"First Temple In The World", Perhaps Only A Condo In The Stone Age: Canadian Science

A Canadian researcher has rocked the world of archeology, after a challenge of high profile complaints - such as the cover story in National Geographic in June - ". Birth of a religion", the ancient site in Turkey is the oldest temple known to the world and represents the

University of Toronto professor Ted ban ruins sensational claim just north of the Syrian border in southern Turkey, could be a single dwelling richly decorated than the sanctuary of the gods.

His performance, plus a long article published this month in the journal Current Anthropology, 11 reasoning challenge 000-year-old site, called Gobekli Tepe, represents a transition from Stone Age hunter-gatherer cultures in a more "civilized" is was formed around religious worship.

The site is richly carved pillars, a surprisingly sophisticated construction for the elderly was the key to the assumption of point of worship and was photographed on the cover of June geographically with the caption: ". First Temple in the world "

Banning, who earlier this year published the results of a site in northern Jordan, which has been described as the oldest cemetery in the Middle East, says in his latest paper Göbekli Tepe large stone monoliths decorated - which has sculptures of foxes, snakes and other images - may represent the artistic flowering of a national structure, where people lived year-round, instead of a holy place for pilgrims who traveled there to worship.

Drawing attention to the new signs of food preparation and manufacturing of tools on the site, the prohibition of the states in a summary of the study that "the presence of this evidence suggests that the site was not, after all, no tenure "and may have been a resident of the population.

"The assumption that" art "or even" monumental "art must be exclusively associated with specialized sanctuaries or other non-domestic space, or to resist control," said Ban. "There is abundant ethnographic evidence significant investments in the decoration of national structures and spaces, to celebrate the exploits of the ancestors, announce a family or head of generosity, or to record openings and other rituals at home. "

Banning told the News Post news it is not yet sure how his theory will be received throughout the archaeological community, while acknowledging that "the reviewers and commentators on the paper was divided in their reactions, some strongly defends the hypothesis temple or at least a modified version of it, others seem to find favor in much of my argument. "

The people who built Gobekli Tepe are known to have been hunter-gatherers, who had just before the development of more sedentary farming communities, which traditionally is a marked increase in so-called civilization.

Denial theories proposed on the site, which relies too much on the religious and social stratification of sophistication with the 'elite' leaders may be missing important features of a society of Gobekli Tepe.

"I think some of the houses of the time could be key to the kind of leadership that have emerged, but if it is automatically assumed that the buildings are impressive temples, rather than homes, you can just ignore that evidence of emerging elites "he said. "Besides, I'm afraid that the assumption of the temple, at least so people tend to interpret more broadly, which tends to impose ideas on the sacred that really are not very appropriate in a Neolithic".

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