A few kilometres northeast of modern \u015eanl\u0131urfa in south-eastern Turkey, the tell of G\u00f6bekli Tepe is situated on the highest point of the otherwise barren Germu\u015f mountain range. Rising 15 metres and with an area of about 9 hectares, the completely man-made mound covers the earliest known monumental cult architecture in the ancient Near East. Constructed by hunter-gatherers right after the end of the last Ice Age, they also intentionally buried it about 10,000 years ago.<\/p>\n
G\u00f6bekli Tepe has been known to archaeologists since the 1960s, when a joint survey team from the Universities of Istanbul and Chicago under the direction of Halet \u00c7ambel and Robert Braidwood observed numerous flint artefacts littering the surface of the mound. However, the monumental architecture remained undetected, and was eventually discovered by Klaus Schmidt on a grand tour of important south-eastern Turkish Neolithic sites in 1994. In addition to the high density of flint tools and flakes, his eye was caught by large limestone blocks which reminded him of another nearby Neolithic site where he had worked several years before: Neval\u0131 \u00c7ori \u2013 where, among others, a building with monolithic T- pillars was discovered for the first time. These peculiar T-shapes reminded Schmidt of the worked stone peeking out of the surface at G\u00f6bekli Tepe. Excavations at this site began the next year.<\/p>\n
In about 22 years of ongoing fieldwork, the German Archaeological Institute and the \u015eanl\u0131urfa Museum have revealed a totally unexpected monumental architecture at G\u00f6bekli Tepe, dating to the earliest Neolithic period. No typical domestic structures have yet been found, leading to the interpretation of G\u00f6bekli Tepe as a ritual centre for gathering and feasting. The people creating these megalithic monuments were still highly mobile hunter-foragers and the site\u2019s material culture corroborates this: substantial amounts of bones exclusively from hunted wild animals, and a stone tool inventory comprising a wide range of projectile points. Osteological investigations and botanical studies show that animal husbandry was not practiced at G\u00f6bekli Tepe and domesticated plants were unknown.<\/p>\n\n\t\t