Since excavations began at Göbeklitepe in 1995, researchers have recovered 928 human bone fragments scattered through the fill of the site's monumental buildings. The fragments represented males and females of all ages and showed various signs of post-mortem alteration. For decades, their origin remained puzzling—were they evidence of a unique burial rite, ritual activity, or something else entirely?
In September 2026, a study published in *PLOS One* reported the discovery of the first two intact burials at the site. Both date to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period (8,700–8,000 BCE) and were found beneath the floors of rectangular buildings. Their condition offers a new explanation for the scattered assemblage.
This photograph documents the first two undisturbed burials uncovered at Göbeklitepe in September 2026, which explain the origin of 928 scattered human bone fragments found across the site's monumental buildings. The burials, dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, were found beneath floor deposits and provide taphonomic evidence linking the scattered assemblage to ordinary subfloor burials later disturbed by slope erosion and sediment slides.
The first burial, in trench L09-65, was a collective pit beneath a plaster floor containing at least three individuals: a woman aged 35 or older, a man aged 20–30, and a girl aged 11–14. A fourth person may also be represented. The bodies had been disturbed after deposition—skulls clustered in one area, long bones piled in another—yet small bones of the hands and feet remained, indicating complete bodies or limbs were originally interred. No cut marks, burning, or ochre were found, but rodent gnawing and post-mortem fractures from soil pressure were present.
The second burial, in Drainage Channel 1 (DR1), held a young adult, likely a woman aged 20–30, placed on her left side in a flexed position facing east. Much of the skeleton remained articulated, though many bones were highly fragmented. Calcareous deposits had infiltrated the bone structure, causing cracking and breakage, while soil pressure fractured larger elements and rodent activity likely displaced smaller pieces.
Critically, the taphonomic damage patterns in both burials—calcareous cracking, soil-pressure fractures, rodent gnawing, and the resulting fragmentation—closely match those observed in the 928 scattered fragments recovered from across the site. This correspondence suggests a shared post-depositional history.
The researchers propose that people were buried beneath building floors on higher parts of the settlement mound. As the tell accumulated over roughly 1,600 years, slope erosion and sediment slides carried soil—and the human remains within it—downhill into the lower-lying monumental buildings. This process would naturally scatter bones far from their original graves and mix remains of different individuals, ages, and sexes.
This interpretation does not exclude other mortuary practices at Göbeklitepe. Earlier work identified deliberate modification on certain skulls, including deep cuts, and cranial fragments are overrepresented (408 skull pieces versus 283 from the rest of the skeleton). These cases point to distinct, special treatment of some individuals. The new findings simply show that *most* of the scattered assemblage likely has a more mundane origin: ordinary subfloor burials later disturbed by the mound's own growth.
Göbeklitepe, located 15 kilometers northeast of Şanlıurfa in southeastern Türkiye, has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018. Long interpreted as a purely ritual center, recent evidence—including domestic structures and now subfloor burials—indicates it was also a settled community. The study underscores the diversity of Neolithic Anatolian burial customs and highlights how site formation processes can mimic intentional ritual patterning.