Editing Göbekli Tepe (section)

==Interpretation==
{{Update|section|date=November 2022}}
Klaus Schmidt's view was that Göbekli Tepe was a stone-age mountain sanctuary.{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}} He suggested it was a central location for a [[Veneration of the dead|cult of the dead]] and that the carved animals are there to protect the dead.{{Citation needed|date=November 2022}} Butchered bones found in large numbers from the local game such as deer, gazelle, pigs, and geese have been identified as refuse from food hunted and cooked or otherwise prepared for the congregants.{{sfn|Peters|Schmidt|2004|p=207}} Zooarchaeological analysis shows that gazelle were only seasonally present in the region, suggesting that events such as rituals and feasts were likely timed to occur during periods when game availability was at its peak.{{sfn|Lang et al.|2013}} Schmidt saw the construction of Göbekli Tepe as contributing to the later development of urban civilization.{{sfn|Schmidt|2000|}}[[File:UrfaMuseumGöbekli.jpg|thumb|Steles and sculptures from Göbekli Tepe in [[Şanlıurfa Museum]] ]]

Schmidt also speculated on the belief systems of the groups that created Göbekli Tepe, based on comparisons with other shrines and settlements. He presumed [[shamanism|shamanic]] practices and suggested that the T-shaped pillars represent human forms, perhaps ancestors, whereas he saw a fully articulated belief in deities as not developing until later, in [[Mesopotamia]], that was associated with extensive temples and palaces. This corresponds well with an ancient [[Sumer]]ian belief that agriculture, [[animal husbandry]], and weaving were brought to humans from the sacred mountain [[Ekur]], which was inhabited by [[Annuna]] deities, very ancient deities without individual names. Schmidt identified this story as a primeval oriental myth that preserves a partial memory of the emerging Neolithic.{{sfn|Schmidt|2006|pp=216–21}} It is apparent that the animal and other images give no indication of organized violence, i.e. there are no depictions of hunting raids or wounded animals, and the pillar carvings generally ignore game on which the society depended, such as deer, in favour of formidable creatures such as lions, snakes, spiders, and scorpions.<ref name="Smithsonian2008" />{{sfn|Schmidt|2006|pp=193–4, 218}}{{sfn|Peters|Schmidt|2004|p=209}} Expanding on Schmidt's interpretation that round enclosures could represent sanctuaries, Gheorghiu's semiotic interpretation reads the Göbekli Tepe iconography as a cosmogonic map that would have related the local community to the surrounding landscape and the cosmos.{{sfn|Gheorghiu|2015}}

The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, "similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and [[totem pole]]s."{{sfn|Banning|2011|}} It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one.{{sfn|Mann|2011|p=48}} According to Rémi Hadad, in recent years "the interpretative enthusiasm that sought to see Göbekli Tepe as a regional ceremonial centre where nomadic populations would periodically converge is giving way to a vision that is more in line with what is known about other large Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites, where ritual and profane functions coexist."{{sfn|Hadad|2022}} For example, the discovery of domestic buildings and rainwater harvesting systems has forced a revision of the 'temple' narrative.{{sfn|Clare|2020}}