It reveals that the people of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic were not the simple, limited beings that older models of human social evolution supposed.

They were sophisticated, creative, and organizationally capable people living through one of the most consequential transitions in human history: the move from mobile foraging life toward settled agriculture.

Göbekli Tepe is part of the evidence for what they were already capable of before that transition was complete.

And it leaves us with the question that may never be fully answered: what did the builders of those carved limestone pillars believe about the great stone figures that stood at the center of their enclosed spaces?

What stories did they tell about the snake, the vulture, the fox?