Göbeklitepe; deciphering a stone age oddity

Göbeklitepe is an archeological site located in Southeastern Turkey and the site itself is a small mound situated in a flat landscape. It went unnoticed by almost everyone as a natural feature and was passed over by American archeologists in the 1960s as insignificant. Until 1994, when Klaus Schmidt, a German archeologist, noticed unusual T-shaped limestone pillars partially exposed on the surface and initiated a comprehensive excavation in collaboration with local archeologists. The process revealed a huge amount of unexpected information: multiple circular and oval structures were buried under the mound, each with massive stone pillars arranged in distinct patterns. The oldest layers have been dated back to around 9600 BCE—this predates Stonehenge by several millennia!