Religious rituals likely drove the birth of architecture before the invention of farming

Göbekli Tepe, a sprawling temple complex in modern-day Turkey, upends the traditional timeline of civilization by showing that monumental architecture existed before farming. Built between 9500 and 9000 BC, the site features T-shaped limestone pillars standing up to six meters tall and weighing 20 tons. These megaliths were quarried and transported by hunter-gatherers using only stone levers and manpower, centuries before the domestication of wheat or sheep.