All language subtitles for Nova.S53E05.Stone.Age.Temple.Mystery.2026.1080p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

Viewers like you make
this program possible.

Support your local PBS station.

High on a hill in Turkey...

one of the most important

archaeological
discoveries of our time.

We thought

these are the ruins

of a lost civilization.

An ancient wonder,

12,000 years old;

over 6,000 years older
than Stonehenge.

Oh, my God!

A mysterious collection

of circular structures

lined with
massive stone pillars,

adorned with carved creatures.

What were these monuments for?

We never expected
monumental architecture.

This was totally new.

Who were the people
who gathered here?

Human remains are special.

These are the people
that built the site.

These are
the people who lived here.

Now, new discoveries are
leading some archaeologists...

Wow.

...to rethink their most
basic ideas

about the origins
of civilization.

It's a very strong

indicator that the
settlement was permanent.

"Stone Age Temple Mystery."

Right now, on "NOVA."

In Southern Turkey,

hidden beneath
a modern protective canopy...

...a mysterious
collection of stone structures.

This is Göbekli Tepe.

Named for the hill it
stands upon.

Here, towering stone pillars,

some 18 feet tall,

stand guard in
nine circular enclosures

up to 65 feet across.

Older than
the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Older, even, than Stonehenge.

For over 30 years,

archaeologists have been trying

to solve the riddle
of this enigmatic site.

But now, with new technology...

...unearthing new discoveries...

Fantastic.

...we may finally have answers
to the questions

scientists
have been asking for years.

Who built this place?

For what purpose?

And why was it abandoned,

with all traces
of human settlement

ending thousands of years ago?

In 1994,

archaeologist Michael Morsch

was part of a small group
who set out across

the landscape... in search of
a rumored hilltop site.

Talked of since the 1960s,

but never explored.

This is the road

we took when we first
discovered Göbekli Tepe.

It was the first team
to investigate the site,

led by German archaeologist
Klaus Schmidt.

We saw all these masses
of flints on the ground

and we saw these T-shaped
pillars.

Knowing they'd come across
something special,

they returned the following year

to begin the excavation.

Over the next 14 years,

one of the most remarkable sites
ever discovered

slowly emerged from the earth.

Sweeping, curved stone walls

lined with monolithic pillars.

Some covered
in reliefs of animals,

and some
depicting human figures.

We had the feeling this is
the neolithic gold mine.

We thought these are the ruins
of a lost civilization.

Using digital technology
to remove modern structures,

it's possible to see the
hillside

as those first
archaeologists encountered it.

They uncovered
four great circular buildings.

Archaeologists labeled them
A, B, C and D.

Archaeologist and architect
Moritz Kinzel

has studied the site
for almost ten years.

He's trying to piece together
a chronology of the structures.

Inside Building B, he has
identified layers of walls.

What we have here
is the outer wall,

with this niche feature
and then we have the second wall

in front of it,
with what looks like

a bench but it's actually a wall
and where we are now

actually standing on is
the third wall

and on the other side we have
the fourth wall.

Radiocarbon dating
of the mud mortar

from the remaining walls

has revealed that they
were constantly

being altered and renovated.

The architecture at Göbekli Tepe
was not built at once,

it was growing over time,
but inwards.

So what we

see here in the background is

also the oldest wall
of Building B

and then building phases
are built inside the structures

and making the buildings
over time smaller.

The four circular buildings
were reshaped over time.

The team has dated
the oldest outer walls

to around 9,600 BCE...

...with three inner walls,

each constructed
300 to 500 years apart.

Until building
appears to have stopped.

We know that the buildings

at Göbekli Tepe had
a lifetime

over 1,500 years.

The dating places Göbekli Tepe
right at the start of a period

during the Stone Age
known as the Neolithic.

A time of radical change
for our ancestors

that saw them adapt from
living in small nomadic groups

and eating
wild plants and animals...

...to settling
in larger communities

and experimenting
with rearing livestock

and cultivating crops.

The question is,

how does Göbekli Tepe fit
into this story?

Archaeologist Lee Clare

is field director
of the excavations.

He believes there are clues
in the design of these

circular structures...

...and T-pillars.

The T-pillars are depictions
of the human form,

albeit very stylized.

We have the shaft here
which is the body,

and the top of the T of course,
is the head of the individual

without any facial features.

We have on this broad side
the arm coming down the forearm

and of course the hands at the
bottom resting on the stomach.

This stripe here is actually
the belt

of the individual,

and hanging down from
the belt buckle,

we have the loin cloth made from
a fox fur,

so that's seen as
a good indication

of the clothing that was being
worn at the time.

Lee believes the design
of this space echoes

how it was used
12,000 years ago.

We certainly have two very

important individuals
standing here

in the center of the building,

depicted at great height,
five-and-a-half meters tall,

centrally facing
towards the south.

But in the surrounding walls
around us there are

a dozen more pillars
incorporated into that wall

and each of these was
representing an individual.

What we have here
is actually a community

sitting down, discussing.

Huge numbers of animal bones
found here

hinted at feasting.

It's like a piece of
animal horn core.

Probably a gazelle
or something like that.

Leading to the conclusion
that these structures

were communal ritual spaces.

That led archaeologists to
name them "Special Buildings."

But with few obvious
signs of living spaces...

...and no apparent
water supply...

...researchers believed
that this was a site

built by
nomadic hunter-gatherers

who came together here
for seasonal feasts.

It was dubbed,
"The Cathedral on the Hill."

But the radiocarbon dates
mean that prehistoric peoples

must have constructed this
vast ritual site

at Göbekli Tepe,

before pottery...
metalworking...

...or even the wheel.

Forcing researchers to rethink

what they understood about
early Neolithic people.

The assumption was
that hunter-gatherer communities

were not capable of constructing

a site like Göbekli Tepe.

It was thought that first
you needed agriculture

and organized society
to have

this sort of a building.

The received wisdom
about hunters

and gatherers was mobile groups.

We expected shamanistic rituals,

dances in small groups.

But we never expected
rituals in

sites with
monumental architecture.

This was totally new.

Who were the people
that built Göbekli Tepe?

The age of the site points

to hunter-gatherers.

Yet monumental ritual spaces
were thought to be tied

to the development
of agriculture.

So were these people
hunter-gatherers or farmers?

And what did they do here?

What was their purpose?

Were they nomadic?

What kind of lifestyle did
they have?

These are the things
we are curious about.

In 2012, ground-penetrating
radar revealed

the Göbekli Tepe site
extended beyond

these first four
special buildings.

Showing more solid
structures underground

to the north and west.

Lee and his team are
exploring this larger plot,

slowly exposing
more stone walls.

Over the past ten years,

dozens of smaller stone
structures have been uncovered.

We have a very dense
agglomeration

of buildings around the slope.

These aren't
monumental buildings.

They're much smaller,

four or five meters in diameter,

sometimes even
smaller than that.

Dating these buildings places
their construction

more than 500 years later

than the earliest walls
of the special buildings.

Were they simply spaces
for preparation

for the feasting and rituals

that took place
in the special buildings?

Or did they have
some other purpose?

Have a look.
Oop!

It's like a shallow bowl
on the floor, doesn't it?
Yeah.

That's really fantastic.

In a world before pottery,

any kind of containers
for storage, cups or bowls,

would have been made from wood,

bone,
or carved from solid stone.

Now this space is very small,

too small to actually be used
for habitation,

but what we could be looking
at here is obviously

a storage area.

Even after being buried
for more than 10,000 years,

the stone vessel
could still contain clues

as to what these
small walled areas were for.

Inside the bowl,
of course, the contents

seems to be preserved.

I mean, of course,
we'll take the contents here

and send it off for analysis,
for floatation,

for various things,

and look if we can perhaps see
what was inside it.

Earth from the bowl

and from the surrounding space,
is sent off for analysis.

Anything of archaeological
interest can be isolated...

...using a specially
designed floatation tank.

Archaeo-botanist Ferran Antolín

and PhD student
Núria Morera Noguer

sift through bones,
flints and plant remains.

Lots of flints, splinters.
Yeah.

The process will split
the sample, washing away

sediment and separating
what's left

by what floats

and what sinks.

The light fractions

float into the water tank.

The heavy fraction
stays here with this huge mesh,

and all the other sediment

goes down to the bottom
of the tank.

There's quite a lot
of charred material

in the light fraction.

The floating light
fraction will contain

prehistoric plant remains.

Flints and bones will sink.

Oh, look,

The finger bone.

Finger bone.

So here is the heavy fraction.

We have this finger bone,

here,

from an animal,

possibly a gazelle--
we also find

this tarsus,

so it's part
of the paw of the animal.

It was the discovery of large
numbers of animal bones

in the special buildings

that led to the
ritual feasting theory.

For the team's zoo-archaeologist
Stephanie Emra,

deeper analysis of bones found
across the site can reveal

more about what
animals were being eaten.

So, in terms of the number
of bones on the site

we've probably looked at...
over 100,000.

Many of the fragments
are poorly preserved.

And the first challenge
is identifying which bones

came from which species.

I've seen a lot of gazelle, so,

these little vertebra,

gazelle ribs--
some of the larger

stuff are from cattle,
so the aurochs.

We found boar, sheep.

While gazelle make up more than
half of the identified bones,

the presence of what
seem like familiar farm animals,

such as cattle and sheep, raises

the possibility that the people
of Göbekli Tepe

were farming their food.

Stephanie's research
is trying to distinguish

whether these bones are from

domesticated herds
or their still-wild ancestors.

In a controlled
herding environment,

you would have more adult
females and young males

being killed off

and this is not something
that we see.

We would also see a

shift in the size
of the animals,

so domestic animals tend to be
a bit smaller

than their wild counterparts.

Early farm animals
were mostly smaller

than their wild relatives,
due to poorer nutrition

and being penned into enclosures

rather than running free.

I have these examples.

This one is from Göbekli.

And this one is from
a medieval site in Germany.

And you can see
the massive size difference.

You can never really say
from just

one bone, whether it's going
to be a wild population

or domestic population,

but having thousands
of bone fragments,

you can then get an idea of the,
sort of, size of the animals.

The animal bones found at
Göbekli Tepe suggest the animals

eaten here were wild.

The people here
didn't keep livestock...

...but slaughtered wild animals.

In addition to the
heavier bone evidence,

the lighter material from the
floatation tank

is also filled with clues.

ANTOLÍN:
The floatation process
is essential.

It's the only way
we can recover

a representative amount

of the plant remains
that accumulated

in the site.

Ferran Antolín is an expert
in ancient plants.

ANTOLÍN:
Most of them are
beyond one millimeter of size.

Very small seeds,
charcoal fragments,

allow us to reconstruct
both the diet

and the landscape
around the settlement.

The smallest fragments,
charred by ancient fires,

hold clues to what
the people who came here ate.

ANTOLÍN:
We are looking for charred seeds

and charred pieces of wood,
because these are the only

organic plant material

that preserves in dry sites.

Among the microscopic,
blackened plant remains,

Ferran finds more
fragments of one plant

than any other.

A kind of wheat, called einkorn.

ANTOLÍN:
It grew around Göbekli Tepe,

it was probably intensively
harvested

by people living at the site.

Since we started
the new analysis in 2023,

we've been
able to see that einkorn is the

most frequent
plant that we are identifying.

Einkorn was one of the world's
first domesticated grains.

But Ferran's research is
revealing something surprising

about the einkorn
eaten at Göbekli Tepe.

ANTOLÍN:
Wild plants disperse their seeds
on their own.

That's the goal;
that their seeds

just produce new plants.

In wild einkorn,

those seeds just fall off
the ear themselves.

It's called shattering ear.

This shattering ear allows seeds
to spread naturally.

But domesticated,
farmed einkorn is different.

ANTOLÍN:
This is the ear
of domesticated einkorn.

And all of
the spikelets are still attached

to the central axis,

what we call the rachis.

And it means it's
a non-shattering rachis.

Domesticated einkorn rachis
are more robust,

allowing for the ears
to be harvested intact.

The einkorn seeds Ferran
is finding at Göbekli Tepe

are all from ears
with shattering rachis.

This is wild einkorn.

ANTOLÍN:
The fact that we have
wild einkorn at Göbekli Tepe

is indicating that people

were not yet
cultivating the plant,

but they were
harvesting intensively.

Until archaeologists
find clear markers

of early crop cultivation, like
the presence of certain weeds

that thrive in tilled soil,
the evidence suggests

the einkorn was gathered from
the wild, not planted fields.

When coupled with
the wild animal bone evidence,

it points to the people at
Göbekli Tepe

being hunter-gatherers,

not farmers.

And looking at the plant remains
beyond einkorn reveals

something else about
the people who came here.

ANTOLÍN:
We've been able

to find different types
of plant resources, such as

wild cereals and legumes,

which were harvested mostly in
spring and early summer period,

loads of fruits and nuts
that would be most

typically harvested by
the end of summer and autumn.

The discovery
is forcing researchers

to rethink the traditional view

of the people
who visited Göbekli Tepe.

That they were nomadic
hunter-gatherers

who camped across the
surrounding plains

throughout the year...

...congregating here
for occasional celebrations.

ANTOLÍN:
We observe a diversification

of gathered resources
that would be available

in different months of the year.

So instead of having
a mobile camp

that would allow a population

to follow a resource in the
landscape,

this population at Göbekli Tepe,

benefits from a number
of resources

that are available in
different times of the year,

and that can be stored.

This allows them
to actually become sedentary.

For decades, scientists thought
hunter-gatherer societies

always moved with the seasons,
following herds of animals.

But now, the finds

at Göbekli Tepe
are telling a story

of a settled community

exploiting
the abundant wild plant

and animal life
that surrounded them.

This was a place to live.

But if hunter-gatherers
settled at Göbekli Tepe,

where are their houses?

In one of the structures

clustered around
the Special Buildings,

Lee is finding evidence

of daily life.

This rectangular
structure features

numerous elements which are
clearly domestic.

This reminds us a bit
of a modern home in a way,

We have a bench here
to my right,

and in that bench we have
actually

a grinding stone.

Whether this was
used for actually grinding,

whether it contained liquid,
perhaps water,

but it's very much like
a worktop with a sink,

if you like.

And there's another discovery on
the opposite side of the room.

We've got this Stone Age
cupboard ideal for storage

with this wonderful
limestone vessel,

so we've got this
Stone Age furniture

as it were, and very reminiscent
of "The Flintstones" in fact.

So this would have been
a household kitchen situation,

perhaps a family unit,

using this space to
prepare meals.

All this
is pointing to domestic life.

Lee believes many
of the structures

packed on the slopes were homes,

covered spaces
for permanent residence,

huddled around
the Special Buildings

at the heart of Göbekli Tepe.

When combined with
the bone and seed discoveries,

the infrastructure here,
with grand ceremonial buildings,

and dedicated living spaces,

hints at
a society in transition.

Still foraging,
but now more permanent.

We're dealing with a very
complex settlement structure

very much contrary to what
people generally think

when we say Neolithic
or Stone Age.

At its peak, if the entire
area were to have been occupied,

I wouldn't be surprised if
we're looking at anything from

500 to over 1,000 people
living at Göbekli Tepe.

The scale is surprising.

Stretching over 22 acres,

20 monumental buildings
and perhaps more

yet to be uncovered.

A settlement that could have
supported

more than 1,000 people.

It's just one of a handful
of early

neolithic settlements
so far discovered in the region.

Jericho was big enough
for over 2,000 people.

Tell Abu Hureyra was home
to a few hundred.

But if Göbekli Tepe
was a settlement

where people lived
across 1,500 years...

...where are their remains?

During over
30 years of excavation,

only fragments of human bones
had been discovered.

But more recently,
that has changed.

Now, in one
of the walled structures

beyond the special buildings...

Yeah, this is quite exciting
to see.

...the researchers
have found a burial site

with human remains.

Yeah, wow.

So what we've got here,
obviously, is a skull,

and a few long bones here.

So, it's a burial.
Really, really exciting to have.

So another individual from
Göbekli Tepe.

It can tell a story.
Yeah.

It's only the third burial
to be discovered at the site.

Human remains are special.

I mean, these are
the people that built the site.

These are
the people that lived here.

And Lee sees something
right away that could make

these remains even more special.

The bones-- they're not fused.

The skull is quite small.

At the moment,
we were thinking that

it's probably the remains
of a child.

For Lee and Moritz,
the placement of the body

within a decorated niche
inside a domestic space

gives clues
about the belief systems

of the people that lived here.

By bringing somebody's bones
back into the house,

it's somehow claiming ownership,

so the dead and the living
are living together,

say, they are part of
the same cosmos.

This new discovery adds to

previous analysis
of skull fragments

found across the site.

These pictures are from

the first skull
I found in Göbekli Tepe.

1,600 miles from the dig,

in her lab in Berlin,

paleopathologist
Julia Gresky

has been examining
the skull fragments.

Here, we have a lot of
wild cut marks.

At high magnification,

she has identified
unnatural markings

on the bone fragments.

This is something
that you would expect

when de-fleshing a skull.

If you want to cut away
the soft tissue,

then you would just
scrape on the surface.

These incisions were done
while the bone was still fresh,

but you can't say that
they were done during life,

because there are no signs
of healing on this incision.

The evidence suggests

these skulls were stripped
of flesh after death.

And there are more markings.

This skull has three
main carvings

on the frontal part.

It is several
repeated scratches

in this big line.

Julia believes these and
other marks found on the skull

were made intentionally.

The reason is a mystery.

But another clue
has led her to a theory

of how the skulls
may have been used.

We found that one
of these skulls

had a drilling hole.

The hole was bored
through the cranium,

right at the top
of the skull.

Maybe they were trying to
fix things on the skulls

or they wanted
to hang them with a cord.

Red marks found on
some bone fragments

suggest the skulls
could have been decorated

and put on display.

The markings on these skulls,

they point to
some ritual tradition,

so a special focus on
the skull of these people.

It's possible

a so-called "skull cult"

was practiced by
the people of Göbekli Tepe.

A skull cult is a practice
of venerating dead people

or memorizing important people
of their own family,

of the community in general.

The skull from the burial
shows no signs of decoration.

But the practice
of burying bones

within living spaces here

and at later neolithic sites

is a telling clue

about how human societies
were changing.

Perhaps the tradition began
at Göbekli Tepe.

When people build communities,

it's very important
to have this,

this group feeling,
and to belong to somebody.

Ancestors played
a big role in that.

This really means that the,

the dead were kept close
to the living,

and this emphasizes
the importance

of the dead, the ancestors
in this community.

The settlement structures,

the sheer volume of finds,

and the burials
and skull remains

lead many archaeologists
to conclude

this was a place
inhabited year-round.

Yet these people
were hunter-gatherers

who were not relying
on farmed plants or animals.

How were they able
to survive year-round

in this landscape,

which is so dry
and challenging today?

The diversity
of ancient animal

and plant remains
discovered here

suggests a different kind
of environment

12,000 years ago.

ANTOLÍN:
The biodiversity

of the landscape
around Göbekli Tepe

was certainly higher
than what it is today.

It was wetter,
and it would even allow

slightly denser forests
nearby the settlement,

so there would be
parts of the landscape

that would
be seasonally greener.

At the time of Göbekli Tepe,

the climate was
slightly different.

It was a lot wetter,
more rainfall.

On the hillside,

just yards from
the Göbekli Tepe site,

Lee has found evidence
that suggests

the people that lived here...

...may have
shaped the hillside

to take advantage
of that rainfall.

So, this is not natural,
it's artificial.

It's carved into
a natural plateau.

It's a channel,
as you can see, and it's,

it's directing the
runoff rainwater from upslope

down this cliff face.

As Lee's team looked further,

they found
large human-made holes.

So, as you can see here,

we have a shallow pool here,

and a channel
actually leading down.

A rainwater harvesting system.

We have a row of water channels

which were
carved into the bedrock,

which are actually
directing the rain water

down from the site, down slope,

into cisterns like this.

If people did settle
permanently at Göbekli Tepe,

a secure water supply was vital.

This system may have
helped provide that.

These cisterns are really
quite remarkable,

I mean, it's ingenious, in fact.

People were
harvesting the rainwater

here at Göbekli Tepe.

This is something
which would have been

essential for the people at
the time to live at this site.

And there are more traces
of human activity

that shaped the environment
for survival.

All this landscape you see
around us

really holds the clues

to how hunter-gatherer people

lived at Göbekli Tepe.

Using satellite images,

archaeologist Fatma Sahin
and her team

have identified something

she believes could explain

how such a large
population fed itself.

Now we're
going to a place we define

as an animal trap.

On the ground,

the structures appear as
long, low stone walls.

But their true scale
and design becomes clearer...

SAHIN

...when seen from the air.

Oh, my god!

We weren't actually sure

whether there was
a trap area here.

We came to investigate it,

but now,
when we flew the drone,

we can see there really is
a trap site there.

We can see it
very well-preserved.

Sometimes extending
more than three miles,

these structures
are called desert kites--

named for their angular shapes
when viewed from above.

This one is some 24 miles
from Göbekli Tepe,

but structures like this
are spread across the landscape.

The nearest
so far discovered

is just a couple miles
from the site.

Archaeologists
have determined

that they were most likely
made to herd, corral,

and ultimately
trap migrating animals.

SAHIN
They were built along
animal migration routes,

by watering spots,
stream banks, and on slopes.

They collected stones
from the slopes

and from the land
all around them

using a technique
called dry-stone walling,

they created
giant mega structures.

This kite is a new discovery
for Fatma,

and so needs deeper research.

But from first impressions,

examining the flint blades
scattered along the walls...

and the structure's similarity

to other
early Neolithic kites,

Fatma believes this
could have been constructed

during the 9th millennium BCE,

perhaps when Göbekli Tepe
was at its height.

The scale is staggering.

The traps can cover an area

of 40, 50, even 100 hectares.

By driving animals
down the slopes,

hunter-gatherers
were able to trap them here

and pen them
in these structures.

The kites suggest
a radical idea.

Look, it's very beautiful.

Hunter-gatherers here were
organized on a monumental scale,

coordinating
over vast landscapes.

And Fatma believes
these structures

may have played a role

in the earliest steps
toward animal management.

Most likely,

animals caught here
were seen to reproduce,

their lives were carrying on,
and in being confined here,

the animals naturally began
a process of domestication.

The people who used these traps

understood animals and
their environment intimately.

No longer small bands
of hunters,

but a large, organized group,

digging into their landscape.

While the kites themselves

do not prove
a sedentary population,

they might explain
the vast numbers of bones

found at Göbekli Tepe.

During hunting season,
traps like these

could have
efficiently caught

the large numbers
of animals needed

to feed
a growing population.

The wide variety of birds

and small mammals
found at the site

and other seasonal plants

show that people here

were finding
other sources of food

when the migrating animals
had left.

It's quite evident

that those communities
were fully sedentary

and were living full-time
at Göbekli Tepe.

Göbekli Tepe appears
to have expanded

from a place for
special buildings

to a year-round hub for
sedentary hunter-gatherers,

surviving on wild crops,

rainwater harvesting,

and desert kites
for trapping animals.

The question now is,

were the people
at Göbekli Tepe

unique for their time?

Or was this lifestyle common?

18 miles west of Göbekli Tepe
is Sayburç.

For the last four years,

a team of Turkish
archaeologists and students

has been excavating
amongst the modern village,

on this limestone hilltop.

They've unearthed
familiar T-pillars...

hidden just inches beneath
the modern ground level.

EYLEM ÖZDOGAN

STUDENT

Archaeologist Eylem Özdogan

is the site director.

It's possible to find

numerous parallels
between the structures

at Göbekli Tepe and Sayburç.

The T-shaped pillars appear here

within smaller but
distinct circular spaces,

with the same motifs
of wild animals.

But current dating of the site

places it much later than
the original circular buildings

and T-pillars of Göbekli Tepe.

ÖZDOGAN
We're in a place

that dates back to roughly
the mid-ninth millennium BCE.

The construction of Sayburç
appears to overlap

with the period when
Göbekli Tepe was expanding.

But those early-established
symbolic ritual elements--

the T-pillars, the carvings,

and the circular structures--

seem to have been
transplanted here,

almost as the heart
of the settlement.

ÖZDOGAN
Each settlement has its own
distinct character,

but the cultural
environment here

seems to be defined by very
deliberate and strict rules.

Particularly in their art,

and the construction
of the Special Buildings.

The excavations here have

so far uncovered a much larger
residential neighborhood.

And, as at Göbekli Tepe,
analysis of organic remains

suggests only wild foods
were eaten here.

So much is similar
at Sayburç

that archaeologists believe

there must have been
a sharing of ideas,

of ways of life,

between the two sites.

ÖZDOGAN
These were complex communities
consciously choosing

to live in
large, settled groups,

creating their own
complex social environment

and cultural infrastructure.

And Sayburç is only one

of Göbekli Tepe's
new-found neighbors.

More than ten T-pillar sites

have been discovered
in the last few years,

most dating from the period
of Göbekli Tepe's expansion

in the mid-ninth millennium.

Each with
the same animal motifs,

the same monumental pillars,

the same stories in stone.

And this network even stretched
beyond the local hillside.

The early Neolithic
throughout the region,

all the way from Anatolia

down to the southern Levant

down to Saudi today,

had many different unique sites.

But they all shared some aspects
of common material culture.

So you have a sense
that there's

a flow of people

and ideas between them,

which is maintaining some degree
of cultural cohesion,

while each individual site
is also doing its own thing.

Together,

these sites form
a web of communities

stretching across the region.

And at the heart of it,

in its time,

the largest yet found:

Göbekli Tepe.

Göbekli Tepe is having
this huge influence

throughout a whole landscape
of southwest Asia.

There is a sense
of cultural unity.

There was a constant flow
of people and ideas,

and a substantial exchange
of gifts.

So, it's like a social network
on a large scale.

This wasn't just one site

isolated in its culture
and traditions.

The evidence suggests

it was the beginning
of something larger:

a regional identity,

a shared imagination.

A network of communities
bound together

by stone,

by symbol,

and by story.

Traditionally, we've assumed

that hunter-gatherers
have simple lives,

maybe rather simple minds.

We now know
that hunter-gatherers

are sophisticated
and as complex

as any modern humans
in so many ways.

Dating the buildings
and the finds,

archaeologists
have come to the conclusion

that Göbekli Tepe
was at its height

during
the ninth millennium BCE.

New buildings were erected,
old ones reworked.

Then, by around 8,000 BCE,

building seems to have stopped.

Fewer archaeological finds
from this period

suggest much
of the population left.

So, if the site was booming,

why did people leave?

Moritz Kinzel thinks
that the size

and location of the site
led to increasing problems.

When we look at the site,
we have this very steep slope,

heavy buildings resting
on the slope.

Heavy rain and snow
in winter time

added a kind of trigger
of instability to everything.

These buildings,

built on the dip
of the hillside,

have no real foundations...

meaning collapse
was always a possibility.

The fill of the building

is comprised
of limestone rubble,

large numbers of
flint tools, animal bone,

evidence that
the special buildings

at the lower part
of the depression

were actually inundated by

collapsed buildings
from the slopes.

The buildings were
hit over time,

again and again,
by landslide events.

But cracks,

tilts, and fractures
in the monolithic pillars

are signs that the site was hit
by more than just landslides.

When we excavated
this pillar here,

we discovered that
it's leaning to the--

towards the east,

and shows this severe crack,

which suggests
earthquake damage.

Modern-day Turkey is no stranger

to devastating earthquakes.

The tell-tale scars
on the pillars

are evidence
that Göbekli Tepe

suffered the same forces
12,000 years ago.

We see here, a shear crack...

in the T-shaped pillar shaft

that is actually
leaning as well

to the east.

We have cracked walls,
cracked pillars,

leaning pillars,

cracks in the floor,

and what is very significant

is that they're all leaning
in the same direction.

And what we have seen here
on this pillar,

we actually also see on the
other pillars in the building.

There were at least
two seismic events,

one in the very early
phase of the site

and one in the late phase
of the site.

For centuries,
when disaster struck,

the people had rebuilt--

reinforcing walls,
reshaping the enclosures.

After the final earthquake,

the rebuilding
seems to have stopped.

What we see over a long time

is people moving away

after these destructive events.

They lack the people
to reshape certain areas.

The monuments fell silent.

The gatherings stopped.

After 15 centuries,

a thriving hilltop community
came to an end.

But the story continued.

Less than ten miles from
Göbekli Tepe,

on the edge
of the Harran Plain,

lies another ancient site:

Gürcütepe.

Gürcütepe holds the key

for what came next
after Göbekli Tepe.

Archaeologists digging here
uncovered remains

dating to the moment
Göbekli Tepe was falling silent.

What we find here is change.

A change in architecture.

Ritual buildings disappear.

The people were more interested

in functional architecture.

Gone are the grand
circular enclosures.

In their place:
compact homes.

The T-shaped pillars

and their animal carvings
vanish, too.

Monumentality had disappeared.

So, these age-old

hunter-gatherer narratives
were being abandoned.

This might mean a shift

of the priorities

of the society.

And it's not only priorities
that are changing.

Stephanie Emra has studied
animal bones from the site.

So, at Göbekli Tepe,

we only find wild animals.

Whereas at Gürcütepe,
we're finding

much, much fewer of those
wild species,

and it's almost entirely

sheep and goat,
the domestic version.

That, alongside the
age profiles of the animals

and the sex ratio
of the animals,

that's a really clear
indication

that they're
now herding animals.

A new agreed way of life,

primarily would depend on
domesticated crops

and on herded sheep,
goats, and cattle,

had become
accepted and universal.

While earthquakes
and landslides

might've been the driver

for people
to leave Göbekli Tepe...

there may also have been a draw.

It's quite possible

the population living
at Göbekli Tepe

moved down into the plain
in order to have

better conditions
for farming.

It was flat.

They had enough water
to plant,

they had enough space

and fertile land.

This wasn't an isolated change.

Sites across these hills
were abandoned

as farming on the plains
took root.

What we see is the emergence

of an agricultural way of life.

Before the discoveries
at Göbekli Tepe,

many archaeologists believed

that people first came together
in settlements

because they needed
to be in one place to farm.

But with the new findings here,

scientists now see
a different dynamic.

Hunter-gatherers
came together in community

to express their spiritual
beliefs

with monumental architecture
and ritual,

and that process led
to an entirely new way of life.

The fascinating thing is
having these big gatherings,

that forced them
to harvest wild cereals

in large quantities.
And by doing that,

they pushed the domestication
of these plants.

It was this religious drive

that may have actually led to

the emergence of domesticated
crops and ultimately farming.

This was no sudden revolution,

but instead
a slow transformation

that unfolded over millennia.

The creation
of a settled society,

before farming even began.

Göbekli Tepe is,
without doubt,

a turning point
in human history.

But it is the transition
from life as a hunter-gatherer

to life as a settled farmer.

As archaeologists
continue to make

new discoveries
at Göbekli Tepe...

the story of our ancestors,

and how they went
from hunter-gatherers

to settled farmers,

will continue to be rewritten.

Revealing more about
the people who lived here.

They were people like us,

but living in
a totally different time,

in a totally different culture,

but just as
ingenious as we are today.