Gobekli Tepe - stock photo

Gobekli Tepe is regarded as an archaeological discovery of the greatest importance since it could profoundly change our understanding of a crucial stage in the development of human society. Gobekli Tepe is an early Neolithic sanctuary located some 760 m above sea level at the top of a mountain ridge in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, some 15 km northeast of the town of ?anl?urfa (formerly Urfa / Edessa). The tell has a height of 15 m and is about 300 m in diameter. It was first noted in a survey conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago in 1964. It recognized that the rise could not entirely be a natural feature, but postulated that a Byzantine cemetery lay beneath. The survey noted a large number of flints and the presence of limestone slabs thought to be grave markers. The hill had long been under agricultural cultivation; generations of local inhabitants had frequently moved rocks and placed them in clearance piles, possibly destroying much archaeological evidence in the process. The imposing stratigraphy of Gobekli Tepe attests to many centuries of activity, beginning at least as early as the epipaleolithic, or Pre-Pottery Neolithic A, in the 10th millennium BC.