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This article examines Gobeklitepe, the first temple built in Minor Asia, dating back to Neolithic Period. This temple is one of the oldest temples of man- kind, according to the archaeologists. Gobeklitepe provides us with crucial in- formation about the religious beliefs of hunter-gatherers - lacking urban life and agricultural production. This temple shows us that archaic people did not lead a life away from religion and beliefs, instead it proved that they had beliefs and constructed temples to observe their beliefs and employed rich religious symbols. Gobeklitepe is a sign that people started to build a temple first to meet their religious needs, even before adapting a

 Abstract When the data on symbols, belief forms and daily life are examined in detail, it is clearly understood that, the early societies which are often assumed not to be aware of each other; in reality is seen that, they were aware of each other with an intense and even great mutual respect and were in a communication that could not be ignored. In this context, when we focus on the Neolithic Period datas of the human communities in Göbekli Tepe Cultural Region, it is seen that, there was an extraordinary communication between these communities and as a result, there was a great cultural interaction experienced. In this

Modified human crania from Göbekli Tepe provide evidence for a new form of Neolithic skull cult Human skulls can be venerated for various reasons, ranging from ancestor worship to the belief in the transmission of protective or other properties from the deceased to the living (1). This focus on the hu- man skull, including its special treatment, led to the establishment of the term skull cult in the anthropological literature [for example, Cauvin (2), Bienert (3), and Wahl (4)]. Skull cult can take on different forms, that is, with skull modifications frequently underlying very specific cultural codes. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN; 9600–7000 calBC) of Southeast Anatolia and the

Well, the short answer would be: Stone Age people with Stone Age tools. Nothing more needed, no aliens, no giants, as you can read here. For an answer to the question, who these Stone Age people were, where they came from and lived (Göbekli Tepe is not a settlement), we will have to make the finds speak.

Of course, magazines have to sell stories – and superlatives always are a good argument in this case. People just love to hear about the biggest, oldest, and most spectacular. And what could be more spectecular than a headline like “The Oldest Temples in the World”? That’s how you sell a find, don’t you? Yet, as scientists we need to show some healthy reservation – in particular when dealing with such phrases and terms which obviously have developed a certain history on their own. It’s all too easy to make up a good story or ‘hypothesis’, but substantiating such proposition is where real research actually starts.

Although the Neolithic period is explained with the “simple agricultural communities”1, in previous years by excavating of Göbeklitepe, Çayönü, and Nevali Çori; the period got started to be defined as more complicated and developed phases because scientists found monumental buildings in Göbeklitepe which cause that agriculture system-settlement- religion-temples chronological order, was accepted by all scientist, turned into settlement- religion-temples-agricultural system array. Moreover, these structures that are totally different and specially built in nature which can be considered as temples, so archaeologist Prof. Dr. Klaus Schmidt assert that there was a faith system adopted by their people.

Göbekli Tepe was once called „a Stone Age zoo“ by its late discoverer Klaus Schmidt. This judgement is certainly appropriate, as the range of animals depicted is impressive. Bears, boars, snakes, foxes, wildcats, aurochs, gazelle, quadruped reptiles, birds, spiders, insects, quadrupeds, scorpions and many more are inhabiting the enclosures. But there is also some underlying structure to this zoo-like ensemble.

The Göbekli Tepe Research Project is an interdisciplinary long-term project addressing the role of early monumentality in the origins of food production, social hierarchisation and belief systems as well as questions of early subsistence strategies and faunal developments in Neolithic Anatolia, Turkey. Excavations and archaeological research in the frame of this project are conducted by the Orient and Istanbul Departments of the German Archaeological Institute in close cooperation with the Şanlıurfa Haleplibahçe Museum. The archaeobiological part of the project is conducted by the Institute of Palaeoanatomy, Domestication Research and the History of Veterinary Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.