Historical Gobekli Tepe web site meets conspiracy theories — and Joe Rogan : NPR

GOBEKLI TEPE, Turkey — Tour information Sabahattin Alkan herds curious vacationers by the scorching afternoon warmth, luring them with the promise of one thing far stranger than your typical trip snap.

“Over right here on the suitable, you see a spaceship landed lately,” he says with a smile.

He is joking. Principally. However extra on that in a minute.

We’re within the Urfa plain, a dry, dusty stretch about 25 miles from the Turkish-Syrian border.

That “spaceship” is definitely only a curved roof. However what lies beneath the dome has sparked a long time of thriller, curiosity — and conspiracy.

“It is fairly an attention-grabbing place, truly,” Alkan assures his viewers.

He is speaking about Gobekli Tepe, one of many oldest identified archaeological websites on Earth, relationship again practically 12,000 years.

Alkan factors to T-shaped limestone pillars carved with human arms, palms resting on stomachs, and wild animals: lions, foxes, boars, scorpions and birds amongst them.

Klaus Schmidt, the German archaeologist who led the location’s first main excavations within the Nineteen Nineties, known as Gobekli Tepe “the world’s oldest temple,” theorizing that it introduced collectively nomadic hunter-gatherers from throughout the Center East.

Right this moment, that view has shifted. Some now interpret it as a ceremonial gathering web site, whereas others counsel it functioned as a social hub the place rituals helped bind collectively early communities.

Emilie Salvesen, a tour operator visiting the location, says the query of whether or not there was a religious part to the location nonetheless fascinates her.

“Did they expertise the divine in the best way that we would consider it at present?” she asks, gesturing towards one of many inscribed pillars. “I think about it was rather more existential.”

The reality? Nonetheless principally a thriller.

Scientists are often adjusting their hypotheses concerning the web site’s supposed objective. And it isn’t a simple investigation.

“No matter we inform now, I do not know if it is going to be correct info or not, as a result of perhaps our concept will change in one other 50 years,” Alkan says. “We’re making an attempt to foretell 12,000 years in the past.”

However that uncertainty has thrown the door extensive open for one particular group searching for solutions: conspiracy theorists.

Conspiracy theories take root — with assist from Joe Rogan

Graham Hancock, a British journalist and star of the controversial Netflix sequence Historical Apocalypse, has theorized — with out empirical proof — that Gobekli Tepe was constructed by a “misplaced civilization” worn out by an Ice Age cataclysm.

As soon as confined to the fringes, theories like Hancock’s have gained mainstream traction — thanks largely to Joe Rogan, whose massively standard podcast has change into a platform for various takes on science and historical past.

In November 2024, one other Gobekli Tepe conspiracy theorist, Jimmy Corsetti, a YouTuber and self-described “historic historical past investigator,” appeared on Rogan’s podcast, bringing with him a slew of speculations and wild theories concerning the web site.

Amongst them, Corsetti accused archaeologists of deliberately dragging their toes and hiding key discoveries concerning the web site.

“We’re speaking about pillars buried in filth. It is 2024. Do not inform me we do not have the know-how!” Corsetti informed Rogan.

Corsetti accused archaeologists of transferring slowly on objective, maybe to protect the thriller and maintain the curious vacationers coming.

Solely a small proportion of the location has been dug up since excavations started within the mid-Nineteen Nineties. And with Rogan’s platform behind them, theorists like Corsetti have helped flip that sluggish progress right into a supply of worldwide suspicion.

A scientist responds

Lee Clare, an archaeologist who has led the excavation web site for over a decade, has heard all of it — together with the outlandish theories.

Talking from his workplace in Istanbul, with the Bosporus glinting behind him, Clare shrugs off the conspiracists.

“A few of these guys go to the location for half an hour and suppose they will clarify the entire web site,” he says of the budding conspiracy theorists.

Relating to Gobekli Tepe, Clare says archaeologists aren’t hiding something. They’re making an attempt to guard it.

“You possibly can’t simply bulldoze a web site to get every thing out. That is the improper method,” he says.

In different phrases, archaeology strikes slowly for a purpose. Each layer tells a part of the story. And when you dig by every layer, it is gone for good, as are its secrets and techniques.

“Why would I be so egocentric as to dig the complete web site … and take these potentialities away from future generations of archaeologists?”

Clare says he grew up enjoying with toy dinosaurs and all the time wished to be an archaeologist. He by no means anticipated to finish up the goal of conspiracy theories. However right here we’re.

“It goes onto the non-public degree as nicely,” he says, which is why he deleted his social media accounts.

“I need to keep sane on this state of affairs.”

12,000 years of storytelling

The actual hazard right here is not simply misinformation, in accordance with Clare. It is that these competing narratives threat drowning out the actual story, the one scientists have spent a long time making an attempt to correctly decode.

“There are loads of narratives on the market about Gobekli Tepe. The query is, whose narrative is right? And I believe we’ll by no means know.”

One of many few issues scientists do know for positive?

Gobekli Tepe is proof that people have been storytellers relationship again at the least 12,000 years.

The carvings on the T-shaped pillars — the lions, foxes and palms — they’re all tales.

We simply do not know what they are saying. Gobekli Tepe stands out as the first place people come collectively to share which means.

And like all good tales, this one’s nonetheless open to interpretation.