Original subtitles

[narrator] Gobekli Tepe,

the oldest building complex ever discovered.

[Dr. Karen Bellinger] Stonehenge and the pyramids, that seems really ancient,

but this is on a whole other magnitude of ancient.

[narrator] Built around 12,000 years ago,

could early humans have done this on their own?

Or did they have help from beyond?

It's a strange thing about many of these sculptures in the Neolithic

that they look very otherworldly.

It doesn't look like a human being.

[narrator] Some evidence suggests

this site could've been a map of the stars,

commemorating a cataclysmic event.

Probably one of the most important artifacts in the world.

It's like our Rosetta Stone.

[narrator] Could Gobekli Tepe really have been built by human hands?

And if so, what was the purpose of this ancient enigma?

Turkey, a nation spread across two continents.

The arid Asian part of this country

hides many secrets as old as civilization itself.

Here in the desert outside the city of Sanliurfa

lies one of the most incredible archeological discoveries of all time.

Gobekli Tepe.

One man has an intriguing theory

about why our ancestors constructed this place.

He thinks they built it to commemorate an event that changed the world.

[Dr. Sweatman] Well, Gobekli Tepe is situated in southern Turkey.

It is a part of the world where archeologists

have been searching for the origin of civilization.

[narrator] Dr. Martin Sweatman is from Scotland's Edinburgh University.

He is captivated by this site and its unanswered mysteries.

So, here we have Gobekli Tepe

and as you can see, it's very big.

[Dominic Selwood] The site is actually overwhelmingly large.

It's the top of a mound,

but it's a huge top of a mound with a diameter of 1,000 feet.

[narrator] Although Gobekli Tepe,

which means "belly hill" in Turkish,

is a fascinating structure to study,

its age is what perplexes historians.

[Dr. Ramirez] In order to understand quite how old Gobekli Tepe is,

we have to redraw the lines of our understanding of history.

So if you go back to the time that the pyramids were built,

you go back through two World Wars,

the Vikings, the Romans, the Greeks and then some.

But to get to Gobekli Tepe,

you have to do that again and then another 2,000 years.

That is seriously longform history.

[narrator] Gobekli Tepe is thought to date back

to an age known as the "Pre-Pottery Neolithic."

Very little is known about these times

since people lived as nomadic hunter-gatherers and left few written records.

We've got hunter-gatherers, quite a primitive lifestyle,

and then they suddenly build this.

I think you need a really, really good reason to do that

and I suspect, or at least it's my view,

that the site's archeologists don't really have

an adequate reason for this construction here.

[narrator] Mysteriously, this site was intentionally buried

hundreds of years after it was built.

Only by coincidence was it recently discovered by the family of Hasan Yildiz.

[Hasan speaking Turkish]

[narrator] But for many of the locals,

the discovery of this incredible place was no surprise.

[Hasan continues in Turkish]

At Gobekli Tepe there's this wonderful tree up on the hill,

the highest part of the hill, which is still there

and it's called "the wishing tree."

People would go there and it was like a sacred spot

where they would make prayers,

wish for things to happen in their lives

and wish for the good of others.

It is rather odd that this site was imbued with religious meaning

before Gobekli Tepe was actually uncovered.

And we have to ask ourselves,

"Why were so many people over the millennia drawn to this spot?"

[narrator] Could this site have been built for religious purposes?

Gobekli Tepe is arguably the world's oldest temple.

There is very little doubt in the minds of most people

that the way the stones have been configured,

the way that the landscape has been worked across millennia,

it has to have served some sort of ceremonial and ritualistic purpose.

[narrator] Gobekli Tepe consists of over 60 pillars arranged in several circles,

which archeologists refer to as "enclosures."

If this place was built as a temple,

what do these pillars represent?

[Dr. Bellinger] The interpretation is that

they are stylized human figures

and I think that's persuasive,

particularly in the way that they are arrayed in this circular form,

facing one another.

And on some of them you see a belt or a loincloth or the suggestion of arms.

There is some indication that they might have been

the veneration of those who had come before,

those who have passed into the underworld

and perhaps represent demons or protectors of the people.

I think what we have here is the birth of a new religion.

And I suspect that what we can see here

are very early kinds of temple

and that brought people together, the community grew

and, in a sense, that's part of the story of how civilization began.

[narrator] The pillars of Gobekli Tepe are decorated

with incredible relief carvings of predators and scavengers,

including snakes, foxes and a vulture.

In the 1990's, German archeologist Klaus Schmidt

began to formulate a theory on this site's purpose.

One argument proposed by Schmidt

is that Gobekli Tepe is a focal point

for communities to come together,

but possibly also where they would commemorate ancestors

and where they would perform rituals

and honor whatever Gods, Goddesses, creatures they may have held sacred.

[narrator] However, Schmidt's theories are being challenged,

as new discoveries are being made at Gobekli Tepe every year.

In 2017, new evidence emerged when a number of human skull fragments were studied,

which unlocked more clues about these ancient people.

Julia Gresky is a paleoarchaeologist

at the German Archeological Institute in Berlin

and is responsible for deciphering these pieces.

[Dr. Julia Gresky] I'm investigating bones at the digital microscope.

This is very useful to have a close look on surfaces.

So, you can divide two marks on the skulls.

The smaller ones, the cut marks,

they are supposed to be remnants of cleaning the skull,

removing the soft tissue.

So that's this more or less parallel, small cut marks.

[narrator] It appears these skulls were intentionally de-fleshed

for some strange reason.

But the second set of markings is even more bizarre.

And we have these really huge and deep carvings.

They are up to five millimeter in depth,

so that's really not just a scratch.

This was made intentionally with a lot of repetitive movements.

[narrator] What secrets do these carved skulls reveal

about the builders of Gobekli Tepe?

The structures of Gobekli Tepe have been shrouded in mystery for millennia.

The recent discovery of a number of fragmented skulls

points to some sort of religious worship.

[Dr. Gresky] Skulls are very important.

If you remember somebody, you remember his face, his skull

and not other parts, not the hand.

So it's just the most personal thing of a person.

[narrator] But why would Gobekli Tepe's builders

have deliberately carved the skulls in such a specific way?

[Dr. Gresky] This can be ancestors or enemies

or it could also have a more practical purpose

because these really deep carvings,

they were placed in the midline,

so in the sagittal axis of the skull.

This could help in fixing a cord,

so if you want to hang a skull somewhere,

this might help in stabilizing it.

[Dr. Bellinger] It's not possible,

given the evidence we have right now

for Gobekli Tepe, to say what exactly they were used for at this site.

But comparable sites elsewhere tell us that there is a real thing

anthropologists refer to as a "skull cult."

[Selwood] Skull cults are religious practices

that center on the veneration of skulls.

And this can either be because it's some kind of ancestor worship,

the individuals or the genetic lines were important,

or it's because there's some sort of protective or other power

coming from the skull, from the dead person, to the living people.

[narrator] Scientists are just beginning to understand

the practices of the people who came here.

But how did hunter-gatherers, who spent much of their lives searching for food,

find the time to build these structures?

The Neolithic period is also known as "the Agricultural Revolution."

This is the time period where dramatic climate change

allowed for a very fertile area of the Middle East

to produce the possibility for growing crops.

[narrator] Gobekli Tepe lies in what is known as "the Fertile Crescent,"

where many of the world's first civilizations were born.

The society at Gobekli Tepe may have cultivated crops

hundreds, if not thousands, of years ahead of other cultures.

The evidence for agriculture beginning in this region is very strong.

Archeologists can detect changes to the genetic makeup of plants and animals

and the earliest evidence we have of those changes is very close to Gobekli Tepe.

[Selwood] That then raises the really fascinating question...

Were they already farmers, who then built this incredible place?

Or was it the process of building this place

that caused them to be farmers?

But either way, it's really important

because this is one of the first communities of farmers

in the world, that we know of.

It's really ingenuity! These people made a choice of cereals and legumes

and animals that feed us all until this very day.

[narrator] Intrigued by what this ancient civilization achieved

and the possibility that the builders here were organized in some way,

Professor Avi Gopher from Tel Aviv University

and Gil Haklay from the Israeli Antiquities Authority

have been studying the layout of the site.

We calculated statistical center points for each enclosure

based on the position of the peripheral pillars.

That point resulted exactly between the two central pillars

and the line with the narrow front face.

[Tony McMahon] It's obvious when you look at Gobekli Tepe that there is design

involved in this.

It's something that's really well-designed.

[narrator] The fact that our hunter-gatherer ancestors

could find the center point of these three huge circles so accurately,

points to a clear understanding of complex design.

But Avi and Gil have discovered something else.

We found that there is a geometric relationship

between the enclosures.

The three center points in between

the central pillars of enclosures B, C, and D

form an equilateral triangle.

We can say that enclosures B, C, and D

probably started out

planned and initially built as a complex.

[Dr. Bellinger] In looking at the architecture

at Gobekli Tepe, it is very clearly planned,

carefully and with a great deal of skill,

and a surprising awareness of what we today

would call geometrical principles.

[Gopher] At Gobekli, this structuring of the buildings,

for me, it's not only an architectural miracle

and, you know, a large project.

It's a different way of thinking.

[Selwood] We often think, as a culture,

quite patronizingly, that people in this period,

in the Stone Age, were primitive

and not as sophisticated as us.

That's absolutely not true.

Physiologically, they were identical to us,

and lived exactly the same lives,

just in different contexts.

Humans are capable of incredible sophistication,

and sites like Stonehenge or Gobekli Tepe show us

just what people can do.

[narrator] Yet, some people believe the builders

of this huge complex weren't working alone,

and had help from afar.

[narrator] Little evidence remains

for who built Gobekli Tepe,

but the incredible ability shown by its builders

has led some to wonder whether their knowledge

came from a divine source.

So who could this higher power have been?

These T-shaped pillars are covered with

really intriguing, almost surreal, abstract symbols.

So are they representations

of the gods that these people worshipped?

Or, are they representations of the people themselves?

[narrator] A six-foot tall humanoid statue was found

near Gobekli Tepe, with some interesting features.

Could we be looking into the eyes

of the people from that time?

Or some other being?

[Dr. Janina Ramirez] Urfa man, that was discovered in 1993,

this life-sized human sculpture,

really challenges our notions of what humans were doing

in the year 9,000 BC, which is when this sculpture dates to.

It is an extraordinary piece of art.

The way that the face is sculpted,

the way the arms come round to cover over the genitals,

the fact that obsidian pieces have been set into the stone,

so that as you move around the sculpture,

the eyes would have glistened as if they were alive.

This is extraordinary by modern standards!

[Lynn Picknett] The thing about Urfa man

is that he looks like a very important person,

a man of status, because he's wearing

quite an impressive, sort of, necklace,

which could be official regalia.

He could be a king,

or he could be a priest, or a shaman.

It has to be said, it looks more, to us,

like an extraterrestrial.

It doesn't look like a human being,

and it's a strange thing about many of these sculptures

from the Neolithic, that they look very otherworldly.

They don't look like what we would regard as our ancestors.

[narrator] If Urfa man is otherworldly, does this suggest

that the builders of Gobekli Tepe had help?

[Hugh Newman] It really looks like this very

powerful-looking individual could represent

one of the watchers, or the Anunnaki,

the original builders of these sites.

[narrator] The Anunnaki were a group of deities

worshipped for millennia in the Fertile Crescent.

They were originally written about

by the Sumerians,

the civilization that first invented the plow,

and developed writing.

Some authors have claimed the Anunnaki constructed

many of the world's ancient monumental structures.

Could this theory explain how hunter-gatherers

built something so impressive?

We know that the Anunnaki were Sumerian and Assyrian gods.

However, there are those who have other theories

about the Anunnaki, for example,

believing that they were humanoid extraterrestrials

that arrived on earth half a million years ago,

looking for gold,

and that they enslaved the local populations.

[Newman] The thing about the watchers, or the Anunnaki,

is that they were very sophisticated.

They mastered the arts of agriculture,

and working with the land.

They understood astronomy to a very high degree,

and they were thought to be

the first builders of ancient sites.

[McMahon] So if you do believe that the Anunnaki were

humanoid extraterrestrials, then the theory runs

that they gave human beings the knowledge required

to build the temple at Gobekli Tepe.

[narrator] While some believe Urfa man represents

something otherworldly,

others are a little more skeptical.

[Dr. Ramirez] There is some crazy speculation

around objects like the Urfa man.

It's been argued he looks like he's wearing a space suit.

"Is he a spaceman?" "Is he an alien?"

I think what's happening is, now, in our modern age,

we find it very hard to think that humanity could have been

so conceptual, so creative, so accomplished,

10,000 years ago, that the only solution

can be that it's extraterrestrials.

[Dr. Peggy Brunache] It's never surprising that people

jump to pseudoscientific conclusions when it comes to

what was the purpose of these kinds of sites.

It takes time to do excavations,

to do enough analysis

to have a better idea of what was going on.

[narrator] Whatever led to the creation of Gobekli Tepe,

there is one area of the site

that has drawn more attention than any other.

It's known as the Vulture Stone,

and Martin Sweatman thinks this holds the secret

to the site's origin.

Perhaps they are constellations,

like we think of constellations today.

We represent them in terms of animal symbols.

It's like our Rosetta Stone.

Probably one of the most important artifacts

in the world.

[narrator] Gobekli Tepe has been called

the place where human civilization began,

yet the real purpose of this site

and its intricate carvings

remain a mystery.

[narrator] Martin Sweatman thinks he has found

the focal point of this whole complex.

He has come to the museum of archaeology

in nearby Sanliurfa,

to take a closer look at this incredible reconstruction

of part of Gobekli Tepe.

So, this is a mockup of enclosure D

in Sanliurfa museum

and...

It's just magnificent, isn't it?

And to think that people,

maybe 12-13,000 years ago, were capable

of building this is just incredible.

[narrator] Martin believes that the key to unlocking

the code of Gobekli Tepe

is this intricately-decorated stone.

[Dr. Martin Sweatman] Pillar 43 is incredibly important

for our interpretation and, presumably,

for the builders of Gobekli Tepe.

There's so much information on it,

that it's like our Rosetta Stone.

It's probably one of the most important artifacts

in the world,

because it's telling us something important

about this very crucial transitional period.

Probably, the circular disc is the sun,

and that would make a lot of sense, because

many cultures worshipped the sun and the moon,

often represented them together.

So, if that's the sun, and we think it is,

then what are these animals?

Well, probably, it implies that they are constellations,

and, again, that would make a lot of sense.

We use animals to represent constellations today.

The wings and the head of the eagle, or vulture,

have pretty much the same look and angles that we'd expect

for that part of the Sagittarius constellation.

[Dr. Brunache] It's not terribly different

than how we do see constellations now.

The idea that human beings, spending all this time

at night, staring up at the sky,

tracking the movement of stars and planets today

was something that others did in the past.

[narrator] So if Martin is right,

and this is a map of the night sky,

why did the builders of Gobekli Tepe

decide to record this in stone?

[Dr. Sweatman] The most obvious thing is that they are

writing a date, perhaps,

using a procession of the equinoxes,

and that maybe this is

representing the position of the sun

relative to Sagittarius

on the summer solstice.

What are the other three animal symbols at the top?

Perhaps these are the other three solstices and equinoxes

for the date given by the position of the sun

relative to Sagittarius,

so I think this date must have been very important.

It must be telling us something

about the reason, about the motivation

for constructing Gobekli Tepe.

[narrator] But the Vulture Stone has more

than just carvings of animals on it.

There is also a strange image

of a headless human.

[Dr. Sweatman] What does this headless man

at the bottom represent?

Probably, the headless man represents death.

[narrator] Other pillars around this enclosure

hold more clues to what could have happened

to the builders of Gobekli Tepe.

So, here we have pillar 33 in the museum.

On this face, you can see that we have a fox,

and out of this fox, there are these rays.

But actually, they are snakes.

If these are constellations,

then what do the snakes represent?

Well, probably they represent meteors.

[Dr. Brunache] It's possible that some of the iconography

is a representation of what they were seeing

in the night sky.

Was it that of a meteorite striking the earth?

Was is that of the introduction

of a new star that is quite predominant

in our skies today, 12,000 years later?

It's quite possible.

[narrator] Over the millennia, the earth's axis has changed,

relative to its orbit around the sun.

Knows as axial procession, the earth's axis

wobbles in a circle on a 26,000-year cycle.

so 12,000 years ago,

the night sky would have been quite different.

Using computer software

to analyze the procession of the earth's axis,

Martin believes he has dated the snapshot of the night sky

on the Vulture Stone to almost 11,000 BC.

So, we've got meteors, we've got death,

and we've got a date to about 10,800-10,900 BC.

What do we know today about that date

which might involve meteors and death?

There is this theory,

known as the Younger Dryas impact theory,

which proposes that on that date,

there was a massive comet impact with Earth.

[narrator] Could this huge temple complex

have been built to commemorate this cataclysmic impact?

And what effect did it have on the people of Gobekli Tepe?

[narrator] Dr. Martin Sweatman thinks he has determined

the purpose of Gobekli Tepe.

He believes it was built to commemorate

a cosmic impact

that might have changed the world forever.

But what evidence is there for this apocalyptic event?

Some point to a period of global cooling

known as the Younger Dryas.

[Dr. Sweatman] Now, the Younger Dryas

is a geological period

when the Earth rapidly and suddenly cooled,

a bit like a mini Ice Age.

It occurred about 13,000 years ago.

[Dr. Bellinger] One of the more controversial issues

that kind of plagues climate science,

as well as the question of the archaeology

of this site, is what the Younger Dryas

actually was, and what caused it,

and one theory is that there was an impact event.

And, supporting this hypothesis,

is the presence, across four continents at about the right time, 13,000 years ago,

of nanodiamonds and platinum,

both of which derive solely from outside this solar system.

[Newman] It's very feasible that the Younger Dryas impact event took place,

or something very similar to that.

The devastation that took place around the world is recorded in myth and legend,

but it's also recorded in the different levels that have been excavated

in certain parts of the world.

[narrator] An Earth impact from a comet or meteor would have been incredibly powerful.

It would have struck with the energy of up to one million atomic bombs.

For the builders of Gobekli Tepe,

their world would have been turned upside down.

So, just imagine, in 10,000 B.C., people see a comet.

They've got no way of understanding what a comet is.

So, to them, this is some terrifying divine retribution

where the sky has caught fire.

I mean, we can't even begin to imagine how they felt,

the fear they felt as they saw this thing tracing the heavens.

Assuming you were alive at that time and you managed to be in just the sweet spot,

far enough away to observe it without being affected by it,

yeah, it would have been terrifying.

[McMahon] Just imagine for ancient peoples.

If something like that happened, a comet strike,

if they witnessed it themselves, or their ancestors witnessed it,

you can bet that the story of it would have been told down the generations.

Embellished, changed, there would have been a divine significance attached to it.

[narrator] According to Martin, the age of the vulture stone

and the date of the Younger Dryas impact are the same.

The vulture stone was built to commemorate the cosmic strike.

The environment changed dramatically, temperatures plunged,

skies probably went dark, perhaps for weeks on end.

You can imagine what that, the effect that would have on the people of the time.

Perhaps it was this comet impact that inspired a new religion,

inspired the construction of temple-like structures like Gobekli Tepe,

which then catalyzed the origin of civilization.

[narrator] But not everyone agrees with the theory that Gobekli Tepe was built

to commemorate a specific event.

Cosmology is hugely important to ancient civilizations.

You have a sense that there would have been

long-term memory that was recorded.

So, the idea that an asteroid impact, that something catastrophic

could have affected humans and that is passed down through oral tradition

is not entirely far-fetched.

That they would plot it so specifically against a night sky that they couldn't have

conceived of or used computer technology to reconstruct,

is where I see it stepping into the realms of fantastical.

[narrator] While the true purpose of the vulture stone and this site remains unknown,

Gobekli Tepe gives us an incredible snapshot into what life was like

over 12,000 years ago.

But this monument is not alone.

More sites with remarkable similarities are being found all over the region

that further deepen the mystery of what was going on in Neolithic Turkey.

So, it appears there are, at least, 30 sites in this general area.

There's a whole, kind of, zone that's about 120 miles wide

where they're finding these pre-pottery Neolithic discoveries.

Many of them were these T-pillars like we find at Gobekli Tepe.

Is this really evidence of this is the oldest advanced civilization on the planet?

I mean, we have sophisticated stone-carving techniques,

we have beautifully-arranged sites

in stone circle formations,

we have astronomical alignments, and so, to me, this is the smoking gun.

This proves that before Egypt, before ancient Peru,

Southeast Turkey was the hub of the ancient world.

[narrator] Excavations at the nearby Karahan Tepe

suggest that Gobekli Tepe could have been part of a much larger civilization

with some bizarre rituals.

[narrator] In the plains of Southeastern Turkey

lie a number of Neolithic sites up to 13,000 years old.

Excavations at Karahan Tepe, the newest discovery, only began in 2019.

Could these ancient sites be connected somehow?

[Newman] Karahan Tepe is the sister site to Gobekli Tepe.

It's located south east of Sanliurfa. It's in the Tektek mountains.

And it's been known about since 1997, although, obviously,

the family who live on the farm there have known about it for much longer.

[Professor Karul speaking]

Karahan Tepe and Gobekli Tepe are incredibly close to each other.

They're just 25 miles apart.

They're both on hills, and from a clear day, one can see the other.

There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that these cultures knew each other.

[narrator] Much like Gobekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe features many T-shape pillars.

But here, one of the monoliths was never completed.

And it reveals a lot about how the builders worked.

At Karahan Tepe, we have what's called the unfinished monolith.

This is not fully carved out T-pillar,

it's still in situ, it's still attached to the bedrock.

But what it does show, it shows you how they cut it out and you can see, like,

the scoop marks and the, kind of, pick marks within it.

And so, why are they leaving one stone, the largest stone, still in the quarry?

Is it significant?

Is it, like, marking the spot where the first stone was taken from, like,

the birthplace of the temple?

[narrator] Interesting features have been noticed at Karahan Tepe

that may give us clues to its purpose.

[Newman] On the surface where the T-pillars were sticking out the ground,

they appear to, kind of, go up in avenues,

like, almost parallel stones going up in a, kind of, serpentine way

to the top of the hill.

Must remember, this part of the site hasn't been fully excavated yet,

so, I would like to see what happens when this is fully opened up and we can see

actually what's going on.

'Cause, if that's the case, it's almost like a, kind of, sacred pathways

leading up to the top of the hill through this serpentine route.

It could have some symbolic nature.

[narrator] And, at Karahan Tepe,

archaeologists have unearthed an incredible cultic structure...

...which is mind-blowing.

[Newman] So, in this very strange, kind of, subterranean pit,

we have 11 monoliths, which look very phallic.

But, also, they're carved out of solid bedrock.

They're not freestanding, they're literally carved deep into the bedrock.

They brought out these amazing sculptures out of the rock itself,

and that requires a huge amount of ingenuity,

imagination, and technical skill.

[narrator] The presence of snakes at both Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe

has led some to believe that the people who built these places

might have engaged in snake worship.

Snake gods were revered by cultures across the fertile crescent

who held them as symbols of strength and renewal due to their ability to shed skin.

We have this protruding head, this huge head coming out with this extremely long neck,

which, almost, is like a serpent neck.

We have a serpent carved along the bottom part just under the, kind of,

bench that's been carved into it,

and it's thought that the watchers or the Anunnaki, their symbol was the serpent,

often coiled around a staff.

And so, to find that here is quite remarkable,

because this is not just in this country we find this, we find it developing

in other countries around the world after the time of Gobekli and Karahan Tepe.

[Selwood] The structures here are immensely impressive.

It's humbling to think that people spent this long,

this amount of time and effort and perseverance with very, very primitive tools

building and carving and decorating this site.

And the thing that's just most intriguing is that we just simply don't know

why it was important to them.

[narrator] How significant are the discoveries at these sites

for our understanding of human civilization as a whole?

[Newman] Karahan Tepe could become as significant

as Gobekli Tepe or, possibly, more so.

It seems like just around Karahan Tepe itself,

it's like a complex, it's not just one site.

And, potentially, this could blow open this whole story of what was happening here

in Southeast Anatolia 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.

When you fold in the context of the critically-important farming revolution,

and the question whether farming caused Gobekli Tepe or Gobekli Tepe caused farming,

we're left with something that, potentially, is a milestone

in the story of civilization itself.

[Professor Karul speaking]

[Dr. Bellinger] Only 5% to 10% of the site is estimated to have been investigated

at all at this point.

So, who knows how big the site really is and what else it has to teach us

about this absolutely pivotal time in the development of human civilization.

[Dr. Sweatman] Ground penetrating radar indicates that there may be

even larger structures still waiting to be discovered.

It's going to be a very exciting time, uh, in the future

when all this new, new excavations, this new knowledge is produced

and we can check all of these new finds

against this interpretation that we currently have.

Because there are no texts written down at this ancient period

when Gobekli Tepe is being created, I don't think we will ever fully understand

what is going on there.

But that's partly its appeal, it's a mystery that will probably never be solved.