5,000 Years OLDER than Gobekli Tepe: 16,500-Year-Old Animal Statues Discovered in Turkey!

Hello everybody and welcome to Ancient Architects. Please subscribe to the channel for regular content on ancient architecture as well as all the latest news from the world of archaeology. We look at the animal statues, figurines and relief carvings found at places like Gobekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe and Saberc and are taken aback by their intricate beauty and incredible age. A people living between 10 and 12,000 years ago were creating amazing works of art, thousands of years before the pyramids and Stonehenge were constructed. And now picture this, there's another site in Turkey where animal figurines are being found, including 25 tortoises carved from limestone and they're thousands and thousands of years older than Gobekli Tepe with some of them dating back to 16,500 years ago. To put that into perspective, they belong to a time just after the last glacial maximum and before the Bolling-Alarod warming phase that preceded the Younger Dryas. Yes, these objects are truly ancient. At this time in prehistoric Turkey, temperatures were below modern levels, maybe 4 to 6 degrees lower. The landscape was generally much more open with extensive grassland and instead of extensive forests there were patches of woodland. Juniper, almond type shrubs and pistachio woodland species were also beginning to expand. Generally speaking, 16,500 years ago Turkey was a cold, relatively wet, steppe landscape with substantial seasonal moisture. Of course, with a landmass the size of Turkey there would have been geographic variations so this is very much a general overview to set the scene. In this video we're looking at a site in northwestern Turkey called Gedikaya Cave, a place of human occupation in the Epipaleolithic period and also in the later Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. The Epipaleolithic was a time of increased human mobility, likely because conditions were now improving after the last glacial maximum. During this time, caves functioned as places of shelter or refuge for local hunter-gatherers and transient populations. And of course, where there's human shelter there's often evidence of their presence. In the past decade, Gedikaya Cave has been a site of numerous prehistoric archaeological finds and just recently it made the news as incredibly 25 tortoise sculptures were discovered. But before we get to that I'll give you a brief background of the site. The cave is located around 1km south-southwest of Enhiza in the Balecik province of northwestern Turkey. It's 350m above sea level on the northern slopes of Enkaya, a rocky hill in the Sakarya river valley, around 180m from the river. The slopes in front of the cave contain the remains of a Hellenistic necropolis and medieval structures are found 500m to the north. The cave itself is around 180m in length. It's north-facing entrance is 6m wide and 3.5m in height, with the ceiling rising to 20m in height as you walk through it. The floor is littered with fallen rocks and a partially blocked natural cavity lets in light and ventilation as well as bats, which now occupy the cave. It was first explored in 1960 and then again in 2001, but its archaeological significance was not reported until 2017, when it was clear that illegal excavations had already been taking place. Salvage excavations began in 2019 and the material uncovered spans thousands of years of human history. There was occupation in the 8th millennium BC as well as the 7th, 6th and 5th, through the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods of history. But the oldest layers belong to the Epipaleolithic, with periodic occupation from 13,000 to 16,500 years ago. These older layers consist of a yellow clay deposit extending throughout the entire entrance corridor, and to this day it's not been fully excavated. Above this layer there's 15cm of ash deposits and no artefacts of any kind are found inside it. It seems to mark the end of Epipaleolithic occupation. So we're looking at a very important site in Turkey, some 5,000 years older than Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe, and some of the finds discovered so far are astonishing. Around 20m from the entrance, experts found a circular silo-like feature and blades, microliths and other flint tools were found. In front of the silo were two natural niches in the cave wall and each contained stacks of animal remains and mortals. These deposits were dated back to around 13,100 BC. The bones come from wild goats and sheep, there were deer antlers, tortoise shells and eagle claw and mollusc shells. A wild goat horn was found upright against the back wall of the southern niche. This unusual selection of animal remains is surely by design, it seems to have a ritual origin. It reminded me of the burial of the Natuvian shaman discovered in the Near East. I've linked a video to this find in the description below. There was also a stone slab, possibly a prepared surface, and this was found in front of the niches, as well as a stone shape like a seated animal. Although cruder than later examples seen in the pre-pottery Neolithic, there are clear indications of intentional carving, such as grooved claws on one paw, a find that reinforces the idea the niches had a ritual significance. Close by was also this find that's been interpreted as a pendant, and also an equid phalanx bone believed by the experts to be a symbolic object. This specific bone is said to resemble anthropomorphic forms we see in the later pre-pottery Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods in the northern Levant and southeastern Anatolia. 40 metres from the cave entrance and we find even more interesting artefacts. There's a semicircular double row of carefully selected stones forming an arrangement around 1.2 metres in diameter. At the centre of this semicircle is a large stalagmite, 1 metre high and 40 centimetres in width, and it was left in its natural position. Experts believe it resembles a phallus. This area further back in the cave dates back to around 11,200 BC, which for reference is a couple of thousand years older than Gobekli Tepe. We also find modified bones, modified to create possible profiles of humans or birds. One object looks to have a pierced eye, suggesting a two-dimensional artistic style, just like we see on the pillars of the later Gobekli Tepe. Similar finds are also found in upper Paleolithic sites in Europe. More objects, this time made from limestone and depicting animals or humans were also found, one of which resembles the profile of an elephant or mammoth. It's reminiscent of the animal figurines we find in Vogelherd cave in Germany. And now we come to the most recent news from just a few weeks ago, where 25 tortoise figurines have been discovered in Gedikaya cave, with the oldest dating back to 16,500 years ago. The 25 figurines all have an epipaleolithic origin but range from 16,500 to 13,200 years ago and are yet more evidence for parts of the cave having ritual or symbolic significance. They're made from limestone but some have a coating of clay. Another tortoise figurine was also found in a previous excavation. The largest example discovered so far measures 30 by 20 centimetres. Generally speaking we're not looking at fine art, they're not carefully finished, they're roughly shaped and some even look to be partially completed. Several of these figurines were found to be inserted vertically into the soil and they were placed around circular or curved stone arrangements, meaning we are likely looking at ritual deposits. So this specific cave does have incredible historic significance, with human activity stretching back from the epipaleolithic with intermittent activity, through to the Neolithic and Chalcolithic with later Hellenistic activity as well. But why were there so many tortoises? What was their significance? As mentioned, the niches in the cave contain tortoise shell remains and now there are 26 tortoise carvings, many of which were specifically arranged. The meaning of the tortoise to these distant communities is uncertain and although it is clear they were important animals for many, many ancient cultures around the world, there is no evidence the animal carried a single universal meaning across different societies, although for many they clearly had a ritual significance. As mentioned, a large number of tortoise shells were found in the burial of Natuvian shaman in the Near East, as well as other carefully selected animal parts, just like we see in the niches of Gedikaya cave. At the Natuvian site of Wadi Hamaid 27 in Jordan, which I've made a video about in the past and linked below, there is a very distinct tortoise shell-like pattern etched on some architectural remains. There is also an engraved tortoise shell boulder at the Paleolithic Mano cave site in Israel. This carving has been dated between 37,000 and 35,000 years ago, showing just how long this animal has been important to human societies. Some believe that the hill in which we find the cave is shaped like a tortoise shell and so the figurines may not just be representing the animal, but also the landscape in miniature. Others say the tortoise represents longevity and endurance, and that's because of the animal's long lifespan, and that's why it was held sacred. Right now the importance of the tortoise is open to debate and discussion, but what we know for sure is that Gedikaya cave was far more than a temporary shelter for wandering nomads. In this cave are carefully arranged stone features, carefully collated and deposited animal remains, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic objects, and now from this excavation season, 25 tortoise statues and statuettes. There was clearly a deep meaning behind the artefacts we find at this site, and this cave as a whole was probably considered to be a very sacred space to our prehistoric ancestors.