dating back to the early 2nd millennium BC. Secondly, Jewish theology is not continuous. It changed and evolved, first taking certain beliefs from the Egyptian theology during the Hebrews enslavement, then taking strongly from Zoroastrianism during their enslavement by the Babylonians. Actually, the first Jewish text appeared around the same time as the Avesta. Thirdly, someone needs to watch the NatGeo special again, and pay close attention to the portion when they discuss the apparent custom of ritualistically digging up the bodies and removing the skulls, a practice with striking similarities to the Zoroastic custom of digging up the dead so they do not pollute the ground. What I am contending is the POSSIBILITY that Gobekli Tepe is evidential of the beginning of human beings ritualizing the process of burial. The fact that these Neolithic people not only disinterred their dead, but also buried the Dakmahs after a certain period of time makes a strong case for a correlation to Zoroastrianism. But all of this is of course just speculation, but given that Gobekli Tepe is located in the Fertile Crescent, it is likely the beliefs of these Neolithic people influenced later Zoroastric theology to some extent. The most compelling component of Gobekli Tepe is the undeniable advanced level of cognitive development these Neolithic people demonstrate by organizing and constructing such a monument. It is the first hard evidence of that level of cognition demonstrated by Stone Age people. It is a wonderful piece of the puzzle of when and how humans first developed self-awareness.

SimsStuart

I hear what you are saying, and I agree to some extent. However when a scientist uses the phrase “highly probable”, this translate into the highest level of certainty that can be obtained short of hard empirical evidence. His use of this sort of language leads me to conclude he is not just humoring a crack-pot. He would have said “thank you, and it is an interesting theory,” don’t you think? Or simply have not responded at all. You could write Dr. Schmidt and ask for clarification -- kls@orient.dainst.de -- I would be interested to hear what he has to say.

apeiron

From a cognitive point of view, Gobekli Tepe does not suggest any particular advance in mentality.

There is plenty of art, like the 25 kya Venus of Laussel and 32 kya Lion man of Hohlenstein Stadel, to show the essentials were in place for a long time already.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_of_Laussel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_ma...enstein_Stadel

That is why Gobekli Tepe isn't rewriting any paleo theories as yet. The only real surprise is that a hunter-gatherer economy could afford to build stone temples.

And also some other small surprises - like I find it striking there are no depictions of warfare or tribal strife. So this suggests a low level of resource conflict despite also a reasonable population density.

The site is important because of the many clues it may give about the precise lifestyle of a critical time, the dawn of the holocene, when climate change released the fetters on human population and cultural development. But it is also being over-played rather as a moment of actual significant change.

Instead, you could remark on the fact that they were still only hunter-gatherers. And all the real changes of livestock domestication and settled agricultural were still some time off.

SimsStuart

Oh, I strongly disagree -- the level of cognitive development required to produce cave art, or even stone carvings is an order of magnitude away from organizing fifty people (the experts say it required “at least” fifty people. Likely it was far more) for a long period of time to design and build structures such as those found at G.T. (Gobekli Tepe). Architecture is actually an established benchmark for the evolution of human cognition -- ask any evolutionary psychologist. This potentially pushes back this benchmark five or six thousand years. You do not find this significant? All previous evidence of human cognition prior to these structures required no more than exactly one artist. The emotional intelligence, advanced level of spatial intelligence, and just pure language ability required to organize and produce complex architecture like that found at G.T. is unprecedented at this point in pre-history. The Zoser Pyramid in Egypt is considered to be the earliest large-scale cut stone construction, although the nearby enclosure known as Gisr el-mudir would seem to predate the complex. The oldest known unworked stone pyramid structure dates to 3000 BC in the city of Caral, Peru. All previous evidence of human cognition prior to these structures required no more than exactly one artist. Cut stone architecture requires cooperation and coordination that sets it apart and above singly produced stone carvings.

apeiron

This is dubious concerning both facts and theory.

Construction of shelters goes much further back. The mammoth bone designs of 15 kya for instance - http://donsmaps.com/mammothcamp.html

So it is reasonable to conclude that shelter building was already advanced at 10kya, but little of it would have been preserved if mobile bands of hunter-gatherers were building trail camps of wood and hide.

Shelter is in fact not a great benchmark precisely because it does not preserve reliably, unlike tools or art. You end up with endless disputes about whether there really is a circle of perimeter stones and post holes, or just some assemblage swept together by natural circumstance.

And then art is primarily a cultural activity, not some individualistic expression. So "cognitive teamwork" would have been just as important there as in constructing a ritual site.

Again, Gobekli Tepe does spell something unusual in terms of hunter-gatherer economics, and then quite possibly something new also in terms of social organisation. But we should be looking for the simplest possible explanation of what is found.

Again, it doesn't take any special intelligence to pile up rocks - apologies to any builders out there. The technical skill involved in knapping flint, making clothes, crafting weapons, is just as demanding. As for emotional intelligence, there are some who even claim that trade between tribes goes back 100 kya or more. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...47248400904354)

But what such construction does take is the economic and social circumstances to make it happen.

Any claim you make about mental sophistication has to be stacked up against the paleo evidence like the rich cultural and ritual life of the Australian aborigines who split off 50 kya.

Gobekli Tepe may turn out to have some kind of significance as an innovation in social organisation - that is a possibility. But it appears to have zero significance so far as human cognitive ability goes.

SimsStuart

I did a little research on this subject of “cognitive archeology” – the conclusion I must draw from my brief examination of this subject is that the experts cannot seem to agree on the specifics of this topic anymore than you and I can. (Laughing) Some experts contend that there has been no significant change in human cognition in the past 150,000 years. Others argue no change in the past 250,000 years. My opinion is simple – the evidence these experts use to make these conclusions are indirect, requiring liberal use of inference and leaps in deductive reasoning. For example, the postulation that man began using primitive boats to traverse the oceans 150,000 BC because they found human remains from that period on an island is a facile, specious argument. The point I am attempting to make is this – until now, all evidence for advanced human cognition in the archeological records has been indirect. Like the argument you made, “And then art is primarily a cultural activity, not some individualistic expression. So "cognitive teamwork" would have been just as important there as in constructing a ritual site.” This is not a provable assertion. It is logical, and I could make a strong argument supporting that contention, but there is no rock solid evidence to support it. We really do not know how or why primitive people carved the few trinkets we have found. It is possible that the neurological evolution of the portion of the brain that allowed that sort of creativity emerged as a result of millions of years of early hominids shaping flint and other rocks, or perhaps children are responsible for these rock carvings. We just do not know. What excites me is that G.T is rock solid evidence, if you will pardon the pun, of advanced human cognition in the late Neolithic. The G.T. structures are not just a bunch of piled rocks. They are highly organized structures requiring an understanding of basic engineering and masonry carving. There is so much “soft science” applied to archeological conclusions, we all sometimes forget that these conclusions amount to no more than educated guesses. There is an enormous grey-scale between FACTS and OPINION in the study of history, and I personally think the most valuable obsession a scholar can possess is a fanatical tendency to differentiate between the two. Gobekli Tepe is a FACT, and I for one am a huge fan of new facts.

apeiron

Yes, I have plenty of familiarity with the controversies and wishful interpretations in this area.

I don't see why you think Gobekli Tepe is any more privileged than a thousand other paleo sites in terms of "facts".

When it comes to evidence about cognition, tool-making and art-making are the principle "facts". And evidence of equally advanced human cognition goes back easily 30 kya.

On what grounds are you arguing otherwise?

Evo

Yes, I also read the wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism#Origins When you quote verbatim from wikipedia, you must site it.

Again, there was a gap of thousands of years between the two.

Also we do not allow overly speculative posts and personal theories that are not part of the actual findings.

SimsStuart

The question of the evolution of human consciousness is a highly contentious one in academic circles – reason being, we do not really understand what consciousness IS, or why we have it. The advances we have made in the last ten years in the fields of neuropsychology using fMRI’s, EEG and other imaging technology has answered many questions about how the brain functions, but has raised more questions than it has answered concerning the nature and source of human’s singularly unique self-awareness. One of the questions that has always been deeply compelling to me is how long have fully self-aware humans been wandering around out there. At what point did we stop functioning on the level of instinct and become fully human? So why do I consider large scale shaped stone architecture like that found at G.T. more evidential of this self-awareness than stone tools, carved stone figures or cave art? Given the evidence of remarkable neurological plasticity -- how the brain is capable of adaptation to new stimuli – it seems probable that consciousness did not just appear full blown one day as some guy was walking along. It slowly emerged out of an instinctual fog, until it reached the level we find ourselves at today. Let us postulate that man 100,000 years ago functioned 75% on instinct and 25% on self-aware cognition. Just for the sake of this discussion. Then let’s say modern humans function at the level of 15% instinct and 85% self-aware cognition. A bushman of the Kalahari might be more like 30% to 70%, and Albert Einstein or Sigmund Freud might have been 10% to 90%. People who could make stone tools might be at 50% to 50%, and people who make simple art might be at 60% to 40%, but men who gather together and cooperate to plan to build a large, shaped stone building for some abstract reason that has no survival oriented purpose are functioning at a much higher level. I would contend men such as those are fully human, and if they lived today would blend right in. The men who made stone tools 100,000 years ago, if you dressed them in the suit and put them in an office cubicle might very likely jump up on the desk and throw their feces at you or something.