The first thing that pops out at me is the shear number of massive assumptions this guy makes. The second thing that strikes me that this article doesn't exactly explain how or why they have come to certain conclusions. For example, how did they date this site? Are we just suppose to take it on blind faith (no pun/religiousness intended) that this is old? Where is the science to back that up? I have no doubt that some method was used to date this site, but I would kinda like to know how they determined that its older than the giant pyramids by so many years.
Assumptions that seem ridiculous to me:
--That this site is the exact spot where civilization started.
Thinking a little much of himself isn't he? In my mind, an appropriate assumption to make would be: If we found a site this old here then there were probably more like it throughout the region (or even world). Some bigger/ some smaller. That maybe we weren't "wild roving bands of hunter gatherers" for as long as originally though. But to assume that this ONE spot is THE spot where everything started is ridiculous to me. Especially since he provides no proof to back up the claim.
--That "The ruins are so early that they predate villages, pottery, domesticated animals, and even agriculture—the first embers of civilization. "
Umm, how exactly did he jump to that conclusion? Because he didn't find pots, irrigation canals, pig bones, or blue prints in the temple? I get that you can date pottery and that up until this point no pottery has been discovered to be that old, but c'mon. Doesn't it make sense for them to have some, if not all, of these things? They obviously had a working knowledge of some basic physics and some pretty good hand tools. This temple probably didn't go up over night and probably took quite a few people to make--how did they survive as hunter gatherers in the same area for so long? Some sort of domestication seems reasonable.* What makes him believe that they couldn't also have had pottery or agriculture?
*And I guess thats sort of what he's arguing in his thesis. That they learned to live in one spot in order to build/maintain/worship at this temple. I'll let him flesh out his argument before I comment further on this.
--"The builders of Göbekli Tepe could not write or leave other explanations of their work. Schmidt speculates that nomadic bands from hundreds of miles in every direction were already gathering here for rituals, feasting, and initiation rites before the first stones were cut. The religious purpose of the site is implicit in its size and location. "You don't move 10-ton stones for no reason," Schmidt observes. "Temples like to be on high sites," he adds, waving an arm over the stony, round hilltop. "Sanctuaries like to be away from the mundane world.""
All of that is speculative nonsense. Prove any of that..as if anyone could.
Anyway, it seems like this guy is a little full of himself and likes filling in what little facts he has with fanciful assumptions and speculation to prove an "against-the-grain" thesis.
