kmt_sesh, on 25 June 2012 - 11:35 PM, said:
Permanent or seasonally occupied settlements are attested in the wider region, which is why I mentioned the Natufian culture. The example stands as a plausible model. I agree with you that this is not attested at Göbekli Tepe, but as several of have posted, our understanding of this site and its environs is still very limited. A great deal more work remains to be done in the field before we have a clearer picture. Future excavations may yield nearby sites of contemporary inhabitation, or nothing at all.
I agree with you about the organizational factor. Göbekli Tepe absolutely required a well-organzied and governed workforce, and evidently over the span of generations. It's an impressive accomplishment, no doubt about it. At the same time we should not fall into the trap of thinking semi-nomads could not have accomplished this. People working together for a common cause, under the leadership of intelligent leaders, is all that was required.
But please do not misrepresent me. In none of my posts did I suggest the people who created Göbekli Tepe were living in "huge communities." I merely posited the possibility of settlements or villages, which may have incorporated no more than a few dwellings.
As for the carvings and how they were done, the pillars are carved out of limestone. This is one of the world's softest and most malleable stones, which is why so many ancient peoples turned to it for their construction projects. In point of fact stone tools can easily work limestone and other soft stones. Look at the Aztecs: they are recent to us in time, and they carved beautiful things, but there is no evidence of which I'm aware that they used metal tools. I'm not familiar enough with the archaeology of Göbekli Tepe or neighboring contemporary sites to be authoritative on their building skills, but the absence of metal tools does not mean they could not carve limestone pillars with figural ornaments. And for all I know they did use copper tools—copper is easily produced, easily worked, and in some deposits can be retrieved without quarrying. And it was abundant in Anatolia. I'm not saying the people of Göbekli Tepe definitely used copper tools because I don't personally know one way or the other, but the possibility exists.
The form of carving is simply bas relief or low-raised relief. There's nothing mysterious or remarkable about it.
What can we dispute out of hand? Well, we can ignore ridiculous and uncorroborated scenarios like ancient aliens of lost civilizations, which means we can go by only what the evidence tells us right now. The evidence is only partial, but right now it shows us a Neolithic people with the capability to erect these ancient temple sites.
kmt, you are referring to their "intelligent leaders", and that "they had a well-organzied and governed workforce" but, you also acknowledge that we have evidence of hardly anything.
We have to go with whatever we have. Here is the scene: The ice-age just finished. The climate in the highlands is probably still freezing during winter. The population is sparse. Food is hard to get by. Hunter gatherers live in natural caves and straw huts.
These Hunter gatherers heard that there is a limestone quarry hundreds of miles away, and, armed with stone tools, go. They dig holes with their stone shovels, cut how many 16 ton rocks of limestone with stone chisels and stone hammers (that is the weight of 200 men), lift them out of the holes (do they even have ropes?), dig more holes (with their stone shovels) where they put double walled circles, shape these pillars to have a smooth surface (using which kind of stone tools?), engrave designs of animals on them (using which kind of stone tools?), mount the 16 ton pillars to be encaged into the walls, and eventually design some kind of roof. (wow)
Those who checked out the pictures I referenced may have an idea how many workers it would take to accomplish one of these circles in one season, start to finish. I will say 1000. But these people had to eat so there must have been other people to cook, more people to hunt for everybody not just themselves, they must have had place to sleep, to get water etc. There must have been a whole economic system, assigned responsibilities, management of resources. The community to support such activity during construction, in my estimate, would be in the tens of thousands. (especially if they had no metal tools)
I did not mean to misrepresent your point but this is what I consider a HUGE community for those days. And they would not have the necessary skills if they did not live in the same kind of community when they were not on "sabbatical". So if they only had small communities, that would make it seem even more impossible to do this. Btw, how did the families survive when the husband was gone? And no accumulated provisions for winter?
As hunter gatherers, they were struggling to have children survive into adulthood. There is no sign they used Copper (it was our first metal, and is easy to use nowadays but not to them), they had no domesticated anmals other than possibly dogs, no wheel, and no writing. How were they able to have "a well-organzied and governed workforce"?
I do not know "lithic technology" or what may be called stone tool smithing, as Swede pointed out, so maybe somebody can refer me to a YouTube that shows how to use stone tools to make reliefs on limestone, as well as animal scultures, and a perfectly round hole. Also, the stone tool obviously needs to be significantly harder than limestone. How could they create such a hard tool? To do that they would have needed an even harder tool, right?
You can shape metal with fire. But not stone. Is this not a reasonable descritption of their challenge?
Btw, after all that effort - why did they bury the whole site, along with the stone tools and stone vessels?
The orthodox explanation seems to me also uncorroborated. A theory can only be accepted until there is one observed phenomenon that contradcits it. Why does pointing out such contradictions earn me being labeled here by some of your colleagues?
3
