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An integrated approach Starting from the Epipalaeolithic (c. 12,000–9600 BCE), but especially during the Early Neolithic of the Near East (Pre-Pottery Neolithic, PPN, 9,600–6,500 BCE), a wide range of stone vessels appear in site inventories (Wright, 2000). This period is linked to the Neolithization process, which included a fundamental change of human diet through the adoption of cereals as staple food (Bar-Yosef and Meadow, 1995; Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, 1989; Colledge, 2002; Harris, 2002; Kujit and Goring-Morris, 2002; Nesbitt, 2002; Akkermaans, 2004; Byrd, 2005; Willcox, 2005; Willcox et al., 2008; Zeder, 2011; Fuller et al., 2012; Asouti and Fuller, 2013; Arranz-Otaegui et al., 2016; Vigne, 2015; Weide et al., 2018,

ABSTRACT ­ Stone is often regarded as the ideal medium for the long-term preservation of knowledge, as it is resistant to change. Early to middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey has repeatedly been treated as a prime example for such external memorial storage in durable stone. The present paper challenges this view. A close examination of pillars and their reliefs in Building F reveals the fluid character of imagery with repeated and frequent phases of erasure and re-making. It is argued that it is not the durability of stone that made it suitable for the preservation of ‘cultural memory’, but the possibility to re-shape the image

The tell of Göbekli Tepe1 is situated about 15 km northeast of the modern town of Şanlıurfa between the middle and upper reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris and the foothills of the Taurus Mountains (Fig. 7.1). Rising to about 15 m on a limestone plateau at the highest point of the Germuş mountain range, the mound is spreading on an area of about 9 ha, measuring 300 m in diameter. The location was known as a Pre-Pottery Neolithic site since a combined survey by the Universities of Chicago and Istanbul in the 1960s (Benedict 1980), but the architecture the mound was hiding remained unrecognised until its discovery

Oben tritt die Schichtung des blanken Gesteins in hellen Kanten hervor (die beschriebene Struktur ist übrigens im Satellitenbild von Bing – Abb. 2 – deutlich besser zu erkennen als bei Google Earth). An den Nordhängen versucht man, die Erosion mit Pinienaufforstungen zu begrenzen. Auf halber Strecke dieses ansonsten kahlen Höhenzugs hat sich auf einem etwas breiteren Gratabschnitt eine Restinsel roten Bodens erhalten, der hier noch ein paar kleine Kuppen überdeckt. Die Fläche wurde sogar noch landwirtschaftlich genutzt, bis die Archäologen das Gelände pachteten, um weitere Zerstörungen der Landwirte an aus dem Boden ragenden Steintafeln zu unterbinden. Herausragende Pfeilerköpfe hatten beim Pflügen gestört und wurden von den Bauern zerschlagen.