A comet strike is one of the leading hypotheses, but scientists haven't been able to find physical proof of comets from around that time. Frontal bone fragment of skull 3 with carvings (1) and cut marks (2,3). The same explanation has been proffered for no-less extraordinary "plastered skulls" found throughout the region, from Israel to Turkey, also from around 9,500 years ago. Indeed, climatic conditions in southern Turkey at the time were so gorgeous that some believe the area inspired the tale of the Garden of Eden. More than 50 have been found. However, the specific function of the site at Göbekli Tepe remains a mystery.
The carvings show signs of being cared for by the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, which indicates that the event they describe might have had long-lasting impacts on civilisation. Instead, they were made with flint tools not long after the individuals had died.
Veneration of ancestors seems to have been a habit in the whole area thousands of years before Stonehenge was even a gleam in the eye of proto-Druids. Göbekli Tepe. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. Give a Gift. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. See more ideas about Göbekli tepe, Ancient civilizations, Archaeology. Archeologists at a Stone Age temple in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe have discovered something straight out of Indiana Jones: carved skulls. This mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted around 1,000 years, and it's considered a crucial period for humanity because it was around that time agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations arose - potentially in response to the new colder climates. The rub is that hunter-gatherers had not been thought capable of having either the social sophistication, cohesion or resources to create monumental construction, let alone the gargantuan engineering effort involved in creating Gobekli Tepe (and similar sites, such as nearby Karahan Tepe).
Gray: preserved elements; red: modifications. Located over 20 years ago on the Syrian border of Turkey it’s mystery remains unsolved. These "plastered skulls" were actual crania that had been "fleshed out" with plaster; the result was then decorated, with the eyes represented by shells from the sea, which often was dozens or hundreds of kilometers away, underscoring the importance of the artifacts to their Neolithic manufacturers. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. But only three fragments were modified with incisions. Göbekli Tepe (meaning the hill with a belly or belly hill in Turkish) is an archaeological find six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey. or Advertising Notice A, C, D: carvings, B: drilled perforation. The Gobekli skulls, all from adults, bore clearly intentional deep incisions made by flint tools along the sagittal axes, transverse from back to front. Perhaps he was carved in a position of veneration for ancestors. Eerie Witches' Marks Found Among Ruins of Medieval English Church, Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected From Russian Permafrost, Shipwrecked Nazi Steamer May Hold Clues to the Amber Room's Fate, Two British Teens Using Metal Detectors Discovered 1,000-Year-Old Coins, The Cute-but-Deadly Slow Loris Reserves Its Flesh-Rotting Venom for Its Peers, How to Keep Your Jack O’Lantern Looking Dapper Longer, When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland, The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’, The Meaning Behind Six Objects on Día de los Muertos Altars, The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board, Long-Lost Jacob Lawrence Painting Spent 60 Years Hanging in NYC Apartment, New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution, Behind the Scenes With the White House Residence's Long-Serving Staff, The Lab Saving the World From Snake Bites, How Hedges Became the Unofficial Emblem of Great Britain. They were initially rediscovered in 1963 in a survey by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago.
To try to figure out whether that comet strike actually happened or not, the researchers used computer models to match the patterns of the stars detailed on the Vulture Stone to a specific date - and they found evidence that the event in question would have occurred about 10,950 BCE, give or take 250 years.
At Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: “belly hill”), near the Syrian border, a Carved skulls indicate that Gobekli Tepe, known for enigmatic monumental pillars carved with animals and shapes, was ancestor worship site. Here's what the researchers suggest the sky would have looked like back then. The statues and carvings from Gobekli Tepe were found with fragments of carved skull from thousands of years ago. Until his death in 2014, Schmidt remained convinced that it was an important religious temple, and his view is supported by the elaborate carvings on the pillars. Why would the ancients bother to do this to skulls? Vote Now!
Mar 18, 2018 - Explore Sharon Amorosa's board "Gobekli tepe", followed by 733 people on Pinterest. "Many paleolithic cave paintings and artefacts with similar animal symbols and other repeated symbols suggest astronomy could be very ancient indeed," he told The Telegraph. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.". Lead author Julia Gresky tells Ian Sample at The Guardian the hole in one fragment would have allowed the skull to hang level if it was strung on a cord, and the grooves would help prevent the lower jaw from falling off. While the skull cult is exciting, Göbekli Tepe has already upended what we know about Neolithic people. So who built Gobekli Tepe? Cross-checking the event with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers suggested that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE - about the same time a mini ice age started that changed civilisation forever. Gobekli Tepe and its temple monuments, some of which are 16 feet tall, had been lost for thousands of years. Skull fragments marked by carving have been found at Gobekli Tepe, a site in southeast Turkey dating back around 11,500 years that has been dubbed the oldest known temple in the world. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. "I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph. Taken together with statues and carvings depicting headless people and skulls being carried, researchers suggest the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe may have belonged to a "skull cult," reports Andrew Curry at Science. Further, the drilled perforation on the best preserved skull could have been used to suspend it from a beam or post.". Some think hunter-gatherers may have started growing food precisely in order to sustain a community of sedentary people who built the site.
A comet strike is one of the leading hypotheses, but scientists haven't been able to find physical proof of comets from around that time. Frontal bone fragment of skull 3 with carvings (1) and cut marks (2,3). The same explanation has been proffered for no-less extraordinary "plastered skulls" found throughout the region, from Israel to Turkey, also from around 9,500 years ago. Indeed, climatic conditions in southern Turkey at the time were so gorgeous that some believe the area inspired the tale of the Garden of Eden. More than 50 have been found. However, the specific function of the site at Göbekli Tepe remains a mystery.
The carvings show signs of being cared for by the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, which indicates that the event they describe might have had long-lasting impacts on civilisation. Instead, they were made with flint tools not long after the individuals had died.
Veneration of ancestors seems to have been a habit in the whole area thousands of years before Stonehenge was even a gleam in the eye of proto-Druids. Göbekli Tepe. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. Give a Gift. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. See more ideas about Göbekli tepe, Ancient civilizations, Archaeology. Archeologists at a Stone Age temple in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe have discovered something straight out of Indiana Jones: carved skulls. This mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted around 1,000 years, and it's considered a crucial period for humanity because it was around that time agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations arose - potentially in response to the new colder climates. The rub is that hunter-gatherers had not been thought capable of having either the social sophistication, cohesion or resources to create monumental construction, let alone the gargantuan engineering effort involved in creating Gobekli Tepe (and similar sites, such as nearby Karahan Tepe).
Gray: preserved elements; red: modifications. Located over 20 years ago on the Syrian border of Turkey it’s mystery remains unsolved. These "plastered skulls" were actual crania that had been "fleshed out" with plaster; the result was then decorated, with the eyes represented by shells from the sea, which often was dozens or hundreds of kilometers away, underscoring the importance of the artifacts to their Neolithic manufacturers. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. But only three fragments were modified with incisions. Göbekli Tepe (meaning the hill with a belly or belly hill in Turkish) is an archaeological find six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey. or Advertising Notice A, C, D: carvings, B: drilled perforation. The Gobekli skulls, all from adults, bore clearly intentional deep incisions made by flint tools along the sagittal axes, transverse from back to front. Perhaps he was carved in a position of veneration for ancestors. Eerie Witches' Marks Found Among Ruins of Medieval English Church, Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected From Russian Permafrost, Shipwrecked Nazi Steamer May Hold Clues to the Amber Room's Fate, Two British Teens Using Metal Detectors Discovered 1,000-Year-Old Coins, The Cute-but-Deadly Slow Loris Reserves Its Flesh-Rotting Venom for Its Peers, How to Keep Your Jack O’Lantern Looking Dapper Longer, When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland, The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’, The Meaning Behind Six Objects on Día de los Muertos Altars, The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board, Long-Lost Jacob Lawrence Painting Spent 60 Years Hanging in NYC Apartment, New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution, Behind the Scenes With the White House Residence's Long-Serving Staff, The Lab Saving the World From Snake Bites, How Hedges Became the Unofficial Emblem of Great Britain. They were initially rediscovered in 1963 in a survey by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago.
To try to figure out whether that comet strike actually happened or not, the researchers used computer models to match the patterns of the stars detailed on the Vulture Stone to a specific date - and they found evidence that the event in question would have occurred about 10,950 BCE, give or take 250 years.
At Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: “belly hill”), near the Syrian border, a Carved skulls indicate that Gobekli Tepe, known for enigmatic monumental pillars carved with animals and shapes, was ancestor worship site. Here's what the researchers suggest the sky would have looked like back then. The statues and carvings from Gobekli Tepe were found with fragments of carved skull from thousands of years ago. Until his death in 2014, Schmidt remained convinced that it was an important religious temple, and his view is supported by the elaborate carvings on the pillars. Why would the ancients bother to do this to skulls? Vote Now!
Mar 18, 2018 - Explore Sharon Amorosa's board "Gobekli tepe", followed by 733 people on Pinterest. "Many paleolithic cave paintings and artefacts with similar animal symbols and other repeated symbols suggest astronomy could be very ancient indeed," he told The Telegraph. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.". Lead author Julia Gresky tells Ian Sample at The Guardian the hole in one fragment would have allowed the skull to hang level if it was strung on a cord, and the grooves would help prevent the lower jaw from falling off. While the skull cult is exciting, Göbekli Tepe has already upended what we know about Neolithic people. So who built Gobekli Tepe? Cross-checking the event with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers suggested that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE - about the same time a mini ice age started that changed civilisation forever. Gobekli Tepe and its temple monuments, some of which are 16 feet tall, had been lost for thousands of years. Skull fragments marked by carving have been found at Gobekli Tepe, a site in southeast Turkey dating back around 11,500 years that has been dubbed the oldest known temple in the world. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. "I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph. Taken together with statues and carvings depicting headless people and skulls being carried, researchers suggest the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe may have belonged to a "skull cult," reports Andrew Curry at Science. Further, the drilled perforation on the best preserved skull could have been used to suspend it from a beam or post.". Some think hunter-gatherers may have started growing food precisely in order to sustain a community of sedentary people who built the site.
A comet strike is one of the leading hypotheses, but scientists haven't been able to find physical proof of comets from around that time. Frontal bone fragment of skull 3 with carvings (1) and cut marks (2,3). The same explanation has been proffered for no-less extraordinary "plastered skulls" found throughout the region, from Israel to Turkey, also from around 9,500 years ago. Indeed, climatic conditions in southern Turkey at the time were so gorgeous that some believe the area inspired the tale of the Garden of Eden. More than 50 have been found. However, the specific function of the site at Göbekli Tepe remains a mystery.
The carvings show signs of being cared for by the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, which indicates that the event they describe might have had long-lasting impacts on civilisation. Instead, they were made with flint tools not long after the individuals had died.
Veneration of ancestors seems to have been a habit in the whole area thousands of years before Stonehenge was even a gleam in the eye of proto-Druids. Göbekli Tepe. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. Give a Gift. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. See more ideas about Göbekli tepe, Ancient civilizations, Archaeology. Archeologists at a Stone Age temple in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe have discovered something straight out of Indiana Jones: carved skulls. This mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted around 1,000 years, and it's considered a crucial period for humanity because it was around that time agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations arose - potentially in response to the new colder climates. The rub is that hunter-gatherers had not been thought capable of having either the social sophistication, cohesion or resources to create monumental construction, let alone the gargantuan engineering effort involved in creating Gobekli Tepe (and similar sites, such as nearby Karahan Tepe).
Gray: preserved elements; red: modifications. Located over 20 years ago on the Syrian border of Turkey it’s mystery remains unsolved. These "plastered skulls" were actual crania that had been "fleshed out" with plaster; the result was then decorated, with the eyes represented by shells from the sea, which often was dozens or hundreds of kilometers away, underscoring the importance of the artifacts to their Neolithic manufacturers. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. But only three fragments were modified with incisions. Göbekli Tepe (meaning the hill with a belly or belly hill in Turkish) is an archaeological find six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey. or Advertising Notice A, C, D: carvings, B: drilled perforation. The Gobekli skulls, all from adults, bore clearly intentional deep incisions made by flint tools along the sagittal axes, transverse from back to front. Perhaps he was carved in a position of veneration for ancestors. Eerie Witches' Marks Found Among Ruins of Medieval English Church, Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected From Russian Permafrost, Shipwrecked Nazi Steamer May Hold Clues to the Amber Room's Fate, Two British Teens Using Metal Detectors Discovered 1,000-Year-Old Coins, The Cute-but-Deadly Slow Loris Reserves Its Flesh-Rotting Venom for Its Peers, How to Keep Your Jack O’Lantern Looking Dapper Longer, When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland, The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’, The Meaning Behind Six Objects on Día de los Muertos Altars, The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board, Long-Lost Jacob Lawrence Painting Spent 60 Years Hanging in NYC Apartment, New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution, Behind the Scenes With the White House Residence's Long-Serving Staff, The Lab Saving the World From Snake Bites, How Hedges Became the Unofficial Emblem of Great Britain. They were initially rediscovered in 1963 in a survey by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago.
To try to figure out whether that comet strike actually happened or not, the researchers used computer models to match the patterns of the stars detailed on the Vulture Stone to a specific date - and they found evidence that the event in question would have occurred about 10,950 BCE, give or take 250 years.
At Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: “belly hill”), near the Syrian border, a Carved skulls indicate that Gobekli Tepe, known for enigmatic monumental pillars carved with animals and shapes, was ancestor worship site. Here's what the researchers suggest the sky would have looked like back then. The statues and carvings from Gobekli Tepe were found with fragments of carved skull from thousands of years ago. Until his death in 2014, Schmidt remained convinced that it was an important religious temple, and his view is supported by the elaborate carvings on the pillars. Why would the ancients bother to do this to skulls? Vote Now!
Mar 18, 2018 - Explore Sharon Amorosa's board "Gobekli tepe", followed by 733 people on Pinterest. "Many paleolithic cave paintings and artefacts with similar animal symbols and other repeated symbols suggest astronomy could be very ancient indeed," he told The Telegraph. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.". Lead author Julia Gresky tells Ian Sample at The Guardian the hole in one fragment would have allowed the skull to hang level if it was strung on a cord, and the grooves would help prevent the lower jaw from falling off. While the skull cult is exciting, Göbekli Tepe has already upended what we know about Neolithic people. So who built Gobekli Tepe? Cross-checking the event with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers suggested that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE - about the same time a mini ice age started that changed civilisation forever. Gobekli Tepe and its temple monuments, some of which are 16 feet tall, had been lost for thousands of years. Skull fragments marked by carving have been found at Gobekli Tepe, a site in southeast Turkey dating back around 11,500 years that has been dubbed the oldest known temple in the world. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. "I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph. Taken together with statues and carvings depicting headless people and skulls being carried, researchers suggest the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe may have belonged to a "skull cult," reports Andrew Curry at Science. Further, the drilled perforation on the best preserved skull could have been used to suspend it from a beam or post.". Some think hunter-gatherers may have started growing food precisely in order to sustain a community of sedentary people who built the site.
The research was published Wednesday in. The researchers are uncertain what the skulls were used for. The "temple" consists of a number of circles of massive T-shaped pillars, dating to roughly the time people were in transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture (though evidence from Israel indicates that some cultivation, certainly of grains, began as much as 23,000 years ago). The other mystery at Göbekli is that the carvings only appear on three skulls, even though many skull fragments have been unearthed there. Macroscopic details of artificial skull modifications.
A comet strike is one of the leading hypotheses, but scientists haven't been able to find physical proof of comets from around that time. Frontal bone fragment of skull 3 with carvings (1) and cut marks (2,3). The same explanation has been proffered for no-less extraordinary "plastered skulls" found throughout the region, from Israel to Turkey, also from around 9,500 years ago. Indeed, climatic conditions in southern Turkey at the time were so gorgeous that some believe the area inspired the tale of the Garden of Eden. More than 50 have been found. However, the specific function of the site at Göbekli Tepe remains a mystery.
The carvings show signs of being cared for by the people of Gobekli Tepe for millennia, which indicates that the event they describe might have had long-lasting impacts on civilisation. Instead, they were made with flint tools not long after the individuals had died.
Veneration of ancestors seems to have been a habit in the whole area thousands of years before Stonehenge was even a gleam in the eye of proto-Druids. Göbekli Tepe. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. Give a Gift. The Gobekli Tepe is thought to have been built around 9,000 BCE - roughly 6,000 years before Stonehenge - but the symbols on the pillar date the event to around 2,000 years before that. See more ideas about Göbekli tepe, Ancient civilizations, Archaeology. Archeologists at a Stone Age temple in Turkey called Göbekli Tepe have discovered something straight out of Indiana Jones: carved skulls. This mini ice age, known as the Younger Dryas, lasted around 1,000 years, and it's considered a crucial period for humanity because it was around that time agriculture and the first Neolithic civilisations arose - potentially in response to the new colder climates. The rub is that hunter-gatherers had not been thought capable of having either the social sophistication, cohesion or resources to create monumental construction, let alone the gargantuan engineering effort involved in creating Gobekli Tepe (and similar sites, such as nearby Karahan Tepe).
Gray: preserved elements; red: modifications. Located over 20 years ago on the Syrian border of Turkey it’s mystery remains unsolved. These "plastered skulls" were actual crania that had been "fleshed out" with plaster; the result was then decorated, with the eyes represented by shells from the sea, which often was dozens or hundreds of kilometers away, underscoring the importance of the artifacts to their Neolithic manufacturers. Get the best of Smithsonian magazine by email. But only three fragments were modified with incisions. Göbekli Tepe (meaning the hill with a belly or belly hill in Turkish) is an archaeological find six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey. or Advertising Notice A, C, D: carvings, B: drilled perforation. The Gobekli skulls, all from adults, bore clearly intentional deep incisions made by flint tools along the sagittal axes, transverse from back to front. Perhaps he was carved in a position of veneration for ancestors. Eerie Witches' Marks Found Among Ruins of Medieval English Church, Ancient Roundworms Allegedly Resurrected From Russian Permafrost, Shipwrecked Nazi Steamer May Hold Clues to the Amber Room's Fate, Two British Teens Using Metal Detectors Discovered 1,000-Year-Old Coins, The Cute-but-Deadly Slow Loris Reserves Its Flesh-Rotting Venom for Its Peers, How to Keep Your Jack O’Lantern Looking Dapper Longer, When Catherine of Aragon Led England's Armies to Victory Over Scotland, The True Story of the ‘Free State of Jones’, The Meaning Behind Six Objects on Día de los Muertos Altars, The Strange and Mysterious History of the Ouija Board, Long-Lost Jacob Lawrence Painting Spent 60 Years Hanging in NYC Apartment, New Evidence That Grandmothers Were Crucial for Human Evolution, Behind the Scenes With the White House Residence's Long-Serving Staff, The Lab Saving the World From Snake Bites, How Hedges Became the Unofficial Emblem of Great Britain. They were initially rediscovered in 1963 in a survey by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago.
To try to figure out whether that comet strike actually happened or not, the researchers used computer models to match the patterns of the stars detailed on the Vulture Stone to a specific date - and they found evidence that the event in question would have occurred about 10,950 BCE, give or take 250 years.
At Göbekli Tepe (Turkish: “belly hill”), near the Syrian border, a Carved skulls indicate that Gobekli Tepe, known for enigmatic monumental pillars carved with animals and shapes, was ancestor worship site. Here's what the researchers suggest the sky would have looked like back then. The statues and carvings from Gobekli Tepe were found with fragments of carved skull from thousands of years ago. Until his death in 2014, Schmidt remained convinced that it was an important religious temple, and his view is supported by the elaborate carvings on the pillars. Why would the ancients bother to do this to skulls? Vote Now!
Mar 18, 2018 - Explore Sharon Amorosa's board "Gobekli tepe", followed by 733 people on Pinterest. "Many paleolithic cave paintings and artefacts with similar animal symbols and other repeated symbols suggest astronomy could be very ancient indeed," he told The Telegraph. What is happening here is the process of paradigm change.". Lead author Julia Gresky tells Ian Sample at The Guardian the hole in one fragment would have allowed the skull to hang level if it was strung on a cord, and the grooves would help prevent the lower jaw from falling off. While the skull cult is exciting, Göbekli Tepe has already upended what we know about Neolithic people. So who built Gobekli Tepe? Cross-checking the event with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers suggested that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE - about the same time a mini ice age started that changed civilisation forever. Gobekli Tepe and its temple monuments, some of which are 16 feet tall, had been lost for thousands of years. Skull fragments marked by carving have been found at Gobekli Tepe, a site in southeast Turkey dating back around 11,500 years that has been dubbed the oldest known temple in the world. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry. "I think this research, along with the recent finding of a widespread platinum anomaly across the North American continent virtually seal the case in favour of [a Younger Dryas comet impact]," lead researcher Martin Sweatman told Sarah Knapton from The Telegraph. Taken together with statues and carvings depicting headless people and skulls being carried, researchers suggest the ancient people of Göbekli Tepe may have belonged to a "skull cult," reports Andrew Curry at Science. Further, the drilled perforation on the best preserved skull could have been used to suspend it from a beam or post.". Some think hunter-gatherers may have started growing food precisely in order to sustain a community of sedentary people who built the site.