Intentional Burial and Future Mysteries

Hello, Hello, welcome to another Sortc. A very special hello to Graham Hangl. Hello, Graham, which you're listening. So for a very long time, human history was thought to follow a very specific pattern We started off as hunter gatherers, foraging for plants and killing wild animals to survive Then slowly but surely, our ancestors started to cultivate crops, farm the land, domesticate animals, and build settlements And this move from hunter gatherer to farmer was logical. Not only because our ancestors needed to evolve and also develop the ability to work with tools, organize themselves into social groups, produce a surplus of food, etcet, but also due to the Eth's climate. After all The Stone Age could only come after the end of the Iice Age. When the Earth's temperature rose, the ice subsided, and fertile soil was revealed This transition from hunter gatherer to farmer was always thought to have happened about ten thousand years ago. believed that it then took thousands more years for us humans to begin building large scale megalithic structures. For example, Stonehenge and the pyramids were both built around the same time. five thousand years ago Gigantia in modern day Malta was built We think about six thousand years ago the Walls of Jericho in the Jordan Valley, which was believed to be the world's most ancient monumental structure was built roughly nine thousand years ago All of this makes sense. You don't start building giant structures until you've nailed farming and social organization So basically until you have a large enough population, a sure fire endless supply of food, and the necessary specialization of skills to build things So When Gabbeckli Teppy was discovered, colossal sprawling, highly complex megalithic site buuilt at least eleven thousand six hundred years ago, and we don't know exactly how old it truly is because so much of it still remains unexcavated This discovery changed everything. We thought we knew about human history. It's so fucking cool man. I love it so much So what the hell was going on? Who built this structure? how and crucially, why This is the shorthand So let's start with the basics Gbekli Teppi translates to pot Belly Hill in Turkish, because it looked like a fat man lying on his back with his belly in the air And for thousands of years, it wasn't thought of as much more than that, Fatman Hill It was a moderate sized hill in the southeastern Anatolia region of Turkey, on which local farmers used to graze their sheep The truth of what lay beneath people's feet had been lost for generations But there was something drawing Kurdish people to this pop belly hill The story goes that there was a single tree which stood on top of the hill. and Kurdish people would go up there at the spring equinox and perform ceremonies But it wouldn't be until nineteen ninety four that the reality of the secrets under that belly were finally revealed to the world The first survey of Gabbec Tpei was in nineteen sixty three by archaeologists from the University of Chicago, and it was concluded by them that it was probably a series of small cemeteries dating from the Byzantian Empire with fragments of carved limestone that they spotted, being thought to be medieval tombstones So yeah Historical, old, but ultimately it was deemed to be of little interest It would be three decades before an intrepid German archaeologist called Klaus Schmidt wouldould visit the site This happened in nineteen ninety four and he immediately understood that the flinch shards that he felt crunching under his feet had been shaped, not by medieval peoples by Neolithic handans. I feel like we're throwing a lot of numbers around, right in this episode. We're going to continue to do so. I just want to explain. The Romans were like two thousand years ago, right? And we think of that as old. We think of that as ancient This is twelve thousand years ago we are talking about. L that is six times further back in history from us than the Romans were. I don't know what the word for this is. It's beyond ancient So that's just, I just want to, you know Cextualize it a little bit. So Schmidt had spent much of the previous decade working at a site called Navali Kori, a nearby settlement from nine thousand BC There he had seen these T shaped pillars And here they were again under Pop Belly Hill And just to be clear, it wasn't excavated, but he can like see the tops of them emerging through the hill And he can tell because he's seen them before, if we excavated down, the same pillars would be here And Schmidt said, quote withithin a minute of first seeing it meaning the T shaped pillets. I knew I had two choices go away and tell nobody or spend the rest of my life working here He went with the lter Pretty soon, Schmidt had started excavating And carbon testing confirmed everything he had hoped for. The time period in which the construction of this structure had started As Siri said onond ancient It's known as the Neolithic pre pottery era. twelve thousand BC So yes, they find Gobekli Tpei, it is at least eleven thousand six hundred years old plac is it a millennia and a half before it was believed that our ancestors were engaging in agriculture. and this kind of thing wasn't thought to have been possible This structure, Gcli Tpei, was built by people who didn't have a written language hadn't yet, like I said, started farming or domesticating animals and who didn't yet have metal or pottery. And they built it at a time when woolly mammoths and sabre toothed tigers still roamed the earth. Hi and becoming more and more convinced that I'm actually a reincarnated whale But I saw a really great meme of a shark, which you all enjoy. And you know, the RSPCA have that like a dogs for Live notches for Christmas campaign. Yeah. It's this shark and he's like, I'm not a birthday present I'm not a Christmas present. I'm a four hundred year commitment The discovery of Gabbekli Teppi pushed back the timings of which we believed our ancestors were capable of building such structures Millennia This I mean is such a hard feel to be in archaeology where you're like, let's build an entire theory about human history based on what we have yet discovered. There is so much that is yet to be discovered. Like I get it, science is the same, but it does blow my mind. could have been in the pursuit of this theory of what hunter gatherers were capable of, the way in which human history evolved Gobecklely Teppy comes along, pushes it by six millennia and you're like, all right, okay. well, I guess Hunter gatherers were capable of much more than we knew. But is that it? is that enough of a change of discourse. And I do genuinely and I probably am being unfair, but it's dark and I'm sad. I suppose that element of it is that, you know, if they accept this rhetoric Their entire careers have been wrong And again, it's like detrimental to your career or have you just based it upon something that was shaped around previously existing knowledge? you know, I just feel like if it's science, then yeah, you made these theories based on what you knew. now you've discovered something else, let's change it up. And I think maybe we all just need to be a bit more open This drives me up the wall, even just in day to day interactions with people It's okay to change your mind. That's fine. That's better actually because it means that you're constantly analyysing. It just if I there Anyway Because there's such a big gap between the previously discovered ancient megalithic sites on the same scale and Gabbekli Tepei, Also because there's a lack of evidence at the moment, it might come of the evolution of hunter gatherers to point that they could build something like a Becky Tppi It makes some people, like Big G Hancock, question where this knowledge came from How did a bunch of hunter gatherers seemingly out of nowhere build something as big as Gabbecca Teppi This is one of the key things. It's like when you're looking at the evolution of animals, you're looking for the fossils that denote that evolution. And then when people you can always keep pulling out and they'll be like, where's the missing link? Where's that link between apes and us? You know, where is that that's missing Here, it kind of feels the same way and this is where I do, you know. take issue with Graham Hancock, but question what he's saying is like he's saying because there's such a big gap between things like Gigantia and Gabbekli Tpeppi and no evolution of that kind of set of skills needed to build something like Gbekli Tpeppi during those millennia, how could these people just one day wake up out of nowhere and learn how to do agriculture, which, you know, people like Graham Hancock do think that there agriculture happening around Gbecky Tepey. It may or may not be true. and the ability to build that. That knowledge must have come from somewhere else. Some other group of people must have come into that area. He's not saying aliens, just to be clear Some other group of people must have come into that area and shared that information with this group because they couldn't have just spontaneously realized how to do it I know Graham isn't saying this, but I'm absolutely saying E. Now, obviously, like I said, we have not discovered everything there is yet to be discovered out there archaeologically speaking In recent years, a site even older than Gabbekli Teppi has already been found just a few miles away from it Carajanpe which is already three hundred years older It's not nearly as complex as Gabbekli Tpei. Naking Gbekli Tppi still hands down one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time For many archaeologists and ancient historians, the site represents the beginning of human culture itself And, as far as we know, right now anyway The first ever great construction project in human history Wedding season Officially is here. and by now our loyal listeners Well know that we at Red Handed are committed to a very special brand for all of our shape, wear needs and that is Honey Love, and I honestly get asked about this by my friends more than anything else that we advertise. Do you need a strapless bra that won't let you down whilst you're cutting shapes on the dance floor? Perfect pair of seamless underwear to smooth you out and suck you in without making you sweat. Honey Love has got you covered, friends. My friends, your friends, everyone's friends Their products are intelligently designed with bonding technology that provides support and comfort all at once And I swear by their cloud embrace bra for every day wear. It's the comfiest wireless t shirt bra that really does feel like a cloud against your skin And it's a best seller, so make sure you snap it up while you still can. Treat yourself to the most advanced bas and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link and save twenty percent off honey loveove at honeylove dot com slash red handed. That's honeyove dot com slash red handed. And after you check it out, they will ask you where you heard about them Please support our show and tell them that we sent Jer Experience the new standard in comfort and support with Honey Love Cstruction on Gbekli Tepei and the surrounding sites ended around eight thousand BC. so not only was this structure nearly twelve thousand years old, it was also a multi genererational project. So given that the average life expectancy back then was about thirty five years, I'm dead next year And this would have been a highly labor intensive build, it's safe to say that these people were seriously committed to Gite Tpei's construction and passed significant knowledge and information down to their children and their children's children or without any form of writing So it must have been really important Why Especially since early evidence seemed to suggest that the people who built it hadn't actually lived at Guebeckiteppi Most people think that it wasn't really a settlement, but rather a seasonal meeting point But again, why is it so important And again, just to cover our asses, there are people who believe that people did live at Guebeci Tpei. It's so hard to know because so much of it remains unexcavated like we said I mean, it looks like a temple. Danger, danger, danger using these words. like people are going to come for us like I get it It's so hard for us to know what the right word is to use for this, which is why we're going to use the word site ceremonial site, maybe even yeah, it's really tricky to know what it is because people say, obviously nobody lived here. It wasn't a settlement because there's no rubbish, there's no, you know, this that and the other that would indicate a long habitation of this space But people have also said when they started excavating further down, though the Turkish government has stopped that. That's a big like conspiracy theory of itself, which we can't get into today People saying that there is evidence people l that I'm also like, this would have taken so long to build S people must have been living there But anyway Before we get into the why, why was this so important? why did they build it Let's first talk about the what doeses Gbekli Tppi as a structure look like Now, I'm going to be honest, we are slightly hampered here by being an audio only format And we don't often say this, but I am going to suggest that if you are able to, right now, please give Gabbeckli Teppi a quick Google image search. I'll spell it for you GO B L E Ki space T E P E. Thank you. I was trying to spell Gwyneth Poutrro the other day. God I didn't do it. I hate it. And I just asked producer Alex, I was like, canan you just spell it for me? And I spelled it wrong multiple times And I just turned him and I was like Alex. I love you with my whole heart But I am so dyslexic and you are firing letters at me and I'm going to have a stroke. No, Google copy and paste is the only way So yes, hopefully, you have an image of Gabbekly Teppi in front of you. And if you don't, don't worry, I will explain it the best I can The site is made up of these circular enclosures of various sizes layered on top of each other The bottom layer, obviously being the oldest And that's why we don't know how old it is because I think it's like of what has been excavated, almost fifty times that is still under the earth. So if you haven't got to that bottom layer of this big lasagna of pre ancient, whatever, How could we possibly know how old it is? But these enclosures that you see are made up of these standing stones And these stones are all in the shape of tees. and so are called the T stones or tea pillars. And if you look at them, they're very wide across but also very, very thin to the side And there are hundreds of them, over two hundred make up gabbei tappies And these te stones are made from local limestone, which would have been mined maybe just like a hundred meters or so away from the site and then dragged into place. The te stones around the edge of the enclosure are about a metre or so tall which would have been difficult to move into the circles that you see in Gbeku Tey Especially given the level of technology that people would have had at the time They didn't even have metal yet. But each enclosure also has two very large te stones at the center Five meters tall That's huge. And the stones are incredibly heavy So yes, it would have been hard to move these stones possible And yet again, the much more interesting question is why The sight screams of ceremony. I think it's very hard to get away from that fact or that idea, I should say And so this immediately set those archaeological and historical bells ringing. The very idea that this could be some sort of religious monument built by Hunter gatherers completely goes against everything we thought we knew about religious monuments and about Hunter gatherers Until the discovery of Gabbekli Tpei, hunter gatherers were thought to have lacked the sort of complex symbolic systems, social hierarchies and the division of labour needed to build something like this threeree very important things you need before you can build a giant megalithic ceremonial site like this And as for formal religion It had been previously theorized that this had only developed after agriculture, when hierarchical social structures required an otherworly story in order to keep order and keep people bonded together in a community. But excitingly, what archaeologists found at Gbecli Tepei suggests that we may have got this entirely the wrong way around our ancestors need to build sacred sites was what first compelled hunter gatherers to organize themselves, specialize in skills and also secure a stable food supply, to be able to spend long periods of time in one place building structures to their gods So yeah. whichich came first the chicken or the egg. We can never say for sure. The discovery of Gbekli Tepei and this kind of ceremonial site that wasn't purely a settlement, whether people live there or not is not really the point is the fact that it wasn't built as a town or a city our understanding We're going to give your brains a bit of a rest and slow down a bit because this is mind blowing stuff Calling Gabbekli Tepei a religious site is quite bold because nobody knows why it's there or what it was Some people do say like me that it's a temple the oldest one we've ever discovered Some people say it's a memorial, and others say it's a place that provides a prophetic But we're going to talk about the pillars a bit more before we go into that the five meter pillars at the heart of each enclosure. They seem and this is so exciting spepecifically men If you look at them closely, you can see that the pillars have belts around their midsection and the outline of loincoths and crucially How But if all of these T stones represent men we're running with that, there's one thing that's missing. They haven't got any heads If you haven't got the picture in front of you, the Tyestone looks like a broad male shoulder, like a set of shoulders tapering down into a waist and yeet, they have these carvings that really look like hands around the middle It's crazy But yes, no heads And this has led some people to believe that perhaps this was the ceremonial site of a skull cult A skull cult is basically a cultural tradition that involves the veneration of human skulls. than those of ancestors So those who practiceed this skull cult would remove the heads or skulls of a member of their group after death and modify it in some way with carvings, holes and dies. The skull would then be displayed and honored few skulls that had been modified like this were indeed discovered at Gbecleli Tepei And we also know that skull cults were operating in and around that area at that time So maybe at one point all the ke stones had skulls on top of them, or maybe you're a historian and an archaeologist and think I'm stupid Just a theory. We are stupid, but also there's lots of things that nobody knows Only a tiny fraction of Gbeki Teppi has so far been excavated, and even that small bit has already changed so much of our understanding of how we got here Mainly because Guebeci Tpei is a hugely sophisticated structure It has carvings, reliefs, and etchings on the surface of the stone pillars, depicting all sorts of things Lopards, lizards, snakes, vultures and jaguars. And interestingly, all of the carvings are animals that really exist not mythical creatures. And also, the animals are male, suggesting that this site was special to men in particular and possibly in a somewhat spiritual way And that means potentially we've misjudged the timeline of the emergence of religion We had also totally misunderstood the skills that people who lived back then possessed Their carvings are of an incredibly high quality and they're clearly not just random people having a go. They're done by artists Which means there were people within the group that built Gcky Tpeppi who were specialized And that's fucking mad The idea that twelve thousand years ago We're thinking of these people as just being hunter gatherers. They're just foraging and killing in order to survive and that's all they're doing scrabbling about in the dirt clearly not true when you look at a site like Gbecklely Tappy The idea that there were artisans, there were artists within the group and they had that level of division of labour and specialization is Crazy Wedding season Officially is here. and by now our loyal listeners Well know that we at Red Handed are committed to a very special brand for all of our shape, wear needs and that is Honey Love, and I honestly get asked about this by my friends more than anything else that we advertise. Do you need a strapless bra that won't let you down whilst you're cutting shapes on the dance floor? Perfect pair of seamless underwear to smooth you out and suck you in without making you sweat. Honey Love has got you covered, friends. My friends, your friends, everyone's friends Their products are intelligently designed with bonding technology that provides support and comfort all at once And I swear by their cloud embrace bra for every day wear. It's the comfiest wireless t shirt bra that really does feel like a cloud against your skin And it's a best seller, so make sure you snap it up while you still can. Treat yourself to the most advanced bas and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link and save twenty percent off honey loveove at honeylove dot com slash red handed. That's honeyove dot com slash red handed. And after you check it out, they will ask you where you heard about them Please support our show and tell them that we sent Jer Experience the new standard in comfort and support with Honey Love On top of this, archaeologists have also found signs that there was maybe some crop cultivation going on around Gbekli Tpei This is debated, someome say that there was no farming of crops or animals, as all of the remains found within the site were of wild plants and animals while others say there were indeed clear signs I honestly don't know But I think it's not a stretch to say that the people at Gbec Tepei, given that they're building this enormous multig genererational, enormous megalithic structure, were experimenting at least with crop cultivation and domesticated animals I don't think that's a stretch because yes, the remains of those plants and animals found at the site may still look wild, but it takes a long time before plants and animals move away from their wild ancestors into like a farmed situation. It doesn't mean they weren't doing it, if you see what I mean But whichever it is, it's mind blowing. Because either our ancestors started farming way earlier than we thought like two millennia earlier than we thought. in which case the people who built Gabbecleepe weren't hu to gather as a tor r they weren't farming In which case these people were building megalithic structures as pre farming communities, whichever of those is true is crazy. Not if you're an archaeologist, you can just ignore it Let's get into the weird bit Gbecly Cheppe was buried and it was buried intentionally This blows my mind you spend. All that time, all that effort, all that labor, years building it And then they purriied it themselves. And what's also interesting is if you look at the different enclosures as they go up the different layers They get worse They get poorer in quality as they go up, which is really interesting. It's like the older the enclosure, the older the carvings, the older the workmanship, the better it is As it gets later and later, the workmanship gets worse and then eventually they backfill it themselves There are theories and they vary. from they buried it just because they wanted to start again, to, they were covering it up so it would act as a time capsule to warn us in the future of an impending catastrophe 've gone down a real G flood rabbit fucking hole and it's plaguing me Some historians have also pondered that the infamous vulture stone found at the site shows an ancient cataclysm And they suggest that Gabbekly Teppi is a memorial to the younger Dryers Cet strikes That strike itself is just aive. Yeah The vulture stone as you know the name suggests is basically just one of the stones that is there that has a depiction of a vulture. And for some reason, some people have connected that with this younger Dryus comet strike, but it is literally a theory. We don't even know that there was a comet strike I think it's called the Younger Dryest impmact theory There's not even proof that happened and also how does the vulture on a stone indicate that I think it's because there's like a circle that looks like it's falling out of the sky, but seems like a bit of a stretch There's so much in this light pre ancient discovery that appears to be depicting some sort of comet stries Yes, and I won I'm open to hearing all about it. I'm open to all the theories. I love the comet theory, but We'll leave it to one side for a second. Maybe it wasn't a comet, but the people of the era would certainly have been subject to a rapidly changing climate So maybe they built Gabbekitepei and then they buried it to plead with their gods to stop fluctuating the world that they lived in. quQuite possibly. Like if you go back and look at that part of the earth eleven thousand six hundred years ago and the time that passed until they stopped building in that area, The Eth's climate was going mental, absolutely mental. and perhaps it was that when they started building it, it was a bit more temperate, they were building it to their gods. Ag, I say that very scaredly in some sort of cosmic spiritual whatever And then the climate gets worse and worse and worse and maybe that explains why the workmanship gets worse and worse and worse. Maybe they're under too much stress to continue building like their forefathers had done. And then maybe they backfill it as a sacrifice of something to be like stop fucking ruining our area. Maybe they leave. Maybe they bury it to safeguard it because they think they can leave and come back to it one day. We don't know. it's all just theories But it is interesting that this site and all memory of it vanished from people's minds It was truly lost to history to the ages until Klaus Schmidt began his excavation. The other crazy interesting thing about Gabbecli Tepei is that it is so far, the world's first perfectly north South aligned building Bonerccouffvered. Yeah. boner. And this look, whatever you think of, like what these people are up to, what it actually means The fact that it is perfectly north south aligned, it has to be more than just a coincidence It strongly suggests that the people who built it had some understanding of astronomy Now the pillars are supposedly aligned in a way that they would have framed the rising of the constellation Sirius at various points over the year So some have suggested that the different animals shown in the carvings represent different constellations visible at the time. I find this one hard to buy because I'm like, look, you're like, oh, there's a scorpion, it must be scorpiion. We're assuming that twelve thousand years ago they were looking at this same jumble of stars And look, you have to admit constellations, they're very open to interpretation. It doesn't actually look like a scorpion What are the chances that twelve thousand years ago they looked and that's a scorpion and we thought the same. Like that seems a bit of a stretch to me I have heard a theory which I like much, much more I like the theory that the images of the animals found around the site at Gabbekleli Tepei make the site itself represent a calendar of sorts because seasons, much more than like a vague interpretations of the stars matching ontoirs Seasons could have been mapped up by animals and birds that these people would have encountered Because animals and birds follow very specific patterns of migration, hibernation, reproduction, those happen at specific times of year because there was one female animal added later, it looks pregnant. those things happen at specific times of year. So maybe it was much more a calendar of that sort While we don't know that much about the people who built Gabbekli Teppi or why they did it, you have to admit has to change how we view human history And only four enclosures have been excavated so far. eighteen are still underneath Pop Belly Hill And while Gabbekite Tppi remains a mystery in so many ways opens up the tantalizing question. What else is out I fucking love this. I love this stuff so much that I've grown aick and it's got a boner I love it. It's super, super interesting Love it H for it fascinating stuff. I think it's just, you know, it's fascinating purely because there's so much we don't know. And the thought that twelve thousand years ago our ancestors were capable of doing something like that is really a very humbling thought and puts you once again at that feeling of like I'm not the center of the universe. Look at all the things that have been going on for millennia It's fascinating Absolutely Those people who built it twelve thousand years ago had hopes and dreams and fears and died at thirty five. Yeah I love it. I love it so much And I know people have got problems with Graham Hancock, but like, come at me, whatever He's not well received by the archaeological community because he's essentially saying, you know, we've got it wrong And I think the archaeologists are like, do you know? how much work it is going to take for us to rewrite history, Graham. Yeah, I've watched a lot of interviews, debates, etc, featuring Graham Hancock and with more mainstream archaeologists And look, I'm not an archaeologist. Neil's Graham Hancock and he never blaims to be No. He's an author. He says, I'm an autor. Yeah. I am a journalist. And I look at this I am investigating And I'm also not a historian and I know lots of people listening all that. I know history and like you're wrong about this and and the other look My point is when I watched those debates, I was like archaeology much like other fields similar constantly does have to rethink assumptions or theories that are made because as they discover more things, they have to shift timelines, etcet. But I do wonder why they're so resistant to Graham Hanor or people like him just theorizing about other things