Gobekli Tepe
Gobekli Tepe is an archaeological site that has the potential to completely change how historians and archaeologists understand human history. It challenges many of the assumptions that were made about hunter-gatherers and what led up to the transition to farming raising livestock. Gobekli Tepe is an ancient site located in Turkey and unlike other ruins on this list, there is no doubt that this one is man-made.
The site was discovered during a survey in 1963 conducted by Istanbul University and the University of Chicago, but it was mostly written off as little more than a medieval burial ground. In 1994, Klaus Schmidt found the survey information on Gobekli Tepe and decided to take a closer look. Upon arriving at the mound, he recognized that the limestone rocks and slabs had the potential to be more than just gravestone but rather T-shaped pillars. Excavation began the following year and it was not long before the team uncovered the massive pillars that had been buried beneath the surface.
The site was created by placing a ring of the massive seven-ton stone pillars on the ground. This ring would then be covered with dirt. Another ring of stone pillars would be placed on top of the dirt and covered. This continued to create a gently sloping mound. The ruins are dated back 11,000 years and were created at a time when the region was only known to have hunter-gatherers. A structure of this sort would have taken a large number of people working for an extended period. Bones found at the site confirm that whoever built the site did plenty of hunting of wild animals.
This challenges the notion that it was only after hunter-gatherers settled down that they had the manpower and skill to create large structures. Interestingly enough it was just a few centuries after the construction of Gobekli Tepe that there is evidence of farming and domestication of grain and animals. For some this means that it was the need to create the structure that prompted the hunter-gatherers to settle down.