Humanity has always searched for god. The more people come together with that goal in common, the higher the collective energy. Mountains can sometimes be moved, and sometimes temples can appear seemingly out of nowhere, as if sprung from the very ground itself.
The ongoing argument concerning the rise of civilization is centered almost wholly around the domestication of plants and animals. The prevailing view of V. Gordon Childe’s principle “that social structure and organization were bent to the demands of technology.” (Childe 1954:23-4), is now directly challenged by what archaeologist Klaus Schmidt is determining from the excavation of Gobekli Tepe; “that far from causing sedentism, agriculture actually responded to it.” (James
The archaeological evidence points out in every way that this is not a domestic site but a religious one (Symmes 2010:48). Like many other sacerdotal sites, Gobekli Tepe is situated up high on a barren plateau, made higher still by burying and then building on top of the preceding levels. There are no features such as hearths or middens (Curry 2008:57), nor is there any evidence of any kind of settlements close by. There is no water there and everything from tools to meals would have had to been brought up to the site from somewhere else (Curry 2008:57; Thomas 2007:22-26; Symmes 2010:46-48). It is hard to think that anything less than religious fervor could have compelled people to hew huge blocks of stone and then transport them from quarries as much as a kilometer away (Scham 2008:24).
More definitively, what is the focal point that would spur small bands of hunter gatherers to congregate together in spiritual practice, and what were they making obeisance to? As mentioned earlier the greater balance of the animals carved in bas relief are creatures with poisonous stingers and sharp claws, those that would cause fear and pose some sort of threat, the aggressive imagery maybe being meant to deal with those uncontrollable predatory forces in nature; that to surround themselves with the objects they feared the most would perhaps