Gobekli Tepe, Turkey

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

"This site with its massive, perfectly-crafted and carved megaliths can only be the work of a culture that was already ancient and deeply experienced with large-scale architectural projects 12,000 years ago, yet prior to Gobekli Tepe itself archaeology recognises no such culture.

The background, the evolution, the trial and error, the learning processes that must lie behind Gobekli Tepe are all... missing. So where is that missing background? What will it reveal about the lost past of humanity? Is it simply a matter of an unprecedented, unexplained and completely unpredicted level of social organisation amongst upper palaeolithic "hunter-gatherers", as archaeologists are now scrambling to claim, or could we be looking at a project of the survivors of a lost civilisation brought to ruin in the global chaos that surrounded the end of the last Ice Age?

I will be spending a great part of my time in the coming year seeking answers to these questions, but, whatever the result, it is already completely clear that Gobekli Tepe is a game changer. The Pandora's box of prehistory has been opened and the past will never look quite the same again."

- Graham Hancock

www.ancientexplorers.com