The communities that participated in this process were not following a plan or pursuing a deliberate strategy of agricultural development.

They were making local, practical decisions about how to manage resources in a changing world — a world where increasing population density, environmental change, and the opportunities offered by increasingly productive plant and animal management were all factors pushing toward more intensive resource use.

The agricultural revolution was less a revolution than a long, complex, and locally variable process of intensification.

Göbekli Tepe sits at the beginning of this process.