A researcher at the University of Edinburgh has discovered what he believes is the earliest calendar of its kind at Gobekli Tepe, an archaeological excavation site in what is now southern Turkey that used to be an ancient complex of temple-like enclosures.
Dr. Sweatman said that the intricate carvings at Gobekli Tepe tell the story and document the date when fragments of a comet — which came from a meteor stream — hit Earth roughly 13,000 years ago.
The comet strike, which the latest research has placed in the year 10,850 B.C., has long been a source of disagreement among academics and researchers.
This is not the first time that Dr. Sweatman has been able to connect the impact of the comet to the site in Turkey, he said.
In 2017, he linked the two in an academic paper in which he contended that the carvings at Gobekli Tepe were memorialized in the pillars, and that the site was used as a place to observe space.
Persons:
Martin Sweatman, Sweatman, Gobekli
Organizations:
University of Edinburgh, Tepe
Locations:
Turkey