Name: Göbekli Tepe: The 11,500-Year-Old Mystery That Rewrote History
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Göbekli Tepe may be the oldest temple ever discovered, carved by hunter-gatherers 6,000 years before Stonehenge.

What archaeologists found here reveals one of the biggest turning points in human history.

Göbekli Tepe: The 11,500-Year-Old Mystery That Rewrote History

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Göbekli Tepe may be the oldest temple ever discovered, carved by hunter-gatherers 6,000 years before Stonehenge.

What archaeologists found here reveals one of the biggest turning points in human history.

Ancient Worlds

Göbekli Tepe: The 11,500-Year-Old Mystery That Rewrote HistoryPublished: December 10, 2025ELLA AL-SHAMAHI: This is the oldest temple unearthed anywhere on this planet. It was built 11,500 years ago by hunter-gatherers. That's 6,000 years earlier than Stonehenge, and yet somehow, our ancestors were capable of making this. This is Göbekli Tepe.Incredible T-shaped pillars which you could imagine would've been holding up a huge roof, and then if we look at them, they're covered in these engravings. So this is a fox, there's vultures here, there's bear, there's wild boar, and here, this one just has to be my favorite. And look at these incredible teeth and it's hunting one of those wild boars. And yet, this incredible feat of architecture is not the most revolutionary thing about this place. Göbekli Tepe is not simply a temple. It is a marker of a species in the midst of change. Similar sites have been found across the region.In many ways, these pre-historic builders lived as their ancestors had for thousands of years, their days spent foraging and hunting to feed their families. But they'd made one fundamental change. After thousands of generations spent as nomads, following the herds they hunted, at places like Göbekli Tepe, they began to settle down.

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Göbekli Tepe: The 11,500-Year-Old Mystery That Rewrote History

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Human: Neanderthal Encounters

Making North America: Human

Human: Building Empires