Upper Mesopotamia is in the heart of the area where the wild ancestors of wheat and barley were first cultivated, and the timing of Göbekli Tepe’s occupation coincides with the period during which the transition to cultivation is thought to have begun.

Water management at the site is another element that suggests organized effort and longer-term occupancy.

Cisterns and features associated with water storage and management have been identified at Göbekli Tepe, indicating that the people using the site were investing in the infrastructure needed for larger populations to remain there for extended periods.

A remote hilltop site with significant water storage capacity is not a place visited only briefly and abandoned.

It is a place where the infrastructure for sustained human presence was deliberately created.