Were they HUNTER-GATHERERS at GÖBEKLI TEPE? A conversation with Dr. Lee Clare.

[@user-wk1mw9nj3i76]

Dr. Clare impresses me with his intensity underlying a low-key facade. I’m grateful that you’ve taken us along with you!

[@AndyBennett]

Quite simply one of the best Gobekli Tepe tours I've seen. The right questions, the right guide, just captivating and once again I've learned something else from watching you guys.

[@Rusty-GB]

Somewhere under all those acres of land yet to be investigated there has to be large scale food storage like has been found in other locations. I would be over the moon if during my lifetime they found evidence of domestic level arable & livestock farming. So much else about this location is ahead of what was expected for 10000 years ago, that I would not be surprised if something like that was found at some stage. More please. These little chat / question answer sessions with Lee are fantastic and really help to fill in the picture of the Landscape and our part in it all those millennia ago. Thank you very much Gents these Vids truly make my day.

[@guyanaspice6730]

Farmers didn't need Immense Storage Areas. People can store there crops individually. It wouldn't have to be like Some other locations. What is Skipped Again and Again is the Lack of Erosion over 10-12,000 years. These Tepes/Mounds are Still covered. Not 10-12,000 years old. Tepe. It means Hill/Mound. Over 12,000 years these Tepes Never experienced ANY erosion? Meaning Tepes must be related to a Time people were living in civilizations. Tepes are Well Organized Civilizations. Only a small part of Gobekli Tepe has been excavated for research. Same with the other Tepes. Much more will Only prove these people were not nomads or Hunter Gatherers. Again, Researchers n channel Hosts Must address the Fact that these Tepes/Mounds are not eroded.

[@garafanvou6586]

@@guyanaspice6730the pillars of the top layer became exposed due to erosion

[@RobertGillham-l5f]

What an EXCELLENT adventure!

[@reekiereekie7264]

One of my jobs is as a forager collecting seeds and berries for a commercial tree grower. I know from first hand experience that a small group of people can collect actual tons of produce from a woodland in a very few weeks. Definitely enough to last a large family for a long time if you could store it all

[@mcollins630]

This has been the GT documentary series we've all waited for. Thanks for bringing us all along.

[@Lerie2010able]

I am so bloody envious of you guys - thank you so much for sharing these videos, the discussions are especially interesting for those of us who have nobody to discuss this with. You raise the questions and now we all have a better understanding. Thanks

[@Digits-nf9fo]

I appreciate the authenticity, the sheer sincerity of your podcasts. Experiencing Gobekli Tepe with you folks is transcendental.

[@roxiepoe9586]

We hunted for the table when I was a kid. (Texas) Sometimes it was javelina. They are fierce and scary. Now I live in an area with feral hogs who are also fierce and scary and much larger than javelina. (We don't let our dogs or cats range free because the pigs will eat them. Humans have been attacked. A pig WILL eat you.) I utterly understand the fierce pig statues and a culture that respects that danger, and the bravery and skill required to hunt them.

[@banditbaker1675]

Great work Gents and thanks for this series it has enabled us to learn so much from the comfort of our living rooms. I'm sure that you have already done this but please convey our gratitude to Dr Clare for sharing his knowledge and insights into the site and the people who lived there

[@martinezlucia101]

Thank you so much for sharing this series… fascinating

[@lorilea3188]

I am watching from the middle of Turtle Island from a region recently covered by Prairie Savannah, which along with the Great Prairies west of me on occupied HoChunk land were created and maintained by humans fire and bison. I hope some day the PreHistory Guys will explore what we can learn about the old world destroyed by humans (and their domesticated animals and plant culture) by looking at this hemisphere, recently verdant.

[@aresaurelian]

When we are there, envisioning their style of life, its natural everyday beat, and the joy of getting others to do the hunting, while you made the beer from grain that others gathered, it all just makes sense. Now ponder nomadic gatherers reaching this place, they gathered too much and had to stay, and other nomads came in and did the same, eventually it must have become a village, and trading and trade skills naturally emerges.

[@petehoover6616]

I used to live in the Jordan Valley. The flat tablelands near the river were where we cultivated crops, including wheat. I was an Arkansas farm boy and I used to get into trouble for going everywhere barefoot. Except up into the hills, where sickle blades were so common and still sharp and I cut my feet when I tried. Donny Dust's Paleo Tracks shows the exact same kind of sickle blades, but in the hills above the Jordan they are as common as sand grains. I could go barefoot where we grew wheat. Where only gazelles grazed with African porcupines and domestic cattle I'd get cut on the old blades. It happened once. Ouch. Shoes in the hills after that! With Donny Dust I remembered that. I'd thought the blades were neolithic, and Nick Fosannen suggested most were from the bronze age. But they are among the kind of grass you are sitting amongst for your interview. They must be late-stage paleolithic. The sickle came before the wheat. The people had harvested that wild grass, apparently for a really long time and in really large numbers. Probably for longer than we've had wheat to cut with a sickle.

[@petehoover6616]

Since the location of the sickle blades is different from where wheat is grown was wheat developed by a Paleolithic Dr. Norman Borlaug? One genius who ended the paleolithic forever? All it would take would be a sieve to grow out just the larger seeds. They definitely knew seeds + water + earth + sun = grass.

[@francoisviljoen4002]

It's a very interesting that we always thought that farming led to people living in one place, but it actually looks like it was the other way around.

[@stevenwbrubaker]

I find it very difficult to keep the time scale in the front of my mind. People were here for generations adapting, and innovating. This is fascinating stuff. Great work. Thank you so much.

[@qui-gonjay2944]

Thanks! Just a little donation for all the hard work. I feel like I owe you that for everything you have shown me. Well done lads!

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Thanks so much for this @qui-gonjay2944, we really appreciate the support!

[@deepblack67]

Man, you guys rock. Just sent you $20 but wish I could send more. Really amazing showing that you have put forward. There really needs to be more information out there about these sites. I have been watching Megalithomania vids on this for years, and seeing mostly info in German or Turkish, it's just amazing that there is so little knowledge of this so many years on. Now if we could get you back there to look at the other Tas Tepler sites, how many are there? Can you do an overview video of the larger civilization maybe. Thanks again, Cheers.

[@esamax6044]

More!

[@stevenb427]

Well done guy's 👏 congrats on all your hard work paying off with this adventure. Amazing video 🙌

[@deepblack67]

Thanks!

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Hi @deepblack67, thanks very much for the support, it's much appreciated. Field research over the last few years has identified hundreds of other sites in the region. They won't all be T Pillar sites, but some of them certainly will be, so who knows what remains to be uncovered over there! R

[@helenamcginty4920]

Lee mentioned woodland and I wonder what trees were growing. Quercus ilex (aka holly oak) grows naturally in semi arid land and provides tons of acorns in autumn (historically in Spain on marginal land called dehessa and used to fatten pigs in autumn prior to slaughter in December, before it was cleared in the previous century to plant pine trees.) Also Ceratonia siliqua (aka Algarrobo or carob/locust tree) with its sweet bean pods. I believe that ficus (fig) species will grow almost anywhere. If trees like these grew in the woodland autumn would have been good for food. Also fruits can be and are dried for keeping. Think dates, prunes, raisins, figs, carob

[@matthewmiller5619]

He mentions oak and almond

[@billhaskill6597]

Well done, TY.

[@andrewlamb8055]

Magical and haunting …. Brilliant guys … a view from two good blokes …. Thank you ⚔️⚔️⚔️⭐️⭐️👏👏👏

[@Andy_Babb]

I hope you guys put together a nice long episode like your Standing With Stones documentary!

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

It'll be a while coming - but that's all in the plan. In the meantime, there'll be lots more reporting like this as we continue with the Göbekli Tepe to Stonehenge Project: www.buymeacoffee.com/prehistoryguys

[@Andy_Babb]

@@ThePrehistoryGuys Oh, great!! I’ll certainly be spending some time catching up on your other videos in the meantime. You guys to incredible work. Im SO excited to learn more about Gobekli Tepe - such an absolutely fascinating piece of history that we’re just starting to understand a bit. Thank you so much for the reply and for all the amazing work you all do!

[@kenkyukai100]

brilliant presentation , i may have missed it but has no geo phys been done ?

[@jenniferlevine5406]

Excellent! Very interesting conversation. What a gorgeous site to build your base upon!

[@souraya3]

You’re spoiling us!

[@carly4610]

Prehistory Guys and Others: have you read The Dawn of Everything - A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow? Would love to know what you think. Not an easy read & I'm only part way through, but I believe of great relevance to this (excellent) conversation with Dr. Lee Clare. For example, the authors suggest that early communities tried farming, and couldn't see the point! Hunting / gathering / foraging was much easier, less labour-intensive. And that wild grasses weren't gathered for grain, it was for the stems (used as material for thatch, flooring, clay brick additive etc) - the seeds were a by-product that might be enjoyed, but it was only over a long period that grasses developed the ability to retain the seed / grain, making it easier to gather (eg wheat). Hence no evidence of seed-storage at Gobekli Tepe?

[@spiritofanu3112]

I am very interested in what the landscape looked like there 12 thousand years ago. How far from the mammoth grazing grounds around the edge of the ice age glaciers? To me there would have been a regular source of flowing water from the glacier edges that would wind their way into this more southern realms of the Tepis.

[@oscargranda5385]

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@spiritofanu3112]

Klaus Schmidt believed the site was immense and we only have a small fraction excavated. Has LiDar been brought in to provide a more comprehensive view of how extensive the site is? Is the Turkish government funding the excavations at all?

[@plutoplanet4275]

keep these videos coming

[@alangknowles]

There seem to be so many old and reused grindstones. What were they grinding if not farmed corn?

[@saraoconnor594]

Corn came from the America's. They didn't have it yet. Just grains.

[@alangknowles]

​I'm not talking about sweet corn/maize​. I refer to eikorn, oats, barley, rye, wheat etc. And I cannot believe they collected enough from areas of forests. It would make sense to plant small clearings to have enough to provide for this large community. @@saraoconnor594

[@medievalladybird394]

​@@saraoconnor594 In British English corn can mean any type of grain, in this case excepting ofcourse maize, which in American English would be corn.

[@lenabreijer1311]

It grows wild. The seed heads are smaller and harder to winnow. Only millennia later when it gets domesticated and bred do the heads get bigger and easier to harvest.

[@johncombs2798]

It still seems like this was built for husbandry. I would bet that control over nature was a popular religion.

[@colinstokes4398]

if they were hunting gazelle, there would be drive lines and corrals so that many animals could be captured in one event.

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Well distinguished. And that's exactly what is found in the form of what are called desert 'kites'. Look like kites from the air but are traps designed to funnel herding animals into contained spaces. It's what I meant by hunting on an "industrial scale". Michael.

[@garafanvou6586]

The animals must have gotten used to scavaging the food waste at GT which is why so many animals are prevalent in the carvings and sculptures

[@gaufrid1956]

It must have been quite a place ten thousand years ago. Finds like this might eventually smash the long-held beliefs about hunter gatherer societies. I'm Australian, and I remember seeing that there is evidence of the Aboriginal people deliberately protecting from grazing animals such as kangaroos areas where certain plants they used grew. As well as this they set up fish traps, and built earthen ovens in areas that they occupied. Hunter gatherers were not " primitive", and not always nomads. If you have all you need to survive in a certain area, do you leave to take a chance elsewhere? I don't think so.

[@markkilley2683]

Where there storage pits there or elsewhere?

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

There are pits down the hill around building E that could be interpreted as storage silos. And of course, there are the water cisterns to the north west (See 3 Days at Göbekli Tepe Part 1) Storage areas elsewhere and in earlier sites (Abu Hureyra, - even Ohalo II) are the key to understanding 'hunter gatherer' sedentism in the 10,000 years leading up to GT and the other Anatolian mega-sites. Michael.

[@NatSatFat]

Very very difficult to associate the sight that you saw with the detail of the stones, and so much of the big stones, with hunter gatherers, as you said it's in our mind that the lifestlye of these type of people were nomadic, so I cannot believe that the site was hunter gatherers at all, farmers? city people? but not hunter gatherers! ok it's not easy thinking back 10000 or 12000 years, but they must have thought like us? just as we are doing about them?

[@davidknight5537]

As populations in ares increase the animal population will decease. This will result in increase in maturing wild grrains and tubers.. The population will increase, etc.

[@terrabytesarcheology]

what sort of cloths did they wear? just skins?

[@buckynick]

Could the buildings be storage units and the carved foxes there to keep mice and rats out.

[@caroletomlinson5480]

What about trees 10-, 12 thousand years ago?

[@Ssspaceform]

Can we call them a civilization

[@fennynough6962]

The lack of Trees, & wildlife, is a sign that modern man has over depleted this landscape. Natural Topography; [10,000 years ago]: would of be able to sustain, (the 10,000 of people); that rebooted this Megolithic Site. And 100,000's of years ago the Fauna & River; [or Spring system]; must of been filled with overabundance.

[@nealmorales525]

💦 Promo-SM

[@dnavid]

LiDAR???

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

The contours of the site are already well known so LiDAR probably redundant but ground penetrating radar surveys have been done and they show that there's way more to Göbekli Tepe than the excavations so far have shown. Michael.

[@dnavid]

it wouldb't hurt tho' and as you have said, y'never know. Thanks for journey.@@ThePrehistoryGuys

[@dansullivan6825]

Still pushing preconceived establishment archeology dogma. Wild grain harvesting for a community of such size and complexity? I find that premise rather insincere not to mention incongruous to the artifacts on site. G. Hancock

[@russellcameronthomas2116]

I did not hear them pushing any "dogma" regard wild vs domesticated grain. They said it was an open question about grain cultivation, harvesting, storage, etc. which might be resolved with further excavation of the large site and neighboring area.

[@russellcameronthomas2116]

@@johnmorgan8868 And who is this "G. Hancock"? the real name behind @dansullivan6825?

[@dansullivan6825]

I knew the stale dogmatists would raise a finger of complaint with the mention of Mr. Hancock. I thank you and raise a finger of acknowledgement myself. 😎

[@forestdweller5581]

@@dansullivan6825 You are the one complaining from the start you numpty.

[@ThePrehistoryGuys]

Suggest you look at the research into the development of sedentism based on the gathering and storage of wild grains and a 'broad spectrum' diet in the 10,000 years leading up to the large tepe sites such as Göbekli Tepe, going right back to Ohalo II in the Levant. No preconceptions - just evidence.