Göbekli Tepe: The First Temple?

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Göbekli Tepe: The First Temple?"

Episode: Göbekli Tepe: The First Temple?
Release Date: March 6, 2025
Host: Tristan Hughes
Guest: Dr. Lee Clare, Archaeologist and Coordinator of the Göbekli Tepe Research Project at the German Archaeological Institute

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Introduction

In this episode of The Ancients, host Tristan Hughes delves into the enigmatic archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. Joining him is Dr. Lee Clare, a leading expert on Göbekli Tepe, who provides an in-depth exploration of the site's history, significance, and the mysteries it still holds.

Location and Historical Context

Tristan Hughes sets the stage by describing Göbekli Tepe as one of the earliest known human sedentary settlements, dating back approximately 10,000 years. Situated in southeastern Turkey's Upper Euphrates basin, the site overlooks the Harran Plain and lies between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers—crucial regions for the Neolithization process.

Dr. Lee Clare (03:22): "We're in southeastern Turkey, in the upper Euphrates basin, between the Euphrates river and the Tigris river, two very important rivers."

Archaeological Significance

Dr. Clare emphasizes Göbekli Tepe's importance in understanding the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer societies to settled farming communities. While previously thought to be the world's first temple, Clare argues that the site's purpose is far more complex.

Dr. Lee Clare (01:00): "Göbekli Tepe is quickly becoming one of the most famous early Neolithic settlements from anywhere in the world, and the archaeology is breathtaking."

Structures at Göbekli Tepe

The podcast delves into the architectural marvels of Göbekli Tepe, particularly its large, circular buildings constructed from local limestone. These structures feature impressive T-shaped monoliths adorned with intricate carvings of headless humans and various animals.

Dr. Lee Clare (14:26): "These buildings were occupied or were in use for a very long period of time. We're talking hundreds of years."

Clare discusses the radiocarbon dating of mud mortar between the limestone blocks, revealing continuous occupation from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) period around 9,600 BC to the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period around 8,700 BC.

Art and Symbolism

A significant portion of Göbekli Tepe's allure lies in its carvings and sculptures. The T-pillars are not merely structural but serve as canvases for complex narratives depicted through animal and human forms.

Dr. Lee Clare (27:12): "Gobekli Tepe is so important because it's not just the monumentality, but it's actually the fact that we're seeing narratives which were previously oral narratives now being preserved in stone."

Animals such as leopards, wild boars, snakes, and scorpions are prominently featured, often interpreted as symbols tied to the community's beliefs and stories.

Settlement and Daily Life

Contrary to earlier beliefs of Göbekli Tepe being solely a ritual site, ongoing excavations reveal it was a vibrant settlement with evidence of domestic life. Structures range from small, round houses to larger rectangular buildings introduced in the PPNB period.

Dr. Lee Clare (42:05): "We have evidence of hunting traps called 'desert kites' around Göbekli Tepe, indicating organized hunting practices aimed at supporting a growing population."

Archaeological findings include hearths, tool-making debris, and evidence of water management through cisterns—highlighting advanced communal living and resource management.

The Decline of Göbekli Tepe

Despite its early prominence, Göbekli Tepe was eventually abandoned around 8,000 BC. The shift towards agriculture and domestication of animals likely contributed to changing societal structures and belief systems, rendering the site's monumental structures less central to community life.

Dr. Lee Clare (49:21): "After Göbekli Tepe, these big enclosures or special buildings disappear until the late Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age. That's quite remarkable."

Conclusion

Dr. Lee Clare underscores that Göbekli Tepe remains a pivotal site for understanding early human civilization. Its monumental architecture, intricate art, and evidence of settled life provide invaluable insights into the Neolithic Revolution's early stages.

Dr. Lee Clare (52:26): "Excavations at Göbekli Tepe are ongoing, and there's still so much more to uncover and preserve for future generations."

Tristan Hughes concludes the episode by highlighting the continuous efforts to excavate and study Göbekli Tepe, emphasizing its enduring mystery and significance in the annals of ancient history.

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Notable Quotes:

• Dr. Lee Clare (01:00): "Göbekli Tepe is quickly becoming one of the most famous early Neolithic settlements from anywhere in the world, and the archaeology is breathtaking."

• Dr. Lee Clare (14:26): "These buildings were occupied or were in use for a very long period of time. We're talking hundreds of years."

• Dr. Lee Clare (27:12): "Gobekli Tepe is so important because it's not just the monumentality, but it's actually the fact that we're seeing narratives which were previously oral narratives now being preserved in stone."

• Dr. Lee Clare (42:05): "We have evidence of hunting traps called 'desert kites' around Göbekli Tepe, indicating organized hunting practices aimed at supporting a growing population."

• Dr. Lee Clare (49:21): "After Göbekli Tepe, these big enclosures or special buildings disappear until the late Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age. That's quite remarkable."

• Dr. Lee Clare (52:26): "Excavations at Göbekli Tepe are ongoing, and there's still so much more to uncover and preserve for future generations."

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This comprehensive summary captures the essence of the podcast episode, highlighting Göbekli Tepe's archaeological marvels, its role in early human society, and the ongoing efforts to unravel its mysteries.

Transcript

[Tristan Hughes]

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes and if you would like the Ancients ad free. Get early access and bonus episodes Sign up to History Hit with the History Hit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary.

[Dan Snow]

All About Petra and the Nabateans, and.

[Tristan Hughes]

Enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe.

[Progressive Insurance]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Tristan Hughes]

Six thousand years ago, before Stonehenge was built in southeast Turkey, groups of people were getting together and creating some of the earliest known monumental stone structures from anywhere in the world. Of these, the most famous are at Gobekli Tepe. The site is home to large round buildings made of local limestone, full of impressive T shaped monoliths and sculptures depicting headless humans and animals from the landscape. In the past, Gobekli Tepe has been labeled the first temple, but as you're about to hear, that's not the case. It's much more complex. It's the Ancients on History hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today we're exploring the fascinating story of Gobekli Tepe, one of the oldest human sedentary settlements ever found. Think of it very loosely as a 10,000 year old early Neolithic village. And by Neolithic I mean that period of time after the Ice Age when people started to adopt a settled farming lifestyle. Gobekli Tepe is quickly becoming one of the most famous early Neolithic settlements from anywhere in the world and the archaeology is breathtaking. Our guest today is Dr. Lee Clare, an archaeologist who coordinates the Gobekli Tepe Research project at the German Archaeological Institute. Lee is one of the leading experts on the archaeology so far uncovered at Gobekli Tepe and what it has so far revealed about the people who lived there 10,000 years ago. It was a pleasure to interview him about the Stone Age mystery that is Gobekli Tebbek.

[Dan Snow]

Lee, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Well, thank you for having me.

[Dan Snow]

It's my pleasure because to talk about Gobekli Tepe, I mean this feels likely one of the most exciting archaeological projects to be working on in this moment in time. The stuff that is coming out of the ground is extraordinary.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Well, it's been quite special for quite a number of years now and of course, in the meantime, there are other.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sites as well that are coming out in the same age with similar material culture.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So it's the area itself. The region is very exciting and we'll.

[Dan Snow]

Highlight that how Gobekli Tepe is almost the name that people think of, but that there's more archaeology beside Gobekli Tepe, but set the scene for us. First of all, Lee, where in the world are we talking about with Gobekli Tepe?

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Okay, we're talking about southeastern Turkey.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, if you grab your map and Google Shannon Ufa, you'll find the city in the southeastern part of Turkey.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

It's in the upper Euphrates basin. So it's between the Euphrates river and the Tigris river, two very important rivers.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of course, in prehistory, also in a region commonly referred to as Upper Mesopotamia. So we're in a very key region for neolithisation.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

So the first sort of introduction of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Farming, settled communities, I mean, it's where it all took off really. It's one of those core regions of nilitisation in the world.

[Dan Snow]

So is it on the cusp of the Fertile Crescent? That is Apocalypse today.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah.

[Dan Snow]

And with the topography of Gobekli Tepe today, should we be imagining, I mean, can you see the Euphrates in the Tigris rivers, or is it quite high up in the landscape? What should we be envisaging on the ground at Gobekli Tepe?

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Okay, at Gobekli Tepe, you would see the Euphrates. In fact, from the site, we are.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Quite a number of kilometers to the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

East of the Euphrates river and also to the west of the Tigris. So we're sort of in between, more.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Towards the Euphrates, but between the two rivers. And it's a hilly region. We're overlooking the Harran Plain to the south.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We're about 4 or 500 meters above the Harran plain. So about 770 meters above sea level. The foothills of the eastern Taurus Mountains.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Come through southern Turkey. And actually from the site itself, when you look northwards, I was actually there just last week, it's been snowing in the mountains there. And from the Gobektepa site, you can.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Actually look northwards towards the eastern Taurus and see the snow covered peaks.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You can actually see Nemruda, which is.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Another UNESCO World Heritage site there in the region.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Bit younger than Gobekitepe, obviously, but it's.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Like a Taurus foothill sort of region looking down onto the plain of Harran.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Which then extends Southwards into northern Syria and Nemruda.

[Dan Snow]

Is that Mount Nemrud with those famous sculptures of faces in the big rock? Yes. Kingdom of Commagene and so on. I said that's a topic for another day. Indeed. Now, in regards to when we're talking about with Gobekli Tepe, in passing, Lee, you also mentioned that whole process of Neolithicization, and I might get that. I might butcher the wording of that. But with that whole process, I mean, how far back are we going with the story of Gobekli Tepe?

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Okay.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, Gobekli Tepe itself doesn't date.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Back to the very sort of, you.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Know, neolisation is something that happened over.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Very long period of time.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, it didn't actually start in the early Holocene. Sort of components of that package, Neanderthic package. We often talk about different sort of components in that package, like being settled, like sedentism or domestication of animals, secondary.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Products like milk and sheep and animal traction.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

It's all part of that nihitization sort.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of story, whereby the earliest sort of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Signs of that sedentism are quite much earlier than Gobeki Tepe. And they appear in the Levant in the late Paleolithic, in the late Pleistocene. So, you know, we're talking about 15,000, 20,000 years before present, in fact.

[Dan Snow]

So that's the Ice Age. That's still the Ice Age.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The Late Ice Age, yeah.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But of course, Gobekli Tepa comes in about 9,600, 9,500 B.C.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So at the beginning of the early Holocene, which is a climate amelioration following.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The end of the Younger Dryas.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So the Younger Dryas, sort of a cold, dry phase at the end of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The last Ice Age and this early Holocene period, of course, that's when things.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Really sort of become much more lush in this area and you get the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

First settled communities coming in.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And Gobeki Tepe is one of the first. I say one of the first, not the first. There are earlier settled communities in the region, but one of the first settled communities appearing in southeastern parts of Turkey.

[Dan Snow]

I know it's a bit more complicated than this, but is it almost like kind of that transitional phase between what has often been terms like hunter gatherers, kind of very, you know, moving around small groups, small communities of people into what will ultimately be thousands of years later in that area? Be like the emergence of farming and, you know, settled communities and ultimately the emergence of cities. That kind of transitional period.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's right. I mean, interestingly, I Mean from the period before Tepe, this sort of Epipelaeolithic.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

In the, in the late Pleistocene, like.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In the Younger Dryas, we have very little evidence of human activity. In fact, further to the east in the Tigris region, we have a few sites where we do have like a continuous occupation from the Younger Dryas. We already have a settlement actually into.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The early Holocene, and that's sort of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Continuous, whereby with us in Schanuf at the moment, we don't have a site where we have that continuous occupation from the Ice Age into the Early Holocene. But yeah, the whole region, we have to expect that there were people, there.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Was activity going on there.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We just haven't actually found it yet. And I think it's just a question of time with the more intense investigations going on down in the region. Now, in Shan Nuwarfa, I think we will find the predecessors of Quebeci Tepe. There is one site that's quite early, that's within the frame of the Tash Tepele project. Looking at these sites in the region, the Neolithic sites, which is PPNA in date, which is like early 10th millennium or mid 10th millennium. Sorry, but as I say, the majority of sites down there, we're looking at.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Like sort of late 10th and 9th millennium BC.

[Dan Snow]

Well, that's another term that we should address straight away. You said PPNA there and I think there's PPNB2. What do we mean by these two terms?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Okay, I mean PPN is the abbreviation for Pre Pottery Neolithic, which means, obviously, as I said earlier, we have this sort of neutralization process going on. And pottery, the production of pottery is.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

One of the things that comes in during the neolithisation. And at this point in time we.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Have sedentary populations, we have, you know, other things going on, like, I don't know, cultivation of wild cereal. But we don't yet have pottery. So it's getting there gradually, but we don't have pottery yet. That's why we term it Pre Pottery Neolithic.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And the pre Pottery Neolithic is then.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Split up into different blocks, into an A block, into a B block, and the B also is separated or, you know, we distinguish between an early ppnb, a middle PPNB and a late ppnb. So, you know, to give you a.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Rough sort of chronology for that, we said the PPNA starts roughly about 9,500 BC.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So at the beginning of the Early Holocene and the climate amelioration and goes.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

About 8,700, 8,700, we've got the PPNB.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Coming in with the early PPNB, which goes about 8,200, and the middle PPNB starts, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, we're looking really the early. The PPNA is the earliest sort of manifestation of. Of this sort of prepotrinolithic in the region.

[Dan Snow]

Do we know why this area of the world would have been so attractive to these people some 10,000 years ago? Would there have been. Should we be imagining some changes in the topography 10,000 years ago, at the end of the Ice Age, that made it more attractive than other areas for these early people to start becoming more sedentary in places like this?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I don't think there are any sort.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of major changes in the topography. I mean, I think that came a bit later with farming, and then you.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Have the erosion alluviation, and that's something that came in a bit later regarding the environment. I mean, obviously, any region that's settled by human beings, they can use it. We're very adaptive. We can adapt to most things. Of course, Gobeki Tepe was very attractive.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

I think the region was very attractive at the time.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In the early Holocene, we don't have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

A great deal of paleoclimate proxies from the region.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We rely quite heavily on the archaeobotanics.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And the archaeozoology that we're getting from the excavated sites.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So the animal bones and the pollen.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Preserved pollen or remains of certain plants.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But we do know that it was.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

A lot different to today's environment or.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

To today's landscape, because, of course, today it's very much a cultural landscape. There's farming going on, there's irrigation, there's.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

No trees left in the plateau.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

It's on the plain to the south. It's all very much a cultural landscape, as I said. But in the early Holocene. So at the time of Gobekli Tepe, it would have been a lot different. It would have been a sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

An open woodland with oak and wild almond.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

There would have been lots of grasses. And, of course, your wild wheats would.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Have been there as well.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You would have had herds of gazelle. Gazelle was the most important animal for.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The hunters at that time.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In the wetter areas, you would have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Had wild boar, you would have had.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Auroch, you would have had, you know, all of these animals running around. It would have been a very attractive.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Place for hunters and gatherers.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But at the same time, as I say, I mean, you get that all around the world. And of course, the question as to.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Why sedentism and why annihilatisation started here.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Is a major topic that I think we would all love to answer the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Question why that was.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But, yeah, that's what it would have looked like 10,000, 11,000 years ago in this region.

[Dan Snow]

Well, the work by yourself and the team and everyone who's been working at Gobekli Tepe is slowly revealing more and more about the site. Just quickly on that, Lee. I mean, how long has archaeological work been going on at Gobekli Tepe? How long has the site been known?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Okay.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The site was first discovered in the 1960s, in fact, in a.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In a. It was a survey operation looking for.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Neolithic sites, and that was conducted by.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Khaleed Shambel, who was a professor at the University of Istanbul and also with colleagues from the United States, from Chicago, in fact. And they were doing a series of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Surveys in southeastern parts of Turkey and.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Also in all that region down there, looking for first indications of the Neolithic in this region, because, of course, they had already found stuff in adjacent parts. And for a long time it was thought that Turkey was the modern sort of Anatolian peninsula was avoided by the Neolithic because they thought people going around.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

It was too harsh, the climate was too bad.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But of course, around this time, they.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Were finding more and more evidence for.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Neolithic activity in Anatolia. For example, Catalhuyuk would be a site that was discovered at this time as well, the work of Melart and Hajala.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But of course, in the southeastern part.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of the country, we have then sites like Chaianu, which were discovered in the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Course of this survey.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But also Gobeki Tepe was discovered during their survey work, but was never excavated.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

At the time when it wasn't actually excavated until the mid-1990s.

[Dan Snow]

And then from then on, has it been season on season, even with COVID of learning more about the site?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, I mean, apart from the COVID year we've been there, not me personally, of course. The work at the site is very strongly connected to German research or two German researchers.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Harald Hauptmann, who was actually the head of the institution where I work now.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

He was excavation director, was doing the work down there with the Shandong Warfare Museum.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And he was then followed by his.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Student, Klaus Schmidt, who is really well known for his excavations at Gobeki Tepe. He was always involved in the field work, and then as excavation director in.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

His own right after Mahalp Mann retired. And he was there until 2014 when he sadly passed away.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And then I came in and I happened to be there and, you know, the rest is history, as you say. But yeah, I mean, the site has.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Been now under excavation for about 30 years.

[Dan Snow]

Well, there you go. Well, I think we've set the context then really nicely for our chat now to delve into the archaeology so far uncoveredly. And I feel we need to discuss first of all, I guess, those big buildings at Gobekli Tepe that the site is most famous for. Now, what are these structures that always seem to be at the center of any newspaper article or any discussion of Gobekli Tepe today that the site is known for?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

First of all, well, I'm very glad.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

You didn't say the word temple.

[Dan Snow]

I'm holding myself back. I'm holding myself back.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, very good.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Because of course, I'm not too keen on that word.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of course. It's actually in the media, advertisements and everything. It's like, come and visit the world's first temples. I'm not too happy with that terminology for various reasons, but of course I think I prefer a more neutral term.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

I refer to these structures as special.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Buildings because they are special and they're buildings for that very simple reason. And regarding their function, I think of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Course they were probably ritual centers. There were rituals taking place in these structures, but at the same time they.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Were also being used for people were.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Identifying themselves or the groups were identifying themselves with these structures. They hold narratives.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

If you look at the pillars that are in these buildings with all of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

These carvings, those are narratives, those are stories that meant something to these people.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So lots more to do with identity, with community, with coming together ritual. So I think temple would be a too narrow definition.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And apart from that, of course, the.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Term temple is very often associated with our modern connotations, what religion is or religion. And of course that's something we need to sort of get away from because, you know, we're 12,000 years ago.

[Dan Snow]

So what should we be imagining with those structures? You set kind of that explanation of various parts of these buildings that we're going to explore, like the arch as well and these pillars. But for someone who actually doesn't know what these buildings look like, how should we be imagining these, these large buildings that seem to always take up so much of the story of Gobekli Tepe.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Okay. I mean, we've got, so far we.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Have, I think, eight excavated or partially.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Excavated special buildings, A to H, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, S. Eight, that's correct.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We have eight partially excavated special buildings. Now the majority of these are actually sort of round, oval in shape, in floor.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Plan, as it were, with diameters of, you know, 10 to 20 meters, depending on where you're looking, which building it is. And they are buildings. They were roofed over and they have walls. And frequently it's said that they're dry.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Stone walls and not dry stone walls.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They have actually have mortar in between, so like a mud. And at regular intervals in the wall, you have sort of T pillars, so monoliths, T shaped, carved mainly or mostly in one piece from the natural limestone.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

In the area of the site.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's at regular intervals, sometimes 10, 11, 12. In the circle within the walls and in the center of or near to.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The center of the building, we have.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Two upright T pillars which are larger. For example, if we're looking at Building D, which is one of the most impressive of the preserved or most impressive of the buildings that we can see.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

There today, the central pillars are about five and a half meters in height, so really quite tall.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

When you stand next to them, look up. It's quite an impressive thing to see. And of course, they're carved with various depictions in low relief.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Also we have high reliefs.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And of course, on top of this structure would have been a roof. And we know they were roofed over. And I think perhaps really the most.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Intriguing of our new results is that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

These buildings were occupied or were in.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Use for a very long period of time. You know, we're talking hundreds of years. In fact, we have radiocarbon data from.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The mud mortar from the walls, and.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We can see different building phases within that structure.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And that tallies them with the radiocarbon dates. So we can say that the earliest phases of these buildings were like PPNA.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

In date, so sort of end of the 10th millennium BC and they actually.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Continued into the early PPNB to about mid 9th millennium. So we're looking at sort of, you know, a few hundred years.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And these buildings were constantly being used.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Were being you know, reshaped and lots.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of recycling going on. They were moving T pillars around. They were sort of erasing carvings and doing new carvings.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So very much they were never sort.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of built to one plan and then sort of completed.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But it was a constantly changing structure.

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So we've arrived in winter, we're getting up in the dark, the commutes are stuffy, the person next to you is coughing. I've got just the thing for you. An excellent escape. I'm Dan Snow, host of the Dan Snow's History Hit Podcast, where I whisk you away into the greatest stories in history. Join me on the Inca Trail in Peru, where I'll tell you the story of Machu Picchu. Or travel with me to the mighty Colosseum in Rome to find out just what the gladiatorial games were really like. Follow Thomas Cochrane, the real master and commander, across the high seas. I take you round the world to where history happened. So check out Dan Snow's History Hit for the best historical escapism this winter, wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dan Snow]

But I love that you can get quite accurate dates from just examining is it that early mortar discovered between those local limestone blocks? And you can analyze that building material to get a sense of how long this structure was used for.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That's the only way of doing it.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, we have no other way of doing it at the present. Of course we have the, you know.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The lithic finds from from various contexts associated with the buildings, but of course they just give a general date. But the radiocarbon data, that's really special because especially the data coming from the mortar between the walls.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of course, there's no guarantee that it's exact, you know, we can't take them at face value because of course you've always got to think about sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Old wood effect, you know, dating old parts of a tree instead of the.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Younger bits of the tree and that sort of thing. But we're actually seeing enough data now to see that we do have this clear pattern that corresponds and coincides or.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Correlates rather with the building phases that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We can see in the building archaeology. So we can actually see that we.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Do have a long duration that these.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Buildings are in use A long use.

[Dan Snow]

Life, as we say, that is so extraordinary. I always associate Morse with much later constructions. For instance, we've done something.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Wait, on the mud.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sticky mud mixture.

[Dan Snow]

Okay. Well, there we go. Okay, thank you for highlighting that. Indeed. And also just to highlight quickly, you mentioned kind of local limestone used for the production. Is it all, like, all the stone artifacts that you have surviving, whether it's the walls or these T pillars, which we'll explore a bit more in the second. Is it all created from locally acquired stone? They're not doing huge distances to bring stone to the site?

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

No, I think the local limestone, I mean, it's a limestone plateau where these.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Buildings actually constructed upon. And in actual fact, a few of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The buildings of these special buildings are actually constructed directly on the limestone plateau. And the limestone plateau is the floor of the buildings. And that plateau has been painstakingly smoothed. So it's very possible that they're quarrying.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The tiplers from the spot where they were probably more or less erected and put upright.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And then the floor was then smoothed.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And, you know, Bob's your uncle. There's your floor. And it's very high quality.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Obviously, other buildings have plaster floors.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I wish they.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Imitating then these.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

These probably these natural limestone floors. So, you know, these guys knew what they were doing. It was a. It was a very advanced technology. I mean, they.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We can't actually imagine as being.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Often people say, you know, cavemen. No, you know, they were like us. They were physically like us cognitively. Cognitively, perhaps a little different, but if we'd grown up in that period, then we'd have been just like them. And if they'd grown up today, been born today, I'm sure they'd been sort of, you know, on their mobiles, looking at Instagram, you.

[Dan Snow]

Well, let's explore these T pillars a bit more now, Leigh, because they are absolutely extraordinary. And I think they're the clues in the name, in their kind of shape. So kind of a long stem. But the horizontal top part for T is a bit smaller than you'd usually imagine for, let's say a capital letter T today. But with these big stone artifacts, I guess these. These kind of sculpture things. How. How big are we talking with them, Lee? Are they life size or bigger than life size?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah. Okay. I mean, if we're talking about the T pillars, I mean, the tallest, as.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

I said, are the central ones in these special buildings. And they can be up to six.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Meters, five and a half meters, six tall. And those in the enclosing wall are.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

About Three meters, three and a half meters.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So they're very. They're larger than us, you know, larger than human. That's why we sort of speak about monumentality. But of course, you know, monumentality is also relative. I mean, for us, they're not really monumental for our understanding. You know, if we stand in a city and there's a skyscraper that's like, you know, dozens of stories high, that's.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

More monumental for us, like 5, 6 meters height is not really monumental.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But for them, coming living in an environment where they didn't have any of that sort of, you know, metropolis or you know, what we have today, you.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Know, five and a half meter, six meter high monoliths would have been very much monumental.

[Dan Snow]

And the monoliths. So that's kind of like monolith or so one stone. Is that what they're looking at?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

One piece? Yeah, that's right.

[Dan Snow]

So is the evidence from Gobekli Tepe, is it the earliest dateable evidence we know of for monumentality, for the creation of monuments by humans?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Like I said, it's a perspective thing. I mean, for a hunter gatherer, even.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

If they put up a thousand years before that, if they put up a 3 meter high wooden, whatever that would.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Have been for them, I think monumental. But yeah, I mean, strictly speaking, for.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Example, our UNESCO application or UNESCO site since 2018. And of course that's about monumentality.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And for us, of course, the fact that it's carved, it's preserved, it's in.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Stone, the fact that it's so durable.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That for us is also monumental. And so for that reason, I would say it's one of the earliest monumental sites.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of course, there are now sister sites in the region which are equally as old or the same age.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So it's not just Gobeki Tepe, but yeah, so we could say fair. It would be fair enough to say it's one of the earliest monumental buildings, monumental structures that we know so far.

[Dan Snow]

Leigh, as an archaeologist who's done a lot of work with the media, you know how much we want people to say it is the. Or not. But also I appreciate how that's always a sucker in into something that you don't want to say. So fair plays.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I don't like working with superlatives, I just hate it.

[Dan Snow]

No, exactly. And you mentioned other sites in the region and I guess just a couple of names quickly before we explore more about the art itself. Are these names like Kaharan Tepe today, Is that one of the key sister sites?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, for example, Karahan Tepe is one, Gobeki Tepe is the other. And there's another site called Ayan La, which hasn't been excavated yet, but I.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Think it's due to be excavated at.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Some point pretty soon. And those are like three. We could call them sort of central.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Places or central sites within this network.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of T pillar sites down there.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And there are smaller sites as well.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And names like Navalicori would be there, Sai Borj, Sefertepe, So there are numerous. Now, we have a dozen sites we.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Now know down there in the region, but these three sites, Ayin La, Gobekitepe, Karan Tepe, those are the big central sites.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They're the bigger sites which have this very long duration, from the beginning of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The early Holocene, mid 10th millennium BC.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

To the PPNB end of the 9th millennium BC.

[Dan Snow]

Are they quite close together? So, I mean, potentially, after more research suggesting whether there was interactions between the settlements.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

There were definitely interaction.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

I mean, we have the symbolism.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, there are differences. There's lots of similarities, but there are sort of nuances and differences between, for example, in the symbolism whereby at Gobeki Tepe you have more animals depicted.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

At Karahan Tepe, there's more of a focus on the human form.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So we're seeing what.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We're just starting to see that, because the excavations at these other sites at.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Karahan, for example, only started back in 20. So it's really.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That's just coming out now, and we're.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Seeing, you know, the first sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Making the first comparisons with our material.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So that's something, you know, that we need to watch out for in the future. A network was there. Economic, cultural, social. It was definitely there.

[Dan Snow]

It's all very exciting stuff. I mean, you mentioned how there's a lot of depictions of animals on Gobekli Tepe or at Gobekli Tepe. Is it on these T pillars that you see quite a lot of that animal art?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, of course, you do get smaller figurines and that sort of thing, but.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The majority that we know of is.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Actually sort of applied or carved into or from the pillars.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

So you have low reliefs which, you.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Know, a couple of centimeters sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Protruding from the pillar.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And then you have high reliefs with.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Like, statues that are actually carved from the pillar itself, but still attached to the pillar.

[Dan Snow]

It's 3D.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, yeah, 3D, yeah.

[Dan Snow]

I mean, those are extreme. And what kind of animals are being shown?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Funnily enough, I mentioned earlier that the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Gazelle was the most important animal for.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The hunters, for the meat supply, but there's only one or two of those.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Actually depicted on the art.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They prefer like, you know, the leopards, the auroch, the wild boar. In fact, just a couple of years.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Ago we had a wonderful new discovery of a life size wild boar carved from limestone in building D to set at a focal point of the building.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, so it's these, I'd say, sort of dangerous animals also lots of insects, snakes, scorpions. So they're sort of a bit sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And this has all been interpreted in various ways in the past.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But for example, Klaus Schmidt, the previous.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Excavator, associated it with like death myths.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And death rituals and others with fear. So there's lots of different ways of doing this.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But of course, you know, the fact is that they're concentrating on these animals.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That had some sort of power which.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Were obviously important for their narratives, where.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, stories were attached to them.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And of course they're choosing these.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Leopards are great, you know, and wild boars, I love them.

[Dan Snow]

It's also interesting. So there are wild animals that have been depicted that they would have seen in the landscape. And I'm guessing then are there no depictions of mythical creatures or something like that that might be attached to a particular story or something?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

No, I mean, I think the wild.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Animals themselves are attached to stories because.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of course, you know, they could say, okay, I just went out and I.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Saw a wild boar in Uroc. I'm going to sort of put it.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

On my pillar now. But no, they come in different constellations and I think we're actually seeing here narratives.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And that's the most important thing. And this is why, in my opinion.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Gobeki Tepe is so important.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

It's not just the monumentality, but it's actually the fact that we're seeing here narratives which are previously oral narratives, so told by storytellers around the campfire, which for the first time are being petrified. They're being sort of carved into stone and they're preserved for us today. And I think these narratives are very.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Much telling us the traditions and the stories of the foundation myths, of hunter.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Gatherer populations before dating, before the Neolithic.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Before this whole process took off. In that respect, they're so valuable. And I think that's the reason why the site really deserves its UNESCO status, because it does say it's so important.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

For humanity the fact that we have these narratives still preserved.

[Dan Snow]

Do you think there's also the benefits of the limestone material? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I thought limestone is quite soft so is it easier for them to use their stone tools to carve out these sculptures and this art in that particular stone?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's right. I mean, it's a soft material compared to other stone.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

There is harder stone. I mean, not far from the site, we also have a source of basalt, which is being used for grinding stones for the wild wheat, for example, also for minerals. Because, of course, what I didn't mention.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Just now is the fact that we found color, remains of color on the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Statue of the wild boar that I.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Mentioned from two years ago.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Its mouth was still red. So they were using sort of a.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Red pigment, which have probably been sort.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of grinding up and, you know, and.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Applying to the statues, probably also to the pillars. So it wouldn't have been as gray.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

As we see it today on the.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Pictures on the photographs, but it would.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Have been a much brighter affair with much more color, especially red color.

[Dan Snow]

And the red color, do we think from ochre or something else? Or from ochre. And so you have those sculptures there. Should we briefly talk about the human sculptures as well? I know there are less than of the animals that you highlighted, but they're quite interesting to talk about, too.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah. I mean, the thing is, of course, you say there are less human depictions.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But the T pillars themselves are depictions.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of the human form.

[Dan Snow]

Oh, okay.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The actual shaft of the pillar is.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The body, and the T at the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Top is in the head.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So we know that because we have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

In Building D, the two central pillars in that center of that building.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They have actually carved arms in low relief.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

They have a belt, they have a loincloth, all carved in low relief. They have necklaces, but the face isn't depicted. They didn't want to depict the face.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But they didn't need to depict the face. They chose not to. But they're very clearly.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The T form is a depiction of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The human form, albeit very sort of abstract. On the other hand, we do have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We know they could carve faces because we have small figurines and larger statues.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Fragments that show the human form.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

It's quite interesting. The faces are sometimes. They remind me of the old Norman helmets, you know, 1066 and all that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They've got this sort of nose piece, and the eyebrows are very, very clearly formed. And then we have also, the heads.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Are sometimes found quite often separate from the bodies.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But I think that's because there's a weak sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The neck is always a weak part.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of the statue, and they're probably broke. It could be that they broke them before Deposition as part Of a ritual, that's also possible. But the bodies, in fact, they also have. They're shown with arms in different sort of gestures. And on a lot of occasions, especially.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

On the larger statues, we see them, the hands actually framing the genitals.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And so phalli.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The phallus is very important to this community.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

There are lots of penises at Gobekli Tepe.

[Dan Snow]

What does Gobekli Tepe and Pompeii have in common? There you go. It's very interesting. So kind of to wrap up this part about those special buildings that you've highlighted there, Lee, and I'm glad we covered first, because there's such that thing everyone thinks about if we don't use the label temple, but we keep that kind of extraordinary, special label there, too. Could we imagine them always being kind of like multipurpose centers of these communities, places where people could gather, tell stories, or maybe kind of food storage or something like that? Or should we just not be imagining them as serving one purpose, but probably had lots of different purposes for these people?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, exactly that.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Lots of different purposes.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, you mentioned all of those.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That we just mentioned.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But also, like, you've got to remember these people are going for a very important, crucial transition at this time. Okay? I mean, when you're a hunter gatherer, you're more mobile, your groups are smaller.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And when you start settling down, your group size increases.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So all of a sudden you're having more children, other groups growing in size, you have more demands on the resources in the landscape. You have perhaps increasing territoriality because of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The sedentism, because of the growing population. Whose hunting ground is that? Does it belong to this site or that site?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You have first conflicts coming up, perhaps.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Because of surplus accumulation.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

People are sort of accumulating wealth, or at least materials.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And of course that leads to conflict.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

As it always does. So you have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

These buildings are perhaps places of conflict mitigation, where people are coming together to mitigate those problems.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We have no evidence for conflict at.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

This time, no evidence for warfare, strangely enough. And so perhaps that's due to these wonderful buildings bringing people together and mitigating those conflict situations.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Just one interpretation.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

If you're a pacifist. These buildings, they're multifunctional.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And for that reason, we shouldn't actually sort of narrow it down just to.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

This sort of one function by using.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The word or the term temple.

[Dan Snow]

I mean, you know, packed with this incredible art and thinking about it with the color as well, as you highlighted there, Lee, for someone who was walking in and to see all this imagery on the walls and this structure, it really was a statement and I'm really glad we could cover all of that in detail. I must also though ask keeping on maybe a ritual, but I guess death and burial, which kind of links us away, but takes us away from those main buildings. Do we know anything about burials at Gobekli Tepe or how they treated their dead away from those great buildings?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, we always thought that burials would be in the special buildings, you know, at least of some sort of important individuals. But of course, you know, with the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Changes taking place in this sort of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Population at that time, you know, an increasing number of people, you'd expect some.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sort of incipient hierarchization because of course.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, these societies or hunter gatherer societies are well known to be sort of quite egalitarian, although egalitarian doesn't really exist, strictly speaking. But we haven't found any burials in.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The special building so far. I say so far.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, there's always happen.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

What we do have is quite characteristic.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

For the region itself and for the time.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

So for the pre potter Neolithic period.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In, you know, the eastern parts of the Mediterranean, which is subfloor burial. So it was.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We have two burials so far at.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Gobekli Tepe, and all of them from.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Domestic contexts because of course that's something.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Also it's quite important for Gobekli Tepe.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That we've now realized it's not just a ritual site because there was like discussions previously.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Oh, it's just, you know, people coming there regular part times in the year.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

To celebrate and to build these temples.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But of course now we know it's a settlement.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

We have the domestic context, we have the houses and beneath the house floors.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You frequently get burials in this period. So when grandma died, you actually went.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Down into your cellar or to the ground floor of your building, opened up.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

A hole and bunged her in, covered her up.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

So really the living and the dead.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Were very in close proximity.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

They weren't separating them by putting them to a separate burial ground away from the site, but they were keeping them close to them.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So you get a lot of burials.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Beneath the floors of the buildings, at the thresholds of the buildings and close within that sort of activity zones of the domestic areas.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And we have two such burials at Gobekli Tepe. We have one which is I think a teenage in her young early twenties, a female individual in hocker positioned so.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sort of crouched and laying as if.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Sleeping, and one in another domestic building where we have, I Think three or.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Four individuals possibly, but not well preserved.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Because actually in prehistory they'd gone in and disturbed the burial because that's something.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That they also did with particular individuals.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We don't know what the criteria were, but they went back to the burial.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

After a little while and they exhumed.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The skull or parts of the body. We also have with regard to the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Skull and the so called skull cult.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

At Gobeki Tepe, which is also quite.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Well known from the East Mediterrane at.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

This time, skulls were exhumed and plastered in the shape with the features. We don't have any plastered skulls at Gobeki Tempur. We do have fragments of skull with.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sort of carving and grooves and scratch marks.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So actually they didn't wait too long.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

For the skin and the hair to sort of decay.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They went in quite quickly afterwards, got.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Out the skull, scraped it clean and then put some grooves in to hold.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Like a cord and decorated them. And they're also sort of drill holes in them that they're perhaps using to suspend them and to hang them. You know, you see it sometimes in ethnographical examples. They have mummies of dead people they.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Bring out at certain times of the year for certain festivals that could be similar here.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They could have like the skulls coming out at certain times of the year.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Being hung up in a special building. I mean, the ancestors are so important. They didn't have history books or books.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

To hold onto that knowledge. And they probably knew that the knowledge.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Was in the brain, in the skull that was the seat of the spirit. And of course the ancestors were the all knowing. And they did that, I think to celebrate the ancestors.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So ancestor veneration, animism was at the center of the rituals and the belief systems at this time.

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[Dan Snow]

I was thinking during your explanation there, Lee. I know it's several thousand years later, but having done stuff in the past on Stone Age Orkney and you see some of the great tombs that they ultimately build for like the richest in society, but with a clear idea of building something massive potentially to show off like the wealth or the status of that family. And everyone's involved in the building of it. It's fascinating. Like if there's no Similar kind of big burial mounds from Gobekli Tepe. In that society, you'd have thought that might be a human nature thing, that someone who we don't know about the society at all, if they saw themselves as more important, would ultimately try and get a big burial for themselves.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Yeah, it's funny you say that because there are a couple of sites, I.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Mean, excavated quite a few years ago.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Now at Chayanu, I mentioned it earlier.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

It's one of the earliest sites that was discovered in the 1960s and actually.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Excavations started shortly after the survey work. And that's located further to the east.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of Gobekitep in the Diabaka region. And there they found the so called skull building. And they have actually a building, a.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Ritual structure, they say, and within that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

There was a room full of human skulls. We don't know who those individuals were.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But interestingly, just recently, in the frame of the new investigations in the Orpha region, at a site called Sefertepa, there was also a small room in a building discovered which also contained numerous skulls.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So it does appear that the burial traditions were varied, perhaps depending on who you were, your status, your age, your place in society, as I say now.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

As a skull card.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But also there was the inhumations. But also this sort of, this skull collection point, as it were, in some of the buildings.

[Dan Snow]

Skull collection point. Well, there you go.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Sorry, it's a bit of a strange term to use, not very archaeological of me.

[Dan Snow]

This is the ancients. We cover all different terms of language for this, which is great, but you did mention in passing there, so kind of residential structures. So do we have evidence of residential buildings, of houses, I guess, of dwellings at Gobekli Tepe and if so, what do they look like?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, I mean, as I said, we.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Now know that the site was not.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

A purely ritual site as previously sort of posited. But in fact it was a settlement from very. From the offset. So in fact we've got a couple of new. I say new back in 2017, 18, we had two new canopies, permanent canopies constructed over the site to protect the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Archaeology from the elements. Because of course the weather down there.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Is pretty harsh, especially in the summer, it's very hot and the sun, et cetera. But to construct these canopies, we had to sort of remove sondages, where the legs of these things were going to.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Be anchored into the plaster.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So we had to go through all the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

They couldn't drill through the archaeology, we had to remove it first. So we went through in little sondages in several places, right down to the base of the mound.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And found sort of. We had little keyholes into the early.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Settlement phases, of course, at the bottom of the mound.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's the oldest sort of accumulations, and the higher you get, the younger it gets. So.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And we actually found evidence of domesticated structures, or domestic structures, rather dwellings in.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

These oldest layers, which very small sort of round structures.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

They had no T pillars, but they're also multiphase, had several floors used.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, you could see the walking horizons in their activity zones with hearths and evidence of people chipping and doing.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Napping and producing beads from stone and animal bird bones, that sort of thing.

[Dan Snow]

So the kind of necklace things that you talked about earlier, the necklaces, Right, Yeah, yeah.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

So very, very domestic, and that increases over time. And in fact, by the height of the site in the mid 9th millennium BC, you've got rectangular structures, domestic structures.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So in fact, it's quite interesting because.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Over the course of time, that's quite an important thing.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In the PPNA, in this sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Period, from 9,600 to 8,700 buildings, whether domestic or special, were usually round, oval.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And then at the onset of the PPNB, about 8,700 BC, they invent, or.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The corner appears and they start building rectangular buildings.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of course, they don't actually stop building.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Round or oval, but the rectangular comes in and it sort of increases over time as well.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's one way of data. What are the differences between the PPNA and the ppnb? The shape of the buildings. So, yeah, I mean, at the time.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Of the ppnb, I think we were.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Looking at a very much a flourishing settlement, very much a village or perhaps even bigger. In fact, we have to be very careful because we can't actually date this very well. I mean, we don't know whether the site's very big.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The different areas are not connected, so we can't actually compare the stratigraphy.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And we don't have radiocarbon dates enough.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

With high resolution, enough to say, okay, they're contemporaneous, so it could well be they're moving around the actual site itself.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Perhaps they sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

First of all, in the northwestern part.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of the site, it all gets a bit sort of nasty and dirty. They've been there too long, throwing out.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Their rubbish, that sort of thing. They move to the eastern side.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

They do that for a decade or so. Oh, it's getting a bit nasty. Let's go.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Or they split into two groups, and that's the way this mound and develops.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Over the 1500 years of occupation of the site. So the dating is still a bit difficult.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

But if the site, the entire nine and a half hectare site, was all.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Being used or was settled at the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Same time in the ppnb, then we're.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Looking at a major settlement with perhaps.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Even a couple of hundred or more people.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. I mean, you mentioned hearths there, so I'm guessing those hearths area where they were presumably cooking and having the fireplaces. But also you mentioned rubbish dumps as well. Are these key areas in the settlement for learning more about the people themselves and how they lived, what foods they ate alongside the gazelle that you've mentioned earlier?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, I mean, the rubbish dumps, we'll say the rubbish pits are very much, you know, important for us. An archaeologist's dreams of rubbish, we just want everyone's rubbish. But of course, we get a good insight into the animals being hunted. Like I said, the gazelle was very important. We have the horned cores and we.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Can see actually which parts of the animal were being transported to the site from the hunting grounds. In fact, interestingly, we have hunting traps.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

In the vicinity of Gobekli Tepla, so.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Called kites or desert kites, known from Jordan, for example.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We have them also in Gobekli Tepe and in the Tashtepla region of Shanlu Ufa. So actually we're looking at sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Organized hunting, industrial hunting in a way, in that they were driving these, these animals or these herds of animals into corrals and then sort of, you know, hunting large numbers of the animals at the same time.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, that's the only way of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Then actually sort of feeding your larger population perhaps at that time.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

You know, and water, water resources.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

I'm drifting off tangents now.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's the case.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

You know, water supply was crucial.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I mean, it was always thought, you.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Know, Gobeki Tepe had no water supply.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

People were walking to a water source perhaps, you know, kilometers away from the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Site and coming back.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And, you know, but we don't know whether there was, you know, perhaps there.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Was a spring at the site that's no longer active.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

But in the meantime, we do have very good evidence for cisterns. And they're actually, if you remember, or as I said, you know, the climate.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Conditions, they were improving after the last ice age, at the time of occupation and rainfall was even greater than today.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And perhaps we're even looking at summer rainfall as well.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And they were harvesting that rainwater in.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Large cisterns and collecting it via channels.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Into these large pits and that being.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Used at the site as a source of water flows.

[Dan Snow]

Wow. I mean, you read my mind. I was going to ask about cisterns and the kind of the channeling of water. So they had that early technology even back then to funnel water into, as you say, this area where the natural water resources are quite far away. And to me personally, someone who was always fascinated in, whether it be sewers or kind of aqueducts or water management, the fact that they had cisterns there some 10,000 years ago, I mean, that is an astonishing piece of archaeology that is sometimes overlooked compared to, like, those big, special buildings and so on, Lee.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, that's right. I mean, we haven't got the latrines yet. I'd like to find the toilets.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Okay.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I haven't got one of those yet, but we're still looking for one of those.

[Dan Snow]

These lithics that you mentioned earlier, are these just kind of like scraping tools or the kinds of things that would have been used for either kind of butchering meat or creating clothing or stuff like that? Would they have been the tools that they would have used?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, we've got the whole repertoire, you.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Know, very characteristic of a settlement. In fact, I mean, that's also a very good indication that it was a settlement and not just a ritual focal point. Because, of course, that the amount of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Lithics coming from Gobeki Tepe, I mean, it's just enormous. We have boxes and boxes and boxes.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Full at the museum and the excavation house, and every year it increases.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And of course, you know, this is.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Made from local material, so the flynn.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Is also quite local. We don't quite know exactly where the.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Sources were, but there were sources nearby.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We know that. And, you know, the assemblage, everything from.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Arrowheads to scrapers to drills, you know.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That sort of thing, you know, it's all there.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And for that reason, we know it.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Was a, you know, a settlement scenario. Apart from that, of course, you know.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

For the carving of the T pillars.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We don't actually have a, you know, a workshop where we can actually say it was. We have negatives in the plateau where these large blocks were taken from, but we don't have any tools that have.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Been sort of left lying around there.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We haven't actually found anything like that. But of course, there are very chunky bits of stuff that were obviously being.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Used for bashing, but they could have.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Been using that for that function as well.

[Dan Snow]

It's the kind of hammerstones kind of thing.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

I'm not Being my terminology is very. Is lacking at the moment. I'm just trying to make it more sort of, you know, visual for you. But, yeah, so that was going on.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And of course, I mentioned the basalt.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Which was not far away used for the grinding tools. Of course, you had imports of obsidian.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Very small amounts of obsidian coming in.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Less than 1%, and that's coming from.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Different sources from Eastern Anatolia.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

So that also testifies some sort of down the line, sort of contact with.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Groups living further to the north in.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

The more mountainous regions.

[Dan Snow]

I mean, Lee, you've painted a wonderful picture of this society, these people living some 10,000 years ago. And it's an astonishing story that of Gobekli Tepe. And it sounds like there's going to be even more coming out of the ground very, very, very shortly. But you also painted the picture how over time the site evolves and it seems to develop into a very kind of prosperous and bigger settlement. So the big question is, what ultimately happens to Gobekli Tepe?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Why?

[Dan Snow]

I mean, does it all fall off a cliff? What do we know?

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Yeah, we have very little evidence for what was going on at Gobeki Tepa.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

After around the end of the 9th millennium B.C. so 8,000 B.C, it sort of all.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Starts to sort of disappear.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And of course, that's the time that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

We get more and more sites with domesticated species of animals, you know, goats to sheep, that sort of thing, and your crops. And of course, it's going from wild.

[Dan Snow]

Wheat to domesticated wheat to domesticated wheat.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

That's right. So I think that plays a part.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The fact that people are now turning.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Away from these hunter gatherer traditions to this more farming sort of, these farming.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Traditions with regard to their subsistence. And of course, the changes in subsistence go hand in hand with changes in society, perhaps changes in belief systems. Because of course, after Gobekli Tepe, these big enclosures or these big special buildings, they also disappear. We don't have anything sort of comparable.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Until the late Chalcolithic, the Bronze Age, in prehistory. So that's quite remarkable. I think the reason is that it was actually that the farming, of course.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The location of Gobekitep at the moment.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Or even then at the time, is very hilly, very rocky, and it's not very good for farming. And of course, you go down a.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Few kilometers into the plain, into the.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Haram Plain to the south, the conditions are a lot better. You can have your fields, you can have your crops growing, you can have your animals and everything. That's one reason, I think, also that.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

The belief systems and the social structures change as well along with that.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

And I think recently I've proposed that we don't have any good evidence for sort of social hierarchies or the elites at this time in the Prepotri Neolithic. And I think it was very much to do with the fact that they didn't really exist. In fact, we're looking at sort of.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Inspired individuals, charismatic individuals, which were sort of playing that role, perhaps gifted storytellers or, I don't know, shamans, that sort.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of thing, taking on that role. And of course, they were no longer needed. It.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

It changed.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

People wanted came away from that.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

And of course, when subsistence changed, belief system changed, social structures changed, the site became, you know, it was no longer needed in that respect.

[Dan Snow]

Well, Leigh, this has been a fascinating chat. We've explored all these different parts of the amazing archaeological story of Gobekli Tepe, and it sounds like there's still so much more archaeology to uncover, but also then to record and preserve for many years and decades ahead.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Oh, we've got a lot of work left to do. I mean, excavations. You know, we've been criticized for saying.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

That it's going to take generations of.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Archaeologists to actually complete work at Gobekli Tepe.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

In fact, there's no need to actually.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Excavate the whole site. It's always like we have to save.

[Unnamed Archaeologist]

Something for the next generations coming along.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Of archaeologists, you know, with better methodologies. So it's really a question of preserving what we're excavating, what we have excavated previously and making that really sort of visible and available to the public and anyone interested. So, yeah, that's our task at hand and it's going to keep us busy at least to the end of my working life. And I've got quite a few years left yet.

[Dan Snow]

Well, you've certainly completed part of that task by speaking to the ancients today. And we really appreciate your time. Lee, it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today.

[Dr. Lee Clare]

Well, thanks again for having me, Tristan. It's been great fun.

[Tristan Hughes]

Well, there you go. There was Dr. Lee Claire, giving you an awesome overview of the archaeology so far uncovered at Gobekli Tepe and why this site is so interesting, so incredible. Really interesting to see what will be unearthed there in the years ahead. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Ancients. Please follow the show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be.

[Dan Snow]

Doing us a big favor if you.

[Tristan Hughes]

Want more ancient history history videos and clips, then be sure to follow me as well on Instagram ncianstristen. Don't forget that you can also listen.

[Dan Snow]

To the Ancients and all of History.

[Tristan Hughes]

Hits podcasts ad free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you [e-mail] subscribe now. That's enough from me and I'll see you in the next episode.

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