Topic
6 facts from 2 episodes, in date order. These are what speakers said on the shows, each linked to the moment it was said. They aren't independently verified.
12,800 years ago
Hancock says the settlement of Abu Hureyra, within 150 miles of Göbekli Tepe, shows impact evidence and was destroyed about 12,800 years ago.
“That was a a settlement within 150 miles of Gobekli Tepe, and it was hit 12,800 years ago, and it was obliterated.”
11,600 years ago
Hancock says Göbekli Tepe was in use from roughly 11,600 years ago until it was deliberately buried about 10,400 years ago.
“It stood from roughly 11,600 years ago to about 10,400 years ago to about 8,400 B. C.”
1960s
Hancock says American archaeologists surveyed the hill at Göbekli Tepe in the 1960s and abandoned it, thinking the cut stone was Byzantine.
“there was a survey of that pot-bellied hill in the nineteen sixties by, um, some American archaeologists.”
Undated
Jacobsen describes Gobekli Tepe in Turkey as the oldest known archaeological site, built by hunter-gatherers about 12,000 years ago.
“there is the oldest known civilization in the world. 12,000 years ago, a group of hunter-gatherers built this site.”
Undated
Hancock says Göbekli Tepe's significance was recognized only after the German Archaeological Institute and Klaus Schmidt began excavating it.
“it wasn't until the German Archaeological Institute got involved, and particularly Klaus Schmidt, who I think was a genius, had real insight into this”
Undated
Hancock says Enclosure D at Göbekli Tepe holds the two largest pillars, about eighteen feet tall and roughly twenty tons each.
“enclosure D, which contains the two largest upright megaliths, about eighteen feet tall and reckoned to weigh somewhere in the range of twenty tons”
Episodes