Andrew CollinsGobekli Tepe: Genesis of the Gods: The Temple of the Watchers and the Discovery of Eden

This was the best book that I've read since reading Graham Hancock. This is not intended to be a purely archaeological study of the Gobekli Tepe site. Andrew's goal is to create possibilities of who and why they were built and tie that into humankind's early creation "mysome of those ancient humans threths". I believe that his formulation could be correct. An ancient scenario in which different groups of humans, with widely varying DNA(because some of these isolated groups had much Neanderthal DNA), created due to long term isolation in groups with no contact from other groups for thousands of years. Its been proven that ancient modern humans had interbred with Neanderthal's. These mixed people surely would have looked very different to other "pockets" of humans , had they migrated to a southern area. All Andrew has to do, is get his Theory supported by analyzing some ancient DNA from those skeletons. Anyone that reads Russian archeological studies will find that ancient humans there did have a higher content of Neanderthal DNA in them(Sunghir, in Russia, for example). So Andrew's theory might be right or wrong...but this book was very well written, had me absorbed, I couldn't put it down and "reread" much of it because I DAMN WELL LEARNED SO MUCH FROM THIS BOOK! AND HIS BIBLIOGRAPHY IS IMPRESSIVE! IT WAS VERY WELL RESEARCHED AND I LOOK FOWARD TO DELVING INTO SOME HIS RESOURCE MATERIAL! THIS WAS A FANTASTIC BOOK AND I LOOK FOWARD TO PURCHASE ANOTHER ONE OF HIS BOOKS!. ALLTHOUGH HE DOES SUGGEST AN UNPROVEN THEORY, IT IS A REALISTIC ONE THAT COULD BE TRUE. ITS NOT SOME FAR FLUNG CONCLUSION BASED ON VERY LITTLE INFORMATION AND FACTS...HIS CONCLUSIONS ARE BASED ON AN IMPRESSIVE AMOUNT OF RESEARCH AS I STATED. Even if you don't agree with his theory, I GUARANTEE YOU WILL LEARN MUCH ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THAT PART OF THE WORLD, THE CREATION MYTHS ( ADAM N EVE, NOAH,ETC). THERE'S NO DOUBT IN MY MIND, THAT GOBEKLI TEPE HAS SOMETHING TO DO WITH THOSE ANCIENT LEGENDS OF HUMANKIND'S CREATION AND FLOOD. BUT PROVING THE CORRELATION WILL BE VERY DIFFICULT!

Gobekli Tepe is an enigma that cries out for an explanation. It is a massive temple complex with some clear astronomical references. Its construction and active usage spanned thousands of years. But its original builders were simple, nomadic hunter-gatherers who shouldn't have been building anything more than a stick lean-to for a night's sleep. No dry recounting of site plans and building locations can possibly do it justice. Gobekli Tepe demands that we ask Who? Why? and How? And by extension it makes us ask who we are and how we became the people and society we are today.Collins does an admirable job at addressing these questions. Understanding that such unprecedented structures could only have resulted from a sea-change in human thought and experience, he connects the astronomical aspects of the temple to the Younger Dryas Impact Event which had caused such a physical and psychological upheaval in human existence. Following the same logic that Settegast had outlined in "Plato Prehistorian", Collins explores how the climactic upheaval of the impact led to global collapse of social structures and widespread human migrations. In addition to the physical affect on humans, the cometary bombardment produced lasting psychological and spiritual changes.Collins traces the wanderings of one group of climactic refugees around the Black Sea and over the Caucasus Mountains to arrive in Asia minor. They leveraged the cultural memories of the people there to establish themselves as a priestly elite with the knowledge of how to appease the wrath of the sky gods. From this position they were able to organize the people to undertake the building of Gobekli Tepe.But this is not just an historical curiosity. The builders of Gobekli Tepe were our progenitors, both culturally and literally. The valleys and hillsides surrounding Gobekli Tepe are where the Neolithic Revolution started. Genetic analysis has traced the ancestors of our modern grains to this very spot.In his evaluation of Gobekli Tepe Collins answers a question that has stymied archaeologists and prehistorians for decades. Why farming? Although you can still find claims that humans took to farming in the face of uncertain food supplies caused by climactic upheaval, this has been proven wrong time and again. Farmers lead a precarious, back-breaking existence, putting in a huge amount of time and labor for a low quality, nutrient poor diet. Farmers face the recurrent threat of crop failure and famine, problems unknown to hunter-gatherers.But farming does produce something that is the hallmark of our modern life - a sedentary culture that supports a non-productive elite characterized by hereditary wealth. Why a free people would willing subjugate themselves to this miserable existence to support a powerful few has puzzled great minds for centuries. Collins has come upon the answer. The subjugation came first; the miserable existence followed.Given his remarkable insights, Collins can be forgiven for the weird bit of how a dream led him to the Garden of Eden. While the Garden of Eden legend certainly ties into this story, Collins could have come up with a less crazy sounding way to explore it.