The stone temple site at Göbekli Tepe in Turkey is being excavated for another season by a German team of archaeologists led by Professor Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute Abteilung Istanbul.
Göbekli Tepe is perhaps the World's oldest Neolithic megalithic structure and the excavations there will help us better understand how a pre-metal society constructed the amazing carved stones.
The early megalithic component appears to have been constructed in the pre-pottery Neolithic and is tentatvely dated to c. 12,000 - 9,000 BP (10,000-7000 BC). These dates are remarkable because this pre-dates any other monumental use of dressed and carved stone. There have been questions raised about the dating purely because the zoomorphic figures which are carved onto the standing stones are considered by some to be outside the technological horizon available at the time.
My research into Neolithic ground stone tools supports Professor Schmidt's hypothesis. I have demonstrated that very complex stone artefacts such as The Towie ball (Scotland), Knowth macehead (Ireland) or the Maesmore macehead (Wales), can indeed be produced without metal tools using the extant technology. The axe-carvings at Stonehenge can similarly be produced using just stone tools.
It seems likely to me that the tools used to create the carvings at Göbekli Tepe have not been recognised because there is little or nothing published on the production techniques and tools. My PhD thesis examines the range of technologies available and in use during the Neolithic based on archaeological evidence and experimental archaeology. In light of my research it seems entirely plausible that the carvings at Göbekli Tepe could be created using this techology. The same technology was used at Stonehenge, the fortuitous circumstances of discovery and preservation at Göbekli Tepe has merely preserved the artwork there much better than the carvings at the former.
It seems likely to me that the tools used to create the carvings at Göbekli Tepe have not been recognised because there is little or nothing published on the production techniques and tools. My PhD thesis examines the range of technologies available and in use during the Neolithic based on archaeological evidence and experimental archaeology. In light of my research it seems entirely plausible that the carvings at Göbekli Tepe could be created using this techology. The same technology was used at Stonehenge, the fortuitous circumstances of discovery and preservation at Göbekli Tepe has merely preserved the artwork there much better than the carvings at the former.
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