{"id":2861,"date":"2012-04-10T20:15:55","date_gmt":"2012-04-11T00:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2861"},"modified":"2012-04-10T20:15:55","modified_gmt":"2012-04-11T00:15:55","slug":"gobekli-tepe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2861","title":{"rendered":"G\u00f6bekli Tepe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading about a place called <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/G%C3%B6bekli_Tepe\">G\u00f6bekli Tepe<\/a> today.<\/p>\n<p>This is a place in southeastern Turkey. It is the site of an archeological excavation; they are exploring the ruins of an old temple.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe_Urfa.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-2862 aligncenter\" title=\"G\u00f6bekli_Tepe,_Urfa\" src=\"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe_Urfa.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"686\" height=\"456\" srcset=\"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe_Urfa.jpg 858w, https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/G\u00f6bekli_Tepe_Urfa-300x199.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 686px) 100vw, 686px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The ruins of a really old temple. Really, really, really old.<\/p>\n<p>How old? Well&#8230; when the first Egyptian pyramid was still on the drawing board, G\u00f6bekli Tepe was already some 6,000 years of age. Indeed, when G\u00f6bekli Tepe was built, the place where I now live, Ottawa, was still covered by the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Champlain_Sea\">Champlain Sea<\/a>. The oldest ruins at G\u00f6bekli Tepe are 11,500 years old, take or leave a few centuries.<\/p>\n<p>That is an astonishing age for a major stone structure like this. Wikipedia tells me that it was built by hunter-gatherers, but I have a hard time accepting that hypothesis: Stone construction on this scale requires highly specialized skills not to mention the organization of the necessary labor force. Maybe I lack imagination but I just can&#8217;t see how hunter-gatherer tribes, even if they have permanent village settlements, would be able to accomplish something on this scale.<\/p>\n<p>But if it wasn&#8217;t hunter-gatherers, who were they? What kind of civilization existed in that part of the world 11,500 years ago that we know nothing about?<\/p>\n<fb:like href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2861' send='false' layout='button_count' show_faces='true' width='450' height='65' action='like' colorscheme='light' font='lucida grande'><\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was reading about a place called G\u00f6bekli Tepe today. This is a place in southeastern Turkey. It is the site of an archeological excavation; they are exploring the ruins of an old temple. The ruins of a really old temple. Really, really, really old. How old? Well&#8230; when the first Egyptian pyramid was still <a href='https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=2861' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,25,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-history","category-religion","category-40-id","category-25-id","category-38-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2861"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2865,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2861\/revisions\/2865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}