Mike Collins' "Shocking Film" Alleging Archaeological Malpractice at Gobekli Tepe (V): the Lady Content-Maker's Reaction

As accompaniment on their trip abroad to make a film trashing archaeologists working in Turkey, Mike Collins and Jimmy Corsetti decided to take a fellow US blogger Nikkiana Jones from Texas (@NikkianaJones - "Exploring the Fringe, Formerly Known As: Living Extraordinary Podcast; a self proclaimed "truth seeker" that challenges the current paradigm") as accompaniment on their trip to Turkey. 

Posted on You Tube by Wandering Wolf Apr 3, 2025 (196,030 views).
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Collins:  "Nikiana Jones: What do you think of the site?

"I don’t know—still processing it. I liked it a lot. It was great, but it was confusing how you would know if it was actually buried or not. It’s also confusing where it’s at (sic), like how they ever found this to begin with. And if this is here, then how much else is really around in the neighbouring hills?
It’s like on the top of a weird, rocky hill with a bunch of sheep on it. It makes you start looking around at everything, wondering what else might be buried all around. They have this weird plaster that they put on stuff, which is confusing to me. Yeah, I liked it though. I’d definitely come back — you know, to do things".

How typical that the two men were so busy explaining to the world how the archaeologists and Turkish authorities "got it all wrong" and (deliberately) damaged the site, they did not think to spare the time to explain the site and its story (which no doubt both researched before the trip) to their lady friend. I am not sure what she is confused about ("was it buried or not") but it was not explained to her that "they found it" because erosion revealed the tops of some of the pillars which Braidwood's American team mistook for more recent tomb-markers and quickly left the site without investigating it further. It was a European team that realised much later what it was. The reference to "weird plaster" is unclear.

The sheep are there to prevent the trees re-shooting.

.The idea of displaying the site with an interpretive centre is to provide an educational resource. One wonders how much this particular visitor learnt about the transition between hunter-gatherers and settled farmers from her visit (apart from them having "weird plaster"). What would need to happen for everybody to have access to this learning? 

 To access the introduction to this series and the links to the other posts in it please go here (for other posts on this blog about Gobekli Tepe see here)