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Transcript
0:00 · go back to the tape is great and
0:02 · deserves all the attention it gets but
0:04 · does it have the right kind of attention
0:07 · there is another site in southeast
0:09 · turkey that is probably going to turn
0:11 · out to be far more important than its
0:13 · more well-known contemporary let's talk
0:16 · about one chocolate
0:17 · [Music]
0:23 · I think it's fair to say rumor that
0:25 · since we we've made the commitment to
0:27 · make a series of films called Gobekli
0:30 · Tepe to Stonehenge that our Focus has
0:32 · been far more on the Middle East and the
0:34 · and the Fertile Crescent and more we
0:37 · look the more complex and Nuance the
0:39 · whole development of farming culture and
0:41 · Mesopotamia seems to become
0:44 · and the more we look the more the idea
0:46 · of quebeco Tepe being the ground zero of
0:49 · civilization becomes less and less
0:51 · tenable in fact it becomes downright
0:53 · misleading what do you think I think
0:56 · that's a good way of putting it it is
0:57 · misleading and in actual fact it's quite
0:59 · bizarre really that for the length of
1:01 · time that we have we've been hearing
1:03 · about quebecue tape is almost Ground
1:04 · Zero
1:06 · um and you know the oldest sophisticated
1:08 · uh settlement if you like but it turns
1:12 · out that there's actually quite a few uh
1:15 · dating back so this sort of length of
1:17 · time uh you know talking about you know
1:19 · a ten eleven thousand years and more and
1:22 · here we are at Urban chocolate talking
1:24 · about something that's almost 13
1:27 · 000 years old it's remarkable how far
1:31 · back this goes yeah and I think the
1:35 · important thing if I'm reading this
1:36 · right about Montauk is not how far back
1:40 · it goes but the breadth of time that it
1:43 · was occupied and so it's able to win the
1:47 · excavations are complete uh it'll be
1:50 · able to tell and far broader story about
1:53 · that time I mean it spans the time of
1:56 · the
1:57 · um the younger dryas
2:00 · yes yes which is uh so so the settlement
2:03 · as a whole uh was uh was we can't say
2:07 · for certain that it was permanently
2:09 · inhabited for this length of time but
2:11 · certainly it was inhabited for 4 000
2:15 · years more or less before it was
2:17 · abandoned about 8 000 years ago it's
2:20 · just staggering
2:22 · so much
2:24 · discovered it's in the it's quite a way
2:27 · from
2:28 · um
2:30 · but just over 300 kilometers away to to
2:34 · the east
2:35 · uh in modern Province uh discovered
2:38 · first in 2008 uh during prospecting uh
2:43 · prospective digging
2:45 · um for the uh what is it the ILS Dam
2:50 · um the um but serious excavations have
2:54 · been undertaken since
2:56 · 2012. uh and I think the the main
3:00 · archaeologist responsible at the moment
3:02 · I don't know if he was involved when
3:04 · back in 2012 was uh Dr Ergo kodash of
3:09 · the University of um Mardin
3:12 · um so
3:13 · the little astonishing thing is
3:16 · excavations have been going on for quite
3:18 · some time last I read was that they've
3:22 · only
3:23 · um done about five percent of what they
3:26 · think yeah
3:30 · the whole the whole size extends it's
3:32 · about three hectares in size and and yes
3:37 · they've excavated five percent of this I
3:39 · mean that's so Lord knows what else
3:41 · they're going to find under there
3:42 · there's
3:44 · they are sophisticated architectural
3:46 · structures maybe we should uh probably I
3:49 · do you know what let's mention just to
3:51 · get it out of the way yeah bun chocolate
3:53 · it means the field of beads yeah they've
3:57 · they've found in their excavations they
3:58 · found about a hundred thousand beads
4:01 · here and some of them are carved into
4:04 · the shapes of animals as uh uh even
4:08 · carvings of uh so scorpions for example
4:11 · some of the pendants are yeah yeah
4:15 · um and uh uh what else there's extensive
4:18 · use of copper at the site
4:21 · um in fact the archaeologist was saying
4:22 · it was surprised at the extensive use of
4:25 · cobbler so I made a note somewhere that
4:27 · that over over all the rest of the sites
4:30 · uh in Anatolia they've found a few
4:33 · hundred uh copper items but here they
4:36 · found what was it two thousand yeah it's
4:39 · just and when you think of the age of
4:41 · the site that's what makes all these
4:43 · details that much more surprising
4:46 · um and respect to the Copper it's
4:49 · important to say we're not talking about
4:50 · copper tools here
4:53 · there are so far anyway
4:57 · um the only copper items that have been
4:58 · Unearthed are
5:00 · um copper ornaments worked into shapes
5:03 · scorpions is the uh seems to be the top
5:06 · Motif yeah so far yeah
5:10 · um yeah so you're not good going
5:13 · uh but also culturally you know that
5:15 · they uh they found earrings uh and lip
5:20 · rings as well so so again this is a
5:23 · practice that uh that might go back a
5:25 · lot further than we would previously
5:27 · have imagined it's uh yeah just more
5:29 · detail and we're talking the kind of
5:32 · earring that new needs piercing the kind
5:34 · of lip ring that needs piercing so we're
5:38 · getting much more colorful images out of
5:40 · here than to my knowledge that you ever
5:44 · have seemed to come out of the bakla
5:45 · tape yeah and I think that's the
5:47 · important thing
5:49 · that out of this tiny area of the in
5:54 · what will be the entire excavation the
5:56 · entire settlement five percent were told
5:59 · that all this
6:02 · um this material culture is coming out
6:04 · which
6:05 · uh dwarfs what's been coming out of go
6:08 · back to Tampa oh what's been focused on
6:10 · it go back to Tepe should I say I mean
6:12 · that I I'm quite open to be corrected
6:14 · about that and maybe you know Lee Claire
6:16 · at Rebecca you know we'll have a
6:18 · different story to tell but I think in
6:22 · the Public Image certainly you know the
6:24 · focus of quebecue topic has been on the
6:26 · structures it has been on the on the T
6:28 · pillars on the the central buildings the
6:32 · special buildings
6:33 · here we're actually getting close to
6:35 · people like I said we've got a much more
6:39 · colorful image of people because those
6:42 · beads I mean I hope when we go to Turkey
6:45 · we'll get to the modern museum where so
6:48 · many of these artifacts are kept
6:52 · and some of the videos I've seen where
6:55 · the beads have been assembled you know
6:57 · in uh as neck ornaments and all the rest
7:00 · of it they're really quite beautiful and
7:02 · elaborate yeah
7:04 · um
7:04 · and and some of them highly polished as
7:06 · well
7:07 · intricately worked so uh more surprises
7:11 · yeah
7:13 · um I think building wise you know we
7:16 · tend to when we look at Gecko Tepe for
7:19 · example and so there's the similarity of
7:23 · architectural uh structure that we can
7:25 · see here as well but fascinating here is
7:28 · that
7:29 · uh you have these communal buildings
7:31 · they call them communal buildings
7:34 · um that uh that they were sunk into the
7:36 · ground so you still have these Sterling
7:38 · the the upright pillars uh but they're
7:41 · sunk into the ground uh so that it's
7:45 · almost a Subterranean building that you
7:47 · access through the roof and uh and the
7:50 · archaeologists say that the residential
7:51 · buildings where people are actually
7:53 · living were on the surface so you had
7:56 · these surface dwelling houses but these
7:58 · Subterranean uh communal buildings
8:00 · that's interesting you have to wonder
8:02 · what went on and yeah yeah
8:05 · um fascinated you know the uh it's
8:08 · supposed to be the first window
8:11 · um which is interesting because uh as
8:15 · you say it seems to have been a roof
8:17 · Skylight that provided exit and entrance
8:21 · the units and entrance was through the
8:23 · roof nothing no doors or no side windows
8:28 · or something like that so although we're
8:30 · describing or they have been described
8:32 · as public places as communal places
8:36 · um in reality they must have been quite
8:39 · dark and quite you know enclosed spaces
8:43 · not really that much room for
8:46 · yes it's it's an interesting people to
8:49 · gather yeah it's an interesting
8:50 · distinction to make isn't it because
8:52 · they make the differentiation because uh
8:56 · you can see when there's signs of
8:58 · domestication so they know in the houses
9:00 · there's signs of people living there
9:01 · whether it's a hearth that might be
9:03 · outside or what have you there's there's
9:05 · something about them that shows that
9:06 · people live there uh whereas these
9:09 · communal buildings there's no signs of
9:11 · of the Domesticity so that doesn't
9:14 · really tell you that when they say it's
9:16 · a communal building or a public building
9:17 · it could be that that's public use in
9:20 · whatever way it doesn't necessarily mean
9:22 · that people were spending time inside
9:24 · them yeah yeah
9:27 · before we um go too much deeper I think
9:32 · first of all I think a little bit of a
9:34 · word from our sponsors and our sponsors
9:36 · are of course uh our patreon supporters
9:40 · um yeah how many are there of them
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9:52 · know it's been going for a bit while now
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10:23 · turn around a bit fast makes the boat go
10:26 · faster should we put it that way it does
10:28 · well said yes
10:30 · uh anyway on with the show
10:33 · um what I was going to say was you
10:36 · kicked off I sort of set the question
10:37 · and you kicked on saying how many other
10:40 · sites you know beside bonjoklatala that
10:43 · there are in the area and we just need
10:46 · to sort of say a few words about that if
10:49 · you've got names on the tip of tip of
10:51 · your tongue on the tip of my tongue well
10:54 · um there's the better known
10:56 · um apart from there's um Caravan Tepe of
10:59 · course which was that's been
11:01 · there's quite a lot of excavation that's
11:03 · been going on there for some years now
11:06 · um but we shouldn't ignore the uh the
11:10 · other sites that that fit around this
11:12 · same time period going further south as
11:14 · well like Jericho and uh and why did
11:18 · fainan in Jordan which is uh again the
11:20 · same uh sort of age well I think that
11:23 · there's a another very important place
11:28 · um which I think is probably just over
11:30 · the Border
11:32 · I hate to mention borders actually
11:34 · because it sort of gives an impression
11:36 · of a divide that would not have been
11:39 · there so yeah uh would not have been
11:43 · that far away back in the day and of
11:46 · course we're talking
11:48 · um another site that predates
11:51 · but shows signs of the same kinds of
11:54 · stuff going on uh in terms of
11:58 · um her grain storage Silo storage of
12:02 · grain so you know the farming and
12:05 · agriculture uh well in full swing there
12:09 · and the same kind of settlement
12:12 · um things going on and that's just um
12:16 · uh in Northern Syria is it or is it Iraq
12:21 · I don't remember now I think it's
12:22 · Northern Syria
12:24 · um I don't remember to be honest yeah
12:27 · yeah
12:28 · um but there's no end of other Tepe
12:31 · sites as well uh to mention I don't know
12:35 · if any trip off the tongue uh obviously
12:38 · we know of uh of Karan Tepe
12:41 · um um well yeah I can't think for the
12:45 · moment
12:46 · because
12:47 · um oh well we can snip this bit out
12:49 · can't we oh no okay I'll tell you what
12:51 · I've I've found something I can I can
12:53 · knock off the top as hams on tap it kind
12:56 · of untapped bro I've said that Sefa Tepe
12:59 · [Music]
13:00 · um
13:03 · um
13:09 · and the list goes on
13:12 · um yeah
13:15 · so uh I'll tell you something that uh
13:19 · that I found really fascinating here
13:21 · that uh something that's not unusual
13:24 · culturally is that the burials were
13:28 · beneath the houses so you so people were
13:31 · buried where they had lived why put them
13:34 · anywhere else there was no external
13:37 · Cemetery for example people were buried
13:39 · uh in their own houses and in a couple
13:42 · of instances
13:44 · they found couples buried together so
13:48 · people in buried in an Embrace that's
13:52 · only in two graves that they found that
13:54 · but um but even so that is
13:57 · uh that's quite poignant isn't it you
13:59 · know what's the story behind that and
14:01 · obviously we'll never know
14:03 · um
14:04 · but uh but certainly there was that and
14:06 · then there was another grave they found
14:07 · that contained I think it was three
14:09 · children in one grave
14:11 · um but uh then there was a practice of
14:16 · uh after a period of time they would
14:19 · uncover the burials and remove the
14:22 · skulls only and uh and take them to be
14:26 · placed somewhere else so that's an
14:29 · interesting cultural yeah and it's not
14:31 · just a fun chocolate the evidence is
14:35 · confirming evidence that goes back to
14:38 · other sites to around about thirteen
14:41 · thousand uh BCE
14:44 · and continues actually the practice of
14:47 · um uh internment you know within the
14:51 · domestic setting
14:54 · um the retrieval of uh of skulls the
14:58 · sort of skull curation aspect as well
15:00 · seems to have lasted right through to
15:03 · about 7000 BCE
15:05 · [Music]
15:07 · um and I think that is one area where
15:10 · among chocolate Tyler that it's
15:12 · confirming the practice it seems it was
15:15 · a bit it's a bit a bit sketchy but think
15:18 · of that it's another bit of color this
15:19 · was a practice that would have been
15:21 · going on you know the culture that was
15:23 · inhabiting and the other teppo sites in
15:26 · in the area yeah
15:28 · um
15:29 · so the whole thing is just so much more
15:34 · full of color and diversity and
15:38 · the fact that we get sort of different
15:41 · uh
15:42 · um Spectrum a different spectrum of what
15:45 · was going on from each site you know the
15:49 · the
15:51 · broadly similar but each site sort of
15:54 · brings A New Perspective uh to to like
15:57 · it's it's quite astonishing and and
16:00 · wonderfully complex is there anything
16:04 · else that I think one other thing that
16:06 · is certainly worth mentioning bearing in
16:08 · mind the age of this site is that
16:11 · they're pretty sure they the
16:13 · archaeologists are pretty sure that
16:15 · they've actually revealed an 11 800 year
16:19 · old sewage system
16:21 · uh now that's uh you know that's a
16:26 · significant level of sophistication to
16:28 · be building into structures uh that's
16:32 · that impressed me I have to say yeah
16:34 · and the the question is bearing in mind
16:38 · that only five percent or so of the site
16:42 · has been excavated so far and has so far
16:45 · uh brought out such riches in terms of
16:48 · Illumination of the culture and what
16:51 · people were interested in you know how
16:53 · they were adorning themselves etc etc
16:56 · just how much more is going to come out
17:00 · at this particular
17:01 · excavation we'll just put a silly number
17:04 · on that a hundred thousand beads and
17:06 · they've excavated five percent yeah and
17:09 · they're a thirty Thirty houses
17:12 · yeah and the the seven communal uh
17:15 · buildings as well in the center of this
17:18 · community you know I what I suspect goes
17:23 · on at a lot of these sites and I think
17:26 · to a large degree the
17:29 · um domestic attributes of aspects of all
17:33 · these sites are tend to be sidelined
17:36 · when they're possibly some of the more
17:38 · important aspects
17:40 · um you know as far as day-to-day life is
17:43 · concerned
17:45 · um you know
17:47 · um Excavating and only Excavating
17:49 · Westminster Abbey is not going to tell
17:51 · you much about you know the daily lives
17:53 · of
17:55 · is it uh and one thing I do suspect is
18:00 · that these were you know though we've
18:02 · got sort of Village size that's
18:04 · indicated by the excavation so far I
18:08 · suspect the community was actually
18:10 · pretty large to in order to support in
18:13 · all these sites in order to support the
18:16 · building of such a massive
18:18 · um or you know la
18:20 · uh communal buildings or special
18:22 · buildings
18:25 · um that we've seen that the inhabit that
18:29 · the community would extend beyond what
18:32 · we see built I suspect you know in good
18:35 · medieval castle fashion the
18:38 · Castle will extend far beyond the castle
18:40 · walls or the community that supports the
18:43 · castle it's extended Way Beyond uh the
18:46 · castle walls
18:48 · um so you know that is speculation
18:50 · because
18:51 · it's hardly likely that we're going to
18:53 · find evidence of you know a tented or
18:57 · you know wooden Pole or wooden buildings
19:00 · beyond the stone building yeah but it's
19:03 · a strongly suspect that may be the case
19:05 · in order to support the numbers to in
19:07 · order to have the numbers that support
19:09 · such building and such concentration
19:12 · um in uh you know what must have been a
19:15 · hierarchy I think and that is another
19:18 · aspect into in terms of the all of these
19:21 · communities all of these settlements
19:23 · that they display
19:26 · um that there must have been an
19:28 · organizational Factor here that speaks
19:32 · to uh when you factor in as well that uh
19:35 · that they've they've found evidence for
19:37 · textiles as well which shouldn't be a
19:41 · surprise but when you actually start
19:43 · thinking about what it takes to weave
19:46 · class
19:48 · um so you've got weaving of cloth you've
19:50 · got the uh the fashioning of beads and
19:55 · and ornaments some of which are quite
19:57 · sophisticated all these things take time
20:00 · and uh so you're talking about a people
20:04 · who actually have enough time on their
20:06 · hands to be doing a lot of these things
20:09 · all right they're not going to sit down
20:11 · in the evening and do half of the things
20:12 · that we take for granted now they would
20:15 · have a lot of after Dark
20:17 · uh time to fill but nevertheless there
20:21 · was so much I think that the uh there's
20:24 · even one of these Stella that has a
20:26 · carving uh on this one has depictions of
20:28 · uh of people wearing skirts and tunics
20:33 · okay I'm not sure about that I think
20:35 · that was a general observation that was
20:37 · made about some other sites that uh you
20:41 · know the idea of uh wearing of garments
20:45 · Etc I think where was he talking about a
20:47 · uh okay well you can snip that out I'll
20:49 · have to uh no it's all right
20:52 · enough we can do
20:54 · um I'm just trying to think because that
20:56 · was something that I I just made a note
20:59 · of at the time but I don't remember
21:01 · I think it was a general point that he
21:03 · made that that yes they have found
21:04 · materials at the site but it doesn't
21:07 · tell us anything about you know what in
21:11 · themselves they don't tell us anything
21:12 · about what people were wearing but he
21:14 · said that Elsewhere on some of the sites
21:16 · where there are carvings we've seen
21:18 · depictions of people wearing um you know
21:21 · tunics and skirts that's that's what he
21:24 · said
21:25 · so there we are
21:27 · um
21:27 · so merely many talking points to come
21:30 · out of this and I hope you know really
21:32 · begins to illuminate the diversity and
21:36 · the multifaceted aspect of excavations
21:40 · in the Levant and the uh and Mesopotamia
21:45 · and how gabakley tapi rather Narrows our
21:50 · Focus fantastic though the site is you
21:53 · know it does tend to narrow our focus
21:55 · and and blind uh the the sort of public
22:00 · Consciousness about the breadth of and
22:04 · diversity of the other sites in the area
22:07 · that are providing far more uh
22:09 · information I think that's about where I
22:12 · think we should end this little
22:15 · conversation and hope that it's
22:17 · illuminated uh you know many factors
22:19 · that you weren't aware of before
22:20 · anything else you want to add to that no
22:23 · I think you're right I think it just
22:25 · shows that the the the deeper the Deep
22:29 · electric the the further back in time we
22:32 · find that these levels of sophistication
22:35 · were were thriving so yeah I'm sure
22:38 · there's still many surprises to come out
22:40 · of this site anyway yeah I'm sure there
22:42 · are many elements you know that will
22:44 · have missed and emitted from our short
22:46 · uh Breeze through these things and uh a
22:51 · bunch of chocolate itself but I hope you
22:53 · enjoyed that anyway as I say uh do have
22:56 · a look at our patreon page hit the like
22:57 · And subscribe thank you so much uh for
23:00 · watching and uh we'll see you all again
23:03 · very soon I hope all the best for now
23:06 · cheerio
23:12 · [Music]
23:18 · sweet