World Archaeology

ISSN: 0043-8243 (Print) 1470-1375 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rwar20

Hungry architecture: spaces of consumption and

predation at Gbekli Tepe

Anna Fagan

To cite this article: Anna Fagan (2017): Hungry architecture: spaces of consumption and predation
at Gbekli Tepe, World Archaeology, DOI: 10.1080/00438243.2017.1332528

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1332528

Published online: 12 Jun 2017.

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WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.2017.1332528

Hungry architecture: spaces of consumption and predation at

Gbekli Tepe
Anna Fagan
Classics and Archaeology, The School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, The University of
Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
The subject of this paper is a social ontological approach to the site of Near Eastern archaeology;
Gbekli Tepe in south-east Anatolia. It is argued that modern Cartesian Pre-Pottery Neolithic;
concepts and dichotomous archaeological frameworks are inadequate tools ontology; animism; agency;
ritual
with which to understand and articulate peoples realities, past and present.
Consequently, archaeological interpretation is recongured on the basis of
indigenous theory and recent theoretical developments in anthropology,
which provide ways to rethink relations beyond the conceptual connes of
the dominant Western ontology. Indeed, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic world
appears to be one that was fundamentally relational, predicated on engage-
ments between potentially agential human, non-human and material entities.
Through careful attention to the iconography, human and animal remains,
and the phenomenal dimensions of the architecture, it becomes apparent
that relations at Gbekli Tepe were founded on the socio-cosmic principles of
consumption, predation and co-production.

Introduction
In this paper I argue that archaeological frameworks founded on modern Western conceptual
oppositions seriously hinder us from understanding Neolithic ontologies. Thus, I propose an
alternative interpretative toolkit, reformulated on the basis of indigenous theory and theoretical
developments in anthropology, in order to move beyond the dichotomies of Western philosophy
and focus, instead, on relations. I argue that the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) world was one that was
fundamentally social, founded on reciprocal and co-dependent interactions among human, non-
human and material entities, all of which harboured potential agency and mutability. Through a
case study examining the iconography, osteoarchaeology and the phenomenal and ontological
dimensions of the architecture at Gbekli Tepe, it becomes apparent that relationships predicated
on socio-cosmic principles of consumption and predation not only formed the basis of all social
engagements at the site, but constituted the ontological foundations for the reproduction of life.
The excavations of Gbekli Tepe by the German Archaeological Institute over the last two
decades have unearthed an unprecedented and as yet unparalleled level of monumental art and
architecture, constructed by hunting-and-gathering human groups prior to the full adoption of
agriculture (Schmidt 2001, 2003, 2006a, 2010; Schmidt and Hauptmann 2003). As a result, the site

CONTACT Anna Fagan arfagan@student.unimelb.edu.au

2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2 A. FAGAN

(and others like it) has necessitated the expansion of the traditional Neolithic classicatory frame-
work beyond the realms of technology and subsistence to encompass notions such as ritual and
symbolism. However, while earlier economic interpretations of the period have since been
supplanted, many syntheses still recapitulate the domestication meta-narrative (Braidwood 1957;
Childe 1942): the colonisation of nature by human culture. This opposition re-materializes as other
dualisms, such as between the presumed converse conditions of humanity and animality, wild and
domestic, subjects and objects, sacred and profane, and so on (Valla 1995; Belfer-Cohen and
Goring-Morris 2002; Hodder 1990; Verhoeven 2002; Hodder and Meskell 2010; cf. Boyd 2005). As a
consequence, Neolithic peoples are portrayed as overcoming, through the revolution of religion
(Cauvin 2000; Lewis-Williams and Pearce 2005), symbolism (Benz and Bauer 2013) or sedentism
(Renfrew 2001; Watkins 2006, 2012), some sort of cognitive and historical hurdle (Mithen 1996,
2004; Watkins 2004, 2005, 2016; cf. Finlayson 2009, 2010). Thus, for all the attempts of post-
processual approaches to break from economic ones, both still assume a subject-object dichot-
omy: animals and architecture are reduced to objectications good to think with (Lvi-Strauss
1963, 89) but never autonomous agents in their own right (but see Croucher 2012; Bori 2013;
Miracle and Bori 2008; Boyd 2004, 2006; Hill 2013).
Pre-Pottery Neolithic buildings have commonly been considered passive containers of material
culture. Consequently, while archaeologists in other elds and periods have explored the social
lives of structures and their dynamic interactions with other agents (e.g. Tringham and Stevanovi
2012; Stevanovic 1997; Tringham 1991, 2000; Bailey 1990, 2005; Rapoport 1994; Bradley 2007;
Herva 2009; Hodder and Cessford 2004; Gell 1998, 2226), there is a dearth of such approaches
being applied to the Upper Mesopotamian PPN (cf. Verhoeven 2000; Hodder 2007, 2012; Croucher
2012) or Gobekli Tepe in particular (cf. Bori 2013). Thus, in order to come closer to understanding
the ontological dimensions of the enclosures at Gbekli, this paper explores not only the agency,
but also the mutability of the architecture, the specic forms of perception and engagement these
spaces elicited, and the dynamic human and non-human social and material entanglements
established therein (see Weismantel 2013b; Hodder 2012; Hemsley 2008; Ingold 2000, 186).
Indeed, attention to indigenous ethnographies challenges the presumption that other societies
conceive of an exclusively human social world (Brightman 1993; Bogoras 1911; Tanner 1979;
Willerslev 2007; Stolze Lima 1999; Strathern and Strathern 1971; Strathern 1988; rhem 1996;
Ingold 2000; Bird-David 1999; Vilaa 2002; Viveiros de Castro 1992, 1998). In fact, the ontologies of
a number of indigenous human groups globally demonstrate that animals, plants and material life
can potentially act as subjects, with reexive consciousness, agency and intentionality.
Furthermore, in contrast to Western epistemology, creation mythologies from these ethnographies
often describe the original condition of all beings not as animality, but rather humanity (Viveiros
de Castro 1998, 472; see also Bogoras 1911; Brightman 1993). Thus, while there are clear issues
with the indiscriminate importation of direct analogies, these ontological premises serve as
powerful heuristics with which to destabilize dualisms, disrupt anachronistic understandings and
rethink past relations beyond the conceptual connes of the dominant Western paradigm.
One particularly fertile concept to emerge from anthropology and ethnography is Viveiros de
Castros seminal theory of Amazonian perspectivism (1998; see also Stolze Lima 1999; Baer 1994;
Bird-David 1999). The key ontological principle is that the point of view creates the subject
(Viveiros de Castro 1998, 4767). Thus, Amazonian thought is one of multinaturalism rather than
multiculturalism: humans and animals share a common human culture while dierence is dened
by the body, which engenders dierent perspectives. Consequently, while humans see animals as
animals; animals see themselves as human and see humans as animals. As the concept is mainly
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 3

pertinent to predators, its central tenet, Viveiros de Castro says, is founded on the relative and
relational status of predator and prey (2005, 39). Perspectivism has demonstrated a great deal of
traction in other ethnographies, anthropologies and archaeologies, within and outside Amazonia.
Willerslev (2004, 2006, 2007), for instance, explores the existential plight of Siberian Yukaghir
hunters, who, during mimetic practices, have to carefully navigate the human-animal boundary
and refrain from fully adopting the perspectives of the animals they hunt, lest they transform
permanently into prey.
A comparably predatory world emerges from scrutiny of the art, architecture and osteoarch-
aeological data at Gbekli Tepe, which, as a consequence, may be better understood through the
conceptual lens of perspectivism and an ontology of predation. Indeed, the principles of predation
constitute the socio-cosmic basis of a number of human groups ontologies cross-culturally
(Walens 1981; Kwon 1998; Conklin 2001; Viveiros de Castro 1998; Fausto 2007; Lykkegrd and
Willerslev 2016). Existence in these communities is dened not just through hunting to produce
sustenance but also by becoming sustenance for others. Thus, it is through exchanges of recipro-
cal predation between the living and the dead that life is generated. In consequence, death
represents not a discontinuity, but a transformation essential for the reproduction and continua-
tion of the world (Viveiros de Castro 1992, 255.) United in the common bond of becoming food for
each other, all beings are active participants in an intricately co-dependent system of resurrection.
It is with these thoughts in mind on perspectivism, predation, consumption and co-production
that I will now explore the monumental stones and statuary at Gbekli Tepe.

Gbekli Tepe
Gbekli Tepe is located in the anlurfa province of south-east Anatolia on top of a large limestone
plateau. The site is characterized by several subterranean stone enclosures from the PPNA (Layer III)
with impressive, monumental internal architecture, massive T-shaped pillars carved with images of
wild animals, and an absence of evidence for domestic dwellings and associated features (Schmidt
1999, 2006a, 2010; Dietrich et al. 2013; Peters and Schmidt 2004; Dietrich and Notro 2015; cf.
Banning 2011). The structures from the later PPNB phase (Layer II) retain many of the attributes of
the earlier buildings, but are smaller, rectilinear and less decorative. During the closing of the ninth
millennium, the Layer III enclosures were laboriously cleaned, dismantled and lled and sealed with
at least 300m3 of ll, containing int tools, fragments of sculptural artefacts, limestone rubble and
substantial quantities of animal bones, exceeding in magnitude all known faunal evidence from
contemporary settlements (Dietrich et al. 2012). This evidence is augmented by nds of decorated
ceremonial stone cups and bowls, food-processing equipment, huge cisterns and six in situ troughs
and barrels from PPNB contexts with chemical traces hinting at the production of alcohol (Dietrich
et al. 2012).
The enormous monumental circular enclosures from Layer III include architectural features such
as massive dry-stone retaining walls, enormous stone circles, richly decorated porthole stones and
entrances replete with animal carvings in high relief (Schmidt 2010). Enclosure C has even revealed
evidence of a megalithic staircase along with an entranceway reminiscent of a dromos (Dietrich
et al. 2014, 1112). During its use-life, Enclosure C was subject to considerable modications in
structure and layout (Fig. 1). Earlier enclosure walls with embedded pillars found themselves later
engulfed by additional internal walls, stelae and installations, shrinking the circumference of the
building through time. The labour-intensive changes to structure and layout and the cumulative
wrapping (e.g. Richards 2013) of the space seem to articulate eorts to entrap and contain
4 A. FAGAN

Figure 1. Gbekli Tepe: aerial view of enclosure C with its multiple ring-walls (photo: K. Schmidt, German
Archaeological Institute).

emergent power and potency (Pollard 2013). Indeed, the massive and multiple retaining walls of
the Layer III enclosures do not suggest so much a desire to keep out but rather to keep in. The
walling up of gaps and openings appears to demonstrate the same concern. The careful contain-
ment of these spaces along with the breaking of ritually potent items such as stelae and statuary
and the reinjection of that power back into the numinous framework of the special spaces
demonstrates intense concern with recycling vital energy within a closed circuit, perhaps so as
to avoid entropic losses (Descola 2012).
The internal architecture of the Gbekli Layer III structures consists of symmetrically arranged,
upright T-shaped monoliths interconnected by stone benches. Dominating the centres of enclo-
sures are pairs of markedly larger, higher-quality stelae. The softness of the smoothly prepared
limestone reminds one of skin. Indeed, the T-pillar form appears to be roughly anthropomorphic
with representations of arms, hands, a belt and a fox pelt loincloth found adorning the central
pillars of Enclosure D (Dietrich and Notro 2016, 86). The oblong T-head represents the human
head seen in prole, and in a few instances (P2, P31, P38) a stylized bucranium has been depicted
under the head like a necklace, emphasizing these beings monumentality.
However, the representational ambiguity of the pillars is not insignicant. Rather, the corpus of
naturalistic zoomorphic imagery at the site demonstrates sucient proof of the technological
ability to produce faithful depictions if desired; consequently, the elusiveness of the pillars might
reect their ontological status. Indeed, any semblance of earthly humanity is called into question
by the explicit absence of facial features. Moreover, as Robb (2009) has similarly observed for
anthropomorphic stelae from the western European Neolithic, rather than depicting a gure
carved upon stone, the Gbekli pillars delineate a being made of stone: the boundaries of the
body are coterminous with the material upon which they are carved. Attending to the material
aordances of the stelae their mass, durability and indexical relation to mountains hints they
might embody the forms of the ancestors (and, by extension, articulate an animistic understanding
of all species inherent personhood and common origin). Limestone may have been a vital
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 5

materiality (Bennett 2010) that highly volatile gods or spirits were known to occupy, thus, through
carving, these unpredictable agencies were not portrayed, but rather revealed and momentarily
stabilised through form and ritual, enabling human interaction (Alberti 2007).
However, this does not mean that the stones remained static entities (e.g. Pollard 2013;
Conneller 2011; Richards 2013; Heyerdahl, Skjlsvold and Pavel 1989; Hamilton, Thomas and
Whitehouse 2011). We should reect, here, on how stones are conceptualized by the Yupik
from central Alaska: as capable of sentience, mobility, hunger, gratitude, reciprocity and fore-
knowledge of sickness and death (Fienup-Riordan and Rearden 2013, 58). Indeed, nds of stone
bowls and depressions, located next to the central pillars in the Gbekli enclosures, demonstrate
that these megalithic beings not only had demands, but were capable of consumption.

Human death and birds of prey

One striking nd from the enclosures of Phase III is of intentionally decapitated, life-size limestone human
heads, presumably once part of complete sculptures. At some point, these heads were deliberately
removed and, during dissolution activities, placed beneath the central pillars. This practice is reminiscent
of the activities of contemporaneous communities throughout the Upper Mesopotamian region, where
human crania were sometimes associated with the termination of buildings.1
Indeed, the headless body and the dislocated head represent one of the most distinctive
mortuary customs and salient iconographic tropes in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic record (Cauvin
[1994] 2000; Verhoeven 2002; Kuijt 2008). The most eschatologically revealing manifestation of
headlessness in the PPN repertoire, however, is in connection with birds of prey. Numerous images
and sculptures of vultures have been uncovered at Gbekli, often in association with human death
and decapitation. In Enclosure D, for instance, a relief fragment from the debris depicts a human
head among several animals, including two carrion-eating predators in motion: a vulture and a
hyena (Becker et al. 2012, 35). Furthermore, in a striking scene on Pillar 43 from the same enclosure
replete with several snakes, birds and a large scorpion a raptor balances a sphere upon its wing
(Fig. 2). The sphere has been interpreted as the skull of a headless male, depicted in the register
below (Schmidt 2006b). He is ithyphallic and appears to ride a water bird. Indeed, images of human
heads in the clutches of raptors or predators are common in the corpus of statuary at the site (Fig. 3).
Vultures and humans have long-standing interspecic relations. Throughout evolutionary his-
tory, their scavenging, circling presence in the skies would have been a reliable indicator of the
location of meat in the landscape. Human groups today also monitor their calls and behaviour in
order to locate food (Morelli et al. 2015). One of the most common connections within many
societies, however, is between birds of prey and the human corpse, as in Tibetan sky burials and
Zoroastrian funerals, where the deceased are left exposed to be consumed excarnated by
necrophagous birds. For the Kwakiutl of the north-west coast of British Columbia, Canada, it is
ravens rather than raptors that feed on the human dead. It is through consumption of the
deceased that the soul is released and esh transmuted into spirit matter (Walens 1981, 118).
Indeed, the burial platforms of the Kwakiutl deliberately evoke the nests of corvids and raptors,
highlighting the connection between human death and the subsequent birth of carrion-eating
birds (Walens 1981, 115). Similarly, within the mortuary rituals of the Chukchi of northern
Kamchatka, the human corpse is often left out in the tundra to be consumed by ravens.
Cleaning and consumption is a vital requirement so that bones can be re-eshed in the afterlife
and therefore regain visibility within the community of the dead (Lykkegrd and Willerslev 2016,
6 A. FAGAN

Figure 2. Gbekli Tepe: pillar 43 in enclosure D. A raptor balances a sphere upon its wing. The sphere has been
interpreted as the skull of a headless male, depicted in the register below. He is ithyphallic and appears to be
riding a water bird (photo: K. Schmidt, German Archaeological Institute).

Figure 3. Gbekli Tepe: fragment of a sculpture depicting a large bird of prey holding a human head in its
talons (photo: N. Becker, German Archaeological Institute).
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 7

8). Thus, it is via consumption of the esh that the soul is emancipated and vitality redistributed
from the consumed to the consumer.
Further evidence that Middle Eastern Neolithic human groups considered vultures to be
agential persons with strong links to the mortuary realm can be found at the aceramic period
settlement of atalhyk. A recent review of the mortuary treatments at the site by Pilloud et al.
(2016) has convincingly suggested that excarnation by vultures may have constituted funerary
practice (Mellaart 1967). As the authors report, vultures are particularly adept at stripping esh
while keeping ligaments and tendons intact, which would explain how many of the skeletons at
the site were still connected anatomically (Reeves 2009). Ultimately, the deeshing of human
bodies by vultures implies mutuality and reciprocity: just as humans processed animal bone
through butchery so, too, did vultures for humans.
The question of vulture excarnation at atalhyk is spurred by several enigmatic paintings
from dierent levels at the site that depict vultures in ight, accompanied by representations of
small, headless humans (Mellaart 1967, gs 1415). The gures are depicted as lying on their left
sides, analogous to the positions of the deceased interred beneath the oors. In one reconstruc-
tion, a human holds a looped object (Mellaart 1967), which some have interpreted as an apparatus
with which to beckon vultures (Schz and Knig 1983). However the object may also function as a
device to ward o the birds so that corpse cutters are not overrun (e.g. Gouin 2012, 71) before
they have nished dismembering.
Furthermore, like much of the symbolism, it is possible that literal or mythological reference to
the practice of excarnation at atalhyk originated in the south-east Anatolian PPN. The common
iconographic links between heads, headlessness, and birds of prey is certainly suggestive of this.
Indeed, as Notro et al. (2016, 78) have recently proposed, Gbekli may even have served, inter
alia, as a necropolis. This is supported by the considerable number of human bone fragments with
evidence of partial burning, along with cut-marks denoting deeshing and other post-mortem
ritual treatments uncovered from the enclosure lls (Becker et al. 2012). Moreover, necrophagous
animals are common in the osteoarchaeological and iconographic corpus. Corvids, for instance,
make up more than 50 per cent of the avifauna from the site, a number signicantly higher than at
other contemporaneous settlements (Peters et al. 2005, 231; Notro, Dietrich and Schmidt 2016,
778). Furthermore, the practice of decapitating anthropomorphic sculpture may even have
served as a proxy for the cessation and transformation of human life at the site.
Unlike dangerous predators and spirits who might stalk and kill humans, vultures do not
existentially threaten, but rather, transform. As Lagrou (1998, 88) has observed among the
Cashinahua of the Brazilian western Amazon, while true death is synonymous with drying out
and emptying esh of life-force (yuxin), bodily decomposition is considered demonstrative of
mutability, ux and enhanced yuxin. Through the consumption of the corpse in this transforma-
tional state, vultures not only mediated metamorphosis, but may also have appropriated the
subjective properties of the dead (Fausto 2007), essentially becoming like people. Furthermore,
this consubstantiation (Lagrou 1998, 2009) may have opened channels of communication, coop-
eration, obligation and even coercion, between humans and carrion-eating birds.
Indeed, such interspecies collaboration is well attested in the PPN, where curated raptor wings
are commonly encountered in the archaeological record, conceivably used as costume. Uncovered
at the campsite near the long-lived Neolithic cemetery at Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan (Solecki,
Solecki and Agelarakis 2004) were the worked wing bones (representing 107 individuals) of
enormous birds of prey, found in a deposit that also included stones engraved with vultures.
Through the wearing of raptor wings in ritual performances, humans may have summoned the
8 A. FAGAN

birds, taken on their transformational properties and/or aided raptor propagation, paying back the
debt they owed their potential conspecics for assisting their ontological transformation.

Voicelessness
An intriguingly common feature of the decapitated life-sized human heads at Gbekli is the
negation of vocal agency; the statues appear to have been deliberately rendered voiceless by
the absence of a mouth (Fig. 4). This absence might be explained by the notion that giving
sculptures the ability to breathe and speak would impart to human statuary an undesirable
degree of agency and autonomy. Thus, human statues were initially de-subjectied by the
deprivation of orality and later through their destruction, decapitation, fragmentation and
removal from active relations. Furthermore, the denial of a mouth removes the possibility of
predation, consumption and, consequently, personhood. It is impossible to exist and not
consume.
Similarly, many of the famous Levantine PPNB plastered skulls lacked mandibles, resulting
in such facial distortion that Kuijt (2008) argues it repudiates the idea that people were trying
to recreate faithful portraits of the deceased. It is interesting to ponder whether this inten-
tional absence resulted from the same concerns over vocal agency. Indeed, human skulls
have been uncovered from Yupik burials at Point Hope, Alaska, with extraordinary features
such as carved inlaid ivory eyes, mouth covers and in one example, even nose plugs (Fienup-
Riordan 1994, 106). That individuals could continue to exert powerful even dangerous
agency after death that needed to be contained appears to be indisputable in this instance
of deliberate phenomenal deprivation. Thus, just as vultures assisted in the ontological
transformation of humans from one type of body to another, so too might practices of de-
subjectication and decapitation have released the deceased from the connes of the human
corpse (Fig. 5).

Figure 4. Gbekli Tepe: decapitated limestone head with a protruding chin, found on the surface of the site. As
with all the life-sized human heads uncovered at Gbekli, the mouth is not depicted.
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 9

Figure 5. Gbekli Tepe: the only example of a decapitated limestone head where a matching torso was found
(photo: N. Becker, German Archaeological Institute).

Skeletonization
Images of partially skeletonized humans and animals are also a somewhat common and curious
feature of the Gbekli Tepe iconographic corpus. A sculptural fragment of a human torso was
discovered in the eastern baulk of trench L9-56 rendered with a clearly accentuated dorsal line and
scapulae. The exaggeration of the ribcage is signicant as skeletonized representations of humans
and predators constitute a frequent subject of the Gbekli art (Dietrich and Notro 2015, 85; Notro,
Dietrich and Schmidt 2014). Indeed, the absence of a mouth on human sculpture can be contrasted
with its explicit emphasis on animal statuary. While skeletonized humans are commonly decapitated
and de-subjectied, beasts, on the other hand, are emaciated and voracious, with hungry, open
mouths and sharp teeth. The human face, too, remains schematic and tokenistic, while the animal
face is highly detailed. One striking example of a ravenous predator comes from Pillar 27 in Enclosure
C (Fig. 6), consisting of a three-dimensional high relief of a large, expertly crafted reptile, with
unmistakably delineated ribs and bared teeth, descending the side of the stele.
Thus, while humans are decapitated, voiceless and de-subjectied, animals are frighteningly alive,
voracious and present. The images of predators holding dislocated human heads, in conjunction
with the evidence of intensive feasting found at the site (Dietrich et al. 2012), the remains of human
bone uncovered in the enclosures ll, along with the high number of corvids in the avifauna evince
a co-productive relationship: of animals feeding on humans and vice versa. Thus, the Gbekli
enclosures may have constituted conduit points, wherein the spirits of powerful predators devoured
the deceased, aiding in human metamorphosis and the cycles of regeneration.
10 A. FAGAN

Figure 6. Gbekli Tepe: enclosure D. A snarling three-dimensional predator with clearly delineated ribs
descends pillar 27 (photo: D. Johannes, German Archaeological Institute).

Co-production
Thus, the theme of death and mutual consumption at Gbekli should not be perceived as a
destructive relationship but rather, a co-productive one. This understanding is made manifest in a
number of sculptures where we encounter the entanglement and mutual constitution of species
body forms. Uncovered from the Early PPNB Layer II is a limestone totem-pole-like sculpture that
reiterates the motif of animals holding human heads (Fig. 7). The piece depicts a vertical cascade
of composite creatures holding one anothers heads in succession, with large snakes entwined
throughout the sequence. While the two main faces in the scene were destroyed in antiquity, one
of the heads may have conceivably been human. What is signicant about the sculpture is the
entanglement, merging and mutual becoming of bodies. Discrete form is shunned and instead, we
encounter an image of a self-propagating, multi-species body. Each head holds a smaller head that
holds a smaller head, unfolding in a pattern that draws attention to its perpetuity and perhaps
underlies the metaphysical connection and mutual constitution of these beings. Furthermore, the
power and potency of the sculpture is evidenced by its intentional defacement in prehistory.
This trope of mutually constituted bodies is again repeated in a scene engraved upon Pillar 56
in the newly uncovered Enclosure H (Fig. 8). The pillar is populated by approximately 55 depictions
of fauna, featuring primarily snakes, along with various herbivores, carnivores, birds and a large
raptor with outstretched wings. While the pillar currently remains partially concealed in the trench
baulk, gures appear to envelope all its sides, resulting in a stele made of animals. Furthermore,
the busy tessellation of bodies throughout the piece eectively obscures the delineation of
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 11

Figure 7. Gbekli Tepe: uncovered from the EPPNB layer II is a limestone totem-pole-like sculpture that
reiterates the motif of animals holding human heads, albeit this time in succession. The work, however could be
of an earlier date, and reinstated in a later enclosure (photo: N. Becker, German Archaeological Institute).

Figure 8. Gbekli Tepe: pillar 56 from enclosure H. This extensive animal scene contains over 50 depictions of
fauna, such as snakes, various quadrupeds and birds. The focal character is a raptor with outstretched wings
(photo: N. Becker, German Archaeological Institute).
12 A. FAGAN

individual form. Consequently, like the totem-pole, this scene may serve to underline the meta-
physical relations that exist between all beings, each animal a predator to some or prey to others.
Thus manifest is the network of predatory relations upon which life itself depends: the cycle of
death, consumption and reproduction. The omnipresence of snakes throughout this scene (and,
indeed, in most of the art at Gbekli) may also be of signicance not only for their notable
hunger and voraciousness, but for their capacity for rebirth through the shedding of their skins.2
Furthermore, if we understand the T-pillars as embodying anthropomorphs, then what we have in
this example might be a palpable expression of the innate and ancestral humanity of non-human
beings (Viveiros de Castro 1998, 472; Descola 1994, 120).

Hunger and predation

These considerations of human skeletonization, voicelessness and de-subjectication and the
depiction of open-mouthed, hungry, predatory animals, together with the practices of intensive
feasting events and the consumptive architecture itself strongly suggest that ideas about
consuming and being consumed played heavily in south-east Anatolian ontologies during the PPN.
Willerslev has written extensively on the Chukchi, Siberian hunters, who inhabit a world where
predation is the universal condition of life and the basis of all interaction and invisible spirits
continuously roam with gaping mouths (Lykkegrd and Willerslev 2016, 3; Bogoras 1911). Walens'
(1981) reinterpretation of Boas extensive ethnography on the Kwakiutl of British Columbia,
Canada, conveys a similar ontological principle of mutual predation and reincarnation. In the
Kwakiutl universe, all beings are united in a common bond of becoming food for each other, all
active participants in an intricately interdependent system of resurrection. It is a world lled with
the gaping maws of killer whales, the fearsome teeth of wolves, bears, seals, and spawning
salmon, the tearing beaks of eagles, ravens, owls, and hawks, and the unending voraciousness
of rodents, lizards, frogs, and snakes. It is a world lled with images of mouths, and of the death
they bring to the creatures of the world (Walens 1981, 100). Indeed, animals are categorized in
Kwakiutl cosmology primarily by their particular oral characteristics: by the shape of the mouth,
their particular vocalizations and the ways in which they hunt, kill and consume. Furthermore, the
Kwakiutl have a particularly special relationship with predators, especially those that feed on
human esh (Walens 1981, 99101).
The notion of hungry architecture has recently been explored by Pollard (2013) in a compar-
ison of British Neolithic structures with the monumental marae of Polynesia. Marae consist of a
range of enclosed sacred spaces and platforms, sometimes comprising central stones (ahu), within
which were placed human and animal sacrices, burials and special artefacts. They were also
understood as potentially dangerous and terrifying spaces, located at liminal zones in the land-
scape and between the realms, constituting conduit points for divine entities. Pollard (2013, 187)
quotes the missionary John Orsmond to whom the high priests of Tahiti and Moorea described
marae as place[s] of dread and of great silence. . .terrible in their. . .awe-inspiring capacity to
aect. They were conduits of sorts: places where Te Po (the realm of darkness, death and the
gods) entered Te Ao (the world of light, life and people):

People spoke of these places as the jawbones of the gods, biting the spirits who passed into the dark
underworld where they were consumed by the gods, while the stone uprights on their pavements
were called their niho or teeth. (Salmond 2009, 26)
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 13

Pollards descriptions of marae as hungry, consuming subjects can be protably extended to

understanding Gbekli, with its demanding, labour-intensive megalithic architecture, sated with
supplies of artefacts, oerings, skeletal remains and statuary that, with each building phase, were
fed back into the structural fabric (Pollard 2013, 1858; see also Hamilton, Thomas and
Whitehouse 2011). Potent architectural furniture and statuary were either swallowed up through
the construction of additional internal ring walls throughout the buildings use-lives or, alterna-
tively, fragmented and re-deposited into the spiritually fortied spaces upon their dissolution.
Furthermore, the serpentine encircling of enclosure walls evinces predatory eorts to consume
and entrap emergent power and potency. Considering the prevalence of snakes throughout the
iconography, one is reminded of their mode of predation: asphyxiation though constriction prior
to consuming prey. We might even consider the Gbekli enclosures to be mouths of a sort:
cavernous cavities with enormous T-pillar teeth, teeming with statuary of ravenous predators,
hungry to devour the deceased. Thus, these structures were also enmeshed in lifes network of
predatory relations. It was arguably through consumption that the Gbekli enclosures garnered
sustenance, power and subjectivity.
Lastly, the notion that limestone constituted a vital and hungry materiality may be further
explored through practices pertaining to ritual stone extraction. For instance, the inll for the
enclosures at Gbekli (consisting largely of animal bone and rubble from the quarries) appears to
have been stored on site to be used later, suggesting that these remains retained a special quality
separate from other types of settlement waste (Dietrich, Notro and Schmidt 2017, 119). A current
challenge for the Gbekli Tepe team concerns where these remains were held prior to inll (Jens
Notro, pers. comm.). A hypothetical location emerges from Pollard and Gillings (2016) recent
exploration of the linkages between feasting and stone extraction in the Neolithic of southern
Britain. Based on ethnographies from West Sumba, Indonesia, where feasts are intertwined with
the entire process of megalith construction (Hoskins 1986; Adams and Kusumawati 2010), the
authors suggest a similar association between feasting and stone removal, transportation, and
erection in the Neolithic, arguing that feasting deposits in extraction hollows served as ritual
oerings for relocated stones. A similar situation may be proposed for Gbekli Tepe. Indeed, the
fact that the inll consists primarily of animal remains and limestone rubble might indicate where
it was stored prior to burial, and with the quarries in close proximity, they present a viable option.
As limestone appears to have possessed powerful potential agency, stone extraction and reloca-
tion likely constituted a cosmologically disruptive and dangerous practice. Hollows in the quarry
presented metaphysical voids that needed to be addressed and recompensed. Thus, through
feasting and depositional practices, the rock was duly fed.

Perception and perspectivism

The question of how numinous agencies were visually rendered at Gbekli Tepe can be explored
through how the spirits are made visible in Yupik ceremonies. Fienup-Riordan (1994, 316) has
reported how, during certain festivals, the boundaries between the worlds were dissolved temporarily
so that the deceased and other entities could be hosted by the community. During the dance known
as kelek (meaning, to invite to ones house) animal spirits were summoned to commune with the
living and elicit successful hunting, brought into being through the use of masks. The elaborate masks
were the means through which the spirits manifested, making the unseen seen, in ways that were
equally dangerous and advantageous (Fienup-Riordan 1987, 1994, 316). Indeed, the gravity of seeing
an animals spirit face has been explored by Ingold (2000, 122) in his discussion of an Inuit drawing by
14 A. FAGAN

Davidialuk Alasuaq of such an ominous encounter. In the image, a human hunter watches in terror, as
a caribou peels back the skin from its face to reveal a frightening, monstrous visage underneath.
In the ontologies of numerous animist human groups, all beings can potentially have person-
hood, dierentiated only by skins that conceal an internal human form or spirit (Hallowell [1960]
1981; Howell 1996). This skin is transparent to conspecics, so members from the same species will
see one another in their true form (as humans) and only other species as animals. It is impossible
for a human to perceive an animals internal form as this remains hidden behind a bodily covering.
The existential consequence of perceiving an animals true face means that one no longer occupies
a human perspective and has crossed over into the animal or spirit domain. Typically, only ritual
practitioners wield the power do this deliberately, albeit with restraint and caution (see Ingold 2000,
123). An animals perspective can be adopted more safely, however, through the donning of masks. It
should be noted here that the elaborate masks of the Yupik and human groups such as the Dogon of
Mali, the Inuit and indigenous peoples from the Pacic Northwest, show minimal resemblance to the
animals they depict. Rather, as discussed by Ingold (2000, 1234) and Fienup-Riordan (1987, 1996), the
function of masks is to make the invisible visible to reveal the spirit that lies beneath the bodily
covering, which explains why their countenances are so often ferocious and grotesquely distorted.
Attention to the materialist, sensorial and emotional qualities of the architecture and imagery
reveals an emphasis on danger and confrontation at Gbekli Tepe (Bori 2013). Beastly three-
dimensional forms are represented with great ferocity and a high degree of motion and animacy.
Foxes leap or furtively materialize from half-hidden T-pillars wedged into the walls. Snarling three-
dimensional predators descend stelae ready to pounce (Dietrich and Notro 2016). Once inside
these cavernous, otherworldly spaces, one is forced to see these beings and consequently confront
them (e.g. Weismantel 2013a). The running theme of death at the site combined with the hungry
and emaciated depictions of predators, hints at the possibility that spirits are depicted.
Consequently, it seems plausible that the carved images served to render otherwise invisible spirit
forms visible in a specialized setting.
While witnessing the internal form of an animal would normally mean that one now occupied
the animal domain, the Gbekli enclosures may have oered a way to adopt these potent beings
perspectives more safely (Bori 2013; Weismantel 2015, 2013a, 30). Through depicting powerful or
threatening agencies, people set up channels of engagement through which they could interact
with entities on their own terms, aording participants a rare degree of controlled interaction in
the existentially risky realm of the numinous. Furthermore, considering the osteological evidence
for mortuary ritual combined with the images of deceased, de-subjectied and decapitated
humans in the statuary and reliefs of raptors assisting in ontological metamorphosis the
prevalent predatory animal spirits may even be the powerful new forms taken on by the human
dead.

Conclusion
The archaeological record of the Neolithic period in south-west Asia continues to yield an
abundance of astonishing and unexpected material, resulting in the need for more suitable
interpretative frameworks that can make sense of the diversity and unfamiliarity of the prehistoric
past. Gbekli Tepe represents one such interpretative challenge. Many preceding discussions of
the site, however, have served only to further the distance between now and the Neolithic
through strict reliance on modern Western conceptual oppositions that in prehistory would surely
have been unimaginable. Hence, in order to come closer to understanding other societies and
 WORLD ARCHAEOLOGY 15

archaeologies, we must turn to ways of thinking that do not replicate the dominant Western
ontology (Boyd 2004, 126).
By turning to recent theoretical innovations in anthropology and engaging seriously with
Indigenous theory and ethnographies, realities are encountered wherein personhood and social
relations are not exclusive to humans. Indeed, highly volatile gods, spirits and animals appear to
have occupied the socio-cosmic universe of PPN south-east Anatolia. Through the practices of
carving, these agencies were not simply portrayed, but rather revealed and momentarily stabilized
through form and ritual, enabling human interaction. However, this does not mean that pillars and
statuary remained static entities; rather, they may have been capable of movement, absence or
transformation. As demonstrated by nds of oering bowls and channels for libations, these beings
might have been animated or tempered by consumption. Indeed, we might conceive of these
enclosures as assemblages (Bennett 2010, 3) of numerous voracious agencies, sated with supplies of
artefacts, oerings, skeletal remains and statuary, which, with each building phase, were swallowed
back into the structural fabric, recycling vitality and garnering sustenance, power and subjectivity.
Indeed, predation and consumption seem to be the key ontological principles driving social
engagements at the site. Considering the imagery and human and animal remains, Gbekli
appears to have functioned, inter alia, as a mortuary sphere where raptors excarnated the dead.
Through consumption, vultures not only mediated ontological metamorphosis, but also appro-
priated the subjective properties of persons, becoming essentially like people. Such consubstantia-
tion could have enabled communication and obligations between humans and carrion-eating
birds, and this collaborative relationship might have compelled humans to establish similar
interactions with powerful predatory animal spirits.
Through feeding these volatile agencies, people may have aided human metamorphosis into
specic animal forms, enabling channels of engagement through which the living could become
famiiar with and inuence non-kin (Fausto 2007, 506). Convening with volatile beings in the
connes of these spiritually fortied architectural spaces aorded humans a degree of control
and perhaps even the ability to harness their perspectives. Similarly, it is new perspectives ones
that do not replicate the dominant Western ontology that should travel to archaeological
interpretation, so that we too, can engage a more sensitive relationship with the past.

Notes
1. For instance, human crania are associated with the closing of architectural life at Qermez Dere (Watkins
et al. 1995, 7), Jerf el Ahmar (Stordeur 2000a, 2000b; Helmer, Gourichon and Stordeur 2004, 158) and
Mureybet (Cauvin 1977; Chamel 2014, 357).
2. Examples of double-headed snakes at Gbekli (a snake body with a head at each end), however, appear
to be totally antithetical to notions of rebirth. Consider the sisiutl from Kwakiutl cosmology a creature
that provokes existential terror for its ability to bestow true death on its victims. As the sisiutls digestive
process is not unidirectional, once eaten, prey can never escape. Such prey is perpetually consigned to a
state of limbo, trapped in the body of its consumer, excluded from the vital cycles of transformation and
regeneration that constitute the lifeworld. Thus, the enigmatic 'net of snakes' with heads at each end
(portrayed on P1 in Enclosure A) might take on a new meaning.

Notes on contributor
Anna Fagan has recently completed her PhD at the University of Melbourne using a relational approach to
interpret the Pre-Pottery Neolithic material from the Middle East. Her main research interests consist of
16 A. FAGAN

personhood, the body, animist and relational ontologies, intersectionality, ethnography, and decolonial
archaeologies.

Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID
Anna Fagan http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8870-072X

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