Southern Turkey

$Göbekli Tepe: This site, Göbekli Tepe, just outside the city of Şanlıurfa, was the subject of a June 2011 article in National Geographic called "The Birth of Religion." The site is thought to be an ancient temple, the oldest known example of either religious or monumental architecture, or as they put it, "the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut." The first Stonehenge-like rings of stone pillars were put up about 11,600 years ago, 7000 years before Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza. To date, only a small fraction of it has been unearthed, but it raises questions about the development of civilization.$