Now seen as early evidence of prehistoric worship, the hilltop site was previously shunned by researchers as nothing more than a medieval cemetery. Berthold Steinhilber Six miles from Urfa, an ancient ...

Earth’s Northern Hemisphere was covered in enormous Ice Age glaciers when a group of hunter-gatherers in southern Turkey began constructing the world’s first known temple. The site, called Gobekli ...

These buildings at the site of Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey are more than 11,000 years old, making them some of the world’s earliest monumental structures. The settlement includes circular ...

This story appears in the June 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. Every now and then the dawn of civilization is reenacted on a remote hilltop in southern Turkey. The reenactors are busloads ...