rekordy: Göbekli Tepe

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

Göbekli Tepe (pronounced ɟœbecˈli teˈpe meaning 'Potbelly Hill') is a Neolithic archaeological site in Upper Mesopotamia (al-Jazira) in modern-day Turkey. The settlement was inhabited from around 9500 BCE to at least 8000 BCE, during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. It is known for its large circular structures that contain large stone pillars – among the world's oldest known megaliths. Many of these pillars are decorated with anthropomorphic details, clothing, and sculptural reliefs of wild animals, providing archaeologists with insights into prehistoric religion and the iconography of the period. The 15 m (50 ft) high, 8 ha (20-acre) tell is covered with ancient domestic structures and other sm…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 80

Stone Age markings are oldest known architectural plans

Evidence: 42 • authority: 72

Prehistory, sometimes referred to as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins c. 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared c. 5,200 years ago. The adoption of writing across the globe was a gradual process, so that the end of prehistory occurred at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. The period when a culture is written about by others but has not devel…

Evidence: 42 • authority: 72

Stonehenge is a prehistoric megalithic structure on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, two miles (3 km) west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen standing stones, each around 13 feet (4.0 m) high, seven feet (2.1 m) wide, and weighing around 25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones which are held in place with mortise and tenon joints—a feature unique among contemporary monuments. Inside is a ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons: two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by a single lintel. The whole monument, now in ruins, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice and sunset on the winter solstice. The stones…

Evidence: — • authority: 80

Symmetry patterns of images on megalithic t-shaped pillars from the prehistoric site Göbekli Tepe in Turkey

Evidence: — • authority: 88

An Alternative View on Animal Symbolism in The Göbekli Tepe Neolithic Cultural Region in the Light of New Data (Göbekli Tepe, Sayburç). One of the most surprising and distinguishing characteristics of the symbolism in the Göbekli Tepe Neolithic Culture is the widespread use of animals. The interpretations of this symbolism up to this date were more often on the wildness of these animals and the roles that they have played in the spiritual world of the humans of the period. The perspective in question led to the conclusion that at this period the physical interaction between humans and animals was limited. This study is based on the new archaeofaunal data and approaches regarding Southwest A…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The Megalithic Temples of Malta (Maltese: It-Tempji Megalitiċi ta' Malta) are several prehistoric temples, some of which are UNESCO World Heritage Sites, built during three distinct periods approximately between 3600 BC and 2500 BC on the island country of Malta. They had been claimed as the oldest free-standing structures on Earth until the discovery of Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. Archaeologists believe that these megalithic complexes are the result of local innovations in a process of cultural evolution. This led to the building of several temples of the Ġgantija phase (3600–3000 BC), culminating in the large Tarxien temple complex, which remained in use until 2500 BC. After this date, the te…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Stonemasonry, also called stonework or stonecraft, is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar, to wall or cover formed structures. The basic tools, methods and skills of the banker mason have existed as a trade for thousands of years. It is one of the oldest activities and professions in human history. Many of the long-lasting, ancient shelters, temples, monuments, artifacts, fortifications, roads, bridges, and entire cities were built of stone. Famous works of stonemasonry include Göbekli Tepe, the Egyptian pyramids, the Ta…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Ġgantija (Maltese pronunciation: [d͡ʒɡɐnˈtiːjɐ]; "place of giants") is a megalithic temple complex from the Neolithic era (c. 3600–2500 BC), on the Mediterranean island of Gozo in Malta. The Ġgantija temples are the earliest of the Megalithic Temples of Malta and are older than the pyramids of Egypt. Their makers erected the two Ġgantija temples during the Neolithic, which makes these temples more than 5,500 years old and the world's second-oldest existing manmade religious structures after Göbekli Tepe in present-day Turkey. Together with other similar structures, these have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Megalithic Temples of Malta. The temples are elements of a ceremon…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

In archaeology, an enclosure is one of the most common types of archaeological site – It is any area of land separated from surrounding land by earthworks, walls or fencing. Such a simple feature is found all over the world and during almost all archaeological periods. They may be few metres across or be large enough to encompass whole cities. Archaeological enclosures are typically representative of recurrent patterns of human activity throughout history through landscape. The absolute definition of archaeological enclosures has been debated over time. Some suggest that at a general level, enclosure (archaeologically) could be defined as the replacement of open-fields with privately owned-…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. They are found worldwide, but more than 35,000 megalithic structures have been identified across Europe, ranging geographically from Sweden in the north to the Mediterranean Sea in the south. The word was first used in 1849 by the British antiquarian Algernon Herbert in reference to Stonehenge and derives from Ancient Greek μέγας (mégas), meaning "great", and λίθος (líthos), meaning "stone". Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic period (although earlier Mesolithic examples are known) through the Chalcolithic period and into the Bronz…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Körtiktepe or Körtik Tepe is the oldest known Neolithic settlement in Turkey, occupied from around 10,400 BC at the end of the Epipaleolithic, throughout much of the Younger Dryas, and during the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, to around 9250 BC, when it was abandoned. Together with Tell Abu Hureyra and Mureybet in Raqqa, Syria, Körtik Tepe is one of the only three securely dated sedentary sites in Upper Mesopotamia during the droughts and cold period of the Younger Dryas, and one of the earliest known settled sites by hunter-gatherers, complete with trade, art, food production, religious ritual, and social complexity. The site was fully excavated from 2000 to 2018, in the context of salvage…