Write a short 4-paragraph article about Gobekli Tepe and the significance of the discoveries there. The article should have an emotional tone that makes readers care about the discoveries made there. The article should be 600 words or less. Mention the original archaeologist who made the discovery, but don't dwell on it. The article should be focused on what the discoveries mean, not on who made them. 
A civilization known as Gobekli Tepe, which is located in modern-day Turkey, was built 6,000 years before Stonehenge. It is heralded as one of the first sites of man-made monumental architecture in the world. On top of a limestone plateau, a German archaeologist named Klaus Schmidt was the first to discover over 20 circular stone enclosures. The largest was almost 65 feet across, with two elaborately carved 18-foot pillars in the middle. The pillars have distinctive T-shapes and are reminiscent of the human form. Some of the pillars contain reliefs that depict items of clothing and wild animals. The nature of stone tools and other artifacts found at the site show that the monoliths were built by hunter-gatherers. At that time in history, creating these immense pillars would involve using wood and stone tools to shape the limestone, then creating some sort of pulley system using rope, log beams, and a lot of manpower.

Originally, the apparent lack of residences led Schmidt to believe that the site was used solely for religious rituals, a place where nomadic bands would join together for periodic building projects and great feasts. This was a significant claim, given the time when the site was built. Remember, this was a transitional period in human history. Hunter-gathers, who had been living off the land for generations, were developing into societies that were beginning to grow their food intentionally and domesticate the animals around them. it had long been believed that rituals and religion were luxuries that developed only well after humans settled into these new societies. This discovery, however, showed that perhaps complex religion and social organization actually came before settlement and agriculture. Perhaps it was the very needs imposed by the religious rituals themselves - coming together to build the statues required large gatherings where people needed to be fed, thus the need to make food supplies more predictable by domesticating plants and animals -  that prompted the shift towards the Neolithic Revolution. 

However, in 2017, new discoveries changed the message of Gobekli Tepe. Work began to erect fabric-and-steel shelters to cover the central monumental buildings to make the site more comfortable for visiting tourists. As teams dug deeper into the bedrock than ever before, they made a shocking discovery. The digs revealed evidence of houses and year-round settlement, suggesting that instead of an isolated temple visited only on special occasions, Gobekli Tepe was a lively village with large, special buildings at the center. A rainwater collection system was also discovered, along with tools for grinding grain and even brewing beer. Since then, archaeologists working in the surrounding countryside have found at least a dozen other hilltop sites with similar pairs of T-shaped pillars, dating from around the same period. 

So what do these discoveries mean? Well, instead of the building project launching the transition to farming, perhaps Gobleki Tepe was an attempt by hunter-gatherers to cling to their way of life amidst a world that was changing around them. Evidence shows that settlements on other hills in the region were experimenting with domestication plants and animals, while the people of Gobleki Tepe appear to have been resisting the change. A sentimental reminder of a way of life that was quickly disappearing, Gobleki Tepe reminds us that humanity today is not really that different from humanity 11,000 years ago. We're all just trying to move forward, while at the same time, we can't quite let go of the past. 