"Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the world's oldest temple."
I have some questions about the dating of the site. According to the article, he cross-dated artifacts from the site with "similar" ones found at a nearby site with known dates. While this is a standard archaeological practice, it's not entirely conclusive. Artifacts of a known age do not immediately make the proximate stone structures the same age. I would like some more conclusive dating that shows when the megaliths themselves were erected before I accept that it "upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization."
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