Göbekli Tepe Audiobook By Charles River Editors cover art

Göbekli Tepe

The History and Mystery of One of the World’s Oldest Neolithic Sites

Preview

Try for $0.00
Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Göbekli Tepe

By: Charles River Editors
Narrated by: KC Wayman
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $6.95

Buy for $6.95

Confirm purchase
Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.
Cancel

About this listen

When one thinks of the world’s first cities, Sumer, Memphis, and Babylon are some of the first to come to mind, or if the focus then shifts to India, then Harappa and Mohenjo-daro will likely come up. But archaeologists recently uncovered a site thousands of years older than any of those, marking one of the oldest settled sites in the world.

The Neolithic period came before the Bronze Age and is generally regarded as the final subdivision of the Stone Age. During this time, communities domesticated plants and certain animals but still relied on hunting and gathering to a considerable extent, and beginning sometime around 7000 BCE, handmade pottery was developed, along with more advanced stone axes that enabled people to clear vast forests. Thanks to tools like that, the sizes of these Neolithic communities ranged from thousands to as few as a hundred, and they spread across the world with a variety of cultures and languages. One aspect these cultures had in common was that they relied on similar tools made of stone, wood, and bone.

Despite the fact some Neolithic communities grew to considerable sizes, they’re typically not considered when people think of the first ancient civilizations or the first major cities. This meant that when German archaeologists discovered the archaeological site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey in the 1990s, it created an academic firestorm that is still raging. Far from being just another settlement, Göbekli Tepe has been described as the world’s first temple and perhaps one of the locations where human civilization began. Subsequent archaeological work at Göbekli Tepe has revealed that the site was a spiritual center for the local population during a time when humans were undergoing a transition as hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic Period to a more sedentary lifestyle in the Neolithic Period, more than 10,000 years ago. Further research in the disciplines of anthropology, religion, and history indicate that the activity at Göbekli Tepe subsequently set the tone for elements of Neolithic and Bronze Age religion and ideology in the Near East, especially in Anatolia (roughly equivalent with modern Turkey).

Although many elements of Göbekli Tepe’s history remain an enigma, and probably will in the future due to the nature of the source material, the relatively recent work at the site has helped historians speculate about how Near Eastern people lived in the Mesolithic Period, how those lifestyles evolved, and how they contributed to the history of the era.

©2023 Charles River Editors (P)2023 Charles River Editors
Ancient Civilization Ancient History
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

What listeners say about Göbekli Tepe

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 2 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    0
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

very interesting but dry as sand

the story and concept is really cool and def drew me in and kept me listening but was so dry felt almost fell asleep a few times had to revisit it in parts.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!