Oldest manmade place of worship

In 1994, a team directed by Klaus Schmidt of the University of Heidelberg began to excavate the site of Gobekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey. A series of six stone circles were uncovered, built with 9-ft megaliths – 1.5 times the height of the average modern man. The circles were surrounded by stonewalls and included T-shaped pillars carved with animals found sacrificed on the site. No signs of human habitation were found, making Gobekli Tepe a purely ritual site. The circles were Neolithic, dating to around 10,000 BC. This was 7,000 years before the construction of Stonehenge. At 12,000 years old, they predate the advent of agriculture – making Gobekli Tepe the world’s oldest manmade temple complex. The temple’s floor of burnt lime and clay is the earliest example of its type. Klaus Schmidt has estimated that the building of the temple would have involved 500 people – suggesting near-eastern Neolithic society was more socially structured and organized than previously believed.