Oh boy I love all the surprises out there.
I don’t recall hearing of Gobekli Tepe before today.
So far, I’ve read wiki and am surfing YouTube videos.
Anyone familiar with it? Any thoughts?
That’s an exciting find! Smithsonian mag. Ran a story on the exploration of the site but it’s too early to tell just what it is they really found. So far only 5% of the site has been explored and that’s a little less than an acre, so jumping in and touting this as the World’s earliest temple site is a bit premature. Already the Internet spin has it being built by ancient aliens and the end of the biblical Eden. As the archeologist in charge of the excavation mentioned,it may take as many as 50 years to completely map the area. until then though, as fantastic as it sounds, it’s still another piece of the Neolithic puzzle.
Cap’t Jack
Wow, the pictures are amazing!
An update for these posts from 7 1/2 years ago.
http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/gobekli-tepe-geometry-08424.html
Researchers are now thinking that the people back then, used geometric principles in building Gobekli Tepe. Over 11,000 years ago, when we humans were still supposedly just hunter gatherers.
And there is this:
https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/excavations-in-rock-tombs-to-bare-gobeklitepes-mystery-158004
Maybe there were people 11,500 yrs ago, who recognized they were dying out, and who held knowledge from a lost civilization of humans, who built and covered the structures at Gobekli Tepe as a kind of time capsule.
Does anyone have any alternative hypotheses to explain the mystery of how hunter gatherers had the knowledge of geometry that appears to have been necessary for the constructions there?
I would guess geometric knowledge might not be as hard to master as we think.
That’s a thought. But not much evidence of that until thousands of years later, when the great pyramids were built. And it is not clear, at all, about how geometry developed in hunter/gatherers.
timb, this might interest you
Beyond core knowledge: Natural geometry Elizabeth Spelke, Sang Ah Lee, and Véronique IzardCogn Sci. 2010 May 1; 34(5): 863–884.
doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2010.01110.x
As for discovering triangles, I think observing planet moving through the sky would have provided lots of opportunities for pondering changing triangle shapes as the bright planets passed specific groups of bright stars. Ironically, over the past month’s I’ve been watching Jupiter and my best gauge to it’s movement is watching the changing shape of triangles, that my mind can fix on and remember much better than simply remembering the placement of three dots.
Then there’s also natural rocks, I mean I’ve come across near perfect triangles and they really catch the eye. Of course, I’m modern and much more tuned to geometric shapes, but I can’t help but believe that people who were observant, would have also been struck by how much cooler this certain shaped rock is that the others.
Making a perfect triangle only takes three sections of braided cord that are of equal length - can’t miss.
Perfect circles, the moon, ripples in water from pebbles and stones tossed. A taught line on a stick, sketches a circle every time.
Triangulation, go out with some pals and team hunt animals, awareness of triangulation can’t be avoided.
I’m not saying catching these connects didn’t require a good deal of brains and thought and time - but from my own wonderings I’ve noticed nature has lessons lying all over the place. I’m sure I’ve mentioned seeing layers of limestone with natural fractures who’s form screams, wall building, to anyone with enough brains and sense to notice. Or the odd rock, that just sits in the hand perfectly, literally begging to be used on something (although my most stunning example of that one turned out to be an actually worked tool, but there have been others.) and that show the aware mind the possibilities.
And so on and so forth . . .
I suppose that 11,500 years ago, a group of hunter gatherers may have had a stable enough society as to develop a spurt of technological growth over a relatively small number of generations, but then it died out.
And perhaps Gobekli Tepe was an acknowledgement that they knew that their technological advancements would be lost, and was thus an attempt to preserve something for human posterity.