A Blood-Soaked Birth of Civilization at Göbekli Tepe?

Groundbreaking finds at Turkey’s oldest temples reveal unprecedented insights into Neolithic beliefs, though their true purpose remains debated among scholars.

Recent archaeological discoveries in the Taş Tepeler region of southeastern Turkey - the “Stone Hills” encompassing sites like Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe - continue to reshape our understanding of early civilization. These 12,000-year-old temple complexes, predating both Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids by millennia, are revealing secrets that challenge conventional narratives about humanity’s transition from hunter-gatherer societies to settled agricultural communities.

Two extraordinary discoveries announced in 2025 have intensified scholarly debate about the true purpose of these monumental structures. At Göbekli Tepe, often described as the world’s oldest temple, archaeologists unearthed a remarkably preserved life-sized human statue embedded horizontally within a stone wall. Meanwhile, at the nearby site of Karahan Tepe, excavators discovered the first T-shaped pillar bearing a carved human face - a revolutionary find that transforms our understanding of how Neolithic peoples represented themselves in stone.

These discoveries invite us to reconsider fundamental questions: What drove mobile hunter-gatherer societies to invest enormous labor into constructing such elaborate ritual centers? Were these temples built merely for communal gathering, or did they serve darker purposes? Some researchers, including this article’s author, propose a controversial hypothesis: that these sites may have been centers for ritual sacrifice, where early humans sought to appease powerful, unpredictable forces of nature through offerings of animals and perhaps even humans.