Love Gobekli Tepe? Then follow the Tepe Telegrams here! It's the blog actually produced by the archaeologists working on the site. www.dainst.blog/the-tepe-telegrams/ Big thanks again to Jens for having a chat on the channel. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! I know there's so much more to GT than we covered here. Anytime you or your colleagues want to chat Jens, pop on over to casa del Milo!

Halfway through this video I began to feel an intense gratitude. After so much wild speculation regarding the site and the sensationalistic assertions accompanying its debut in the popular press, this measured, reasoned, and careful discussion is such a relief. Thank you very much gentlemen. It’s hard to express the depth of appreciation for offering your time and effort to publish this on KZfaq where it is free to any who are interested. It’s quite a beautiful gift you give your fellow human beings!

What an excellent chat. You should make conversations with archeologists like this a regular thing. Think of all the viewing hours :D

As a humble commercial archaeologist slogging away through a wet British winter it’s great to hear an un-sensationalised conversation about Gobekli Tepe. Jens was a great guest. Thanks to you both.

Really highlights the difference between a scientist and a conspiracy theorist. A scientist changes his story to match new evidence a conspiracy theorist changes new evidence to match his story.

I lived in Turkey for 5 years. The highlight of the entire trip was to visit Gobekle Tepe. Truly amazing

Whenever I go hunter gathering at the grocery store, I am very grateful for the invention of the bag.

As A roofer I would find it so easy to build a roof structure on top of the t shapes, ideal for load bearing like a lot of modern concrete t structures for motorway bridges etc.

Glad to see an actual SCIENTIFIC video on KZfaq about this amazing site. So difficult to find these days. Thank you both so much.

Gobekli Tepe is amazing, but think about this: Skippy and Biff did not just decide to build these monuments one morning because they had the day off. GT shows developed stone working and stone carving skills, as well as developed art styles. This did not happen overnight, this took time. I want someone to find the workshops where they learned all these skills. it makes sense that there are earlier carvings and such out there that show the progress of the overall education in the skills and arts needed to create these monuments.

"This is where people began to became sedentary" 12000 years later the process is nearly complete...

I’ve been to Catalhuyuk and been inside the reproduced examples of the homes assumed to be 9000 years old. I’ve also lived in the SW of the United States. I was struck by the identical construction technique used at Catalhuyuk and the adobe houses of the Navajo. The same right down to the ladder entrance from the roof and the mud oven under the ladder. Also, the old cliff dwelling people buried their dead in the walls of their homes. At Catalhuyuk they buried them in the floor. Interesting

Very grateful to hear from someone who has really been there and been a part of the study!!! So interesting, love it. Thanks!!

Great talk! Only downside is that the KZfaq is already recommending me more videos about ancient aliens and stuff.

Some years ago I had the amazing chance to see Göbeklitepe in person as a teen who absolutely did not care even a bit about the trip, and I deeply regret not actually appreciating the astounding history behind it

There are sites in Australia, Bunya Mountain, for example, where hunter gatherer peoples, the aboriginals, would gather in their thousands to meet and have festivities. They were able to do this because there was a ready and abundant source of nutrition in the bunya nuts from the many large bunya trees. You can see rings in the older trees cut to facilitate climbing. Another site in the Carnarvon Gorge was a gathering place where aboriginal people have left thousands of artworks on cave walls.

Absolutely cracking interview Stefan. Interesting point about Beer being easier to make than Bread. I hadn't considerd that before but now I think about it it makes sense!

This is so amazing. I remember reading a story many years ago about a farmer finding a strange stone jutting out of the ground, and then Gobekli Tepe blowing my mind. Shining light on our ancient history is so important for our continued development as a species, especially as we usher in the next age of human kind. To all involved, thank you for the efforts!

Most informative and entertaining contribution on Göbekli Tepe on KZfaq I've seen so far. Keep on going Stefan.

Fascinating, thank you! Searching "Gobekli Tepe" on KZfaq throws up so much rubbish, it's awesome to hear such a knowledgeable interview, thank you!

Thanks for asking the Question and a great interview. I look forward to the comments on this video...

I am 13 minutes in and I have to say great editing with the pictures, circles etc. It really helps in understanding the conversation.

Thanks, this was great: intrigued by hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Another misnomer: agriculture is in irrigated rows of monoculture. Where I am (Saskatchewan) many indigenous ‘hunter-gatherer’ cultures were/continue to harvest wild grains and tubers in agricultural practices (wild rice, yampah, cat tails, bread root, spices & medicines, etc.), through reseeding & tuber division, not to mention fruit & nut management.

The fact that you're not just digging out the entire site and leaving things for your colleagues to find and research instead of taking all the credit is amazing.

Having this podcast to hear during eastern holidays now is just perfect. Thanks to both of you guys!

Outstanding !! Thank you From a Croatian who much appreciates your work. BTW there is also a local museum there with additional interesting pieces and arrangements of carved stones

That was very informative. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that slabs weighing up to 50 tons were carved using only stone tools, then smoothed into nearly perfect rectangular shapes. When I visited Giza, our tour guide explained that huge blocks of stone were quarried by the Ancient Egyptians using an ingenious technique: wooden wedges were inserted into cracks in the stone, then a great deal of water was poured into these cracks, which made the wooden wedges swell up and break the rock. The wedges and water did most of the work in separating large blocks of stone from the quarry; after that it was just a question of shaping, smoothing, and transporting the blocks. I wonder if the people of Gobekli Tepe already possessed some of these stoneworking techniques.

My difficulty is that before GT, the very definition of "hunter gatherer" included not having agriculture and not being able to produce megalithic stone structures. By definition. So what do we call a group that can do those things, if not a civilization that we just don't know much about yet? Calling them lost doesn't make it a "conspiracy", just a need to re-define our terms, and the understanding that goes along with it. Now, if it turns out that the term "hunter-gatherer" is being clung to in order to maintain our current dating theories about other megalithic structures.....That would be the conspiracy ......but a call to re-exam what people were capable of and at what point in history, regardless of what we call them, that is not a conspiracy and that work should go on with the best scientific methods and technology we have available.

They didn't even start creating pottery and all of the sudden, they've organized and built a freaking prehistoric soho club?

Thank you for this video! Great topic.

Thanks for posting this interview! In my opinion, the idea that historians underestimated late paleolithic peoples was a pleasant shock. Still, the most fascinating part about Gobekli Tepe (IMO) is not its implications, but what their culture was about. Was this place a massive hub? Did foraging and hunting parties go out, bring back a bounty, and make offerings to some kind of chief on behalf of their families? It could be a fascinating story!

Late to the party, but this is really great.

How’d you know this would make my entire week?

Fantastic interview, Stefan! I've only recently discovered your channel, but I love it, fantastic, thorough work - keep it up! :)

This is great!!! Thank you! We love your channel! Please keep up the good work!!

thanks dude, so hard to find good information on archaeological sites with so many wacky ancient technology videos cluttering youtube. The unintentionally funny thing is that yes many civilizations had 'ancient technology' but it was quite simple and in a lot of cases ingenious (Egyptians in particular were a sharp lot that could work miracles with very basic tools). It disappoints me that so many content creators instantly discount what the human race can do with some motivation/belief and quite a lot of time on their hands.

Awesome piece Stefan. One point - the concept seems to be overlooked that neolithic possibly harvested wild, baby birds and animals to then raise them in wickerwork cages, much in the same way traditional pate-de-fois-gras geese were raised. This would be a halfway house between hunter gathering and agriculture. We use tame wild Asian elephants in the same way - catching baby elephants then raising and using them for human purposes. The best explanation for the 'bags' I have seen is that they represent the rising sun on the horizon, marking the solstice or equinox. One part of the glyphs depicting dates maybe? I like the idea that Gobekli Tepe was part corpse sky burial site, part astrological observatory/ astrological story telling venue.

The transition from circular to square could be interpreted by transition from tents, which are usually circular or with round corners, to houses, that are more easy to build and use if they are square

Just listening this great chat on my way to göbeklitepe. Thanks for this lovely and informative post. Loved it!

You’ll notice that they remained hyper focused on Atlantis and aliens, but at no point did they debunk the Reptilian hypothesis. I consider this rock solid proof that lizard people are behind this site. (But in all seriousness, delightful little interview, very nice.)

Excellent interview. Great insight into an amazing site

cant tell you how much respect and admiration i have for your work, man oh wait i kinda just did! z-class humour aside, keep up the excellent work! great content EVERY time i check back on your channel

Heyyy, guys. Since we can't figure out how to make a coffee mug, let's engineer a temple that will stand forever.

Fascinating conversation and very informative. Jens is a good, articulate speaker.

They recently discovered multiple other sites around gobeklitepe that were built the same way and have the same style of statues!

It can be difficult to think of hunting/gathering cultures and sedentary lifestyles, but there is a very good example which I think will help one get a notion of what it was like; the people of the Pacific Northwest in North America. They were settled and yet clearly hunting and gathering through a long time period and in fact still are. I propose that for a long time the geography of that region would have provided a similar situation with their wild resources.

Thanks it was great Conversation about Gobeklitepe. I have been working since 10 years for Gobekkitepe and still working here. I was worked with archeologists team and they already discovered 24 temples until now . Still the excavation is go on well . Here is zore of the life place .

I just find it so infinitely interesting some humans had a vision of something, a vision of something that has never existed before that point: a place where instead of few, many people gather. That wouldn't shift with changing fortunes of game, but remain, endure. Even across time. Where there are dozens and dozens of caves that shelter you from the elements and that keep you warm, tightly packed, yet they are not solid rock or even shaped by nature: they are to be built by human hands. It's hard to explain something as grand as Gobekli Tepe (or the first towns in general) as just some iterative improvement. If not for the constituent elements that make up a town, then for the vision of putting it all together as a coherent singular concept and thinking that this might actually work. Someone truly must have sat at a fire, tens of thousands of years ago, lost in his thoughts, and had this picture in his mind. And managed to convince enough compatriots to convince enough strangers to set this in motion.

So excited by the topic - and almost an hour's run time! Apologies for what KZfaq is going to do with the fact that I'm going to have to watch it over several smaller sessions, so it's going to chalk up a bunch of "viewer didn't finish the video" points.

Loved the interview! Goblekli Tepe was one of the unknowns in my knowledge just as most of the topics you address. I could have listened to an hour more. This hour felt like a good anime episode, it was over before I knew it. Thank you very much! Edit: You've got a new patreon supporter in me! You are the first content creator I deemed worthy.

Edit: @43:18 Hearing Jens talk about how he would have a Netflix doc and book deals for discovering an ancient civilization is just too funny now that Graham's mini series came out! 😂

Nietsche left a beautiful quote in German: “zuerst das fressen und dann die Moral“, meaning food first then morals. It makes sense that after an era of hardship, where food was hard to come by and survival was brutal, a period of more lenient climatological conditions led to a boom in cultural expression.

A “T” shaped pillar would also be easier to propel along the ground since there would be three push points rather than one.

Thats's fascinating,dude! Have you tried DMT?

Wow this guy was amazingly interesting. So many times I feel like things I’m interested in are maybe beyond my comprehension, but he explained everything so succinctly and vividly that I just loved everything he said. Thanks for sharing and asking the questions.

This was a fascinating discussion, thanks for posting.

I've recently been reading "The Smart Neanderthal: Cave Art, Bird Catching, and the Cognitive Revolution", a book by ornithologist Clive Finlayson about the interaction between neanderthals and birds over the course of their existence. I couldn't help but think about this book when you were discussing the importance of vultures at Gobekli Tepe, and the likelihood that it functioned as a funerary site where bodies were picked clean by vultures. One major trend Finlayson discusses is vulture bones found with cut marks that indicate that the birds were skinned so as to leave their pin feathers in tact, creating a sort of vulture feather cloak, which may have had religious significance, possibly indicating that neanderthals had some sort of religious reverence for vultures. This isn't unique to neanderthals, with Homo sapien settlements of similar age often showing similar behavior, but it's interesting to think that the rituals being performed at Gobekli Tepe may be part of a religious tradition in the region that extends back to the paleolithic.

Thank you for covering this topic, definitely in my top five favorite ancient sites. I have always been confounded by the intentional burial.

New subscriber- I so appreciate the professionalism of the content and links to additional sources. THANK YOU!

It really good see 600k people have watched this. This shows interest of the people in hna history. Wish this number even higher

Interesting to see how much change in the theories there has been regarding the site since this video was uploaded. Now they're saying that Gobekli Tepe WAS a residential site, and that bodies were buried there, etc. etc. Also other related sites have been unearthed and studied, shedding more light on the whole mysterious issue. I saw a video recently suggesting that the site for Gobekli Tepe was chosen because plenty of easily quarried rock was there, as the people had deforested the area using wood as a building material. So stone pillars weren't a deliberate move towards monumental architecture so much as a replacement for tree trunks. Or so they say until the next upheaval in the theories.

A great discussion! I was wondering why no one seems to have considered Gobekli Tepe as the worlds first shopping Mall, like a Chinese "wet" market where everyone brings bats, monkeys or ducks, foxes, pigs, to sell or barter for goods... or snakes and spiders for magical potions. i think it a bit much to imagine that everyone from miles around would come just for religion, but they would have come for miles for the first flea market to barter their hunter-gatherer catch. David Shepard Assoc. Professor

At Göbekli Tepe, handstones, grinding bowls and plates, mortars and pestles have been discovered in large numbers. You can make bread with flour and water, its doesn't have to be a brioche

Notroff's accent and enthusiasm make me excited about a topic I didn't expect to get so interested in

Amazing interview. Thank you so much.

It seems unlikely that this is the only structure of its kind from that time. I wonder if Jiroft in Iran, once it’s fully excavated, will be dated to about the same time period.

I wonder what it was like when the place still had that new Tepe smell?

I hope to see this place completely uncovered before I die. This place is so amazing

Cheers Stefan, great to see you've fought through the parenthood bombshell and are getting back to enlightening us👏👏👏👍. Hope you are all thriving. I've been thinking about the beer v bread question for a while and great to hear you broach the subject. Not sure which answer is better for humanity in the long run but it certainly is an interesting thought. Is all of modern civilisation built on our fondness to party?

Sky Burial is not just in Tibet. Also the Zorastraian (Parsii) worship fire and have sky burial towers. The zorastarians were the original Persians were located in present Iran which is only few days travel from south east turkey. Also some native American indians also do sky burials! I wonder if the T could be beams to hold logs with place for dead bodies for sky burials. Insight tells me this is possibility. Would be great to see the the sky burials tower architecture and see if there is similarity. If this turns out to be linked could some one reference me for the original idea 🤔😉

Always nice to hear rational people looking at the facts instead of people speculating endlessly about their favorite theory.

Excellent, thank you. Over the year since this was posted, it seems that natural slope wash and redeposition has become the preferred hypothesis for most of the burial of the site, rather than backfilling by human agency, seen there.

Oh man I was just telling my dad about this place. Great timing. Thanks Stefan

With so little of the entire complex yet to be uncovered I find it a bit preemptive to discuss what this really was

Thanks for this it's wonderful and i'm so grateful for considered conversation about this site

This is the best conversation I've heard yet on Gobekli Tepe. It would make perfect sense that it was a sort of "circle of life" center, and also probably why they have yet to discover any burials. I wonder if it's also possible that the purpose of the "T" shaped stones were to serve as roosts for vultures? I'm picturing people carrying the bodies of their loved ones up the hill to the "priests", who, after receiving an animal or some other offering, would prepare the bodies to be more easily consumed, then place them inside the circular areas with some sort of ritual fanfare. Then the vultures, roosting on top of the "T" stones would swoop down and clean the bones. Once cleaned of all meat, and possibly ritualistically cleaned by the priests, the bones would be given to the family members waiting outside. Possibly the areas were filled in after a specific number of bodies were processed, the priest or vultures passed away, I don't know. Anyway there's still plenty of mysteries to answer. I'm just glad they've been allowing people like Jens Notroff to do research there.

Will you ever cover Gunung Padang?

Hi Stefan, could the depressions on top of the t shaped megaliths be from the people who buried the site when they were milling grains to feed the people. Just a thought. The T shaped pillars would have had a lot of time before they were buried in comparison to the rest of the site. In essence, maybe they were kitchen tables for the whoever buried the place. Thanks Mark.

It is always exciting to find pre-agricultural monumental architecture.

Was very fortunate to visit the site! So incredible!

I became interested in the 10,000- 20,000 bce time period In the 1990’s when I picked up a history of mankind book by Issac Asimov and 10,000-20,000 bce was blank. No history recorded and I wondered why. Gobekli Tepe seems to me to be the key to our forgotten past.

Great interview! More interviews like this one!

You've gotta admit that some of those columns look really really perfectly produced!! Has anyone ever replicated a column with the orthodox accepted tools!?

Happy Easter! This video got drowned by news - and it is so long without me getting a notice. I would have carved out the time to eatch it carefully more than once if I had known! 😍 Unfortunately, I am still Eastering and I will have to wait 😭 I am so excited and grateful for this 🥰 but I really don't have the time to watch - or to write this comment - so for now I can merely wish for you in writing a very Happy Easter! I'm so happy that you and your loved ones are well enough to give you the time to dedicate this gift for us ou here! Thank you - that is good of you! And that is the highest remark I sincerely give! 💚 Thank you - and despite my beliefs 😊 Happy, blessed Easter! May you be appropriately appreciated! 🙏❤️

stop shilling for big archaeology and smoke DMT bruh

This is absolutely fascinating! Thank you both for all of your work!

This channel is so under rated still

The point at 44:42 regarding the archaeological definition of civilization was really interesting and significant. I think a lot of the traction in the public mind of lost civilization theories when it comes to sites such as Gobekli Tepe is do to this cognitive dichotomy between primitive hunter gatherers and advanced civilizations. That dichotomy may exist in our present world, but primarily because hunter gatherers have been forced off of all the best, most fertile land on the planet by agricultural societies. Back during the Neolithic (and even in later periods), there was lots of room for a large gray area between what we think of as primitive hunter gatherers and advanced settled peoples, where groups such as those who constructed Gobekli Tepe would have existed.

Would the top of the "T" shaped standing blocks support a timber roof?

This plus Derinkuyu Turkey is a truly historically amazing enigma

This is awesome, thank you so much!

A fascinating and enlightening discussion, gentlemen: thank you. ☝️😎

I just want Jens to say "Get to the choppa!"

Now I want him on the Joe Rogan podcast, discussing Graham Hancock

Now I have to make a Hipster microbrew Gobekli Tepe meme.

So it's the first mall and the center is obviously the food court😃

Well done Milo and Happy Easter. Interestingly, bedroom Internet researcher number 1, "Ancient Architects", is regularly being quoted as an archaeological "expert" in the Daily Express.

Perhaps the T shapes were used to lay planks between, on which they laid down their deceased for the vultures. Believing the vultures would then take the spirit of the person to the sky. Probably the sun. And this is what is depicted on the vulture stone imo, and not a meteorite impact. The 'smoke tail' on that stone coming out of the sun (meteorite) means to depict the sun is a door to this realm of the dead. The 'smoke' pattern itself indicates it is a field, the handbags with animals mean there will be an eternal amount of these animals 'gifted' to hunt and eat on these fields. Just look at the pattern. It's clearly a field. The stone with the ducks/birds has the same kind of background, but then a watery pattern. It is basically stone age heaven, with the sun being the portal for the dead to enter, to which they are brought by vultures eating their corpse. Perhaps every generation raised a stone, and when they die they would be placed on a plateau or plank connected to their parents stone. These planks/plateaus would lay atop the stones to make it easier for the vultures, therefore needing the T shape for stability and a more spacious plateau for the vultures. They would built in circles to save space and every family had their own circle. And when it was full, they started another one. Perhaps they would cover up full circles so that nobody else could use it, to 'seal' this circle in some way for eternity, or simply to make room for new ones. They likely no longer had their function since bones (likely skulls) would be collected as reminders for ancestors (Which explains the figure without a head on the vulture stone) and nobody else could reach heaven anyway with these stones. These stones were functional and highly private. If you were 'buried' atop the stone that other people raised, or was not linked to one of your parents or ancestors you would not reach (or be guided to) the eternal fields and go to a hellish underground realm full of scorpions and snakes (As depicted on one of the stones).

One day I hope to be able to see or stand in or even touch a man-made item so monumentally old as Gobekli Tepe. The closest I've been is some mining towns up north from me and museums and monuments in DC, even going to see the Colosseum in Rome or the Great Pyramids would probably make me cry when I first go there. I absolutely love all the info about Neolithic proto-religious monuments, it's just fascinating

Good interview. Thanks!