Saw this at the Health Center today as I was waiting for my Doctor’s Appointment.
Great photos in the Magazine....
This can’t be real, afterall the world is only 6,000 years old.
Urfa is historically presumed to be the home of Abraham of Genesis fame.
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The oldest we've found, but if they were building something this elaborate 11,000 years ago, there have to have been simpler sites even earlier, even if they have not survived. (I'm thinking of the "monolith to El" in Michner's The Source.)
Enoch was a grandson of Adam, his son built the first city and named it after his father. There was a temple there. Is it because they have not found it, only stories of it and this is the oldest they “found”.
Need to dig a little deeper.
A sincere thanks for your post!
Open wideDentists may have drilled teeth to remove decay more than 8000 years ago in prehistoric Pakistan, according to an international team of researchers. Tiny holes drilled in teeth found at Mehrgarh, in Baluchistan, provide some of the earliest evidence of dentistry. Archaeological study of the site suggests that the people who lived there 8000 to 9000 years ago had a sophisticated civilisation. They cultivated crops, kept livestock and created elaborate jewellery from shells, amethyst and turquoise... [L]ast year, Andrea Cucina of the University of Missouri-Columbia was cleaning teeth from the jaw of one man from Mehrgarh when he noticed a perfect, tiny hole on the biting surface of a molar... Under the microscope, they could see concentric grooves left by what was probably a drill with a tiny stone bit... There is no doubt that the people of Mehrgarh had the skill and tools for such delicate work. The holes were exactly the same diameter as those found in beads.\
by Philip Cohen
19:00 11 April 01
"The people of Catal Huyuk buried their dead below the platforms of their houses and shrines only after the flesh had been removed, probably for the sake of hygiene. The primary process of excarnation may have taken place in light structures, built of reeds and matting as depicted on the wall of a shrine, or by means of vultures." (p 86)This devouring by vultures was already an old tradition when it was adopted by some of the Zoroastrians, forebears of the Zoroastrians now living in India who are having their vulture crisis.
Catal Huyuk had a thriving economy, apparently based on their monopoly over the obsidian trade from Lake Van into western Anatolia and points west. They made beads and other pieces of craft, using various materials including local greenstone. They mined ochre and used it and other local resources to make paints. They used fossil shells, lignite, copper and iron ores, native copper (that's copper with few impurities that doesn't need to be processed from ore), cinnabar, and galena. They imported "fine tabular flint" as well as obsidian for pressure flaked manufacturing. They made obsidian mirrors. The made textiles, apparently out of wool, as attested by their imitation of the weaving patters found in wood and clay vessels right down to the oldest levels. They imported sea shells "especially dentalia". They bred stock. They hunted wild cattle, Red Deer, wild ass, board, and leopards. They don't seem to have eaten fish (not unlike the Neandertal) but bird bones and eggshells are foun. They grew emmer, einkorn, and "bread" wheat, naked barley, pea, vetch, bitter vetch, and obtained vegetable oil from crucifers, almonds, acorns, and pistachios. Hackberry seeds found in abundance suggest wine production, and "beer can be assumed." (p 84)They ate well, in fact, very well, with a varied diet. This seems surprising until one realizes that humans are ridiculously omniverous mainly due to the climate found in most of the world and the fruiting habits of every edible plant on Earth. There are parts of the rain forests which are like a grocery store basically all year round, but those areas never known frost. Khirokitia in Cyprus was an early Neolithic, Aceramic settlement characterized by domed houses, corridors, workshops, all linked by a main street.
Jericho has a "Proto-Neolithic", Early Natufian level radiocarbon dated to 9551 BC. Agriculture was practiced there. As of 1963 (heh) the evidence was conclusive but indirect, taking the form of sickles and sickle blades, "querns", mortars, pounders, and pestles. Although these Natufians grew crops they also relied on hunting and fishing for a great portion of their diet. (p 23)Note that this site is closer to Tell Hamoukar and antedates it by over 3000 years. Granted it was a far smaller settlement compared to the final greatest extent of the latter, Jericho has been in nearly continuous occupation during the entire interval of over 11000 years.
Hacilar is a site related to Catal Huyuk and about 200 miles west of it. Its seven levels of occupation began circa 7040 BC. They domesticated dogs, ate sheep or goat (may have been domesticated, or pre-domesticated herds in pens), cattle and deer, 2 rowed hulled barley, wild einkorn, and lentils. (p 80) Hacilar II burned circa 5250 BC. Newcomers arrived, remodelled, built the Hacilar I a-b fortress. The fortress was destroyed by fired and the site deserted circa 5000 BC, or about 500 years after the abandonment of Catal Huyuk (west mound, a short-lived successor site across the river from the older, main site). (p 112)These burnings are attributable to conflicts and raids. While Catal Huyuk had some fires, these have not been attributed to warfare. There's a peculiar lack of signs of war at Catal Huyuk, although daggers, spear- and arrowheads were made there. Since Mellaart wrote this book the terminal fire at Catal Huyuk has been interpreted as a destruction by invaders. The destruction of Hacilar took place twice, and Ryan and Pitman see both the fortifications and the fires as consequences of the Black Sea flood.
The Halaf culture existed from the late sixth to early fifth millennium BC. They built tholos which were domed chambers entered from a long outer room and entrance not unlike the Aceramic structures on Cyprus and the mainland, and for that matter the passage graves found in the British Isle and elsewhere in Western Europe. The Halaf were farmers, growing emmer wheat and hulled 2 row barley, flax for linseed oil and possibly linen cloth, and eventually 6 row barley. The 'Ubaid culture is thought to have had a population explosion due to their use of irrigation. As they moved north up the Tigris and Euphrates they overwhelmed and absorbed the Halaf. (p 119-126)The Halaf use of 6 row barley suggests the use of irrigation, and since Mellaart wrote this evidence of irrigation has been found dated to 14,000 BP (12,000 BC), so this 'Ubaid population explosion is unlikely to have been the first. Settegast notes the combination of the round Halaf structures in the 'Ubaid layers which are mostly characterized by square structures. This shows that the two cultures coexisted, although the 'Ubaid was dominant. Eventually the Halaf disappeared. Of course, some appear to have moved to Cyprus. : )
Earliest Civilizations of the Near East by James Mellaart"In this book we see the first beginnings of agriculture from somewhere around 9000 BC, continuing in cultures in which at first pottery, long thought to be the main criterion of a 'neolithic' culture, was not in fact made, and then before many centuries have elapsed, the first use of metals -- copper or lead or gold, cold-worked from the native metal from the sixth millennium BC. The old technological-evolutionary stages of Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and so on are rapidly losing their crisp outlines, but only because we are now able to perceive something which, because it is more muddled and imprecise, is more human." -- Stuart Piggott, general editor's preface.1965, LOC 65-19415 - a volume of the Library of Early Civilizations
Some 8000 year old human cremation urns were just dug up in Istanbul, but I haven’t posted that one yet. Here’s this though:
Excavations put Izmir at 8,500 years old
Turkish Daily News | Friday, October 31, 2008 | unattributed
Posted on 11/03/2008 6:43:13 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2123467/posts
Some sources attriute it to the Greeks of the 5th century BC.
Obviously they were wrong.
***************************EXCERPT****************************
But what is new, and what makes this season's dig at Gobekli so climactic, is the quality of the latest finds - plus that mind-blowing thesis which links them to the Garden of Eden.
The thesis is this. Historians have long wondered if the Eden story is a folk memory, an allegory of the move from hunter-gathering to farming. Seen in this way, the Eden story describes how we moved from a life of relative leisure - literally picking fruit from the trees - to a harsher existence of ploughing and reaping.
And where did this change take place? Biologists now think the move to agriculture began in Kurdish Turkey. Einkorn wheat, a forerunner of the world's cereal species, has been genetically linked to here. Similarly, it now seems that wild pigs were first domesticated in Cayonu, just 60 miles from Gobekli.
This region also has Biblical connections, tying it closer to the Eden narrative. Muslims believe that Sanliurfa, a nearby city, is the Old Testament city of Ur. Harran, a town down the road, is mentioned in Genesis twice.
Even the topography of Gobekli Tepe is 'correct'. The Bible describes rivers descending from Paradise. Gobekli Tepe sits in the 'fertile crescent' between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The Bible also mentions mountains surrounding Eden. From the brow of Gobekli's hills you can see the Taurus range.
But how does this intoxicating
notion link to the architecture of Gobekli, and those astonishing finds?
Sahara's abrupt desertificationGerman scientists, employing a new climate system model, have concluded that this desertification was initiated by subtle changes in the Earth's orbit and strongly amplified by resulting atmospheric and vegetation feedbacks in the subtropics. The timing of this transition was, they report, mainly governed by a global interplay among atmosphere, ocean, sea ice, and vegetation... the model led to the conclusion that the desertification of North Africa began abruptly 5,440 years ago (+/- 30 years). Before that time, the Sahara was covered by annual grasses and low shrubs, as evidenced by fossilized pollen.
by Harvey Leifert
7 Jul 99
Very cool stuff. Thanks.
Blow them up! They’re unIslamic!
Did we plough up the Garden of Eden?
First Post | October 17, 2006
Posted on 10/17/2006 6:10:35 AM PDT by NYer
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1720793/posts
Is this the world’s oldest statue? [Anatolia, Gobekli Tepe]
The First Post | November 24, 2006 | Sean Thomas
Posted on 11/26/2007 9:01:06 AM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930666/posts
Turkish Site A Neolithic ‘Supernova’
Washington Times | 4-21-2008 | Nicholas Birch
Posted on 04/21/2008 3:24:52 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2004911/posts
Mysterious Neolithic People Made Optical Art
Discovery News | September 22, 2008 | Rossella Lorenzi
Posted on 09/25/2008 5:39:23 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2090667/posts
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/694010/posts?page=38#38
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1930666/posts?page=8#8
Italian Archaeologist: Anatolia - Home To First Civilization On Earth
Beku Today | 6-20-2003
Posted on 06/22/2003 9:14:54 AM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/933606/posts
Ancient Stamp Dating To 5,000 BC Unearthed In Harran (Turkey)
Turkish Daily News | 10-16-2006
Posted on 10/16/2006 6:02:09 PM PDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1720568/posts