Overview
- Archaeologists Lee Clare and Julia Gresky report the first intact human burials at Göbekli Tepe, with two graves dated to roughly 8,700–8,000 BCE.
- One grave held at least three people — an adult woman, a young man, and an adolescent girl — while a second contained a single middle-aged woman placed in a flexed position.
- The PLOS One paper published Sept. 22, 2026, documents fractured bones, heavy calcium encrustation, and rodent gnawing in the new graves and links those taphonomic signs to many previously found fragmented remains.
- The authors argue that slope erosion or a landslide likely moved normal subfloor burials downhill into monumental buildings, which reduces the need to explain the scatter solely as evidence of a ritualized 'skull cult.'
- The study preserves evidence of deliberate bone treatment but reframes those finds as part of wider Neolithic mortuary diversity and strengthens the case that Göbekli Tepe combined habitation features with ceremonial architecture, prompting more focused dating and contextual analyses next.