Introducing Göbekli Tepe to psychology.


Göbekli Tepe is the name of a remarkable archaeological site that challenges long held assumptions about the Neolithic Revolution, that is, our first transition from hunters and gatherers into settled farmers. Instead of permanent settlements and agriculture being prerequisite for religion, social specialization, and writing, evidence from Göbekli Tepe suggests that may be backward, and that such psychological changes are what afforded sedentism and agriculture. Three aspects of the site—who built it, its use as a “temple,” and evidence of the earliest known proto-writings—are discussed to illustrate Göbekli Tepe’s relevance to psychology. In turn, the social psychological phenomenon of storytelling is used to illustrate psychology’s potential relevance to cognitive archeology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)