Gobekli Tepe and the Origins of Science

Göbekli Tepe and the Origins of Science

How a prehistoric monument may change our understanding of the origins of astronomy, writing, civilisation, and science

1. The Discovery

On a limestone ridge overlooking the Harran Plain in southeastern Turkey stands one of the most remarkable archaeological sites ever discovered: Göbekli Tepe. Its massive stone pillars were erected more than 11,500 years ago, making them older than Stonehenge by six millennia and older than the Egyptian pyramids by at least seven (Deitrich, 2013). They also predate pottery, metallurgy, writing and, perhaps most surprisingly, established agriculture.

For much of the twentieth century, archaeologists believed they understood the sequence that led to civilization. Farming was established first. Reliable food production allowed permanent settlements to develop. Villages became towns, populations grew, labour became specialised and, eventually, societies acquired the resources needed to build monuments, invent writing, develop mathematics and study the heavens systematically.

Göbekli Tepe overturns that story. It shows that monument building was established before, or perhaps alongside, agriculture. Communities living just before the dawn of the Neolithic quarried limestone pillars weighing many tonnes, transported them across the hilltop and erected them in carefully planned circular enclosures. Whatever social organisation made this possible, it was far more sophisticated than archaeologists had imagined for this period.

Even more startlingly, many of the pillars are covered with finely carved animals—foxes, birds, snakes, scorpions, wild boar and others—together with a smaller collection of geometric symbols whose meanings remained elusive. These carvings were often interpreted as symbolic or religious art, a reasonable view given the apparent ceremonial nature of the site.

But, what if some of these carvings were intended not simply to decorate the monuments, but to communicate information? Klauss Schmidt, the site's original lead excavator thought this was likely (Schmidt, 2011), but could not unlock their meaning. However, over the past decade, a new and remarkable interpretation of one pillar in particular—Pillar 43, often known as the Vulture Stone—has emerged. And it is based on astronomy (see Figure 1).

Fig. 1. A sketch of Pillar 43 at Gobekli Tepe alongside an image from the archaeoastronomical software Stellarium. The teapot asterism of Sagittarius is highlighted in yellow.

2. The Puzzle of Pillar 43

Among the many decorated pillars uncovered at Göbekli Tepe, one has attracted particular attention. Pillar 43, probably the most elaborate of all the pillars uncovered so far, presents an intricate composition of birds, a scorpion, a canid, several other animals, circular and semicircular symbols, and an unusual sequence of V-shaped marks. The symbols appear to be deliberately chosen and placed as though each contributes to a larger design.

The most immediately recognisable figure is a scorpion. Above it stands a large bird supporting a prominent circular disk. Nearby are another bird grasping a snake, a dog-like animal, several quadrupeds and three semicircular symbols arranged across the upper part of the pillar.

The reason why these particular animals should appear together is not immediately obvious. Possibly, they represent creatures of symbolic or religious importance, or they tell a myth now lost to history.

But another possibility should also be considerd. For thousands of years people have imagined the stars as animals. The familiar constellations of Scorpius, Sagittarius, Pisces, Leo and Capricornus are only a few examples of a much older human tendency to organise the night sky into recognisable figures. Different cultures chose different animals, but the underlying principle is universal: the stars become easier to remember, and therefore more useful, when they are associated with familiar forms.

Suppose, then, that the animals on Pillar 43 instead represent constellations. Given that Göbekli Tepe features several megalithic circles, and that many ancient megalithic circles have been connected with astronomy (e.g. Stonehenge), this possibility should be considered favourbaly. Several astronomical correspondences immediately become apparent.

The scorpion naturally resembles Scorpius. The large bird carrying the disk occupies a position comparable with the "teapot" asterism of Sagittarius (Burley, 2013). The canid lies where Lupus appears in the sky. Another bird grasping a snake recalls Ophiuchus, traditionally associated with a serpent (Hancock, 2015). And the three figures next to the semi-circles at the top of the pillar bear similarities to Pisces, Gemini and Virgo.

Of course, these individual correspondenses could be coincidental. But when considered together, they recall a particular pattern in the sky far more closely than would be expected if they had been selected independently.

Furthermore, several of the animal symbols  have a specific arrangement around the central disk. If that disk represents the Sun, then the pillar might depict more than just a straightforward picture of the sky.

Earlier research (Sweatman and Tsikritsis, 2017) showed that this arrangement corresponds particularly well with the sky on the summer solstice around 10,950 BCE, close to the beginning of the Younger Dryas, a period of abrupt climatic change recognised throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Therefore, Pillar 43 could function as a kind of date stamp for an extraordinary event.

The date stamp and precession

To see how this works, we first need to understand the phenomenon of precession of the equinoxes.

Anyone who watches the heavens carefully over the course of a year quickly learns that the Sun picks out a regular path through the zodiacal constellations - this can be inferred by observations shortly before sunrise and shortly after sunset. Every year it reaches the same solsticial and equinoctial constellations, marking the changing seasons. But there is another, much slower cycle that only becomes apparent over many generations.

The Earth's axis slowly wobbles, rather like a spinning top. As a result, the solsticial and equinoctial constellations drift gradually through the background zodiac. Astronomers call this phenomenon the precession of the equinoxes.

The movement is extraordinarily slow: one full cycle takes almost 26,000 years. Nevertheless, even within one lifetime this motion is noticable.

By mapping the constellations against the sun on a specific day, like the summer solstice, the arrangement effectively records one position within the long precessional cycle. In other words, it functions as a date stamp. The three animals next to the semi-circles at the top of the pillar are then likely to represent the three other solsticial and equinoctial constellations in the year (Monk, 2016).

Gurshtein, a russian astronomer, had already predicted a similar kind of zodiacal dating, which uses the four cardinal constellations only, might have existed in the middle Neolithic period (Gurshtein, 2005). But Pillar 43 appears to display an even more sophisticated design at a much earlier time by mapping the precise location of the sun against the constellations.

What's so important about this date?

There is a prominent, but contraversial, scientific proposal that the Younger Dryas climate change was triggerred, and perhaps reinforced, by a catastrophic cosmic impact with a fragmented comet (Firestone et al., 2007).

Therefore, the astronomical interpretation of Pillar 43 suggests that it could record the date of an epoch-defining catastrophe. An event so devastating that it demands to be recorded and remembered for generations. Then, Pillar 43 would function as a grand memorial stone, much like those we continue to erect today.

Indeed, Pillar 43 could be telling us why Göbekli Tepe itself was constructed. Perhaps its builders were highly motivated by a new belief system that was also triggered by the Younger Dryas impact (Sweatman, 2019). An event of this magnitude would have created widespread and intense fear and wonder, sufficient to have initiated a renewed interest in the cosmos, questions about existence and powerful celestial beings.

But that interpretation has been contested by many. Both the interpretation of the animal figures as constellations similar to the Greek ones we still use, and the overall design as a date stamp, are thought by some to be far too early in the archaeological record. This is because both the Greek constellations and the phenomenon of precession of the equinoxes, on which this astronomical interpretation rests, were thought to have been creations of classical Greece at least 7500 years after Göbekli Tepe was abandoned.

Moreover, the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis is hotly debated. So, this astronomical interpretation of Pillar 43 intrudes into many scientific debates where it is not welcomed by many. Not only does Göbekli Tepe upend conventional thoughts about the origins of civilisation, but it potentially re-writes the history of astronomy and contributes to our understanding of how major geological periods may relate to Earth's place in the cosmos.

But Pillar 43 has even more extraordinary secrets to reveal. Consider now its geometric symbols.

3. The Second Clue: A Calendar Hidden in Plain Sight

Running across the top of the pillar is a sequence of V-shaped marks (see Figure 2). Beneath them are eleven small square symbols, followed by another group of V-shapes that lead the eye towards the large circular disk at the centre of the composition. The same disk that is already thought to represent the sun.

Fig. 2. The solar-lunar calendar count on Pillar 43 (photo courtesy of Alistair Coombs).

For years these geometric symbols received relatively little attention. Yet they present a puzzle every bit as intriguing as the animals below them. Are they counting something?

Indeed, they do look like a tally. The most natural candidate is time. Alexander Marshack in the 1970s thought that many marked sticks and other artifacts from the Palaeolithic period were also counting time, often the lunar cycle, so this idea has precedence (Marshack, 1972). 

Following the Count

The sequence begins with fourteen pairs of V-shaped marks with alternating vertical orientation. The design concludes with a single V on the right, giving a total that naturally reads as either twenty-nine or thirty. It's twenty-nine if you count 15 upright Vs in one direction and 14 upside-down Vs back again. But it's 30 if you only count the upright Vs in both directions.

That number is immediately interesting because it corresponds to the length of a lunar month (Gordon, 2021). In fact, the Moon follows a cycle averaging about 29½ days. Since antiquity, many cultures have alternated months of twenty-nine and thirty days to keep their calendars aligned with the changing phases of the Moon.

If the upper row represents one lunar month, then the eleven squares beneath acquire an obvious role. They probably indicate that the same lunar cycle should be repeated eleven more times (Sweatman, 2024).

Twelve lunar months amount to 354 days.

Below the squares lies another sequence of ten V-shaped marks.

Adding these brings the total to 364 days.

Directly beneath the count sits the large circular disk.

One more day completes a solar year of 365 days.

Suddenly, the entire geometric design becomes clear (Murdoch, 2024). It appears to record the cycles of the Moon and the Sun within a single visual construction in the form of a summation. Indeed, the calendar appears to encode a basic arithmetic:

(29 + 30)/2 * (1 + 11) + 10 + 1 = 365

If this interpretation is correct, the key question is why is it there? There is no obvious reason to carve an elaborate lunar-solar calculation onto one face of a monumental pillar already covered with symbolic imagery. The calendar appears unnecessary. Unless, that is, its purpose was never to function as a practical calendar.

Solving the Puzzle

Imagine encountering Pillar 43 without knowing the meaning of its symbols. You notice the animals and circles and the strange rows of V-shaped marks. But, it's not immediately obvious that the central disk represents the Sun rather than the Moon, a star, an egg, a head or anything else.

But then you begin counting.

The upper sequence produces the length of a lunar month. The middle section repeats it twelve times. The lower sequence completes the year, minus one day. The final day is supplied by the disk itself. The conclusion is obvious.

The disk almost certainly represents the Sun on a special day in the year.

Specifically, it represents the completion of the solar year - perhaps the summer solstice. So, the calendar tells the reader how to interpret one of the pillar's most important symbols. This, perhaps, is its true purpose. Rather than serving as a functioning calendar, the sequence serves as a device for reading the monument correctly: the disk is the Sun on a special day in the year.

Another Pillar in the same enclosure, Pillar 19, reinforces this conclusion. Under the horizontal "head" of this giant five-metre stone T-pillar is a circle next to a crescent (see Figure 3). Although the circle in this case has a hole in it, this pair have an obvious interpretation as the Sun and crescent Moon. These are popular motifs among many cultures. Indeed, astronomy is generally held to be important for many shamanistic cultures, and the considered view among the site's excavators is that its symbolism exhibits many of the hallmarks of shamanism. So an astronomical reading of its symbols should be considered favourably.

Fig. 3. Possible Sun and Moon motifs at the top of Pillar 19, in the same enclosure as Pillar 43 (photo courtesy of Alistair Coombs).

A Stone Checksum

Computer scientists use the term checksum to describe a piece of information whose primary purpose is not to carry new data, but to verify that the rest of a message has been interpreted correctly. The analogy is not exact, but it is helpful.

The geometric symbols on Pillar 43 appear to function in much the same way. They lead the reader towards an inescapable conclusion about the meaning of the central disk. Once that conclusion is reached, the astronomical imagery surrounding it becomes much easier to understand.

Two Clues Become One

The date-stamp interpretation and the calendar interpretation are mutually supporting. Earlier we saw that the arrangement of animals appears to identify a particular date. But that interpretation depends on recognising the central disk as the Sun.

The calendar now provides an entirely different route to exactly the same conclusion.

So the calendar explains how to identify the Sun and, therefore, how to read the astronomical date. The animal carvings explain when the event occurred. 

Neither interpretation proves the other. But together they form what philosophers of science call consilience: independent observations converging on a single explanation. That is what makes the astronomical interpretation so compelling. It is solved because two quite different clues appear to fit together with unexpected precision.

4. Why the Calendar Matters

Without the calendar, the date-stamp interpretation remains plausible, even highly likely, but not totally convincing. This is because one can reasonably argue that the central disk symbol could represent something else, and that such extremely early evidence for this kind of astronomical knowledge is just as highly unlikely.

The specific configuration of surrounding animals alone cannot counter that argument with complete confidence. Pillar 19's "Sun and cresent Moon" symbols strengthen the astronomical interpretation considerably, but do not seal the deal.

However, the calendar shows it is almost certainly correct. Its arithmetic naturally terminates at the disk. Once that happens, the interpretation of the disk as the Sun is no longer a weak assumption. It emerges directly from the Pillar itself.

Conversely, the date-stamp interpretation explains something that the calendar alone cannot. Why was such a sophisticated lunar-solar calculation carved onto this particular pillar? If the purpose were merely to record the length of the year, why encode it on Pillar 43. In fact, the calendar occupies exactly the place where it can perform its interpretive role. It guides the reader towards identifying the central disk as the Sun, allowing the rest of the composition to be understood.

The two systems therefore appear to have been designed together.

Solving the combined puzzle

The calendar and the date-stamp should not be viewed as separate discoveries that just happen to occupy the same place on Pillar 43. A better analogy is a crossword puzzle. One answer helps solve another.

The calendar leads naturally to the disk as the Sun.

The Sun makes the constellation map and date stamp more convincing.

The date stamp, in turn, explains why the calendar is present.

Each interpretation increases confidence in the other. This is not circular reasoning. Two largely independent observations—the animal carvings and the geometric symbols—are analysed separately before converging on the same interpretation of the central disk. It is precisely because the two arguments begin from different evidence that their agreement becomes significant.

Beyond Coincidence

Scepticism is entirely appropriate when interpreting prehistoric symbolism. Any single resemblance between an animal and a constellation might be coincidental. Likewise, any isolated numerical pattern risks becoming an exercise in seeing meaning where none exists.

The strength of the proposed interpretation lies in its ability to account simultaneously for features that would otherwise remain unrelated.

Why do the animal symbols resemble a familiar astronomical pattern?

Why do the geometric symbols produce a coherent count of the solar year?

Why does that count terminate exactly at the central disk?

Why does interpreting the disk as the Sun suddenly make sense of both the astronomical imagery and the calendar?

These questions are answered together by the same simple idea.

This kind of convergence is often the hallmark of a successful scientific explanation because it accounts for diverse observations more simply than treating each one separately. This is the essence of Occam's Razor, also called "parsimony" or "explaining power" by scientists. It is the foundation of the scientific method - to explain complex information in a simple way.

That, ultimately, is why the astronomical interpretation of Pillar 43 deserves such careful attention.

5. Before Writing: Recording Knowledge

Art can be interpreted in many different ways. Its meaning is often personal, symbolic or emotional. A carved fox may simply represent a fox. A circle may represent the Sun, or the Moon, or completeness, or any number of other ideas.

Communication is different. For communication to work, symbols must carry reasonably consistent meanings. A reader must be able to recognise that one symbol stands for one idea and another for something else. The more consistent those relationships become, the closer we move towards writing.

More Than Decoration

Modern readers are accustomed to separating pictures from writing. Books contain words; paintings contain images. Ancient societies often made no such distinction.

Egyptian hieroglyphs are pictures. Chinese characters evolved from pictures. Early Mesopotamian writing began as pictures (Encyclopedia Btiannica). In each case, familiar images gradually acquired conventional meanings that allowed increasingly complex ideas to be expressed.

Pillar 43 may represent a much earlier stage in the same process.

The individual carvings remain recognisable as animals and geometric figures, yet together they appear capable of communicating something far more abstract: the relationship between the Sun, the stars and the passage of time. That is why it is more accurate to speak of proto-writing than writing itself.

A Shared Symbolic Vocabulary

If this interpretation were confined to Pillar 43 alone, it would remain difficult to evaluate its importance. Fortunately, similar symbols appear elsewhere (Sweatman, 2020, 2024).

Throughout Göbekli Tepe the same animals recur repeatedly. Foxes. Birds. Snakes. Scorpions. Circular symbols. H-shaped motifs. V-shaped marks. This repetition suggests that the symbols belonged to a shared visual vocabulary rather than representing isolated artistic choices.

Nearby sites strengthen that impression. At Sayburç, only a short distance from Göbekli Tepe and of broadly similar age, reliefs include the familiar Master-of-Animals motif including a V-shaped neck decoration similar to the bird-of-prey on Pillar 43, along with other symbolic imagery recalling themes already apparent at Göbekli Tepe.  The celebrated Urfa Man statue, one of the oldest life-sized human sculptures ever discovered, also bears the distinctive V-shaped mark that appears on Pillar 43. If the interpretation proposed here is correct, this mark may already have carried an accepted symbolic meaning connected with time or a particular day. And at Kutik Tepe, stone jars also display symbols similar to some of those on Pillar 43 (Benz and Bauer, 2015).

Together, these examples suggest that these symbols belonged to a broader symbolic tradition across the region in southern Anatolia at this time.

Echoes Through Time

Several thousand years later, remarkably similar ideas appear to persist across the ancient Near East, typically accompanied by circular or semi-circular motifs.

At Çatalhöyük (~ 6000 - 7000 BCE), the Mistress-of-animals and circular motifs are prominent (see Figure 4). In southeastern Iran (~2500 BCE), the carved stone objects of Jiroft (Figure 5a) with semi-circular handles depict the Master-of-Animals (Counts and Arnold, 2010) flanked by wild creatures in compositions that recall much earlier Anatolian imagery. The famous Uruk Vase (~3500 BCE, Figure 5b) combines animals with semi-circular forms in ways that some scholars have interpreted astronomically (Hartner, 1965). Early proto-cuneiform (~ 3000 BCE, Figure 5c) employs semi-circular signs associated with both the Sun and units of time. Predynastic Egyptian rock art (~ 3500 BCE, Figure 6) likewise preserves combinations of birds, scorpions, serpents and semi-circular symbols that invite comparison with Pillar 43.

Fig. 4. The Mistress-of-animals at Çatalhöyük (from Wikipedia)

Fig. 5. Similar symbols in later cultures in neighbouring regions (a and b from Wikipedia, c from Visible Language by Woods (2010))

Fig. 6. Sketch of the Gebel Djauti rock art, Egytpian desert, discovered by Darnell and Darnell (2002).

Taken together, these examples suggest that a symbolic language linking animals, celestial motifs and time became widespread across the ancient Near East during the following millennia. Göbekli Tepe now appears to stand at, or near, the beginning of that tradition.

Recording Ideas Instead of Objects

The earliest writing systems were developed largely to manage increasingly complex societies. They recorded livestock, grain, taxes and trade.

Pillar 43 appears to pursue a different objective: the heavens. Instead of counting possessions and property, it appears to count days and record time.

That difference may tell us something important about the earliest motivations for symbolic communication. Long before writing became an administrative tool, people may have sought ways to preserve observations that mattered to their understanding of the natural world. And, especially, they may have sought to memorialise a great catastrophe that needed to be recorded and remembered for furture generations.

If so, Pillar 43 represents something profoundly human. It is an attempt to ensure that knowledge survives its creators. It could also be an attempt to warn future generations about the existential dangers they face.

6. Why Göbekli Tepe Matters

The night sky was humanity's first laboratory. Unlike the seasons, which change gradually, or the weather, which can be unpredictable, the movements of the Sun, Moon and stars are highly regular. Anyone who watches them carefully soon notices patterns.

However, knowledge becomes much more powerful when it can be measured and recorded. The astronomical knowledge on Pillar 43 represents precisely that step. No longer is important knowledge about the natural world encoded only in stories or rituals. It is quantified, treated arithmetically and recorded, preserving that knowledge for future generations. Memory alone is fallible, but the information on Pillar 43 is practically permanent. This is clear evidence for scientific ways of thinking.

Furthermore, that knowledge is expressed in an efficient and universal way that should allow anyone with a basic knowledge of astronomy to decode it. Pillar 43 can even be understood by people (like us) far into the future, when stories of the catastrophic events it memorialises and the constellations it uses are changed beyond almost all recognition. It is a very clever device indeed.

Rethinking the Origins of Science

Göbekli Tepe has already transformed archaeology once. Before its discovery, few archaeologists imagined that hunter-gatherer communities could organise construction projects on such a monumental scale. The site demonstrated that they could.

The astronomical interpretation explored here raises the possibility of a second transformation. Perhaps systematic observation of the heavens and arithmetic methods for tracking time were already being developed before farming became fully established. Perhaps symbolic systems capable of preserving complex ideas preceded writing by several millennia.

If so, the familiar sequence of civilization may need to be reconsidered.

Rather than agriculture giving rise to astronomy, mathematics and symbolic communication, some elements of those intellectual traditions may already have been emerging among the very communities making the transition to settled life.

The great stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe lay buried for more than ten thousand years. Only recently have they been uncovered so that we can decode them. What they reveal concerns the origins of scientific thought itself. Did scientific ways of thinking trigger the onset of civilisation? And did they both begin with a Younger Dryas big bang?

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