DID RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS LEAD TO THE INVENTION OF AGRICULTURE?
DID RELIGIOUS MONUMENTS LEAD TO THE INVENTION OF AGRICULTURE? Elif Batuman had an article (abstract here) in the New Yorker (December 19 and 26) about Gobekli Tepe, an archaeological site which is estimated to be over 11,000 years old. There are no traces of settled habitation at the site, which suggests that hunter-gatherers built the over 60 pillars which make up the site. Batumen points out that this reverses the established view of the invention of agriculture. The established view has been that agriculture had to come first because it provided for what were thought to be the prerequisites for constructing large temples: social hierarchies, division of labor and systems of symbols. The new theory is that hunter-gatherers settled down because of the need to build temples and that the invention of agriculture followed.