For several years, they've been planning to cruise the Mediterranean and make landfall in Turkiye. While ashore, they planned visits to Ephesus, Cappadocia, and Istanbul. He and I share an appreciation for history, and I'll be living vicariously through the lenses of his and his wife's cameras as they wander the streets of these cities so relevant to western history and culture.
Trevor and I were having lunch a while back and this trip came up. I asked if Göbekli Tepe was anywhere on the travel itinerary, but he ruefully smiled and shook his head. Their schedule was already pretty tight.
Göbekli Tepe (Guh-behk-lee Teh-peh) is an archeological site near the Turkish city of Şanlıurfa and contains an entire complex of carved stone monoliths dating back to the Stone Age. The oldest structures are over 11,000 years old, predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years. Furthermore, Göbekli Tepe is larger than Stonehenge, its largest stones are taller and outweigh those at Stonehenge, and they feature carvings on their surface while Stonehenge uprights are unadorned.
The age of Göbekli Tepe is significant. The standing theory is the development of human civilization and its creation of complex religious or social systems first required the rise of agriculture and settled communities. Yet, the foundations of Göbekli Tepe, which required significant social coordination and engineering expertise, were laid when our ancestors were still migratory hunter-gatherers in the New Stone Age.
Göbekli Tepe is forcing us to rethink foundational theories of human development, and scientists are faced with having to reset the starting point and revising the hallmarks of what constitutes civilization. In light of all this, I'd like to present another viewpoint.
A question was once posed, "What's the first sign of civilization in a culture?"
This story is attributed to both anthropologist Margaret Mead and paleontologist Louis Leakey. It happened that at an archeological dig, a healed femur (thigh bone) was found. In the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die because you can’t run from danger, get to the river for water, or hunt for food. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. But a healed femur showed that someone had taken care of the injured person. They were carried to safety, brought food and water, and nursed through the recovery period. It's worth noting that the injured party's contribution to the collective during their recovery would have been minimal.
It's been stated that such compassion and care for others is what distinguished civilized society from primitive existence.
I find this very profound. From this point of view, the question, "Are you civilized?", strips away the characteristic achievements we're so proud of. This outlook doesn't care about our tallest skyscrapers, fastest rockets, or largest gold reserves. "Are you civilized?" distills all these trappings down to a single criterion: "Do you have empathy and compassion for your fellow humans?"
It's a sobering reminder as reports of what's happening here and abroad inundate our newsfeeds. While we may have no individual control over the bulk of world events, I'd argue it's still possible to show hallmarks of civility within our own spheres of influence.
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