Review of Andrew Collins’ Karahan Tepe: Decoding a Neolithic Mystery

Astronomical photo of the galactic bulge behind a night shot of structure AB at Karahan Tepe — The galactic bulge in the sky above Karahan Tepe's structure AB.

Collins, Andrew. Karahan Tepe: Decoding a Neolithic Mystery. Rochester, Vermont: Bear & Company, 2024. $26.00 []

I received a review copy of this book in the mail some time ago but only recently found the time to dive into it. After Collins’ last book, I was hopeful that I’d find this one equally informative and useful, since, like Sobekneferu, there aren’t many books or texts written specifically about the site of Karahan Tepe.

Unfortunately, I think I found this book much less useful or worthy of inclusion for the library of a reader interested in ancient history, Neolithic archaeology, or even semiotics.

The book begins with a forward by Hugh Newman who co-authored a previous book of Collins, also about Karahan Tepe. Newman is an author of speculative history, primarily enamored with large stone features and monumental architecture frequently referred to as “megaliths.”

Newman’s forward outlines his travels with Collins to Türkiye over the past few decades, highlighting where Collins “got it right” in his predictions and observations during that period, and creates a foundation for introducing Collins’ idea of a “super-civilization” later in the book.

The Super-civilization

Collins is careful to not explicitly define “super-civilization,” but the reader can easily understand that Collins intends this to be a civilization (he also does not define what he means by “civilization”) responsible for construction of Karahan Tepe, and other related sites like, not surprisingly, Göbekli Tepe, Neval? Çori, Sefer Tepe, Sayburç, and others.

What are the data to support the notion of this “super-civilization,” you might ask?

Collins argues that the builders Karahan Tepe (and other sites) possessed a profound understanding of astronomy and aligned their structures with celestial events. He mentions the suspected alignments of certain enclosures with the rising or setting sun at solstices and proposes connections between some structures and stars. An example is the Pit Shrine’s alignment with the setting of the star Deneb, which is an example of the sort of astronomical knowledge and sophisticated thinking that isn’t typically associated with prehistoric cultures.

^{Location of Karahan Tepe in Türkiye. Maps adapted from Celik 2011.}

Semiotics

He goes on associate the serpent imagery found in Karahan Tepe as a representation of the Milky Way, suggesting that the builders viewed the galaxy as a celestial serpent. This, in itself, isn’t a stretch. Though it might as easily been viewed by the builders as a celestial river. Or mountain range. Or perhaps the builders were divided about what the Milky Way represented. Or maybe they viewed it differently at different chronological periods. Or perhaps they changed their interpretations depending on the season.

Or none of this and something else. This is the problem with semiotics, which is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. When a population doesn’t have the technology of writing, we can’t just read what they thought. It has to be reasoned out with data points. And even then it’s more likely to be wrong than right. It’ll always be a speculation.

If one creates a narrative mixed with genuine facts, generalized intuitions, and outright speculations, then include post-hoc alignments of features at sites, the result will appear significant or at least very suggestive.

Aside from potentially falling victim to the Sharpshooter Fallacy by placing the “bullseye” (alignments) on the data (some features), there is also the problem of significance versus intentionality.

Significance vs Intentionality

If the likelihood of an event occurring randomly is extremely low, we tend to assign a higher level of significance to it. Intentionality, however, refers to the conscious action of a human being as a discreet agent.

The alignments that Collins writes of could be the intentional work of builders. And I honestly think this is a possibility given the prevalence of the night sky as a literal moving picture in a society not encumbered by modern light pollution. However, more practical considerations might also be the reasons for what appear to be alignments for someone thousands of years later looking for alignments. The features might have been aligned so as to take advantage of morning or evening light. Or because of a prevailing wind.

An ad hoc assignment of alignment is really useless, archaeologically. Unless something can be found to corroborate the alignment. If one scours a data set of features looking for a given celestial alignment, finding one will be inevitable. And might even be true. But these alignments might be a product of taking advantage of maximum sunlight at a given part of a day, too.

Speculation

Collins’ Karahan Tepe contains a fair amount of data in it. Real archaeological data. But these data are chosen carefully by Collins to support his speculations. At least one of which defines who his super-civilization is.

Connection to the Anunnaki

The super-civilization Collins alludes to appears to be comprised of these mythical deities of Sumerian culture, the Annunnaki. Of course, there are no archaeological data to support his claim that these are the builders of Karahan Tepe, mostly since they’re inventions of human imagination. The term “anunnaki” itself is one that means “offspring of An,” the Sumerian sky god.

Zecharia Sitchin in the 1970s borrowed the Anunnaki from Sumerian mythology and claimed they were the extraterrestrial species of “Nibiru” that “hybridized” their species with Homo erectus through in vitro fertilization to create humans as slave species. This is perhaps built on Erich von Däniken’s work a decade before where he suggested that extraterrestrials literally had sexual intercourse with early hominids.

Collins is careful not to go this far in Karahan Tepe, but he does mention Giorgio A. Tsoukalos and Erich von Däniken in his acknowledgments section. And while he refers to the anunnaki as “Sky People,” Collins departs from Sitchin and claims they have advanced knowledge of celestial phenomena rather than describe them as “extraterrestrial.” These “Sky People,” or anunnaki, however, are influential figures of a distant past who contributed significantly to human knowledge. At least according to the imagination of Collins.

Serpent Symbolism and the Milky Way

photo and illustration of a "T" pillar at Karahan Tepe that bears a snake image — ^{T-Pillar at Karahan Tepe bearing a snake relief. Image from Karul 2021.}

Collins heavily emphasizes the serpent symbolism found at Karahan Tepe, connecting it to the Milky Way and suggesting that the site’s builders had a sophisticated understanding of the galaxy. He proposes that certain structures are aligned with celestial events and represent a cosmic serpent. While certainly possible, the interpretations of Collins, particularly the connection between the serpent imagery and the Milky Way, are not supported by archaeological data. As I mentioned previously, there are many associations that might be possible.

The Garden of Eden

Collins suggests that Karahan Tepe might be the location of the biblical Garden of Eden:

…what was taking place at Karahan Tepe in the tenth millennium BCE would go on to become mythologized in Hebrew tradition as Adam and Eve’s temptation by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden…

That’s a pretty bold claim regardless of whether one believes the biblical narrative or not. Again, this is the purest of speculation at best and there isn’t even the most spurious of archaeological evidence to support such a claim. A claim that relies on geographic proximity and some rather scant symbolic association.

The Galactic Center?

Collins also speculates that the builders of Karahan Tepe had knowledge of the galactic center and its alleged influence on Earth. He draws on scientific hypotheses about the cyclical activity of the galactic center and its possible impact on life on Earth, suggesting that the site’s builders were aware of these cosmic events.

The question then becomes: did the Great Serpent really exist as a supercelestial intelligence out in the cosmos, or was it simply the creation of Karahan Tepe’s Ta? Tepeler community? That the Galactic Bulge, as the head of the cosmic serpent, corresponds with the center of our own Milky Way galaxy is something that our most ancient ancestors should never have known about. This, however, would appear to be contrary to the evidence, for as we see in the final part of this book, there are clear indications that the Karahan community’s choice of the Galactic Bulge as the sky portal leading to the cosmic source of creation might well have been based on some knowledge of the Galactic Center, and in particular its dynamic impact on the rise and fall of life on Earth.

Collins suggests that although ancient people couldn’t have been consciously aware of the cyclical influence of the galactic center on Earth, they may have been intuitively aware of the cosmological forces that determined their relationship with the galactic center. To show how this is true, Collins weaves in various numerologically spurious notions like a supposed recurring seven-fold symbolism in creation myths, such as the seven days of creation in the Hebrew Bible, then calls on the numbers 32, 224, 7, and 27 in varied forms of years, revolutions, and ratios.

But he never really explains a mechanism of why any of it is intuitive to someone that doesn’t possess the knowledge of modern astrophysics, its data obtained through the use of modern computers, advanced telescopes—both terrestrial and orbital—observing phenomena invisible to the naked eye.

**^{West Terrace of Karahan Tepe. Image from Karul 2021.}**

Conclusion

There are many who would label Collins book “thought-provoking” as a narrative. If you enjoy the mysterious and want to believe in extraterrestrial involvement in prehistory or at least a “super-civilization” that seems not to be super enough to leave behind evidence of its existence, this might be the book for you.

If, however, you’re looking for a decent compilation of archaeological data and a synthesis of the available archaeological reports both available to the general public or yet to be published, then this is definitely not that book.

In my review of Denisovan Origins, also by Collins along with co-author Greg Little, I commented on the over-use of phrases like “very clearly” and “very likely” along with the word “indeed.” I”m happy to report that all of these seem used with much less frequency in Karahan Tepe with the exception of perhaps “indeed.” However, the two word combo, “almost certainly” was used—often quite inappropriately—at least 30 or more times throughout the book.

My own personal writing struggle is frequently using “probably” when I actually mean to say “possibly” (at best), but this is probably less of an infraction than writing “almost certainly” when speculating about an ancient population of people who existed longer ago in time (~11kya) than the invention of writing itself (~5kya).

The interpretation presented in Karahan Tepe by Collins often extend beyond the concrete archaeological evidence found in other sources (I’ll list a few below) and relies heavily on subjective interpretations, associations with ancient myths, and personal belief. These aspects of Collins work in this book had the potential to be intriguing had he carefully couched them as speculations lacking hard evidence, outlined what could disprove these interpretations, and what might reinforce them.

As always, I recommend reading Collins’ work with a critical eye.

Notes

This post includes at least one off-site link to an affiliate product on Amazon.

Images are either Creative Commons or used in accordance with Fair Use for educational purposes, acknowledging the original author(s).

maire@tarabala.com
December 16, 2024 at 2:19 pm

Thank you for for the review. And many kudos for providing a reading list. So much of the available literature is speculative, and I appreciate knowing the more academic writings. Also, I though you handled the more fantastic claims with great tact. It can be challenging! Cheers!

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