Ritual Symbolism in the Early Neolithic: A look at Göbekli Tepe in the Southeast Turkey

Understanding the primary cults through analysis of symbolism and its relation to developments of human subsistence in the prehistory is considered as an important part of archaeology. Some of scholars believe that in the late Epipaleolithic period and coinciding with climatic changes after Pleistocene, new beliefs and rituals were emerged that desire to control the wild nature was one of their basic features. In this transition period, in the southeastern Turkey, one of the most prominent early Neolithic ritual symbolism, in Göbekli Tepe, located at the northeast Urfa city appeared that its main characteristic was the Megalithic temples with massive T-shaped pillars. On some of these pillars, pictures of wild animals, like lions, fox, wild boar, buffalo, snakes, vultures, scorpions, sometimes solely and sometimes collectively have been engraved. In this region, there are five other ancient sites with the same features, but a few newer, with names Nevali Çori, Karahan Tepe, Taşli Tepe, Hamzan Tepe and Sefer Tepe that Unlike Göbekli Tepe, despite having the Temple, were residential. It is likely; these stone pillars were symbolic embodiment of humans (maybe shamans) who have dominated wild animals. This kind of Megalithic temples from the middle of the tenth millennium BC that were places to worship and administer special rituals might be abandoned due to some dramatic changes such as domestication of animals and plants which led to transformation of the major mechanisms of human subsistence from hunting-gathering to ranching-farming.