The first temple perhaps

Smithsonian magazine has a recent article  (2008) on Gobekli Tepe, which is 300 miles from Catalhoyuk and is reliably dated to 11,000 years ago.  One paragraph reads:


Unlike the stark plateaus nearby, Gobekli Tepe (the name means "belly hill" in Turkish) has a gently rounded top that rises 50 feet above the surrounding landscape. To Schmidt's eye, the shape stood out. "Only man could have created something like this," he says. "It was clear right away this was a gigantic Stone Age site." The broken pieces of limestone that earlier surveyors had mistaken for gravestones suddenly took on a different meaning.


What the article does not say, perhaps because it is a commonplace in the literature, is that "Belly Hill" may be a reproduction of a pregnant woman's shape.  Which gives rise to rumination about a few of the motifs in monumental architecture. assuming that the present nomenclature has some relation to older names. Which may be a stretch.

The resistance to the idea the religion preceded argriculture, is not mentioned, but is a definite aspect of the history of interpreting these ruins.  My not original (I am sure) take on this is that the resistance was because if religion predated domesticated plants, then you could not so easily argue that man's manifestations of religious beliefs were a secondary development, and not related to man's fundamental ature.  Possibly their current attitude that the symbolism is too old to reliably interpret is another stab at avoiding that conclusion.

Nothing though can diminish the amazement at these discoveries.