[injvstice]

But the amount of resources required to build that type of structure is not present in a H&G society. Those societies tend to be small groups. Quarrying large stones requires a lot of resources, which is only present in a settled society.

[duaneb]

While I agree with your general sentiment—I would also be skittish to refer to them as H&G—I think a few things are clear that we can all agree on:

1. The site well pre-dates current archeological evidence for sustained agriculture.

2. The site clearly supported a lot of people with similar aims and (most likely) religious significance.

3. The site is quite impressive to build on both a physical and organizational level.

The question I've heard posed around the site is: did the social/religious element help bootstrap sustained agriculture, or did the agriculture allow the gathering to form when it couldn't be sustained before, or did they form in unison? I don't think the archeological record is anywhere near answering that question; I don't recall much evidence of agriculture, and the only other model of clearly pre-agriculture society we have is H&G societies.

Long-winded; apologies. But I think we can have a more nuanced discussion than H&G vs Settled.

[huxley]

That's one of the things discussed in the article:

"To Schmidt and others, these new findings suggest a novel theory of civilization. Scholars have long believed that only after people learned to farm and live in settled communities did they have the time, organization and resources to construct temples and support complicated social structures. But Schmidt argues it was the other way around: the extensive, coordinated effort to build the monoliths literally laid the groundwork for the development of complex societies."

[abecedarius]

Some hunter-gatherer groups lived in areas with much greater resources than others, for instance in the Pacific Northwest where they had the potlatches. From what I've read, the Fertile Crescent was such an area. (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedentism#Historical_regions_o...)

I don't know about quarrying stone, though.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

This is overly simplistic imo. We know that H&G groups periodically congregated and cooperated in groups far larger than a single band, such as to share in hunting the seasonal peak of herds. It's not that much of a stretch to believe they'd periodically congregate to advance a construction.

[preordained]

Umm...Id say it's a stretch. Wanna hunt together? Wanna quarry some stone and build a temple? I don't think we are talking about apples and apples here.

[jasonwatkinspdx]

I disagree. I think it's entirely likely things started along the lines of "We gather here every year this season to share in the peak hunt festival. Let's make a mark upon this place" and over a few centuries that grew motivating enough for people to incrementally build more elaborate megalithic structures. This is just my view, and I'm certainly no anthropologist. But I would point out this narrative exactly matches what we see at Gobekli Teki: layers of megalith construction, each covering and supplanting the previous.