SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
A mystery is slowly emerging from the hills of southeastern Turkey. An ancient site there built by hunter-gatherers thousands of years before humans has intrigued science for decades. More recently, it's drawn something else - conspiracy theories. NPR's Rebecca Rosman went there to find out more.
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REBECCA ROSMAN, BYLINE: Tour guide Sabahattin Alkan herds curious tourists through the scorching afternoon heat, promising something far stranger than your typical vacation snap.
SABAHATTIN ALKAN: OK. As you can see on the right-hand side, there is a spaceship landed recently (laughter).
ROSMAN: He's joking - mostly. But more on that in a minute. We're in the Urfa Plain, a dry, dusty stretch about 25 miles from the Turkish-Syrian border. That spaceship? Just a curved roof. But what lies beneath has sparked decades of mystery, curiosity and conspiracy theories.
ALKAN: Here, it's quite interesting place, actually.
ROSMAN: This is Gobekli Tepe - one of the oldest archaeological sites on Earth, dating back nearly 12,000 years ago. Alkan points to T-shaped limestone pillars carved with human arms, hands resting on stomachs and wild animals - lions, foxes, boars and birds.
ALKAN: Whatever we tell now, I don't know if it will be an accurate information or not because maybe our idea will change another 50 years. We're trying to predict 12,000 years ago.
ROSMAN: Early excavators called Gobekli Tepe the world's oldest temple, but that view has shifted. Some now see it as a ceremonial site, others as a kind of social hub where rituals helped bind together early communities. The truth? Still mostly a mystery. And that uncertainty has thrown the door wide open.
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JIMMY CORSETTI: So Gobekli Tepe - brother, if there's such a thing as an ancient conspiracy theory, it's this.
ROSMAN: Jimmy Corsetti, a YouTuber and self-described ancient history investigator, spoke on the Joe Rogan podcast last year. Corsetti accuses archaeologists of hiding discoveries and dragging out excavations.
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CORSETTI: We're talking about pillars buried in dirt. It's 2024. Do not tell me that we do not have the technological capability to...
JOE ROGAN: To dig rocks up (laughter).
CORSETTI: To dig rocks up.
ROSMAN: So far, only a small percentage of the site has been dug up since excavations began in the mid-1990s. Corsetti has some theories as to why. One is that archaeologists are going slow on purpose to keep the mystery alive, to keep the tourists coming. Another? That they're covering something up - something big.
LEE CLARE: Aliens, of course.
ROSMAN: Dr. Lee Clare has heard it all. He's led the excavation site for over a decade. And he's joking about the alien stuff, obviously. He says he's not hiding anything - he's protecting it.
CLARE: You can't just go into a site and bulldoze it, you know, and - to get all the finds out. That is just the wrong approach.
ROSMAN: Archaeology moves slowly for a reason, he says. Every layer tells a part of the story. And once you dig through it, it's gone for good.
CLARE: Why would I be so selfish as to dig the entire site just to say, I've dug it and look what I found, and take that away - these possibilities away from future generations of archaeologists?
ROSMAN: Clare tells me he grew up playing with toy dinosaurs, always wanted to be an archaeologist. He didn't expect to end up the target of conspiracy theories, but here we are.
CLARE: It goes onto the personal level as well, which is one reason why I actually deleted my entire social media accounts - because I, you know, want to stay sane in this situation.
ROSMAN: For Clare, the real danger here isn't just misinformation. It's how it silences the real story - the one they're still trying to decode.
CLARE: The archaeologists aren't the only people, you know, telling their narratives, telling their stories. There are a lot of narratives out there about Gobekli Tepe, and the question is, you know, whose narrative is correct? Don't think we'll ever know.
ROSMAN: But maybe that's the point. The carvings on the T-shaped pillars - the lions, foxes and hands - they're stories, too. We just don't know what they say. Gobekli Tepe may be the first place humans came together to share meaning. And like all good stories, this one's still open to interpretation.
Rebecca Rosman, NPR News, Gobekli Tepe, Turkey.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOGO PENGUIN'S "SATURNINE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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