Mike Collins' "Shocking Film" on Archaeological Malpractice at Gobekli Tepe (III): Jimmy Cosetti Knows Eff-All About this Site (part two - "no landslide here")

What else does Mr Corsetti not see here?  In a further part of the film, he applies his mind to the issue of whether the depression at the bottom of the slope on the side of the tell was filled in by deliberate dumping or slope processes. 

Unfortunately we see the site with those layers emptied out and the excavators have only published four sections of the box-trench sides [and we lack information on the distribution of any debris there might be of the collapse of the structures on the uphill and down-slope sides as well as where the tops of the broken pillars were found] so I do not really know. 

But Corsetti does. He has (as he declares "eyes to see") and a TOTAL CONTEMPT for the intelligence of the archaeologists, who quite clearly are so stupid that they cannot see what Corsetti - without any training, just common sense - can see as clear as day. He arrogantly puts himself and his powers of understanding of this complicated stratigraphic sequence well above theirs.

Posted on You Tube by Wandering Wolf​ 3rd April.

So here he is pontificating:

" (16:47) Um, [addressing the "stupid arkies"] you're going to pretend this is a, a hill slide like, really? You see all these stones, you see all... like that's not what covered this up... And by the way if you look closely over there there's a pillar standing out the ground at the top of it, so... [...] Also one of the key takeaways also be visiting here is that this [pointing to very obvious buildings] is clearly not evidence of a natural hill slide to fill it in, because that's where the debate is is that was this site um purposely buried 11,600 years ago? Well more recent studies by archaeologists are stating that it's more likely the result of a natural uh... landslide from a hill. That's not what I'm seeing. There's pillars at the top of the hill, there's ruins all in there, all these stones.... like are you going to tell me that, when you look at the nature of the actual .... all the stones, the strata itself... If that was a hill slide, you know, that came in... a landslide, you would have knocked over these pillars and broken them. That it just... and it's not even high enough, it just doesn't make sense. It's just not what I'm seeing here, it obviously was purposely buried just like M Schmidt had originally thought, the original excavator of the site. That was his key takeaway, and I'm sorry... anyone with eyes to see can say that that makes no sense. Look at the nature of the stones themselves, it was... it appears to be filled in.... it appears to be purposeful"

No, it looks like the base of collapsed walls of a series of small buildings.

The problem is the arrogance is wrongly-based. Corsetti sees a simple stratigraphy, a hole, a hillside, some "stacked stones" and imagines they are all of the same date ("11600 years ago"). He is wrong, and therefore just comes over as a total buffoon.

First of all, I do wonder whether the word "landslide" was used much by the excavators. I am pretty sure that the DAI team would have used a (German) term more akin to 'slope processes' [at least they should have done]. Corsetti does not see the difference. A landslide (as Corsetti is aware) would be a sudden bulk movement of sediment from under any structure built on it. Slope processes can include more subtle and slower movements such as soil creep and localised erosion - so in theory could occur around standing features such as buildings or trees rather than passing through or under them.

But all of this is irrelevant, as Corsetti has not read the site reports and has not realised that he's conflating events from at least three SEPARATE periods of events/activity on the site. The sunken oval structures were built, modified, repaired and used over some time (Layer One of the original parlance). The sunken oval structures got filled in and then there was continued use of the area to the north of the depression in which the oval sunken structures stood in at least two other periods (Layers Two and Three). It is THESE structures ("stacked stones" = walls)that Corsetti is looking at - post dating (at least in part) the process of filling in the sunken oval features with the pillars. So it is not surprising they are still intact. And Corsetti thought he was being "so clever" and had a real "gottcha" ...

Interestingly, in the context of "eyes to see", at the beginning of the film all three of the YouTubers are shown staring damningly down a hole by the entrance to the viewing platform and cutting through the raised edge of the excavation trench beyond its south baulk. Of course they just saw a hole, a "destructive hole in the archaeology". Have a look. On the left there seems to be a vertical wall face but to its right (south) are a series of layers. What catches my eye (but they did not see the significance) are the deep series of fine well-sorted layers of black fill with pea-grit stones overlying a rubble layer. This does not look at all like material dumped over and around the walls here, but it does look like the sort of sorting you'd see in an accumulation of material moved by slope processes. I do not know, but I'd suggest that what can be seen in this hole is the southern edge of the deposits accumulated in and on the ruins of the "Layer 1" structures - so hillwash. What does Mr Corsetti think it is? 

  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)