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Göbekli Tepe's Vulture Stone records a comet impact and an ancient calendar

Status: Leading Edge Verdict: Open question

The claim: Pillar 43 (the 'Vulture Stone') at Göbekli Tepe depicts constellations and records a date near 10,950 BCE, matching the proposed Younger Dryas comet impact, and V-symbols encode a lunisolar calendar.

Where the evidence stands: Proposed by Martin Sweatman and Dimitrios Tsikritsis in 2017 and extended by Sweatman in 2024 to Karahan Tepe. The excavation team published a response disagreeing. Both sides are in peer-reviewed journals, and the interpretation is not settled.

Background

Sweatman reads the animal carvings as star groups and matches their arrangement to the sky of about 10,950 BCE using precession. His 2024 paper interprets V-shaped marks on Pillar 43 as counting days and months in a lunisolar calendar with 11 extra days, and links pillar counts at Göbekli and Karahan Tepe to the same calendar. The excavators argue the animals are better explained by local symbolism and that the proposed date is earlier than the enclosure's construction.

What has been measured

Dates, measurements and documented findings, kept separate from interpretation.

Proponents' main arguments and cited evidence

  • Statistical matching of carved animals to asterisms at a specific date, according to the authors. [1]
  • Counts of V-symbols and pillars fit a lunisolar calendar, with links to the Younger Dryas impact. [3]

The mainstream position and its evidence

  • The excavators note the proposed date predates the earliest dates for Enclosure D by 700–1,000 years, and question whether modern constellation shapes can be projected back 12,000 years. [2]

What evidence would help settle it

Independent statistical tests by astronomers not involved in either side, and new dated carvings from other Taş Tepeler sites that either fit or break the calendar pattern.

Sites

Göbekli Tepe · Karahan Tepe

Related claims

Sources

  1. Sweatman, M. B. & Tsikritsis, D. (2017). Decoding Göbekli Tepe with archaeoastronomy: what does the fox say? Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 17(1). https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/decoding-gobekli-tepe-w… proponent
  2. Notroff, J., Dietrich, O. et al. (2017). More than a vulture: a response to Sweatman and Tsikritsis. Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry 17(2). doi:10.5281/zenodo.599855 critique
  3. Sweatman, M. B. (2024). Representations of calendars and time at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe support an astronomical interpretation of their symbolism. Time and Mind 17. doi:10.1080/1751696X.2024.2373876 proponent
  4. German Archaeological Institute (DAI) blog: How old is it? Dating Göbekli Tepe. https://www.dainst.org/en/blogs/how-old-is-it-dating-goebekli-tepe/625 data

More in this section: Megalithic construction.

Sources checked against Crossref and publisher pages on 2026-10-22. This entry presents a debated idea neutrally: the proponents' case first, then the mainstream position, in our own words. "Open question" is not a judgment that the idea is true or false. Labels describe the claim, not the people who hold it. Methodology.