12,000-year-old Göbeklitepe burials explain scattered bones

Archaeologists report the first two intact burials at Göbeklitepe, dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (about 8,700-8,000 BCE). One pit beneath a plastered floor contained at least three individuals - a woman aged 35+, a man 20-30, and a girl 11-14 - with skulls clustered in one corner and other bones grouped elsewhere; small hand and foot bones indicate complete bodies or limbs were originally interred. A second grave held a young adult, likely a woman aged 20-30, laid on her left side in a flexed, east-facing position. Bones show no cut marks, charring, or ochre, but many are highly fragmented from calcareous deposits, soil pressure, and rodent activity; some fractures occurred postmortem as burial soils changed.

Those taphonomic patterns closely match the 928 human bone fragments previously recovered across the site, leading researchers to conclude that many isolated and widely scattered bones derive from ordinary subfloor burials higher on the mound that were later mobilized downhill by erosion and slope movements into monumental buildings. This explanation accounts for mixed ages and sexes and the broad dispersal of remains, while not denying evidence elsewhere for deliberate skull modification or other mortuary rites. Further direct dating and detailed osteological analyses are recommended. Publication: Gresky & Clare, 2026, PLoS One.