Friday, February 26, 2010

GÖBEKLI TEPE


Gobekli Tepe has been dated to about 11,500 years old, and is located in Urfa, Sothern Turkey, quite close to the border with Syria. It’s believed that the temples were built by the last hunter gatherers before the conversion to agriculture. It’s quite possible the people that built these temples were the first ever wheat farmers as recent DNA analysis of modern domesticated wheat compared with wild wheat has shown that its DNA is closest in structure to wild wheat found in a mountain (Karacadağ) 20 miles away from the site, leading one to believe that this is where modern wheat was first domesticated. Domesticated rye 13,000 years old has been found just to the South in Syria, and the domestication of sheep goats and cattle is known to be atabout the 11,000 to 12,000 year mark in the Zagros, so it’s entirely possible these people were the early Turkish farmers and not hunter gatherers.



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