Were there ostrich-like (large flightless) birds in Anatolia, 12000 years ago? That could be objects of hunting? Reply The Archaeologist's Laboratory · 5 replies @thearchaeologistslaborator6591 2 weeks ago Yes, there were. Ostriches used to occur across most of the arid semi-arid parts of Asia from Arabia and Anatolia to Mongolia and China but were hunted to extinction in most of those regions during the Holocene. The last ostrich in Jordan, in fact, was killed as recently as 1966 (I think killed by a flood in Wadi al-Hasa). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- @thearchaeologistslaborator6591 Interesting! Some of the bird images on the Göbekli pillars seem to be vultures (including the one just below the "baskets", which seems to be in a typical pose -- warming up by spreading its wings open towards the sun). But perhaps those with long legs, long neck, roundish body, and no wings were ostriches? Only the beak is not right, looks more like that of a flamingo or ibis... Reply @thearchaeologistslaborator6591 13 days ago A number of people have been working on identifying the birds in the imagery. If you're interested, you might want to check out this article, even though it's now rather outdated: Peters, J., and K. Schmidt. 2004. Animals in the symbolic world of Prepottery Neolithic Göbekli Tepe, southeastern Turkey: a preliminary assessment. Anthropozoologica 39(1):179–218. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2025-01-17 Thans! That paper notes that some pillars have human carvings, but it should be noted that those carvings are quite shallow and follow the geometric shape of the pillar. It seems very likely that the carvings were not meant to be there from the outset, but were later low-effort additions to pillars that were originally meant to be plain. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Those three "baskets" at Göbekli Tepe do not look like "baskets" at all. The "handle" is off-center, and, more importantly, there is a large animal jumping down from each one. That "handle", whatever it is, is several meters tall. If I was forced to guess, I would say that the "handle" is meant to represent a cave. But then what that rectangular base could be? A trap? Perhaps the animals, driven from behind it, jump over the "cave" and fall in the "trap", where they are dispatched by hunters waiting in the "cave"? @thearchaeologistslaborator6591 @thearchaeologistslaborator6591 2 weeks ago Although I'm not so sure about the cave aspect, but you might be interested to know that there are lots of prehistoric hunting traps in the Şanlıurfa region. Archaeologists call them "desert kites" because of their appearance when viewed from the air. They consist of long walls that sort of funnel frightened animals into a corral-like features where the hunters are hiding around the periphery. They appear to have been used most successfully to hunt gazelles. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2025-01-17 That paper also says that the large "cats" resemble lions in shape but must be jaguars because they have no manes. However, IIUC, European lions, male or female, did not have manes. Isn't that so?