Latest / The Smart Cookies podcast / The alluring MYSTERIES of Göbekli Tepe - the OLDEST monumental site in the world, with Jens Notroff

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The alluring MYSTERIES of Göbekli Tepe - the OLDEST monumental site in the world, with Jens Notroff · The Smart Cookies podcast

0:04
Jens Nothrof is a prehistoric archaeologist and
0:07
science communicator who used to work on the
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famous Gobekli Tepe excavation site, the so -called
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oldest known monumental, and as we'll discuss,
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possibly also religious structure in the world.
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This is going to be some pretty crazy, exciting
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stuff. Jens, welcome to the program. Yeah, thanks
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for having me. The question is this. How is it
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possible that this impressive complex of monuments
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built... around 12 ,000 years ago, so thousands
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of years before the first cities ever appear
0:36
on the map, was put there by hunter -gatherers,
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if that was indeed the case. And most of all,
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why? And we're going to get there, but before
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we do, I'd like you to tell me when and how was
0:49
the site first discovered? And when it was, did
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archaeologists immediately recognize its incredible
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significance? I think it's a good idea to start
0:58
with the history of discovery, actually. The
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site of Gobekli Tepe is known, at least as a
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Neolithic, that means young stone age site, since
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the 1960s. So there was a joint survey by the
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universities of Chicago and Istanbul, and they
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were just traveling the country and noting down
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sites, sites of interest, sites which apparently
1:22
are of historic interest, of archaeological interest.
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The Göbekli Tepe was among this list of sites
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because a lot of flint tools, scattered flint
1:33
particles were lying around all over the place.
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So it was pretty clear, okay, this is a site
1:39
of Stone Age activity because the typical tools
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and the material clearly hint at an... an occupation
1:46
or at least some kind of utilization in that
1:50
time. So that was quite clear in the 1960s. But
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what was not clear or did not became clear when
1:57
was the monumentality the site was actually hiding,
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the architecture, because this was all below
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ground. There was a mount on this rock plateau,
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Göbekli Tepe is situated in the mountains and
2:07
in southeastern Turkey and near the modern town
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of Şanlıurfa. So it's a place high up, not really
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in the... in the valley not really in the in
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today's settlement areas um villages around it
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of course but it's it's a quite often a kind
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of an erratic place so it's in the mountains
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and so it was not really on everybody's mind
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that this is a typical Stone Age settlement position.
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So the list was published and largely, well,
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not forgotten, but there were other sites on
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that list where we researched them. Chayuni,
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Tepesi, one of the most famous sites of this
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list was excavated soon after. just make a leap
2:54
of a couple of years, decades actually. And in
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1994, Klaus Schmidt from the German Archaeological
3:00
Institute, where I'm working now as well as a
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science communicator and researcher, was traveling
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the area with this list in hand, looking for
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other places to excavate. He has just finished
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work at another site, Nibali Chori. not that
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far away, which today is basically on the bottom
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of the Ataturk Dam Reservoir Lake. So it was
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excavated in preparation of this water reservoir.
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And the important thing about Nivali Chori is
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that this is the site for the first time these
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T -shaped pillars were discovered. Not of the
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monumental type, but a smaller type, but they
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were pretty clear. They had arms and they had
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the same shape. So it was the first time these
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T -shaped pillars were... discovered and recognized
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and this knowledge helped klaus schmidt to finally
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recognize the importance of gravity tepper so
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we cannot really blame the colleagues in the
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1960s that they did not recognize the monumental
4:00
architecture that was hit which was hidden below
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ground because they had no really an uh picture
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in mind an analogy to look for but klaus just
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coming from nivali chori and being familiar with
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this specific type of architecture soon noticed
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that some of the rocks sticking out of the the
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field they're actually parts of such t -shaped
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pillars so he immediately saw okay this seems
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to be a related site to what i was already researching
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and he put it in one of his journal articles
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if i remember correctly he put it like he immediately
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realized that he could either turn around and
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look for another place or spend the rest of his
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life researching this place and this in the end
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is what happens so this is in very short the
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history of discovery and of course the low the
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local villagers who were farming the site, the
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mound is the only fertile soil all around this
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rock plateau. So it was used as a farm area.
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And they stumbled upon finds much, much earlier.
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And they later told us that a lot of... Sculpture
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heads and other stone pieces were occasionally
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coming up when ploughing the fields. So they
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were aware of this site already much earlier.
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But the monumentality was archaeologically recognized
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only in 1994 when Klaus Schmidt traveled there.
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And he started excavations a year later in 1995.
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Why is it always Germans that find everything?
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You have some uncanny ability to know what to
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go for. Germans, maybe we are the ones. talking
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too much about it in podcasts or something like
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that. Meanwhile, I think archaeology is a pretty
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international science and discipline. Modern
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archaeology is an interdisciplinary international
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venture. I'm sorry. No, no, no. It's flattering.
5:58
I was just reading about the guy who discovered
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Troy or whatever. I think he was German as well,
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right? Yeah, Schliemann, yeah. Schliemann, yeah.
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A lot of debate on that guy. But that's not the
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topic of the podcast. Not today. Today. Maybe
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another time. By the way, before we come back
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to Gobekli Tepe, I wanted to ask you this. You're
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an archaeologist that specializes in pre... That
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means that you might find somebody's leather
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tissue or something that they blew their nose
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in 20 ,000 years ago and not much else. And then
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you have to interpret or construct an entire
6:33
narrative out of his or her life. And also you
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have to invent, not invent, but reconstruct an
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entire way of life or a culture even from one
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or a couple of objects. Isn't that a bit frustrating?
6:48
No, actually, I mean... Archaeology is in general
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the science which is dealing with the material
6:55
culture, right? We're looking at the material
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stuff people left to us. Simply put, what we're
7:01
doing is we're rummaging through the rubbish
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of other people to spy on their lives. So it
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sounds a bit creepy, but that's pretty much what
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we're doing. That's why this rubbish is so important,
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because it really... It's much more a mirror
7:15
of daily life than, for example, a burial would
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be. I mean, we're looking into burials as well.
7:21
It's an important source. But a burial always
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is a selection, right? It's an orchestration.
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A burial is meant to provide a certain message
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about the person buried there or tells the society
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the bereaved. But the rubbish is what you just
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use. It's what's left of your daily life. And
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this really helps us reconstructing how people
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lived, what people were dealing with, what they
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were eating, how they were building. So that's
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what's really offering a glimpse into daily life.
7:57
Yeah, no, I was just, you know, like every 40
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year old man on the planet recently, I've just
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been diving headfirst into this obsession with
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the history of Rome. So I've been watching a
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lot of like Mary Beard content, you know, the
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famous English classicist. She has a lot of written
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sources from the period at her disposal. Yeah,
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but I always marveled how careful she is not
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to take them at their face value. Because as
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she says, often the people who are writing might
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have had a particular agenda. They might have
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been lying. Maybe the purpose was to influence
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or convince the reader. So it's tricky. However,
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you guys don't even have that. Yeah, I mean,
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there are, of course, there are certain periods
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archaeologists are doing excavations as well,
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where we have written sources and contrast. The
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Roman history is also accompanied by archaeology
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and Roman science, right? Pompeii, for example,
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is excavated and is giving us also a glimpse
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into daily life. And that's quite interesting
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to compare what the archaeological material sources
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are telling us and what the written sources are
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telling us. And it's always interesting to see,
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okay, where do they confirm each other and where
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do they contradict each other? Because that's
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the important point you just mentioned. written
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sources always are biased, right? You're writing
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something about something else or about an event
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with a clear picture in mind, with a clear message
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in mind you want to provide. So it's... It's
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manipulation in good and bad ways. So it's very
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subjective. But your rubbish is, although it's
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very individual, it's not really that subjective
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because it offers a much, much broader glimpse
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into what you're doing. And that's where material
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culture is such an important... important source,
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I think, of telling about past lives. And that's
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the main difference. I mean, prehistoric archaeology
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simply means we're dealing with cultures which
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did not develop any writing. So we do not have
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these written sources to contrast our finds and
10:00
features. And that makes it more difficult, on
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one hand, to come up with interpretations. But
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it offers also, yeah, I would say... much more
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freedom and uh because you're not you're not
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starting your interpretation with a certain picture
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in mind already you know from the written sources
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okay with what can constitute trash from prehistory
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like i imagine you know people didn't like build
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ikea furniture and then throw it away wow and
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how do you know something is trash and and it's
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not just like random objects Oh, that's pretty
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clear because everything humans are using or
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humans are shaping clearly shows the human influence,
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even stone tools. You can read stone tools. We've
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got the memory because you can, if it's real
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tools, you can follow certain shapes. But even
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the rubbish, the debitage, the stuff which remains
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from producing stone tools shows that it is indeed
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artificial because take, for example, flintstones.
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the force you need to create tools to smash with
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other stones on a flintstone leaves clear marks
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which are distinguishable from, for example,
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accidental breaking flintstones. So you can,
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with a trained eye, you can make this out. And
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also, I mean... Everything people are using at
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one point may become useless and is either thrown
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away intentionally in huge rubbish pits, for
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example, or you lose your stuff. Sounds familiar.
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Yeah, there was some great news. I'm not sure
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about the dating anymore, but I think it was
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a bunch of Paleolithic tools, stone tools, blades.
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particular and they were just found in a context
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which suggested that they probably were put together
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in kind of a leather case or something like that
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and there were a pretty good tool set used by
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a paleolithic hunter so it was a it was not thrown
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away it was a distinguished set of tools you
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would use in your everyday stuff and next to
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it was in the same same same bag or whatever
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it was where the broken pieces of other other
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tools so it was so relatable just like oh no
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that's that's not that bad i still can use it
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so i put it back in my bag and but at some point
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you seem to have lost this bag because we found
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it now um with all these tools and so yeah there
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are so many different ways how material culture
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ends up in the ground um but but rubbish is probably
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one of the the most common one because i mean
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you we know from ourselves right but we don't
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need anymore what's broken beyond repair and
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we just throw away or leave behind yeah i asked
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that because i'm originally from slovenia and
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you know we have this um apparently the oldest
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flute in the world that was discovered in some
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cave 40 000 years ago or something and uh but
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people still don't actually know if it was a
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flute or was it just a piece of bone that a bear
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bit into and made like two really kind of distinctly
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shaped holes. I'm familiar with this discussion.
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I mean, in this case, it's really difficult because
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the holes, they look so suggestive, but it might
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be some kind of animal traces. But there are
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other examples. These flutes are really recognizable.
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I mean, in most of the cases, you can see if
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it's a piece which was worked by human beings.
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Right. Well, you mentioned that people organize
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their trash in a little garbage dump. That's
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kind of comfy, no? It makes me feel comfy to
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know that people used to do that hundreds of
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thousands of years ago already. I mean, there
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are practical reasons. Way to go. Once you start
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settling or staying longer at the same place,
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Even if you're a mobile hunter, you have these
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hunting camps. You do not want to have your rotten
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bones of your last meal lying around and attract
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all kinds of nasty animals. So it makes sense
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to collect your trash. And below ground, it's
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pretty safe. So you won't attract any predators
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at night if you bury your trash just outside
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the tent settlement or wherever. Let's focus
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on the Big Papa correctly, Tepe. First of all,
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if I understand it correctly, the excavations
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are still ongoing, right? Yes. Can you describe
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what has been discovered so far? Okay, I mean,
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it's an ongoing project since 1995. So there's
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been a lot of excavation work. We were spending
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like two seasons each year in the field, which
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means nine weeks each season. So a lot of excavation
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work has been done. A lot of stuff has already
15:02
been excavated. To characterize it in a very,
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very short summary, there are monuments. The
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important thing about Gabigli Tepe, or one of
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the important things, is the monumental architecture
15:16
discovered, consisting of these T -shaped limestone
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pillars I already mentioned. You have to imagine
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these as monolithic, cut from one piece, large
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limestone pillars, the largest one about 5 .5
15:29
meters high, smaller ones about 4 meters high
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in these older buildings. And they are really
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looking like the capital letter T from the Latin
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alphabet. You mentioned before. I've seen the
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pictures, and while they are impressive in size,
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they really don't look like humans to me, to
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be honest. They're quite abstract. Yeah, totally.
15:48
I totally agree. When I started excavating there
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in 2000, and I think I first joined in 2006 or
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2007, I knew, of course, the interpretation and
15:59
everything. that these T -shaped pillars are
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meant to be anthropomorphic sculptures. But yeah,
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I totally agree. I couldn't see it in the beginning
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as well. But once we started excavating further,
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we uncovered that these, at least the central
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pillars, I'm just saying something about the
16:18
setup in a minute, suddenly were showing carved
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reliefs of arms. and hands brought together above
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the belly. Below them, belts and loincloths of
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animal skin. So that really convinced me, okay,
16:33
these are really human -like. And that makes
16:38
it so interesting because these 5 .5 meters T
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-pillars are indeed abstract sculptures. They
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are meant to depict anthropomorphic, human -like.
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um beings um i wouldn't go so far to call them
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deities or gods or something because that would
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involve a whole concept we cannot just say now
16:56
about the belief system but they seem to be very
17:00
important human beings maybe ancestors or something
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um there must be a reason why we are so depicted
17:06
in that size and that's quite interesting the
17:09
abstract shape to just come back to this is in
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my opinion probably owed to the material, to
17:16
the limestone, which naturally appears in the
17:20
geology there in large limestone banks. So you
17:24
really only, you know, quotation marks only,
17:26
have to break these banks out of the rock plateaus
17:31
and then cut this particular shape, which I think
17:36
already gives the pattern of this rather flat.
17:41
kind of sculptures. But to come back to what
17:44
we... What else is there besides the T -shaped
17:49
sculpture? So you've got, I already mentioned,
17:53
a central pair of two of these large T -shaped
17:55
pillars standing... on the rock plateau, and
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they are surrounded by more pillars of the same
18:01
shape, which are a bit smaller, about four meters.
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And these pillars are connected by stone walls
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and stone benches, so that in the end they build
18:09
a circle, a circle of pillars gathering around
18:12
these two pillars in the center. And with this
18:15
gathering and the stone benches, they already
18:17
seem to be reminiscent of some kind of a gathering,
18:22
or they seem to represent... people meeting there
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um and this is quite quite interesting because
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this is what was our first idea about the how
18:30
to interpret the the use the function of these
18:33
buildings and that they might be places where
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people were gathering meeting for certain occasions
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circling back um to the beginning to my opening
18:44
can we say with a degree of certainty that the
18:46
complex at gobekli tepe was indeed built by hunter
18:49
-gatherers and if so How is that possible since
18:52
the structures are so massive and presumably
18:54
so heavy? Yeah, that's a good question. We actually
19:00
can say that they were constructed by Neolithic
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hunter -gatherers for a couple of reasons. First
19:06
of all, I mentioned... already the stone tools
19:10
lying on the surface. Not only on the surface,
19:14
but also all over the site, even in the filling
19:16
of these enclosures, these buildings. And they
19:19
are representing the typical stone tools we already
19:22
know, already knew before from the pre -pottery
19:26
Neolithic, that is the culture. in that part
19:32
of the world which forms the Neolithic. Pre -pottery
19:35
just means before the invention or use of pottery.
19:39
It's not that these people did not know how to
19:42
make pottery. They didn't use it. They didn't
19:44
need it. They had stone or leather or bark. to
19:49
transport this stuff. So that is already a good
19:52
indicator. The tools we found there are clearly
19:55
what we knew from the Neolithic, the Purporto
19:59
Neolithic, which is basically mobile hunter -gatherers.
20:03
Then we found a lot of, well, rubbish again,
20:06
a lot of the remains of the food. We found a
20:10
lot of bones of animals they apparently ate.
20:15
And it turned out that all, of these animals
20:19
are strictly and exclusively wild species. There's
20:23
no trace of domestication either of animals or
20:26
plants. And finally, these pillars, I didn't
20:29
mention it yet, are not only adorned with, in
20:33
some cases, with arms, hands, and loincloths
20:35
and belts, but much, much more often they are
20:38
depicting animals. So there's a lot of... animal
20:45
stuff going on and these animals are the typical
20:49
or representing to some part the typical um hunted
20:53
fauna of the time so we have a lot of boar aurochs
20:57
for example the wild cattle the wild uh princess
21:01
of our modern cattle um foxes lions or leopards
21:06
so this really is representing a hunter's world.
21:11
And all this together is already a good indicator
21:15
that there's a relation to these mobile hunter
21:19
-gatherers of the pre -pottery Neolithic. But
21:22
the final nail in this argument, so to say, is
21:26
that we, of course, have not only these archaeological
21:29
methods of dating, the comparison with known
21:31
tools and so on, but, of course, we also can
21:34
use scientific methods of dating. And the radiocarbon
21:37
method... carbon dating of charcoal found in
21:42
the plaster of some of the walls. So directly
21:45
part of the architecture and between the stones
21:49
of these walls and the mortar of these walls.
21:51
And the charcoal pieces in this plaster are dating
21:56
to the mid -10th millennium BC as well. And this
22:00
is the time of the pre -pottery Neolithic of
22:03
the mobile hunter -gatherers of the period and
22:05
era. I mean, but that's absolutely fascinating.
22:09
But didn't hunter -gatherers live in small communities?
22:14
But for building something massive like this,
22:16
you'd need a lot more people, no? You told me
22:19
one of these T -shaped sculptures is five meters
22:23
tall. And you don't just have these. You have
22:28
a lot more stuff, like you said. How is this
22:30
possible? I mean, technically, you wouldn't need
22:33
that many people to build this stuff. But the
22:35
more important point is that these people then
22:38
could not go hunting and they need to be fed
22:40
somehow. Right. It is an important point. I would
22:44
like to stress that while Gobekli Tepe is among
22:47
the oldest examples of this monumental kind of
22:50
architecture, we know a lot of, in my opinion,
22:53
similar monumental projects before. You mentioned
22:57
the Paleolithic cave paintings, which in France
23:02
and Spain are... Equally impressing and, in my
23:07
opinion, count as much as monuments as the architecture.
23:12
We know villages built or tent settlements built
23:17
from mammoth bones, which are much older than
23:21
Göbekli Tepe. So they're already... It's some
23:24
kind of history of impressing monumental tasks,
23:27
but Werwick de Tepper counts as one of the earliest
23:30
examples of this built stone architecture to
23:33
this degree. And you're right, you would need
23:35
a certain amount of people to create this. And
23:39
in our interpretation, this is part of the whole
23:46
site. This communal aspect is part of the monuments.
23:52
So the idea is that mobile groups need to meet
23:57
each other at certain occasions. So this is something
24:00
we know from history, we know from ethnographic
24:02
records as well, for exchanging of goods, information,
24:07
marriage. You need these regular meetings of
24:10
these smaller tribes, smaller groups. And often
24:14
this is done at specific meeting and gathering
24:17
places, which are reused over time. And sometimes
24:20
they are marked with monuments to be recognizable
24:22
or to be marked as these specific special places.
24:25
And this is our idea for, or one of our ideas
24:28
for Göbekli Tepe as well, that it served as one
24:31
of these, we call them social hubs. So a site
24:34
where people were meeting. for certain occasions.
24:37
And one thing to bring people together and to
24:40
increase the cohesion within a group or between
24:43
groups is to start communal projects. This is
24:46
also something we know from history and from
24:49
ethnographic sources. So the idea is that these
24:52
people were meeting there for these communal
24:55
building projects and there's so much... um reparation
24:58
going on there's so much of rearrangement going
25:01
on a lot of these pillars are reused over and
25:03
over and over and these um these buildings are
25:06
are changed and rebuilt over time so that um
25:10
building activity seems to be a central aspect
25:13
of activity going on at the site and this is
25:16
our idea that people were meeting there to build
25:18
this stuff to come together and create this stuff
25:21
maybe in the in the context of large uh large
25:25
feasts because A lot of the amounts of bones
25:28
we found there hint of the consumption of a lot
25:32
of meat. So that would be also part of the argument
25:37
that you have a lot of people there which need
25:39
to be fed. And the attraction to be there is
25:43
this kind of feast. You throw a big party which
25:45
attracts a lot of people, different groups from
25:47
the region. And then they work together on this
25:50
communal project. And this is also... as much
25:53
a project of social strengthening, social cohesion
25:57
and exchanging information, goods and so on.
26:00
So like building for building's sake to hang
26:04
out basically, because that was my next question
26:07
actually. One of the aspects. Right. Yeah, I
26:11
wanted to ask what can we say about what this
26:14
actually was? Was it a temple? Was it a dwelling?
26:17
Or was it a big... prehistoric woodstock of sorts
26:20
where people gathered basically to eat and then
26:22
get trashed. And you said that's possible. Yeah,
26:27
I personally like the idea of just imagining
26:31
that some kind of a prehistoric Burning Man or
26:33
something where people are coming together, having
26:35
a great time and doing these projects together.
26:40
We have to say that our... image of the site
26:44
also of course changed over over time i mean
26:47
in the beginning when excavation started and
26:48
only these monuments there were unearthed it
26:51
was quite remarkable that um or the other way
26:56
around we knew similar special purpose buildings,
26:59
as we call them. So communal buildings, which
27:01
are apparently not really used for domestic purposes,
27:04
but more as gathering places, as a paraphernalia
27:08
with sculptures and decoration. We knew these
27:11
from other sites as well. Neveli Chori, for example,
27:13
I mentioned it. There, the T -pillars were part
27:17
of a huge building, which was also probably a
27:20
communal building. We know these buildings from
27:22
other settlements, from other sites of the same
27:25
period. And what was remarkable about Göbekli
27:28
Tepe is that there were so many of these special
27:33
purpose buildings. So while in other settlements
27:36
there used to be one or two of these communal
27:38
buildings, at Göbekli Tepe there were so many
27:40
of them. And this led to the interpretation,
27:42
okay, this is strictly... uh ritual side or this
27:47
is a side i'm i'm not a big fan of um this distinguish
27:50
uh this is um ritual and profane or domestic
27:56
and ritual because i think um when we're looking
27:59
back that that far back into the past these things
28:02
are much much more uh seen together. So this
28:07
is a very modern differentiation that these things
28:11
do not belong together. But anyway, at Gabrieli
28:14
Tepe, we first thought, okay, this is strictly
28:16
a site for these communal projects where people
28:20
were meeting. But recent research by colleagues
28:23
also... apparently unearthed a lot of more structures
28:27
which are now interpreted as domestic structures.
28:31
So people were apparently staying there for a
28:34
longer time than only these meetings, these occasional
28:40
meetings. So it must have been a much bigger
28:44
site where a lot more was going on, actually.
28:49
um harping on the hedonistic aspects too much
28:52
but many many episodes ago i interviewed edward
28:55
slingerland the author of the very entertaining
28:57
non -fiction book drunk i don't know if you had
29:00
a chance to read it and i remember him specifically
29:02
mentioning that there is evidence of beer production
29:05
at gobekli tepe this fact to his theory that
29:09
people actually began farming and settled down
29:11
because they wanted an unlimited supply of booze
29:14
any any truth to that pretty wild theory It's
29:18
a simple version. We put it a bit more scientific,
29:23
but yeah, in general, that's a general idea.
29:26
These feasts I mentioned to attract the workforce
29:31
necessary to create the monuments, apparently
29:34
these feasts may have also involved some alcoholic
29:41
beverages, some very simple early form of beer.
29:46
We found a lot of stone vessels, of course, but
29:50
not only these smaller, handy, transportable
29:53
cups and pots, but really huge stone fluffs,
29:57
which are like bathtubs. I think 160 liters of
30:03
volume. So really, really big vessels, and they
30:06
were not movable. They were part of the architecture.
30:09
And interestingly, in these vessels, we found...
30:14
some grayish stuff. We were, of course, interested
30:18
in what it is and had labs analyze it. And it
30:21
turned out this was a kind of oxalate, which
30:24
is also called beer stone, which still develops
30:29
today in huge breweries. You have to clean the
30:31
cauldrons every now and then because this beer
30:34
stone is developing, which, well, it's developing
30:36
through the fermentation process of cereals.
30:40
And this was a quite interesting idea because
30:42
we're now... We arrived in the period where people
30:46
are starting to experiment with cereals, with
30:49
einkorn, for example, which is one of the founder
30:53
crops in the Olympic founder crops. And this,
30:55
of course, piqued our interest. And we were thinking,
30:59
OK, what are people doing here with cereals?
31:03
Apparently, fermentation was involved. And of
31:05
course, beer was the next logical interpretation.
31:08
Just for the record, this oxalate can also develop
31:12
due to other plants. Spinach, for example, would
31:16
be another option. But due to the period we're
31:20
in with the experimentation of cereals, due to
31:24
a lot of other tools which hint at... processing
31:28
of white grain and the fact that one of the sites
31:32
where the where neolithic domestication of einkorn
31:37
was pinpointed to and right about the same time
31:40
just lies about 60 to 80 kilometers away from
31:43
gobekli tepe i think it's we can be pretty pretty
31:49
sure to say that these people were already starting
31:52
to experiment with cereals. And it makes sense.
31:55
If you've got so many different groups there
31:57
and you have to feed them because half of the
32:00
people are doing this strange stone work and
32:03
are not going with you on the hunt, you certainly
32:06
create some kind of economic pressure just to
32:10
feed all the people there. So you need to start
32:13
experimenting with other food resources. And
32:15
if these wild cereals are just... Around the
32:20
corner, of course, it would make sense to collect
32:23
them. And the idea is that in these stone troughs,
32:28
something happened that led to fermentation of
32:31
these cereals. So maybe they were not really
32:35
intending to create beer in the beginning, but
32:37
some kind of gruel or kind of porridge or something
32:41
like that. And standing too long in the sun,
32:44
it's at one point turned bad. But there was some
32:47
brave or pretty dumb guy among them who said,
32:50
ah, I taste it anyway. And he thought, oh, it's
32:52
not that bad. So let's just try to do that again.
32:56
So in the end, it is much easier to create some
33:00
kind of beer than bread from cereals. I remember
33:04
that moment when I first tried beer myself. I
33:07
had the same reaction. It's not that bad. Let's
33:09
try it again. I mean, to create bread, you need
33:12
to process the cereals, right? You need to clean
33:15
the cereals. You need to produce flour. You need
33:21
to produce daff. You need to bake it and everything.
33:24
But beer can, as we see, develop quite accidentally
33:28
if malted cereals are with water too long in
33:34
the sun. And we've got, you know, we've got the,
33:36
what's the English term? Wait a second. Ah, yeast.
33:43
Yeast, yeast, exactly. You get the yeast necessary
33:46
to start fermentation already on your skin. It
33:50
can happen by accident. And so that's the general
33:53
idea. At some point, we just created beer, which
33:57
had a lot of advantages, actually. There's no
34:00
real water source on the side, so water needed
34:02
to be collected. There are rainwater systems,
34:04
for example. But beer is much, much more durable
34:08
when collected rainwater for a longer time. It
34:12
doesn't turn bad that quick as other stuff. I
34:18
know it's an ongoing discussion. To explain this
34:25
in English is really a challenge. You know what?
34:28
Some people, even today, have trouble to digest
34:33
cereal products. Oh, yeah, the celiac disease.
34:37
Celiac disease. And interestingly, the gluten,
34:41
which is responsible for these celiac problems,
34:46
is naturally, but the general idea, it's much
34:50
more digestible than when it went through this
34:55
fermentation process. And all this together is,
34:58
I think, a quite convincing argument about interpreting
35:04
these oxalate stuff in the stone troughs as remnants
35:09
of first. beer it's not a beer in our modern
35:13
sense it's very light beer we we recreated it
35:16
experimentally um it has not that much alcohol
35:19
but um yeah it's a good resource actually for
35:23
for to provide some kind of drinking water yeah
35:26
because you said there's evidence that people
35:29
were staying there for a while and since we're
35:32
talking about hunter -gatherers still they needed
35:35
to hunt to survive And they couldn't hunt to
35:38
survive. So how are these people getting food,
35:41
like beer and cereal experimentation aside, since
35:44
there was no farming yet? Not everybody was probably
35:48
involved in building activity. So I think there
35:52
were still hunter groups which just had the duty,
35:56
okay, you guys just go out and bring us some
35:58
nice aurochs for the barbecue tonight, while
36:01
the others are doing the stonework here. So what
36:05
do we know about the society, quote unquote,
36:08
and the people who've built this? Do we know
36:10
anything at all? Yeah, that's, in my opinion,
36:13
even the more fascinating point about Göbekli
36:17
Tepe than the monumental architecture, which
36:19
is quite cool and visible. But just to think
36:23
about it, you've got a lot of different people,
36:26
different groups coming together at Göbekli Tepe.
36:29
And they start to build this huge communal...
36:33
things buildings um so you need Some people need
36:37
to go hunting to provide food for the evening.
36:40
Some people need to cut the stones in the quarry.
36:44
Others need to move it to the side. It needs
36:46
to be erected, and then it has to be adorned
36:48
with all these animal reliefs, which is a huge
36:51
task of a lot of different people doing different
36:54
things. So at some point, somebody had to coordinate
36:58
this stuff. Somebody just had to say, okay, you
37:00
do this, you do that. No, you don't do it like
37:02
that. We're going to move over there. where there
37:05
had to be somebody in charge, at least in the
37:08
planning process. And this already implies that
37:13
there is some kind of social structure or social
37:16
hierarchy going on, at least during the time
37:20
of... of erecting these these buildings these
37:25
pillars um and this is quite interesting and
37:27
this to me is the the most fascinating uh point
37:30
about the site that these different groups were
37:34
coordinated at this time and it seems I mean,
37:39
it does not mean that we have a hierarchy all
37:43
the time, that it is a strictly hierarchical
37:46
society. We know this from other examples, from
37:49
Native Americans, for example. They also, on
37:51
the West Coast, there are examples, historic
37:54
examples of these huge hunting camps which were
37:57
created during summers. There are also a lot
38:00
of different groups that are coming together,
38:01
hunting together in huge communal hunts and huge,
38:05
large, large hunting camps where they started
38:08
to... to be built. And they were starting some
38:10
kind of hierarchy within these hunting camps.
38:13
So we had a police force which could use force,
38:17
actually. And it could happen that one day you
38:20
were the guy in charge to be putting force on
38:25
another guy who did something wrong. But the
38:26
next day when the hunt was over, you had to say
38:28
nothing. So it was a temporary hierarchy. And
38:32
this is something I could imagine for Gregory
38:33
Tepper as well, some kind of temporary hierarchy.
38:38
being built up during the time of construction
38:41
of these meetings. What about the culture? Can
38:45
you surmise anything from all of these sculptures?
38:48
There's a lot of animals there carved into stone.
38:52
Also sculptures of animals. There's T -shaped
38:56
humans gathered in this supposed ceremony and
39:00
stuff. There's a lot of significance in all this.
39:04
how to interpret it is probably a different question.
39:06
But do you have any sort of theories? I mean,
39:09
some of the animals depicted, I mentioned that
39:12
already, are what you would expect from a hunter
39:14
-gatherer, specifically a hunter group. So there's
39:17
a lot of typical game depicted. You know, we
39:20
have gazelles, we have aurochs, very, very famously
39:23
aurochs depicted. There are boars and so on.
39:27
What's an auroch? um the aurochs is the uh the
39:31
predecessor of our modern modern cattle it's
39:33
the wild of cattle it's a huge animal uh huge
39:37
and heavy animal and something you definitely
39:39
do not want to oppose by yourself all alone so
39:43
you really need a hunter hunter band to to track
39:45
it down um but then there are also um other animals
39:49
which do not really seem to be typical hunted
39:53
games. So we have a lot of scorpions, we have
39:56
snakes, many, many snakes, spiders even, which
39:59
to us have this, they feel rather nasty and uncomfortable.
40:05
I'm not saying that they have the same meaning
40:07
for these people, but to us they really seem
40:09
threatening. And this is interesting because
40:12
the threatening aspect is also repeated among
40:14
the other animals. So the aurochs, for example.
40:17
In general, animals are always depicted as they
40:20
have been encountered in nature. So the larger
40:22
mammals are depicted in side view. Lions, foxes,
40:26
you always see in side view. while insects, for
40:30
example, or snakes, are depicted from top down.
40:34
So you see them just like you would encounter
40:36
in nature. Interestingly, the aurochs, when depicted,
40:41
is shown inside you, but his head is always depicted
40:44
frontal. So you see the lowered head with the
40:47
horns presented, just like an attacking, an aurochs
40:51
running towards you. And this is also repeated
40:53
in other animal depictions. The lions or leopards
40:57
are shown with snarling, with teeth, teeth visible.
41:02
They are shown, they are leaping, they are jumping.
41:05
The foxes are jumping as well. And this is interesting
41:08
because this is typical hunting behavior. Jumping
41:11
or leaping foxes are typical for hunting foxes.
41:14
And all this together, to me, somehow suggests
41:17
that there was a very strong emphasis on depicting...
41:24
hunting animals not only hunted animals but hunting
41:27
animals sometimes you even see the prey depicted
41:31
next to them So it seems a bit like a self -reference.
41:37
So the hunters are depicting animals as hunters.
41:39
So maybe this has some kind of a meta meaning
41:43
that there was a kind of an identification with
41:46
these animals. So again, it's the hunter complex.
41:50
But on the other hand, and this is what I find
41:52
so particularly interesting here in the Neolithic,
41:55
the animal depictions are associated to these
41:59
larger -than -life human sculptures. And this
42:03
is a complete shift from what we see in the preceding
42:06
periods. In the Paleolithic, I mentioned the
42:08
cave paintings. You have a lot of animal depictions
42:10
as well, very clear, very naturalistic, detailed
42:14
animal depictions. But rarely you see human beings
42:18
depicted in these cave paintings. If so, they
42:20
are... rather symbolic or dead or they are half
42:25
animal, half human. But the majority is animals.
42:29
And now we have these huge human depictions associated
42:33
with animals. And I think this might suggest
42:36
a shift in perception, a mind shift of perception
42:40
of the own role of these hunters in nature. So
42:43
in the Paleolithic, it was clear we were part
42:45
of nature, where we are just participating in
42:48
nature. And now in the Neolithic, they are...
42:51
starting to grow. They are bigger than nature.
42:54
They are elevating beyond nature because they
42:57
now realize, okay, we have an impact on nature.
43:00
We can start selecting certain animals, certain
43:03
plants, and so we are not detached from nature,
43:08
but we are elevating. We are on a different level
43:09
now. We are influencing, impacting nature. Wow,
43:13
that's fascinating. I could listen to you talk
43:15
about that for 24 hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very
43:20
convincing one, though. Another interpretation
43:22
that I heard you kind of lay out was that the
43:25
enclosures you found at Gubekli Tepe were serving
43:28
as some sort of initiation ritual for young hunters.
43:33
Could you break that down for us a little bit?
43:35
That's also an idea we had because we were struggling
43:40
to how to explain these rather nasty animals
43:43
and this... flashing teeth and these snarling
43:47
predators with snakes and scorpions and so on.
43:50
And one idea coming or being somehow influenced
43:53
by building historic research as well, which
43:56
was conducted on the site as well. was to have
43:59
a look how these buildings were used actually.
44:03
And in one of these buildings, in particular,
44:06
we could see that it was changed over time. It
44:10
became smaller, additional walls were built into
44:13
it. And this was also the building where we could
44:15
realize some kind of a pathway. We could see
44:19
how it was accessed. And that's quite interesting
44:21
because apparently there was some kind of a tunnel
44:25
-like access. which led to the center of this
44:29
building, the circular building with all these
44:31
T -pillars and all the reliefs. And it started
44:34
with some kind of staircase you have to go down.
44:38
And when you enter this tunnel -like thing, which
44:41
was very, very narrow, you basically had to crouch
44:44
through it, you had to crawl through it. to enter
44:47
it. And it was created in a way that you... It
44:50
was not a straight tunnel. So when you entered
44:52
it, you could not see what was awaiting you at
44:55
the other end. So there were a lot of turns and
44:57
twists going on. You had to make your way through
45:00
it without knowing what was expecting you at
45:03
the other end. And they were deliberately made
45:06
that way. Yeah, it was a built way. It was a
45:09
built... with stones. It was a tunnel built with
45:12
stones. And there were even some kind of portals
45:14
you have to go through, which were adorned with
45:17
snarling lions. So this was something, I mean,
45:22
crouching through a dark tunnel without knowing
45:24
where it ends already is some kind of a stressful
45:26
situation. And that's how the idea with this
45:30
possible initiation for young hunters came up.
45:33
Because once you were in this tunnel and you
45:35
finally entered the... the round building, the
45:39
center of the building, you suddenly were surrounded
45:42
by all these nasty animals. So in particular
45:45
in this building with the tunnel, there was a
45:47
3D relief of a snarling predator. And it was
45:51
right in the height that it was at eye level.
45:54
So you enter the building, turn around, and then
45:57
suddenly there was this animal jumping at you.
46:00
And imagine all this in the flickering light
46:02
of a torch and maybe all the other hunters outside
46:04
making strange noises. That would definitely
46:07
be a very, very creepy experience, I'm pretty
46:10
sure. And it makes sense so far that it's not
46:15
just a nice prank to somehow shock young hunters.
46:22
But I said... You are encountering these animals
46:26
like an aurochs, which is a huge beast, which
46:30
is a strong beast. And everybody in the hunting
46:33
party has to be on point in such an attack. You
46:37
need to rely on every single of your hunting
46:41
mates. If there's only one who's just running
46:46
chicken, it may be all over for the others. So
46:49
this is a question of life and death. So it makes
46:53
sense to somehow initiate hunters and select
46:57
them in such a strange and spooky ritual because
47:01
this is when it's creating what in psychology
47:04
is termed light bulb memories, flash bulb. So
47:08
it's memories which are sticking and you are
47:11
experiencing this with all these other hunters
47:14
around there, with your group. So it puts you
47:17
together. And this is somehow creating the cohesion
47:23
in your group if you go through this experience.
47:27
So this is the idea behind this. But again, all
47:29
this is, again, only interpretation so far. Klaus
47:34
Schmidt, that you referenced already, the archaeologist
47:36
who was leading excavations, was doing so for
47:38
almost 20 years, I believe, from 1996 to 2014.
47:42
Here we are. In the year 2025 and the work is
47:46
still very much ongoing. Excuse me, but why is
47:49
it taking so long? The people demand answers.
47:52
Yeah, yeah. I mean, archaeology is a careful
47:55
science, right? We could just rip all this from
47:59
the ground and say, okay, now we have 200 more
48:03
pillars. So we know where 200... Yes, please.
48:06
But then the only information we would have is
48:08
that there are 200 more pillars. The more interesting
48:12
story these objects are telling us is not the
48:16
object itself. but their context, their fine
48:19
context. So where do we find these pillars? How
48:21
is the soil around these pillars? Are there stones
48:24
around the pillars somehow specifically put?
48:28
Are there maybe depositions? We found the heads
48:31
of stone sculptures deposited in the filling
48:34
of some of these enclosures of these buildings.
48:36
So all of this needs to be excavated, right?
48:39
But in the moment when we're excavating these
48:42
fine contexts, it's gone. We're destroying it.
48:45
so we need to carefully document all of this
48:48
to to get this information and again um Digging
48:51
up an object just gives you the information there
48:53
is an object. But digging up an object from an
48:56
ash layer with a lot of charcoal next to it and
48:59
maybe some other finds next to it tells you a
49:01
whole different story. And you can date the charcoal.
49:04
You can look where the ash is from. What did
49:08
they burn here? What other finds are here? So
49:10
the whole story is not the object itself, but
49:13
the fine context. And we need to document this.
49:18
Again, in archaeology, in modern archaeology,
49:20
the aim is not to excavate everything as fast
49:22
as possible because it's destructive and it's
49:25
gone when we excavate it. But the idea is to
49:29
excavate just enough to answer specific questions
49:32
you ideally come up with before you start excavating
49:35
and leave enough in the ground for further ongoing
49:38
questions. Because one thing in archaeology is
49:40
sure, for every question you can answer, three
49:43
new are popping up and you need more stuff to
49:46
excavate it. And who knows what? fancy analysis
49:49
techniques and methods we have in 20 or 50 years,
49:53
which will help us answer more questions when
49:55
we can answer now. I sometimes wish Schliemann
49:58
would have left us a bit more of the core of
50:01
Troy to use some radiocarbon dating, for example,
50:04
or some phosphate analyzers to get more information.
50:09
We are now at a point where we can extract DNA
50:13
from sediment. And this was not possible 10 years
50:18
or 20 years ago. So there is a good reason to
50:22
leave some stuff to apply these cool new technologies
50:25
once they're available. So that's why it takes
50:28
so long. And technically, it didn't take that
50:32
long. I mean, Schliemann started excavations
50:34
in Troy at 1871 or 76. It's still ongoing. Pompeii
50:40
excavation started in the 18th century already.
50:43
So I think we're pretty... Good right now with
50:47
some 40 years. Sorry, but all of my knowledge
50:51
of archaeology comes from the Indiana Jones trilogy,
50:54
hence the ludicrous questions. That's fair enough.
50:58
But speaking of people demanding answers, when
51:02
we don't get them, we start to invent... A bunch
51:05
of crazy shit. So there's been a real surge of
51:08
this stuff. Folks like Graham Hancock have gone
51:10
mainstream with their horrible little Netflix
51:12
shows masquerading as real archaeology. And Gobekli
51:15
Tepe usually features quite prominently in all
51:18
that. What's your take on this surge of pseudo
51:22
-history content and Gobekli Tepe place at the
51:27
center of it? I mean, on the one hand, I can
51:30
totally understand this fascination because this
51:34
is what brought me into the field in the beginning
51:36
as well, right? Finding answers. So what are
51:40
these people? Where is this stuff coming from?
51:42
Where are we coming from? So I totally understand
51:44
the interest, but I find it a bit sad that as
51:49
archaeology, we have to compete with this. Rather
51:55
easy and simple answers, which are so much more
51:57
sexy than the complex stuff. Aliens. For example.
52:02
Aliens is a totally different topic because this
52:04
is really robbing these past people of their
52:09
cultural achievements. And this is really, I
52:11
think, really sad and really bad because it also
52:13
says something about us today. So not believing
52:16
that our ancestors were able to do this is somehow
52:19
also diminishing. as today as humans and as a
52:25
society. Yeah, so I understand that's coming
52:28
from, but... I would even understand if people
52:33
say, oh, we don't really understand what you're
52:36
doing or we don't agree what you're saying. But
52:37
it's this apodictic and this angry approach,
52:41
which apparently this pseudo -archaeology is
52:45
going. But there must be a huge archaeological
52:48
conspiracy hiding stuff instead of publishing
52:52
the stuff, which would make much more sense,
52:55
actually. If you ever visit an excavation, you
52:59
know, it would be impossible to convince all
53:02
archaeologists to hide this stuff. Jens, what
53:05
are you hiding? Please tell us. You're part of
53:07
the conspiracy. You must have something. If I
53:10
had proof for some ancient super society, I would
53:15
definitely have my own Netflix show right now
53:18
and a book here. So I don't see a reason to hide
53:21
this, to be honest. I think this Netflix show
53:25
would pay off much, much more than an average
53:28
archaeologist's salary. Were there any human
53:32
remains found at Gobekli Tepe? Yes, there were.
53:38
Not during the time I was actively excavating
53:41
there, there are not real burials. We found fragments,
53:43
skull fragments in particular, and some other
53:47
things like kneecap or so, but no real burials,
53:49
which is also quite interesting because one idea
53:53
of our first ideas was that people... that this
53:57
might have been a place related to burial ritual.
54:00
We know from other sites, like Chayunui, I mentioned
54:03
it, that the dead are often buried within the
54:06
walls of buildings or underneath the floors of
54:08
buildings. And sometimes bones show... show marks
54:14
that have been reworked. So there are bones which
54:17
show some painting on it, there are skulls which
54:19
show a plastered face, which of course implies
54:22
that at some point these bones had to be retrieved
54:26
from the graves or were defleshed already. And
54:31
this led to the idea that we maybe needed specific
54:34
places where this defleshment was taking place,
54:37
excarnation places. And again, historic records.
54:40
show us from Asia in particular that the so -called
54:45
sky burials are an option to deflesh, to excunite
54:49
a human body. Simply put, it means that you put
54:53
the deceased in a faraway place, a remote place
54:58
where not many settlement activity is taking
55:00
place, and that animals are doing the defleshing
55:03
part. Mostly vultures, for example, are used
55:06
for this. So we are picking the flesh, leaving
55:09
the bare bones. you collect the bones, and then
55:11
you tread the bones, either paint them or bury
55:13
them. This is interesting because among the iconography,
55:17
not only of Gobekli Tepe, but the PPN, the Pre
55:20
-Pottery Neolithic in general, vultures are playing
55:23
a very important role, it seems. And we have
55:26
a lot of depictions of vultures together with
55:28
separated human heads or headless human bodies.
55:31
At Gobekli Tepe, we have sculptures of birds,
55:35
maybe vultures, sitting on human heads. And this
55:38
is interesting. So you have vultures and apparently
55:40
dead people. Somebody without a head is hardly
55:43
living anymore. And this led to this interpretation
55:48
that maybe this is a hint already of this specific
55:52
burial ritual, a similar burial ritual where
55:54
people are excunated, which would make sense
55:56
looking at the modeled faces and the painted
56:00
bones, which had to be defleshed at some point.
56:03
And the idea was that maybe Göbekli Tepe was
56:05
one of the places where this practice was happening.
56:09
That would explain why we did not find the burials,
56:14
because they were buried elsewhere. But yeah,
56:18
it's just an interpretation which lacks... evidence
56:22
as of yet, despite the iconography. And as far
56:26
as I know, recently in written excavations, more
56:28
human remains were uncovered as well, but I'm
56:31
not in the picture how detailed they relate to
56:34
the rest of the site. Last question. When all
56:38
is said and done, when the excavations are over,
56:40
do you think we're going to get a clear or a
56:42
clearer picture of what the site actually was
56:46
so we can finally discard? The theory that it
56:49
was a little green man that came from space.
56:54
I mean, I think that one we can already discard
56:57
because luckily Vega is so kind. I'm sorry, I
57:01
couldn't help myself. I mean... We know where
57:04
we're doing this stuff, right? They left us in
57:06
the quarries, which are right next to the site.
57:08
They left the tools, they left unfinished pillars.
57:11
So we pretty much know how we do it. So let's
57:14
answer it. But yeah, to answer your question,
57:17
I'm convinced we get a much, much clearer picture
57:21
rather sooner than later, because what's now
57:23
happening is that... It's not only Göbekli Tepe.
57:26
I mean, I know what Göbekli Tepe used to be,
57:29
this lighthouse up on the mountain, which was
57:32
a specific and extraordinary site, which sometimes
57:36
it still is painted in some of the reporting,
57:39
but it's not the only site. Already 10 years
57:43
ago, we knew... like 10 or 12 more sites like
57:46
this in the surroundings of Göbekli Tepe. They
57:49
are already on the surface, similar pillars,
57:51
similar tools, similar sculptures were visible.
57:54
And luckily, Turkish colleagues have created
57:57
a huge research project, the Tash Tepler project,
58:01
where now many of these sites are excavated and
58:04
researched. And there are already exciting results
58:07
showing us that this is not a... singular phenomenon
58:10
but it's a culture it's a real culture we deal
58:14
here with in this area in this period and with
58:18
the help of these new research excavations we
58:22
already have a different picture than 15 years
58:25
ago and I'm pretty sure in the next couple of
58:28
years our picture would be much much more detailed
58:31
still Yes, what an absolutely thrilling conversation.
58:35
I have to get you back in a couple of years when
58:38
that happens. Until then, how can people find
58:42
you? I think you have a website as well as Twitter.
58:45
Yeah, I'm not the typical social media under
58:48
my name, but maybe even more important, if you
58:51
would be interested in learning more about ongoing
58:53
research at Göbekli Tepe, I know that the current
58:57
project director, the coordinator of the excavations
59:02
at Göbekli Tepe, Lee Clare, has a very active
59:05
Twitter account. He's sharing insights into ongoing
59:08
work. And the other Tash Tepler projects, Karahan
59:12
Tepe prominently, Cybirge, are also very prominently
59:17
reported in social media, Instagram, Twitter,
59:20
Blue Sky. So if you're interested in following
59:23
real -life progress, definitely look these colleagues
59:26
up and follow them. Will do. Thanks again. Thank
59:31
you for having me. Hey, peeps, thank you very
59:32
much for listening. Please subscribe to the podcast
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on YouTube, follow and rate on Spotify and Apple
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Podcasts. Otherwise... I will just fade into
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makes me super grateful. Thanks again, everybody.
1:00:48
Means a lot.