The historical setting
Göbekli Tepe is a Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira) in modern-day Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around 9500 BCE to at least 8000 BCE, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is known for its large circular structures that contain large stone pillars – among the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists insights into prehistoric religion and the iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is covered with ancient domestic structures and other small buildings, quarries, and stone-cut cisterns from the Neolithic, as well as some traces of activity from later periods. The site was first used at the dawn of the southwest Asian Neolithic period, which marked the appearance of the oldest permanent human settlements anywhere in the world.
Dawn of village life
Göbekli Tepe was built and occupied during the earliest part of the Southwest Asian Neolithic, known as the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, c. 9600–7000 BCE). Beginning at the end of the last Ice Age, the PPN marks "the beginnings of village life", producing the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in the world. One of the earliest known sites is Körtik Tepe, dated to 10,700-9250 BCE, which may have been a predecessor of the PPN artistic and material culture in Upper Mesopotamia, including Göbekli Tepe and the other Taş Tepeler sites.
Archaeologists have long associated the appearance of these settlements with the Neolithic Revolution—the transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture—but disagree on whether the adoption of farming caused people to settle down, or settling down caused people to adopt farming. Despite the name, the Neolithic Revolution in Southwest Asia was "drawn out and locally variable". Elements of village life appeared as early as 10,000 years before the Neolithic in places, and the transition to agriculture took thousands of years, with different paces and trajectories in different regions. Archaeologists divide the Pre-Pottery Neolithic into two subperiods: the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA, c. 9600–8800 BCE) and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB, c. 8800 and 7000 BCE).
Large enclosures
The first circular compounds appear around the latter half of the 10th millennium BCE. They range from 10 to 30 m (33 to 98 ft) in diameter. Their most notable feature is the T-shaped limestone pillars evenly set within thick interior walls of unworked stone. Four such circular structures have been unearthed so far. Geophysical surveys indicate that there are 16 more, enclosing up to eight pillars each, amounting to nearly 200. The slabs were transported from bedrock pits about 100 m (330 ft) from the hilltop, with workers using flint points to cut through the limestone bedrock. The pillars are the oldest known megaliths in the world. Two taller pillars stand facing one another at the centre of each circle.
Whether the circles were provided with a roof is uncertain. Stone benches designed for sitting are found in the interior. Many of the pillars are decorated with abstract, enigmatic pictograms and carved animal reliefs. The pictograms may represent commonly understood sacred symbols, as known from Neolithic cave paintings elsewhere. The reliefs depict mammals such as lions, bulls, boars, foxes, gazelle, and donkeys; snakes and other reptiles; arthropods such as insects and arachnids; and birds, particularly vultures.
Interpretation
The stone pillars in the enclosures at Göbekli Tepe are T-shaped, similar to other Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in the region. Unlike at these other sites, however, many of the pillars are carved – typically in low relief, though sometimes in high relief. Most carvings depict animals, mostly serpents, foxes, and boars, but also gazelle, mouflon (wild sheep), onager, ducks, and vultures. Insofar as they can be identified, the animals are male and often depicted with an aggressive posture. Abstract shapes are also depicted as upright or horizontal H-shaped symbols, crescents, and disks. Depictions of humans are rare; pillar 43 in enclosure D includes a headless man with an erect phallus.
Other phallic figures have been discovered on the site, as well as in other Taş Tepeler sites. However, the T-shape of the pillars themselves is anthropomorphic: the shaft is the body, and the top is the head. This is confirmed by the fact that some pillars include – in addition to animal reliefs – carvings of arms, hands, and loincloths. The two central pillars occupied a special place in the symbolic architecture of the enclosures. Those in Enclosure D represent humans, with arms, a belt, and a piece of cloth that hides the genitals.