The findings of the excavations in Göbeklitepe, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List, reveal that agriculture and animal husbandry were the result of settlement, not the cause, and that the communities living 12 thousand years ago were not only struggling to survive, but were also an advanced society in architecture, technology and art. Here is FILE NEWS: How Do Thousands-Year-Old Findings of Göbeklitepe Change History Writing?
ŞANLIURFA (AA) – EŞBER AYAYDIN – In the first part of AA’s file news about the discovery of data dating back to earlier periods than expected in archaeological excavations in Anatolia, the findings in Göbeklitepe, located near the rural Örencik District within the borders of Şanlıurfa’s central Haliliye district, were discussed.
In Örencik District, 18 kilometers away from the city center, In Göbeklitepe, which was discovered during surface studies in 1963Excavations have been carried out under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism since 1995.
Göbeklitepe, which was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2018The results obtained from the excavations in , attracted the world’s attention to this area and revealed data that would change the writing of history.
Göbeklitepe Excavation Head Prof. Dr. Necmi Karul, in his statement to AA correspondent, said: With the excavations that started in 1995, Göbeklitepe was discovered in the neolithic age.He stated that it was learned that it contains monumental structures.
In excavations , B.C. Dated between 9600s and 8200s Settlement layers reflecting a period of approximately 1500 yearsExplaining that the site was partially unearthed, Karul noted that the presence of public monumental structures here created a great impact on the archaeological community.
Karul said:
“It was understood that Göbeklitepe had public buildings, including residences, where people lived their daily lives, so these places were used as a settlement rather than a place related to beliefs where people came together.
As a matter of fact, in 2021, we encountered similar results when the Stone Hills and Neolithic age research in this region spread to a wider region. Today, we have unearthed many contemporary settlements around the Harran Plain, where we see private, public buildings and residences together.
The most important difference of Göbeklitepe among these was an aspect that triggered subsequent research on this period. First of all, the presence of the monumental buildings here, the T-shaped obelisks within them and, more importantly, the symbols on the T-shaped stones… When we put all these together, we can say that it showed us how advanced the people of 12 thousand years ago were in architecture, technology and art. ” he said.
– Agriculture and animal husbandry are the result of settlement, not the cause
Karul explained that with the information obtained from the studies carried out in Göbeklitepe and contemporary areas within the scope of the Stone Hills Project, they reached results contrary to previous thoughts about life in that period, and that they saw that the communities that lived a hunter-gatherer life adopted a settled life.
Emphasizing that despite the transition to a settled life, it was understood that these communities did not yet know agriculture and animal husbandry, Karul pointed out that with the settlement in Göbeklitepe, it was seen that the surrounding resources were used more effectively.
Pointing out that they encountered plant cultivation and animal domestication experiments in the later stages of the period, Karul continued his words as follows:
“Immediately after settlement, we see that they cultivated plants and domesticated animals. Therefore, the process that started with settlement in Göbeklitepe and similar places has an important place in the history of archeology as a place where we see the beginning of productive life, which is the most important input in the basis of today’s social order.
What makes Göbeklitepe so important, what attracts the attention of a large part of the society and on a world scale, is that it reveals how wrong our perspective and perception of the past is. In other words, it hit us in the face.
If you ask how we can explain this a little more, we understand that places like Göbeklitepe radically change the perception that societies in the past were primitive, underdeveloped societies. Modern man looks at the past in an advanced way, and when he thinks about the past, he perceives himself as the most advanced individuals, people and societies compared to the past, since he is at the end of time. Göbeklitepe showed us that the people who lived here 12 thousand years ago were communities that could build monumental architectures, come together and establish assemblies in these structures, and process those obelisks and the scenes they created with predominantly animal depictions on them, and made some mythological stories a part of their lives.
When thought like this, it showed that the people in Göbeklitepe 12 thousand years ago had aspects, artists and storytellers that were no less than today’s society, and that the craftsmen who could embroider those stories on these obelisks were the architects and masters of that period who built and designed these buildings. We can say that it has revealed to us how contemptuous our current perspective is on the past.”
– “He showed how high his skills are”
Stating that the findings in Göbeklitepe and its contemporary areas can change the writing of history, Karul gave the following information:
“History books have undoubtedly been changing in recent years almost everywhere in the world. While it is thought that the reason for settlement was agriculture and animal husbandry, Göbeklitepe and its contemporary places are among the places that show that the reason for settlement was not agriculture and animal husbandry, but the result of settlement of agriculture and animal husbandry. It is one of the most important series when we think about the change of information.
Again, in school textbooks, there is a perception that people in the past, 12 thousand years ago, lived a life limited to struggling to survive. There was a perception that people lived in caves and lived in difficulties. We can easily say that Göbeklitepe shows how unreal this is and how high the skills and achievements of the people of 12 thousand years ago were in every sense, in technology and architecture. When viewed this way, we can say that it is one of the leading archaeological discoveries that corrects the mistakes in historiography to a large extent.”