Before Göbekli Tepe: Boncuklu Tarla (visit)

Before Göbekli Tepe | Boncuklu Tarla | exclusive site exploration and museum visit | Megalithomania

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On the upper reaches of the Tigris River in Turkey are several archeological sites that predate Göbekli Tepe, including one that could be up to 13,000 years old.

This is Boncuklu Tarla ("Beaded Field"), where excavations have revealed 30 residential houses, six public structures, and the skeletons of 130 individuals. More than 100,000 beads and shaped raw copper have been unearthed (also found at nearby Gre Filla Höyük).

Much of this material is on display at Mardin Museum, which is investigated in this video. The square enclosures at the site are up to 30 feet wide and contain standing stones about five feet tall, some of the earliest megaliths on the planet.

Notably, one enclosure has a holed stone in its wall, just as is found at Karahan Tepe and Göbekli Tepe. Could this be evidence of very early astronomical observations?

Boncuklu Tarla, like many of the earliest sites in Turkey, was buried beneath a mound with finds that date from nearly 13,000 to 9,000 years old (Epipaleolithic period through to the Late pre-pottery Neolithic B).

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Older than Gobekli Tepe: Boncuklu Tarla

Gregon (The Daily Grail, May 20, 2023); Eds., Wisdom Quarterly

One hundred thousand carved beads have been found at the Boncuklu Tarla site so far.

Boncuklu Tarla: A megalithic site predating Göbekli Tepe

Couple of skeletons buried in an embrace.

The uncovering of the stunning megalithic architecture of Göbekli Tepe in modern-day Turkey (Türkiye) between Europe and Asia less than three decades ago turned our view of prehistory upside down.

Its massive T-shaped pillars predate the pyramids of Egypt and Stonehenge by 6,000 or 7,000 years.

While it took the spotlight, archeologists in the area continued finding similar sites with impressive architecture dating back the same mind-boggling stretch in time, more than 10,000 years before present.

One of the sites that has become well-known recently is Karahan Tepe (after it was covered in Graham Hancock’s Netflix series Ancient Apocalypse). However, a lesser-known site lies further to the east, and it may end up being even more important: Boncuklu Tarla.

• A tepe is a tell, a burial mound or small hill, in archeology
• Boncuklu Höyük is another ancient site in Anatolia, Turkey
• Ancient Buddhist archeological site of Ajina Tepe
• Amazing temple treasures of Göbekli Tepe
• Anatolia is in modern Turkey

Discovered during construction work on Ilısu Dam in 2008, it has undergone excavation over the last 11 years. It has already turned up many things. Like the other ancient sites of that time in Turkey, Boncuklu Tarla features a walled "temple" with rock pillars – but they appear to predate Göbekli Tepe by a thousand years or more. (The pillars don’t appear to be as impressive).

The earliest layer of the site dates back a staggering 13,000 years. What’s more, the excavation over the past 11 years has worked through multiple layers, with dating of those layers suggesting that it was occupied for about 4,000 years – from around 11,000 to 7,000 BCE.

The documentary Traces: Boncuklu Tarla offers an early look at the site and excavations, along with extended interviews with the lead archeologist Dr. Ergül Kodaş:..

Another surprising discovery appears to be a sewer system that dates back 12,000 years. This architectural feature shows yet again that humans that came out of the last Ice Age were anything but primitive. More