11,000-Year-Old Structure is the Secret to Göbekli Tepe's Success

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Published Oct 24, 2026

Göbekli Tepe is a site very close to my heart. I visited twice in the past two years and even though I try and take everything in, on the second visit I saw things I missed first time round. I’m sure the same will happen again when I visit in October this year.

It’s easy to get off the mini bus and head straight to the path that leads to the excavation site, but if you’re visiting the site, before you take that exciting walk, don’t miss the archaeology directly on your right.

You’ll see two pits in the limestone bedrock, and a patch of ground covered with these round cup marks. And this is one of the most important parts of the site.

These two pits are water basins. These simple cisterns are how the Pre-Pottery Neolithic people collected water. There are dozens of them in and around the site and are arguably the most important thing you’ll see at Göbekli Tepe, important because, without them, there would be no Gobekli Tepe, there would be no source of water, and hence no settlement.

To live on a hilltop site, to build a large settlement, they needed a source of water, and so they mastered the art of harvesting rainwater, and it’s thanks to these crude rock-cut holes in the ground, that people were able to build a megalithic site 10-12,000 years ago.

In this video, we’re taking a closer look at these often overlooked features of both Göbekli and Karahan Tepe, to see how they were made, where they were positioned in the landscape, and why they allowed for a large permanent settlement to arise and flourish in such a remote time.

All images and video clips are taken from the below sources, or are my own, from Google Images or Google Earth, and are used for educational purposes only. Please Subscribe to Ancient Architects, Like the video, and please leave a comment below.

Video Contents:
0:00 Introduction
2:18 An Introduction to Göbekli Tepe
3:25 Göbekli Tepe Water Supply
4:42 Water Cisterns of Göbekli Tepe
8:22 Water Basins of Karahan Tepe
10:43 The Importance of Rainwater Harvesting
12:04 The Ingenuity of Pre-Pottery Neolithic People
12:33 Changing Perception of 'Hunter-Gatherers'
13:01 Concluding Remarks

Sources:
Prehistory Guys Göbekli Tepe Series: https://youtu.be/Z5AzQdRvs04?si=iLjehhqjVtVNyN8P
Nova: Stone Age Temple Mystery: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt39380719/

#gobeklitepe #karahantepe #göbeklitepe