Gbekli Tepe: The Dawn of Civilization

[Quixote1818]

[llashram]

1. africans were

settled and doing hunter gathers-agriculture at this time described and all the way back...600,000 to 200,000 BCE. But interesting nonetheless. I'd still cause this individual some problems if in his type of classes---I think this one is trying to diminish the African origins...again. You know light skin and all that...first...not brown skin. But Jesus was white for a couple of millennia. "The Dawn of Civilization"? I don't think so.

[wnylib]

7. Agriculture in Africa 600,000 years ago

is pretty impressive. That's 500,000 years before modern humans. Before the world's Homo sapiens ancestors evolved in Africa.

Where are the pre Homo sapiens agricultural sites in Africa and do you have a link to information about them?

[llashram]

13. destruction

of African history started as soon as Asians entered Africa and started trying to destroy African culture BCE. It is documented and since some of my research material has been misplaced or stolen I can prove nothing. And since I can't prove how far back BCE the destruction of black civilization began. I can't prove the beginnings of the hate of the African people. So I stand alone with the fact that pre 10,000 BCE Africans had thriving civilization(s).

[wnylib]

17. I see. Thank you.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. How amazing!

Thank you for posting.

[Gaugamela]

3. World's first brewery. You get a bunch of guys together drinking beer

and they like to take on crazy projects, like tipping over cars, building replicas of the Millennium Falcon out of beer cans, or erecting temples to the beer gods. A kind of prehistoric Glastonbury Festival.

Out for a beer at the dawn of agriculture

Recently, further chemical analyses were conducted by M. Zarnkow (Technical University of Munich, Weihenstephan) on six large limestone vessels from Göbekli Tepe. These (barrel/trough-shaped) vessels, with capacities of up to 160 litres, were found in-situ in PPNB contexts at the site. Already during excavations it was noted that some vessels carried grey-black adhesions. A first set of analyses made on these substances returned partly positive for calcium oxalate, which develops in the course of the soaking, mashing and fermenting of grain. Although these intriguing results are only preliminary, they provide initial indications for the brewing of beer at Göbekli Tepe, thus provoking renewed discussions relating to the production and consumption of alcoholic beverages at this early time. Further, they are particularly significant in light of results from genetic analyses, undertaken by a team from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in Oslo, which have suggested that the earliest domestication of grain occurred in the vicinity of the Karacadağ, i.e. very near to Göbekli Tepe (Heun et al. 1997 [external link]). Once again, we must ask whether the production of alcohol and the domestication of grain are interrelated. Finally, the aforementioned insights also provoke new questions relating to the use and consumption of alcohol at Göbekli Tepe, which may have been in the context of religiously motivated feasts and celebrations. Not surprisingly, such events are well attested in the ethnographic literature as a means of attracting and motivating large groups of people to undertake communal work and projects (Dietler and Herbich 1995).

https://www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/2016/04/24/out-for-a-beer-at-the-dawn-of-agriculture/

[Warpy]

5. Partially agree about the connection between grain domestication and brewing alcohol

Primates and a few other species have shown an affinity for partially fermented fruit, so they had experience with booze, although it was likely restricted to just a few weeks a year.

Most early fermented alcohol was like Egyptian beer, a watery porridge left to ferment on its own with whatever airborne bugs were around (meaning a bad batch was really bad), then passed through a sieve o one sort or another to render it drinkable instead of merely edible.

Eventually someone realized grain got sweeter when it germinated and put that together with the boozy fruit idea, and stuff that would really get you hammered was born.

[Gaugamela]

6. Fair enough. Mostly I'm having a little light-hearted fun.

I’ve read some speculation that early societies may have mixed more psychoactive substances into the brew. Thus my reference to Glastonbury.

[Warpy]

8. Maybe, but you were right

First, we invented beer, the Egyptian variety of watery -porridge, fermented and strained.

Then somebody mused "hey, these grape things are kinda sweet, wonder what they'd do?"

Beer cam first and it was due to a surplus of grain, although I'm sure the chickens appreciated the leavings after the alcohol had been strained out of the porridge

As for mixings, there's not much record of that in Egypt beyond honey or dates to amp up the alcohol and improve the flavor.

Cannabis and opium were both known in Europe 5500 years ago, that we know of, but they seem to have been eaten and only for pain.

Once the picklefaced "mortification of the flesh" Christians came to power, watered down wine and weak ale were it unless the rye crop was infected with ergot that year.

[Gaugamela]

14. There is a fascinating, if highly speculative, book on this:

The Immortality Key, by Brian Muraresku. https://www.amazon.com/Immortality-Key-Uncovering-History-Religion/dp/1250207142/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1652225063&sr=8-1

He speculates that the kukeon of the Eleusinian Mysteries, and the soma of Indian texts, contained some kind of psychoactive ingredient (following the Wasson-Ruck theory). Ergot was one obvious possibility, but the stuff can be extremely dangerous. He further speculates that Anatolian "graveyard beer" might be the antecedent to both the kukeon and soma, and that in the very early years of Christianity something along this line was used in the eucharist, until the church put a stop to it. Women were in charge of mixing these concoctions, and these women were the forebears of the "witches" of the Middle Ages. The church couldn't compete with their psychedelic entheogens, and so persecuted them.

I don't think Murarseku maintains that these psychedelic concoctions went as far back as Gobekli Tepe. And as I recall, the testing on the substances found at Gobekli Tepe had mixed results, so perhaps it wasn't beer after all, just inadvertent fermentation.

[Warpy]

18. I don't think you can tie any one concoction to anything in deeper time

than a few thousand years, which gets us back to maybe 6000 years ago but not 12,000 years ago. While testing the scuzz between the teeth of ancient skeletons can give us an idea of what the general diet was, it doesn't tell us what they took fo a toothache or what they partied down on.

People did use all sorts of intoxicants and hallucinogens all throuogh our history, even before we became genus homo. Altered states of consciouness might have been scary from time to time, but apparently the bluenoses among them weren't allowed to tell anyone else what s/he could ingest or not ingest (unless it was a kid and it was poison). The proof? The fondness most primate species have for boozy fruit.

Women did know herbs and many had favorite concoctions, much of which I'd prefer to avoid (worm stew, anyone?). I don't know where the quote is from and a search is coming up with adverts for Rite Aid, but someone in the 16th century is noted to have said "My garden is my apothecary shop and my wife is my doctor." It wasn't until sometime in the 18th century that apothecary shops were "professionalized," code for men barging in and taking over and pushing women out.

Women who were accused of witches weren't always midwives and apothecary owners, most of the time they were older women who had inherited property in their own right, property that was coveted by local men. She wouldn't marry any of the greedy bastards, so she must be a witch and secretly married to Satan. At least that is what research has shown. Midwives and apothecary owners were necessary. Women who committed the sin of owning their own proerty were not.

[Warpy]

4. Interesting. A lot of archaeologists have discounted the temple idea

since there was no altar or any other indication that it was anything but a place people visited and ate lunch at.

Personally, what I see in those carvings is something that cries out for paint, They could easily have been clan origin stories, someplace men would visit with their sons on a yearly basis, freshening the paint and retelling all the stories. Quite likely the outer circles had been replaced as they became more difficult to cover over with roofing material and if I'm right about the paint, they'd have wanted the site covered with skins stretched on a frame or some sort of thatch.

I don't know whether or not anyone sampled the soil at the bases of the stones or if anything could be detected at this late stage of red ochre, yellow ochre, soot, ground quartz, ground malachite, and other pigments, perhaps bound with egg white to make them adhere for a while. I don't know if they even bothered to look, although I would have.

Likely as circles fell into disrepair or the stories disappeared, the old circles were filled in and new ones created. At the same time, farming and herding had begun and those didn't leave much time for carving, so it's no wonder later circles were crude in comparison.

A lot of current thinking says that the people didn't exactly disappear, they just morphed into the early settlements like Catahoyuk, where similar motifs have been found painted on walls. Instead of taking the kids to stone age Disneyland, they just read the walls.

[wnylib]

9. Usually there is some kind of ideology

Last edited Tue May 10, 2022, 07:23 PM - Edit history (1)

That binds people together into a group capable of such building projects. The ideology creates meaning and purpose to keep such projects going. Clan membership and legends about ancestors are a common unifier. But that often involves religious beliefs, like ancestor worship or supernatural origins for the ancestors. So I wouldn't rule out the hypothesis that this was a ceremonial site.

I think that archaeologists worth that title would be sifting through soil and doing chemical analyses for pollen, minerals, decomposed paints, and anything else they search for. There will be more info coming from this site and I don't think that it will take the decades that he suggests in the video. Archaeological techniques of study are pretty sophisticated.

[Warpy]

11. Ceremony leaves traces

and the only traces they've found are lunch and periodic renewal projects.

The hazard of being an archaeologist is that you tend to see religion and willies everywhere. Gobekli Tepe has none of the former and a superabundance of the latter. I''m talking about the oldest stones, the most beautiful carvings.

I hope they did check for pigments.

They might find a flat stone with traces of blood at some of the youngest circles, people were starting to think in those terms by then.

I've often wondered about how it might have looked, either covered over or at night, the images painted. With dim torch light or even dimmer reed light, the painted surfaces would seem to leap right out at you, the stone in the background fading away. I think it would have been spectacular. No wonder they kept it going for so long.

[wnylib]

16. Archaeologists make mistakes in their

assessments, same as any person. But there have always been both atheists and people who believe in superstitions, supernatural forces and beings, and sacred legends and sites.

As atheists point out, atheism is disbelief, and not a system of beliefs. So what motivates and unifies people with a sense of purpose and meaning to return to the same site, year after year, and carry out a building project that requires a lot of physical labor and manpower, but is not a residence?

Ceremonial and religious customs are one possibility and there is evidence that could support that so archaeologists are not just pulling that hypothesis out of a hat. Gathering together as a group at one site year after year can be a ceremonial act. Religions are full of sacred pilgrimages, from Hinduism to Christianity to Islam, plus various tribal religions

Many Native American religious ceremonies and rituals prior to Europeans (and today among some) are experiential, not ideological, and serve(d) as unifiers that also express commonly shared cultural, world, and cosmogical views. That is typical of tribal religions. Traces of that kind of experiential religion continue in Judaism today, which was founded among Hebrew tribes

Ceremonies and rituals do not require an altar. Shaping and carving stones that are not foundations for residential buildings, but only for yearly gatherings, can be ceremonial. Pilgrimages to special (sacred) sites are ceremonial.

I am not saying that's the case with these stones and the repetitious gatherings. I am just answering your point about no evidence of ceremonies.

Another motivator to return to the site periodically would be for food. It is possible that certain plants were ready to be gathered at that location at a certain time each year. Or herds that provided the people with meat, hides, bone tools, etc. might have gone periodically to that region. The OP mentions an abundance of bones. Soil sample analyses of any pollens plus examination of bones could support that. But, where were the families? Did the men take food back to them? Was it exclusively a male site?

My next point comes from being female. The OP describes and shows phallic symbols. In other societies that have had phallic symbol images, they have been associated with religious belief. No woman can find that hard to believe about men considering their genitals sacred.

Regarding your allusion to human sacrifice, that is usually associated with either agricultural societies as part of a fertility ceremony, or in more densely populated sedentary cultures.

[Warpy]

19. Consider their time

Whatever had occurred to usher in the Younger Dryas has been more or less pinpointed to 12,800 years ago. Climate change was global and these people must have wondered if anyone would be left to tell their stories unless they left a reminder. Whatever else we know about these people, we know they were under considerable stress at the time, most likely having to forage more widely just to survive.

The video suggested they might be Animist in belief and that is likely the closest we'll ever get. Most likely it was a belief system that had sustained them for many thousands of years before Gobekli Teoe. I just don't accept the oldest part of the site as some sort of ritual site without any evidence of, well, ritual.

I made no allusion to human sacrifice, only to sacrifice, which might have been an animal they were going to eat later, ritually killed, or even plant foodstuffs burned as an offering. So far, evidence of either is lacking. We just see bones left over from food they brought with them on their visit.

As for men and their plumbing, that's their problem. They eventually discover they also have a prostate and are a little less liable to endow the rest with godlike qualities. However, I do see this as a men's site with the exclusively male imagery and preponderance of animals they'd have been wary of as big game hunters, which we know they were.

Oh, and PAINT, they had to have PAINT or it would have been pretty unimpressive, no matter the light source. We find the oldest stones impressive because they are beautifully carved and because they are so fantastically old.

[wnylib]

20. Absence of sacrifice is not an indicator of

absence of ritual. Rituals can take many forms. Feasting itself is often a ritual. Some religious holidays are designated by the term "feast" or "festival" and are celebrated by feasting, without sacrifices.

Regarding the possibility of burnt offerings, not all sacrifices were burned. There was an ancient custom of ritually sacrificing a bull and bathing in its blood, long before the bull cult in Zoroastrianism and before it was picked up by Romans from Persia. Also a similar cult of sacrificing wild boars. (I have often thought that was the basis of pork becoming a forbidden food in Judaism, because of its religious meaning among Gentiles.)

There should have been some fires burning, to illuminate the stones and to cook the meat that was eaten. Could they have been used for burning a sacrifice? We don't know, but by the time of this site, fires for cooking, heating, and illumination had been common for several millennia, back to 900,000 years ago among our Homo erectus ancestors. Since there are many animal bones and depictions, they were eating meat at this site.

I don't think we can rule out religion as a purpose for men gathering at this site for feasts any more than we can definitively say that it was for religious ceremony.

But we do know that many other locations in the world had sites that were ceremonial religious gathering points prior to the development of those locations into cities and civilizations.

[Warpy]

21. Anyone who insists it was a place of religious ceremony needs to prove it.

So far, that proof has not been there: no ceremonial infrastructure beyond the stones, no evidence of frequent fire, which also means no habitation and most likely that the meat they brought was already cooked

You want to claim it was a temple with religious gatherings and ceremonies, prove it. So far, no one has, none of the trappings are present in the area: no stray feathers, no antler headdresses, no signs of feasting with attendant fires. Until then, all we have are illustrations of their stories. And that alone is pretty damned amazing.

[pecosbob]

10. Recently found this series...illuminating

[Warpy]

12. Some of that series is an example of why kids get turned off to history

because it tends to get bogged down in this king did this thing and his son, that king, did that other thing, and then another king did something else and then his son lost half the empire and then his son....you get the idea. It focuses far too much on the names of kings and not enough on things like how they supplied water, how they grew their food, how they kept cities from being awash in sewage and making everybody sick, and what their people were producing as trade goods. I don't give a damn about what the kings were named, I want to know what else was going on.

The Sumerians were a special example of this. We're only now catching up to some of their astronomy and some of their number theory, and I'm talking about "now" as the last 200 years.

However, if this series is up your alley, don't miss the one on the Songhai Empire.

[pecosbob]

15. I watched the entire series

I do enjoy the Geographics channel and the other channels they produce as well. What I enjoyed about the videos in the Fall of Civilizations series is that it's helped give me a clearer picture of the related web of societies that existed and how that relates to our times.