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,...