From the Göbekli Tepe Research Project
You haven’t been hearing much from us lately. The reason was the catastrophic earthquake and the heavy rainfall event shortly afterwards in Şanlıurfa this year, which cuased immense suffering in the region. We didn’t feel that posting regular updates on latest results on Göbekli Tepe would have been important enough during this bad time. Now that some time has passed we decided to post new content on our blog again. The next post will go online soon. So stay tuned.
We are shocked by the news of the earthquake in southeastern parts of Turkey and northern Syria and the extent of the suffering it has caused. Our thoughts are with all those affected, especially the victims and their families.
While rescue operations in the region and the supply of humanitarian aid to the cities, towns and villages continue, concerns are also being raised about the many heritage sites in the region. We, too, have received numerous enquiries about the situation at Göbekli Tepe. Fortunately, we can confirm that the site has suffered no damage, as noted in a recent statement by the Ministry of Culture, General Directorate of Monuments and Museums.
The year 2020 marked a quarter of a century since the beginning of archaeological excavations at Göbekli Tepe. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, this anniversary was somewhat forgotten. Reason enough for us to briefly summarise the story behind the now 28 years of research at this famous site.
Initially identified as a prehistoric site in 1963 in the frame of a Turkish-American archaeological survey project, Göbekli Tepe was more or less forgotten for over thirty years, attention turning instead to the site of Çayönü Tepesi (Ergani/Diyarbakır) discovered during the same survey. In the interim years, excavations at Çayönü and other sites, including Cafer Höyük, Hallan Çemi and Nevalı Çori, revealed much more about the transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary societies.
The story behind the re-discovery of Göbekli Tepe has meanwhile entered the realms of modern archaeological myth. Although synonymous with the name Klaus Schmidt, a German archaeologist who dedicated much of his career to Early Neolithic research in Southeast Turkey, the re-discovery of Göbekli Tepe in 1994 takes pride of place in the accounts of the local community from Örencik, a village located just two kilometres west of the site. Unaware of the outstanding role that the mound would one day play in Neolithic research, the local families considered their finds – made during ploughing and field-boundary wall construction – important enough to report them to the nearby Sanliurfa Museum. Additionally, the fact that Schmidt was guided to the mound by a local farmer (Ş. Yıldız) after enquiring about flint surface scatters is clear evidence of this local knowledge.
It goes without saying that the infrastructure that we see today at Göbekli Tepe, which allows hundreds of visitors to pass through its gates every day, was inconceivable to Klaus Schmidt and his companions at the time of their initial visits in October 1994. Access to the site was only possible by foot from the outskirts of Örencik village; the modern asphalt roads now leading to the site either did not exist or were still mere dirt tracks.
In 1995, fieldwork began at Göbekli Tepe under the auspices of the Şanlıurfa Museum (Adnan Mısır), with Harald Hauptmann (German Archaeological Institute) as acting site director. From the very beginning, fieldwork was coordinated by Klaus Schmidt, who, following Hauptmann’s retirement, became director of excavations in 2006 until he passed away in 2014. The directorship of excavations passed to the Şanlıurfa Museum with Lee Clare as field director and coordinator of DAI/DFG research activities. In 2019, Necmi Karul became the new director of the “Göbekli Tepe Culture and Karahantepe Excavation” Project. Archaeological research by the DAI continues unabated and is coordinated and supervised by Lee Clare (DAI Istanbul).
Since 2010, research at Göbekli Tepe has been generously supported by the DFG (German Research Foundation) in the frame of a long-term research project, “The Prehistoric societies of Upper Mesopotamia and their subsistence”. At present, this international and interdisciplinary project is being undertaken by the German Archaeological Institute (Orient and Istanbul Departments), the Ludwig Maximilian Universität München (Archaeozoology) and the Freie Universität Berlin (Geography) in cooperation with the University of Cologne (Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology) and the Istanbul University (Arkeoloji Bölümü).
In over 28 years, many colleagues have contributed to our understanding of Göbekli Tepe. It is a natural process that team members move on and take up different tasks and positions elsewhere. Therefore, in the coming weeks, we will introduce you to the current team members and also present some of the latest results and insights from Göbekli Tepe.
For a brief summary of research post-2014, see:
https://doi.org/10.34780/efb.v0i2.1012
https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1572/
Team:
It has been a long time since we last posted something on our blog “Tepe Telegrams”. The COVID-pandemic and everything that came with it also affected us. In the beginning, we had to rearrange all our work routines as everybody else and also had to reduce excavation works in 2020 to a bare minimum only focusing on small scale but necessary site conservation works. This was then followed by the work-loaded years 2021 and 2022 where we had to catch up with all that had been left behind. Now, finally, the time has come to breathe back some life into our blog and in the following weeks and months you will get to know the current team members, latest news and insights from Göbekli Tepe and our way of working. So stay tuned.
The German Archaeological Institute, the home-base of the Göbekli Tepe Project (excavations and research conducted by the Orient and Istanbul Departments in close cooperation with the Şanlıurfa Haleplibahçe Museum, funded by the German Research Foundation), is celebrating its 190th birthday.
Founded on April 21 in 1829 by a group of international antiquaries and archaeologists as ‘Instituto di Correspondenza’ in Rome to document classical monuments and objects, the DAI today is a worldwide network of international and interdisciplinary corresponding members. For its anniversary, the institute was launching a social media campaign, inviting readers on a visit to the institute’s operational bases, archaeological sites and ongoing research projects with a 190 day blogparade from 22nd April to 27th October.
Today’s 184th post is introducing our very own research at Göbekli Tepe. Please find the article and accompanying photographs here: “Day 184 Göbekli Tepe”.
We as the DAI’s Göbekli Tepe research staff send our congratulations and are wishing all the best for many interesting future endeavours and more fascinating research.
For the recently published “Handbook of Cognitive Archaeology. Psychology in Prehistory”, edited by Tracy B. Henley, Matt J. Rossano, and Edward P. Kardas (Routledge 2019, [external link]), the Göbekli Tepe research project was approached to contribute a chapter on the site’s monumentality and its complex iconography – and how it could help us understand these buildings’ function, the intention behind their construction, and the effect of activities taking place there.
The volume aims at the application of cognitive archaeology, in particular to open that field to scholars across the behavioral sciences and it is our pleasure to introduce one of the key sites of the Anatolian Neolithic in this context with our paper on “Markers of ‘Psychocultural’ Change. The early-Neolithic monuments of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey” (by Oliver Dietrich, Jens Notroff, Sebastian Walter, Laura Dietrich, pp. 311-332):
“The adoption of agriculture and husbandry and the shift from hunting-and-gathering to food-producing subsistence strategies in the course of the so-called Neolithization process seems to have been accompanied (and partly even preceded) by significant mental change. The sudden appearance of a variety of symbolic depictions hints at a new “psycho-cultural” mindset and a new way of viewing the world and humankind´s role in it. The oldest yet known evidence for monumental architecture was discovered at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey, created in exactly this period. The site is interpreted as a social hub for meetings and feasts of different hunter groups of the region, and its iconographic repertoire gives ample examples of this new symbolic art. The imagery of this site in particular focuses on strong and dangerous animals, apparently emphasizing ideas of death and threat. In the course of this paper it is argued that the monuments of Göbekli Tepe could have served as arenas for orchestrated rituals necessary to create and strengthen group identity and social cohesion among the early-Neolithic hunter groups at this crucial transition phase of cultural and economic change.”
Book Details
(Detailed table of contents and introduction chapter available on publishers website.)
About three years ago, in March 2016 we went online with the first version of this weblog. From the beginning of Klaus Schmidt’s research there in the 1990s, public outreach and the communication of research results were important part of the work regarding the site of Göbekli Tepe. With growing media covering, public interest in the archaeology of Göbekli Tepe was increasing as well – including a noticeable rise in pseudoscientific interpretations and conspiracy theories as well. Actual archaeological results seemed to play a less and less visible role in the public narrative of the site and it became clear that an effective communication strategy was needed to address this growing public interest. This was, more or less, the beginning of the ‘Tepe Telegrams’ blog you are now reading.
‘The Tepe Telegrams’, page views and visitors per year (March 2016-April 2019) (Graphic: J. Notroff, DAI)
In the course of the last three years we were able to publish a rather broad collection of articles on this site, some coming from earlier notes and reports, many more from questions and suggestions from you – the readership of this weblog (and we would definitely like to use the chance for saying “Thank you!” for this input). Meanwhile this project-weblog has grown into an encyclopedia of research history and ongoing research regarding the early Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe – and we are indeed glad about the ongoing interest in our work and research.
Three years of blogging are also a good opportunity to look back – into the content developed, its actual impact on the discussion and the perception of this research. Therefore we went through the research history of the Göbekli Tepe project, the different outreach approaches tested and established over the years, and a lot of statistics. The results of this little analysis has been published in a paper in an open access journal recently and can be found online here:
J. Notroff and O. Dietrich, But what is it good for? – Experiences in Public Outreach of the Göbekli Tepe Project (DAI) [external link], Archäoloigsche Informationen 42 (early view).
“With continuing strong popularity of archaeology in public perception, active science communication is more and more recognized as essential tool to not only inform about current research, but to also counter misinterpretation and misuse of archaeological data. Traditional outreach approaches like museums and popular books or articles have been complemented by new digital tools. In a time, in which facts seem to have become negotiable and ‘alternative facts’ can be proposed, pseudoscientific narratives are playing an increasing role in the public discourse on archaeological research – in particular, due to their accessibility in online media. Confronted with a growing public interest and proportionally increasing pseudoarchaeological narratives, we decided to address both in more open formats of science communication for the Göbekli Tepe Project with the creation of a project weblog whose aim it was to engage communication and provide information where the discussion actually was taking place: Online. This paper provides an insight into experiences and impact of nearly three years of science blogging.”
We were asked in comments and messages to elaborate some more on the contents of our recent paper. So here is a short summary of the article recently published in PLoS ONE. For more information on the findings outlined here, please consult the original publication:
Dietrich L, Meister J, Dietrich O, Notroff J, Kiep J, Heeb J, et al. (2019) Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey. PLoS ONE 14(5): e0215214. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215214
Cereal food is one of the most important components of our modern diet. Its integration into human subsistence strategy during the late Epipalaeolithic (c. 12500–9600 cal BC) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN, c. 9600–7000 cal BC) has been recognized as a very long and complex process involving the selection and utilization of plants, strategies of exploitation of plants and land, the development of cultivation, and ways of processing, storing, and consuming plants. Widespread adoption of farming and agriculture at the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNB, c. 8800–7000 cal BC), the deliberate, large-scale cultivation of domesticated cereals and other plants, was predated by a longer period of experimentation and technological modification leading to the development of specialized tool kits for plant-food processing. Typical implements are e.g. pounding and grinding tools used in pairs, comprising a static low implement (mortar, grinding slab or grinding bowl) and an active upper tool that is moved across its surface (pestle or handstone).
Cereal use in the Early Neolithic
The regular processing of wild cereals through grinding seems to have been established first in the Late Natufian, as suggested by macrobotanical evidence as well as by morphological changes in grinding stones combined with use-wear analyses. Flat, large grinding stones and handstones became a supra-regional standard during the Levantine PPN, constituting an integral part of the architecture. Recent investigations have highlighted the area between the upper reaches of Euphrates and Tigris as one region where the transition to food-producing subsistence took place early during the Epipalaeolithic and the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. The distribution areas of the wild forms of einkorn, emmer wheat, barley and other ‘Neolithic founder crops’ overlap here and DNA fingerprinting has pinpointed the transition of two wild wheat variants to domesticated crops to this part of the Fertile Crescent. Systematic early plant use has been found at a variety of sites, like Cafer Höyük, Çayönü, Hallan Çemi, Jerf el Ahmar or Körtik Tepe.
Göbekli Tepe has not played any role in discussions of early cereal use so far. The reasons can be found – at least in part – in the problematic nature of direct evidence for cereals on site. Although analysis of macrobotanical remains indicates the presence of wild einkorn (Triticum cf. boeticum/urartu), wild barley (Hordeum cf. spontaneum) and possibly wild wheat/rye (Triticum/Secale), as well as almonds (Prunus sp.) and pistachio (Pistacia sp.) at Göbekli Tepe, only a conspicuously low amount of carbonized plant remains has been recovered, both in handpicked and in flotation samples.
Grinding tools from Göbekli Tepe. (A), (C) Neolithic handstones of type 1; (B) Neolithic handstone of type 2; (D) Experimental handstone of type 1, produced as copy of (C); (E, F) Neolithic grinding bowls (German Archaeological Institute, 3D-models H. Höhler-Brockmann and N. Schäkel).
However, Göbekli Tepe has not only produced an impressive set of architecture – monumental round to oval buildings with T-shaped limestone pillars, erected in an earlier phase, and smaller rectangular buildings, built around them in a partially contemporaneous and later phase – but also a unusually large number of over 7000 grinding tools. We analyzed these tools using an integrated approach of formal, experimental, and macro- / microscopical use-wear analyses.
Göbekli Tepe
As a first step in our analysis we had to determine the functional variation of these grinding tools, as a wide range of uses is attested archaeologically and ethnographically, ranging from cereal processing to pounding of meat or crushing of minerals. Grinding and pounding equipment from Göbekli Tepe was documented through 3D-modelling by structure from motion, and surfaces were macro- and microscopically analyzed for use-wear. We used replicas of the equipment identified on site to experimentally grind different materials and establish a reference collection for the identification of the observed traces. Further, phytolith samples taken from the sediments inside and outside buildings at Göbekli Tepe and from grinding stone surfaces allowed us to determine and quantify the presence of plants. Phytoliths were abundant in all nine soil samples examined, ranging from 0.5 to 3.0 million phytoliths per gram of sediment. Grass phytoliths were the most common group identified. The sediments inside the rectangular buildings largely contain markers for the upper and middle part of plants. This could be indicative of harvested cereals, as plants are usually collected and transported in sheaves. To contextualize the results, we assessed the spatial distribution of grinding equipment and identified potential activity areas.
We found that the most common types of handstones used at Göbekli Tepe show use-wear traces connected to cereal processing. Handstones with such traces concentrate in some of the rectangular buildings, but even more so in open spaces between and around them and the (at least partly) contemporary monumental round structures.
Building D was taken as a case study to asses grinding stone use within the latter. There, grinding equipment from the deepest layer, which appears to be connected to the partially intentional refilling of the structure, also shows traces of ochre, indicating its processing in this structure.
The overall quantity of 7268 analyzed grinding tools from Göbekli Tepe appears to be too high for simple daily use, given their relatively high productivity. A single handstone of the most common types could have produced an average of 4800 g flour within eight working hours, as our experiments show. If we assume that one person needs between 500 g and 1000 g of cereals daily as nutrients for survival, this amount would be enough to feed five to ten people.
Interpretation
The organization of work and food supply has always been a central question of research into Göbekli Tepe, as the construction and maintenance of the monumental architecture would have necessitated a considerable work force. Göbekli Tepe has a high concentration of distinctive architecture, often addressed as ‘special buildings’, which do not repeat the characteristic plans of domestic buildings from contemporaneous settlements. Extensively excavated settlement sites like Nevalı Çori or Çayönü have one ‘special building’ per settlement phase, while Göbekli Tepe has several, likely contemporary buildings of this type, which different groups of people likely used. For the buildings excavated so far, we have observed certain regularities governing the decoration of the 69 known pillars–mostly with animal motifs, but also with abstract signs. While in building A snake images prevail, in building B foxes are dominant. In building C boar take over, and in building D the imagery is more diverse with birds, especially vultures, playing a significant role. In building H felines are of importance. We see these differences in figurative expression as evidence for different groups of people ornamenting the buildings with the emblematic animals central to their group identities. The site has also produced a wide range of stationary and portable art, far outnumbering such finds from other contemporary sites. Many of the animal and human depictions are clearly marked as male, there are almost no clearly recognizable female depictions, a situation contrary to the materials known from settlements.
At the same time, Göbekli Tepe´s remote location on a barren mountain ridge is very unusual compared to the setting of contemporaneous Neolithic settlements, which are regularly located next to water sources. The construction of monumental architecture at Göbekli Tepe, and other similar sites in its vicinity, would have necessitated a workforce of hundreds of people even by conservative estimates. One model to explain cooperation in small-scale communities involves ritualized work feasts. M. Dietler and E. Herbich define work feasts as events in which “commensal hospitality is used to orchestrate voluntary collective labour,” the incentive to work together is provided by the prospect of large amounts of food and drink. The main archaeological marker for feasting would be evidence of the presence of larger amounts of foodstuffs and tools than needed by the inhabitants of a site for their subsistence. Through our analysis, we have identified evidence for Göbekli Tepe that fits that pattern for plant food. As no large storage facilities have been identified, we argue for a production of food for immediate consumption and interpret these seasonal peaks in activity at the site as evidence for the organization of large work feasts. This adds to archaeozoological data suggesting large-scale hunting of migratory gazelle between midsummer and autumn.
We have finally published some thoughts on processing and use of cereals at Göbekli Tepe. As the text is open access, we will just leave the link , some beautiful images of phytoliths, use-wear and grinding stones as well as the abstract here:
Dietrich L, Meister J, Dietrich O, Notroff J, Kiep J, Heeb J, Beuger A, Schütt B (2019) Cereal processing at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey. PLOS ONE 14(5): e0215214. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0215214
Grinding tools from Göbekli Tepe. (A), (C) Neolithic handstones of type 1; (B) Neolithic handstone of type 2; (D) Experimental handstone of type 1, produced as copy of (C); (E, F) Neolithic grinding bowls (German Archaeological Institute, 3D-models H. Höhler-Brockmann and N. Schäkel).
Abstract
We analyze the processing of cereals and its role at Early Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Anatolia (10th / 9th millennium BC), a site that has aroused much debate in archaeological discourse. To date, only zooarchaeological evidence has been discussed in regard to the subsistence of its builders. Göbekli Tepe consists of monumental round to oval buildings, erected in an earlier phase, and smaller rectangular buildings, built around them in a partially contemporaneous and later phase. The monumental buildings are best known as they were in the focus of research. They are around 20 m in diameter and have stone pillars that are up to 5.5 m high and often richly decorated. The rectangular buildings are smaller and–in some cases–have up to 2 m high, mostly undecorated, pillars. Especially striking is the number of tools related to food processing, including grinding slabs/bowls, handstones, pestles, and mortars, which have not been studied before. We analyzed more than 7000 artifacts for the present contribution. The high frequency of artifacts is unusual for contemporary sites in the region. Using an integrated approach of formal, experimental, and macro- / microscopical use-wear analyses we show that Neolithic people at Göbekli Tepe have produced standardized and efficient grinding tools, most of which have been used for the processing of cereals. Additional phytolith analysis confirms the massive presence of cereals at the site, filling the gap left by the weakly preserved charred macro-rests. The organization of work and food supply has always been a central question of research into Göbekli Tepe, as the construction and maintenance of the monumental architecture would have necessitated a considerable work force. Contextual analyses of the distribution of the elements of the grinding kit on site highlight a clear link between plant food preparation and the rectangular buildings and indicate clear delimitations of working areas for food production on the terraces the structures lie on, surrounding the circular buildings. There is evidence for extensive plant food processing and archaeozoological data hint at large-scale hunting of gazelle between midsummer and autumn. As no large storage facilities have been identified, we argue for a production of food for immediate use and interpret these seasonal peaks in activity at the site as evidence for the organization of large work feasts.
The apparently anthropomorphic appearance and meaning of (at least some of) the T-shaped pillars known from Göbekli Tepe, Nevalı Çori (and likely many of the other sites with similar pillars in the area too) could have been convincingly explained by a number of very characteristic details depicted in reliefs on these pillars. Among them arms and hands as well as stola-like garments and, in the case of Göbekli Tepe’s Pillars 18 and 31 (in Building D), even belts and loincloths.
The characteristic T-pillars can be recognized as larger-than-life human(-like) sculptures due to a number of specific elements. (Illustration: J. Notroff)
It was the discovery of these peculiar new type of T-shaped pillars, for the first time excavated in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement of Nevalı Çori on the middle Euphrates (like Göbekli Tepe in Şanlıurfa Province) in the 1980s [external link], which also shed new light onto another find – until then rather considered an archaeological oddity – of a unique piece of sculpture: The so-called Kilisik Sculpture found in 1965 near Adıyaman in southeastern Turkey.
The sculpture was originally found by a local farmer and purchased from him by two archaeology students working at the excavations in Arsameia “about an hour by horse north-west of the Roman bridge in the village of Kilisik” and later transferred to the Archaeological Museum in Adıyaman (Hauptmann 2012, 18-20). The stele is measuring c. 80 cm in height and carved from limestone, the conspiciously T-shaped head shows a broader back and rather slim face with an emphasized nose and only suggested eyes. Arms are depicted on both sides of the body, the hands meeting above the belly at some bulge which can be identified as head of another, smaller figure below. Whose left arm is more or less hanging down, but the right hand seems to reach towards its lower body – where a circular hollow was carved into the stone (Hauptmann 2012, 20 (in an earlier interpretation, Hauptmann (2000, 8-9) even discussed the possibility to read head and body of the smaller figure as navel and penis depictions, cf. also Verhoeven 2001)). Whether or not this hollow already was part of the sculpture’s original design or was later added (maybe for a phallus to be mounted or something similar, or to indicate a hermaphroditic nature of the figure as e.g. Hodder and Meskell (2011, 238) suggested) remains unclear.
Although its original find context still could not have been figured out (Hauptmann (2012, 18) suggested an early Neolithic settlement north of the village), the Kilisik Sculpture is an extraordinary find among depictions and sculptures of that period due to its specific shape, apparently combining characteristics of very different elements of other types of known Neolithic sculpture:
Pillar 31 in Building D showing anthropomorphic features like hands and arms and pieces of clothing (Photo: N. Becker, DAI).
Composite sculpture from Göbekli Tepe (Photo: N. Becker, DAI).
This combination of very specific and very different elements and ideas makes the sculpture from Kilisik so special among Pre-Pottery Neolithic image representations and forms an interesting link between the various types of sculptural art of the period. Hauptmann (2012, 22) even suggested to interpret this scene as a ‘mother and child’ motive (known i.a. from two of Nevalı Çori’s clay figurines). In this case the Kilisik example would represent the first female depiction to be associated with the T-shaped sculptures. Since the depiction lacks clear sexual characteristics, this remains a rather vague and ambivalent possibility asking for further research. The Kilisik Sculpture, however, already could demonstrate that with a growing number of such finds our understanding of the complexity of early Neolithic art is still increasing.
Refrences:
H. Hauptmann, Ein frühneolithisches Kultbild aus Kommagene, in: J. Wagner (ed.), Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, Mainz 2000, 5-9.
H. Hauptmann, Frühneolithische Kultbilder in der Kommagene, in J. Wagner (ed.), Gottkönige am Euphrat. Neue Ausgrabungen und Forschungen in Kommagene, 2. erweiterte Auflage , Darmstadt/Mainz 2012, 13-22. [external link]
I. Hodder and L. Meskell, A “Curious and Sometimes a Trifle Macabre Artistry. Some Aspects of Symbolism in Neolithic Turkey, Current Anthropology 52(2), 2011, 235-263. [external link]
K. Schmidt, A Stone Age Sanctuary in South- Eastern Anatolia, Berlin 2012.
M. Verhoeven, Person or Penis? Interpreting a ‘New’ PPNB Anthropomorphic Statue from the Taurus Foothills, Neo-Lithics 1/01, 2001, 8-9. [external link]
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