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Last Stand of the Hunter-gatherers? [2021 -- Gobekli Tepe]
Archaeology Magazine ^ | May/June 2021 | Andrew Curry

Posted on 07/08/2024 10:32:11 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

Schmidt thought this demonstrated that complex social organization and the performance of rituals actually predated permanent settlement and agriculture, and that the people who banded together and built the monumental structures were nomadic hunter-gatherers. He suggested that, eventually, the demands of gathering these nomads together in one place to carve and move the huge T-pillars and build the circular enclosures pushed them to take the next step and begin domesticating plants and animals in order to create a more dependable food supply. These innovations, he argued, spread from the hilltop throughout the region and eventually the globe. Ritual and religion, it seemed, launched the Neolithic Revolution, not the other way around. "First the temple, then the city" was how Schmidt summed it up.

However, new discoveries at Göbekli Tepe and a close examination of the results from the earlier excavations are upending things once again. Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that the site was a settlement after all, and that many of its large ritual structures were used contemporaneously, not built one after another over the course of centuries. At the same time, a growing group of scholars, including the DAI's Lee Clare, who took over excavations at the site after Schmidt's death in 2014, argue that Göbekli Tepe's towering anthropomorphic pillars and powerful animal carvings do not mark the beginning of the Neolithic period. Instead, they contend, the entire site represents a last-ditch attempt to hold onto a vanishing way of life. The people of Göbekli Tepe weren't driving the Neolithic Revolution forward—they were shoving back against it as hard as they could.

(Excerpt) Read more at archaeology.org ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: andrewcurry; gobeklitepe; godsgravesglyphs; huntergatherers; turkey
I've never bought into the notion that this site was built, used for rituals, then systematically covered back up until the following year, as if it were a prehistoric Burning Man festival.


1 posted on 07/08/2024 10:32:11 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
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The rest of the Hunter Gatherer keyword, sorted:

2 posted on 07/08/2024 10:33:50 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 1ofmanyfree; 21twelve; 24Karet; 2ndDivisionVet; 31R1O; ...
Thanks! Archaeology works for stories I've missed as well.

3 posted on 07/08/2024 10:34:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv

The fact that they filled in and covered up the site tells me drastic social changes were occurring. I have no idea what kind.


4 posted on 07/08/2024 10:48:46 AM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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Some topics out of the FRchives, just added to the keyword. These emerged from the chrono search on FR, and yet, they happen to be in alpha order!

5 posted on 07/08/2024 10:48:57 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: ComputerGuy

The agricultural Karens outlawed the mens’ yearly hunting trips and get togethers for leaving chores undone and taxes unpaid.


6 posted on 07/08/2024 10:58:48 AM PDT by Justa (Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people....)
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To: Justa

I would guard my mancave with my life!


7 posted on 07/08/2024 11:02:56 AM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: SunkenCiv

The WEF monsters all but shut the place down...

https://youtu.be/cPNgGnUrCKM?feature=shared


8 posted on 07/08/2024 11:45:34 AM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Brandon's pronouns: Xi/Hur)
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To: SunkenCiv

marking


9 posted on 07/08/2024 12:16:44 PM PDT by Former Proud Canadian (It's NOT a vaccine)
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To: SunkenCiv

I just watched a show on it last night.
Would love to go there.


10 posted on 07/08/2024 11:02:46 PM PDT by Salamander (Please visit my profile page to help me go home again . https://www.givesendgo.com/G2FU)
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To: SunkenCiv

5,000-year-old ceremonial temple discovered beneath sand dune in Peru
By Jennifer Nalewicki published 21 hours ago
https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/5000-year-old-ceremonial-temple-discovered-beneath-sand-dune-in-peru


11 posted on 07/09/2024 10:24:17 AM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: ComputerGuy

It’s not a fact, it’s an apparently unfounded speculation.


12 posted on 07/09/2024 4:50:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv

“...These include vessels large enough to make 43 gallons of beer or porridge...the absence of remains of domestic grain at Göbekli Tepe isn’t conclusive proof that people there weren’t planting crops.”

Was grain cultivated on-site even necessary for beer or for flour? Women might harvest wild and plentiful Einkorn, with a 30K year history, or Emmer, which required pounding with mortar and pestle to release the seeds. Water and a sugar source like honey and yeast off the surface of dates, and there’s your beer.


13 posted on 07/09/2024 7:39:47 PM PDT by blueplum ("...this moment is your moment: it belongs to you... " President Donald J. Trump, Jan 20, 2017) )
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To: SunkenCiv

The best explanation I’ve heard was that it was memorial/warning of a cataclysm that wiped out a large portion of mankind. Graham Hancock has a pretty good explanation of i that it was likely warning people to watch out for comet/meteor strike during certain times of the year.


14 posted on 07/09/2024 8:59:42 PM PDT by DouglasKC
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To: DouglasKC
Yeah, because they wouldn't be building shelters for themselves, even though they're smart enough to allegedly have some kind of precocious astronomical knowledge. GH is a buffoon.

15 posted on 07/10/2024 7:24:31 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: blueplum
the site is much larger than originally thought. The same kind of thing happened in the 1950s-60s with the Catal Huyuk site -- the digging just happened to encounter a shrine with various human and animal skulls. The site was occupied for over 1400 years and abandoned over 7500 years ago.

Multirow barley was developed at least 14K years ago, in Anatolia, and as you noted, other grain crops have been available for a long while.

The fact is, I've never seen much value to this artificial, modern division of hunter-gatherer vs farming. :^)

16 posted on 07/10/2024 7:33:04 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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