@cosmicsummit: Before his death, Klaus Schmidt - the archaeologist who excavated Gobekli Tepe and introduced it to the world - made a prediction directly to Hugh Newman and Andrew Collins during a visit to the site. He believed they were going to find material going back into the ice age - as far as 14,000 years ago. That statement from the man who knew the site better than anyone alive at the time was significant then. It is more significant now. The discoveries since Schmidt's death are bearing out that prediction. Sites in the surrounding region are being found that predate Gobekli Tepe - Cakmak Tepe nearby, and further afield along the Tigris River, sites like Boncuklu Tarla and others pushing the timeline of organized human activity in the region back further still. The recently cleared enclosure Hugh has been examining shows the T pillars as they were found - partially collapsed but held in place by the rubble surrounding them, which preserved far more of the original structure than might otherwise have survived. Schmidt's instinct that Gobekli Tepe was not the beginning of something but a later expression of a tradition already ancient by the time it was built is looking increasingly correct - and the sites now emerging around it are the evidence he anticipated finding.

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Monday 15 June 2026 19:03:27 GMT