Gobekli Tepe: 12,000 Years Old and Rewriting Human History

Elaborate, complex temple pre-agricultural and pre-pottery i.e. built by hunter-gatherers, it predates settled human life.  Weirdest detail is that 1500 years after being built, these folks went through the trouble of burying the complex.

Archeologist Schmidt have found so far are four closely packed stone circles rather like Stonehenges. These consist of two central pillars – massive central pillars between 10 and 15 tons each – within a set of two concentric circles of smaller pillars about 10 to 15 tons.  Schmidt thinks that GT was a funeral complex where the bodies were placed in niches at the feet of the megaliths and then eaten by wild animals.  The religious life at the temple then drove the people into agriculture because this happens to be the place where agriculture and the domestication of animals had its beginning.

"Ground-penetrating radar surveys indicate there might be at least 250 more standing stones in eighteen still-buried circles. Finely honed reliefs and some 3-dimensional sculptures on the limestone columns depict boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes, scorpions, vultures, reptiles, humans and other odd figures and symbols."

The figures carved on the limestone are exquisite.

Some links for photos and more info:

http://www.forteantimes.com/features/articles/449/gobekli_tepe_paradise_regained.html 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1157784/Do-mysterious-stones-mark-site-Garden-Eden.html