Early Neolithic · About 9500-8000 BC

Göbekli Tepe: the first monuments

About 11,500 years ago people raised rings of giant carved pillars on a hilltop in southeastern Anatolia. Students find out who built Göbekli Tepe, and why it changed ideas about how farming and towns began.

Teach it live New Open on the map
Length
45 minutes
Ages
12–15
On the map
3 steps, 9500 BC to 8000 BC
Live lesson
7 rounds, 3 on the map
Worksheet
Two A4 pages, with Classroom
You need
A projector; phones for live

Live lesson · new in Classroom

Teach it live. The class answers on their phones.

Put the board on the projector. Students join with a six-digit code, no account needed, and tap the map: where was the frontier, where did the grain come from. Their pins drop in together when you reveal, and the closest student takes the round.

€19 per month: every lesson live, every worksheet, cancel anytime. Rome at its height runs live for free.

A live lesson on the projector: the class's pins on the map around Alexandria, the closest students listed beside it A student's phone: the question and a map to tap
7 rounds
3 places to find on the map, quiz questions, a class vote and a one-line answer.
About 15 minutes
Run it as the map step, or to open the discussion. You move on with the space bar.
A report
Every answer, per student and per round, to read back or print after the lesson.
1

Introduction

5 min

Read aloud

About 11,500 years ago people raised rings of giant carved pillars on a hilltop in southeastern Anatolia. Students find out who built Göbekli Tepe, and why it changed ideas about how farming and towns began.

By the end of the lesson, students can

  • Locate Göbekli Tepe and place it on a timeline with later monuments.
  • Describe the T-shaped pillars and their carvings.
  • Explain why Göbekli Tepe changed ideas about the start of farming.
2

Explore the map

12 min

Project the map, or let students follow on their own devices. Each step opens the map at the right year and place.

a

9500 BC

The hills of the north

Open the map in 9500 BC and zoom in on southeastern Anatolia, north of the Syrian plain. Göbekli Tepe sits on a hilltop near Şanlıurfa. Which two great rivers flow to the west and east?

Open this view on the map
b

9500 BC

Wild wheat country

Look east of Göbekli Tepe to the volcanic Karacadağ hills. Geneticists traced one of the first farmed wheats, einkorn, to wild plants here. Why would monument builders need a lot of food?

Open this view on the map
c

8000 BC

The farming arc

Jump to 8000 BC and zoom out. Find the areas labeled as Neolithic farmers, from the Levant to Anatolia. How far is Göbekli Tepe from these early farming lands?

Open this view on the map
3

Class discussion

14 min

Pick two or three. They run from what happened to why it mattered.

  1. Göbekli Tepe was built before pottery, before writing and before farming was fully established. Why did that surprise archaeologists?
  2. Moving pillars that weigh several tons takes many people. How could hunter-gatherers organize that?
  3. The pillars show foxes, snakes, boars and vultures. Why might people carve dangerous animals?
  4. Klaus Schmidt called it a temple, but later finds suggest people also lived there. How do archaeologists decide what a building was for?
  5. Some say "first came the temple, then the city". Could gatherings for ritual have pushed people toward farming?
4

Game round

9 min

No Rule History ruler lived this early. Play one round as Hatshepsut, who built a great temple at Deir el-Bahari, and compare: she could order thousands of workers. How could the builders of Göbekli Tepe raise their pillars without a ruler, as far as we know?

Open Rule History
5

Worksheet

5 min

This worksheet comes with Classroom

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