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The practice of intentional burying of buildings is one of the controversial topics of Neolithic archaeology. Even though a consensus has not been attained on this matter, the number of buildings asserted as being intentionally buried is steadily increasing in Anatolia and in other parts of the Near East as well, exemplified both as domestic and special functions. The custom of burying buildings had its beginnings in the earliest phases of the Neolithic Period sustaining up to the latest stages, though considerably varying in the modalities of its implementation. The paper will introduce the buried structures recently excavated at the Neolithic site of Karahantepe. All structures exposed at

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“The sapient paradox: can cognitive neuroscience solve it?” This question was posed when the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge initiated a conference devoted to the theme “Archaeology meets neuroscience”.[i] Colin Renfrew’s keynote article in the publication from that conference focuses on what he calls the “sapient paradox”, a puzzle that has been a thorn in the side of prehistory researchers for some time. In a nutshell, the question seems to be: why did humankind, after 200,000 years of nomadic hunting and gathering, begin building stone monuments, which prompted development of agriculture, resulting in the settled lifestyle that sent us into Western civilization?[ii]

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Göbekli Tepe and the Neolithic sites around Urfa, which were identified by surveys, provide rich data for the transition of human beings from hunter-gatherer groups to settled and semi- settled agricultural societies. It is possible to trace most of the institutional foundations of today's societies to this transition period. Social theory, which was heavily influenced by the "Neolithic revolution" paradigm, ignored this transitional period. Sociological thought categorizes societies as hunter-gatherer and agricultural societies starting from the back and moves from the axiom that hunter-gatherer societies are egalitarian and agricultural societies are hierarchical. On the other hand, archaeological studies, while addressing the hierarchical "nature" of Neolithic societies, do not

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Karahan Tepe settlement was first discovered in 1997, but was surveyed in 2000 and again in 2011 within the course of the Sanlıurfa City Cultural In- ventory. The settlements are located within the boundaries of Sanlıurfa (ancient name Edessa), a city in southeast Turkey. The settlement lies on a plateau known as the Tektek Mountains (Tektek Dagları) 63km east of Sanlıurfa. Like Göbekli Tepe, Hamzan Tepe and Sanlıurfa Yeni Mahalle PPN (Pre- Pottery Neolithic period) settlements located around the Harran Plain in the Urfa Region, Karahan Tepe is also a PPN settlement located on a high plateau foot on the eastern side of Harran Plain.

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