10,000 Grinding Stones Found at Göbekli Tepe: A Centre of Food Processing? | Ancient Architects

[Music] hello everybody and welcome to ancient architects please subscribe now to get the latest ancient history news and independent research from around the world the more i read and learn about the pre-pottery neolithic the more i'm surprised just how advanced the people were in ancient anatolia we know they could quarry and carve elaborate t-shaped pillars we know they were laying concrete-like terrazzo floors sometimes on custom-built foundations we know that vessels and statues were carved and decorated in splendid fashion they had well-defined permanent and portable art and in a recent video i laid out a new hypothesis that there may have been a form of central heating at carahan tepe these people were planning large projects and completing them to extremely high standards which shows organization within communities but at gabelli tepe there are still no signs of domesticated grains and so full-scale agriculture was still a future development still many commentators suggest that gobekli tepe could not have been the work of mere hunter-gatherers even though the evidence suggests otherwise i believe we need to stop thinking in a binary fashion that there were hunter-gatherers and then farmers like something happened overnight there is a gray area in between a period of time that may have taken many centuries and quebeckly tepe and many of the pre-pottery neolithic sites do fall into it these people this culture were accomplished hunters and yes there is evidence of seasonal feasting but now it's looking more and more likely that gobekli tepe was home to a settled community no not a metropolis and no not a city but probably something akin to a village according to dr lee claire we found middens fireplaces hearths and lithics all smelling very domestic for me there was domestic activity from the beginning right to the very end it's unlikely to merely be in a seasonal cortex center of religious feasting as is often said a place that people went to at specific times of the year there is without doubt a domestic element to quebec tepe and it was most likely a permanent settlement but saying that and it is unusual sight there were more domestic fines than anyone expected this picture from laura dietrich's new book which i've linked below in the description is known as gobekli tepe's rock garden where all the battle grinding stones and limestone troughs and other large pieces of work stone mostly for domestic purposes have been moved to for storage and analysis this garden is the size of a football field with more than seven thousand grinding stones 650 calfstone platters and vessels and some of them were large enough to hold up to 200 liters of liquid yes 200 liters talking to nature dietrich said no other settlement in the near east has so many grinding stones even in the late neolithic when agriculture was already well established there was a whole spectrum of stone parts of every thinkable size and she believes they could have been for grinding grain to produce large amounts of porridge and also be yes gobekli tepe was a settlement but the amount of stone objects indicates that food production looks to have been happening on almost an industrial scale and i personally don't think it was just to feed the people that lived here and certainly not exclusively for special occasions like annual feasts it's possible the quebec tepe was more than a settlement that it had a very specific function in the landscape i suspect it was something like a food processing center for the wider population the people lived and worked here preparing food for communities in the landscape like a centralized centre with a very specific role i've personally long believed that the circular enclosures were food storage structures maybe one for each local tribe or community but i have no way of confirming this so what was being processed at gobekli tepe what do we actually know about their diets well over the past few years researchers such as laura dietrich at the german archaeological institutes in berlin have helped to fill in the gaps even before grain was domesticated the wild varieties were very much a crucial part of the diets of these people according to an article that was published in nature last year dietrich discovered that the people of quebec tepe were likely making that falls of porridge and stew these people were heavily reliant on grains and other starches and they were being ground and processed on almost an industrial scale at the site the research that's gone into this has been extensive and involves everything from microscopic analysis of ancient tools to analyzing dna residues inside pots and we now have a better understanding of people's diets the grains found that gobekli tepe were all of the wild varieties as stated domestication and not yet taken place or maybe it was in its very early days and the painstaking research has helped experts understand what crops were growing in the vicinity what was being processed and what was likely being consumed we know there were wild varieties of einkorn and barley being processed we also find the remains of almonds and pistachio not to mention the meats that were consumed which i'll come to later in the video but of course with such an ancient origin organic remains of gobekli tepe are few and far between so to get a better understanding of ancient diets laura dietrich looked at the problem in another way and first looked to recreate the tools that people use to make food she started with a replica grindstone a block of black basil the size of a bread roll and she photographed it from 144 different angles she then spent many hours grinding around four kilograms of einkorn weak kernels photographing the stone as it was put to work a software program produced 3d models from the pictures and she discovered that grinding fine flour for baking bread leaves a different finish on the stones compared to producing coarsely ground grain which is ideal for boiling as porridge or brewing beer after handling thousands of gobekli tepe grindstones she was able to identify what they were used for simply by touch what she found out was that people at gobekli tepe were mostly grinding grain coarsely just enough to break up its tough outer layer of bran and make it easy to boil and eat as porridge or ferment into beer so is this what was made at gobekli tepe well to see if it was possible with known pre-pottery neolithic technologies and techniques dietrich commissioned a stonemason to carve a replica 30 liter stone vat identical to one that was found at gobekli tepe and using heated stones she and her colleague successfully cooked porridge inside the team also brewed neolithic beer in the open vessel using hand-ground germinated grain or malt the results were bitter but drinkable so from analyzing grindstones and other plant processing tools as well as the organic remains themselves it was clear that the inhabitants of gobekli tepe knew exactly what to do with grains how to grind them process them and cook with them these people were not living an agricultural lifestyle but were also not traditional hunter-gatherers they were clearly at the stage in between they were more like proto-farmers not a people who are experimenting with grain for the first time the grinding stones were also very well made they were absolutely perfect for the specific job being efficient and effective the pre-pottery neolithic people knew exactly what they were doing with cereals and grains and they were clearly well beyond the experimentation phase technically we can say that hunter-gatherers built gabeculi tepe but the work mentioned in this video is all really important because it changes the perception of what hunter-gatherer actually means it's not a simple term with a simple meaning the climate was changing lifestyles were adapting and diversifying and social practices as well as population organization were evolving yes the grains that were found at gobekli tepe were all of the wild variety and yes there is plenty of evidence they still hunted animals but these people were more like proto-farmers and life was clearly becoming more structured as stated evidence suggests that gobekli tepe was a settlement but due to the vast amounts of grain processing tools and vessels far more so than what would have been needed for the amount of domestic rectangular enclosures i think it's very possible that gobekli tepe was more like a food processing plant allowing wild grains and cereals to become a daily staple for a wide population it was clearly not some rare treat i like the idea that gobekli tepe was a brainchild of the leaders of the local communities who worked together to look forward who came together to create this one place a settlement where the people that lived there had one job a processing food for the wider population maybe the food collected by each local community was brought to quebec tepe and placed in their own specific circular enclosure or maybe the food was put into each enclosure after processing each enclosure could have been decorated to reflect the iconography of each local village tribe or community group as we know that different animal reliefs dominate each enclosure for example in building a snake images dominate in b is foxes in c we find mainly balls in enclosure d the imagery is more diverse but we do see more birds and an enclosure age we find a dominance of felines maybe the imagery on the pillars was a way to catalogue what was being kept inside each enclosure a different enclosure for each community of people maybe gobekli tepe enclosure age with its dominance of felines was earmarked for carahan tepe whose large enclosure is dominated by leopard depictions maybe the feline was the symbol of carahan tepe but away from grain and cereals there is of course evidence of meat consumption of gobekli tepe asiatic wild ass and oregs were eaten but archaeo's zoological data hints at large-scale hunting of the gazelle the most abundant animal remains at the sides as you may or may not know gazelles are migratory animals and there is evidence of mass killings when they were in the region between mid-summer and autumn this was a mass killing in a short space of time and the excess food may have led to an annual feast at gobekli tepe so feasting did likely take place but there were unlikely gatherings planned in advance for things like astronomical phenomena like solstices and equinoxes but more likely when vast amounts of food were available feasts were likely strategic in seasons favorable to the natural availability of plants and meats and what better place to hold an annual feast than a food and beer processing site for the wider population although there is no obvious source of quebec tepe the people would have drank water and an eight by three meter rainwater collection pit has been found by archaeologists maybe it was also the responsibility of the local communities to bring water to the site for the workers when they dropped off their grain and cereals for processing there is tentative evidence for the consumption of alcohol at gobekli tepe and around 80 shards of stone drinking vessels have been found thin walled and decorated and often made from green stone these may have been from the feasts that were held here and not used in everyday life it's been so difficult to condense the information available into a video but i do hope it's given you some insight into the diets of the people of quebec tepe i'm really trying to understand the site what it was and why it was so important and i have to say that a food processing center seems to be the best fit in truth there is so much more to say so much i haven't covered and if you want to know more i've left some fantastic links in the description below the thing to take home after watching this video is that the inhabitants of gobekli tepe were masters of food processing and from the vast amounts of finds in the rock garden where grinding and processing wild grain and cereal was on an almost industrial scale well it makes me think that this was a planned and supported operation that served the wider population and not just for the people that lived and worked here there were likely feasts between mid-summer and autumn when local communities came together to consume baffles of beer and porridge to accompany their newly hunted barbecued gazelle these were new age hunter-gatherer communities whose lifestyle was propped up by the proto-farmers of gobekli tepe again the pre-pottery neolithic people were sophisticated and intelligent and nothing like the old-fashioned hunt together a picture that is often painted and in my opinion we do need to think differently when we view the pre-pottery neolithic culture of southeastern anatolia because they were clearly far more organized and advanced than we ever thought was possible thank you very much for watching this episode of 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Channel: Ancient Architects

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Keywords: ancient architects, what was Göbekli Tepe?, who built gobekli tepe, Göbeklitepe, food processing gobekli tepe, was gobekli tepe a settlement?, gobekli tepe facts, gobekli tepe 2022, gobekli tepe documentary, gobekli tepe graham hancock, older than gobekli tepe, people who lived at gobekli tepe, new discoveries from gobekli tepe, how big was gobekli tepe, Göbekli Tepe, ancient history, pre-pottery neolithic, ancient anatolia, ancient turkey, ancient history documentary

Id: l_4LGEwwrok

Length: 16min 3sec (963 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 09 2022