Michael Button

And even if you think that hunter-gatherers built Gobekli Tepe, then you need to massively update the definition of what a hunter-gatherer is, because clearly they had surplus.

They weren't just building these sites in their spare time.

And yeah, it's a truly paradigm-shifting site.

But I mean, everyone kind of knows about Gobekli Tepe now.

Yeah, there's like a study that was written or a paper that was written and they think it's the Pillar 43, I think it is.

It's kind of like a cosmic calendar and it's like almost a prediction model of an impact that could happen or already has happened and it's like a warning for the future.

I mean, that is still disputed, but I mean, there's been good research that's done into that that suggests that's what it is.

And it's certainly a site that has cosmic alignments and has been built with the stars in mind, which is something that we can say about so many ancient sites around the world, which is another thing that isn't really considered by scientists.

quote unquote, mainstream archaeology, perhaps as much as it should be.

So yeah, it's a fascinating site.

And I really think it displays a lot about how human ingenuity and civilization, I mean, people get a bit stuck with the word civilization, because we have this

a very narrow definition of what civilization is.

And it's basically based on the old model of Mesopotamia, which is ancient Sumer.

And because that was the earliest known civilization for so long, we kind of constructed this whole idea about what a civilization is purely based on Mesopotamia.

But I don't see why that has to be what civilization is, because that was just one civilization.

And just because that was the earliest one we'd found for a long time and still is

thought of as such doesn't mean that that's the only way that humanity can flourish because humans are so adaptable we do so many different things and we're clever in different ways and we you know change to different environments and i think that definition has really kept a lot of people kind of boxed in when thinking about how sophisticated human culture could flourish in different places in different environments and with different pressures and

I think that's kind of forced people to not consider what other possibilities are out there.

Yeah.

And it all ties into this idea that we've had that agriculture leads to civilization.