> Stuff like Gobeki Tepe, however, is pretty interesting and seems to shatter our understanding of how human civilization started.
Does it?
Back when I went to school in the 90s, the fashionable site was Çatalhöyük. It's ~2000 years younger than Göbekli Tepe, but it was a (proto-)city with thousands of people. I remember the teacher saying that Çatalhöyük was notable for its size, not for its age, and that there were plenty of older permanent settlements in the region.
The first time I heard of Göbekli Tepe was 10-15 years ago. It fit pretty well with the established timeline of the Neolithic Revolution. The site was more remarkable for having (what appears to be) ceremonial buildings than for its age. It was also interesting that Göbekli Tepe was buried deliberately rather than being destroyed or built over.
Current scholarship is that it was not deliberately buried, but just filled in over millennia. That happens when your structure is basically a pit to begin with.
I'm not going to pretend to know anything more than what I saw on the tv show or the scant amount of research I did on the internet out of interest. My understanding, which I will not defend because I have zero background, is that the megaliths, ie. huge stone constructions, are considered to be much more advanced than something at that stage in human history. In addition, I think there was suggestions that it was involved in astronomy which was also not expected for something that old.
Does it?
Back when I went to school in the 90s, the fashionable site was Çatalhöyük. It's ~2000 years younger than Göbekli Tepe, but it was a (proto-)city with thousands of people. I remember the teacher saying that Çatalhöyük was notable for its size, not for its age, and that there were plenty of older permanent settlements in the region.
The first time I heard of Göbekli Tepe was 10-15 years ago. It fit pretty well with the established timeline of the Neolithic Revolution. The site was more remarkable for having (what appears to be) ceremonial buildings than for its age. It was also interesting that Göbekli Tepe was buried deliberately rather than being destroyed or built over.