Deep inside the world’s oldest temple, Gobekli Tepe, is a pillar known as the Vulture Stone. The temple was erected around 11,500 years ago and can be found in modern-day Anatolia, Southern Turkey. It provides the earliest evidence for permanent human settlements in the world, and the Vulture Stone found within it may tell the story of a comet strike that shaped the course of human history.

The stone is decorated with a range of animal symbols, including a scorpion, an ibex, and many birds in various poses. At the bottom of the scene is an image of a headless man, while the top is bordered with large, repeating arches and squares.

There has been much speculation about what these symbols could mean. One theory suggests that the animals correspond to ancient constellations. The scorpion represents the constellation Scorpio, the duck-like drawing Libra, and the wolf symbol Lupus. The circular shape in the center would represent the Sun.

With all the symbols aligned, the stone represents the sky at the date and time when these constellations and the Sun were aligned.

After cross-checking this theory with computer simulations of the Solar System around that time, researchers proposed that the carvings could describe a comet impact that occurred around 10,950 BCE. In this case, the headless man could represent death and calamity which befell humans at the time, and the strange symbols at the top of the stone could represent comet fragments streaking across the sky.

Around that time, a mini-ice age known as Younger Dryas began that changed civilization forever and lasted around 1000 years. It is considered a critical event for humanity as some scientists believe that the emergence of agriculture and city-states resulted from the low temperatures of the Younger Dryas. This temporary climatic shift depleted hunter-gatherer food sources and forced ancient peoples to gather in settlements and cultivate crops to survive.

The fascinating tableau seems to have served as a means to commemorate the devastating event by the people of Gobekli Tepe and suggests that it wasn't just another neolithic temple but perhaps an ancient observatory used for monitoring the night sky. As of 2021, less than 5% of the site had been excavated, and the mysteries of Gobekli Tepe are likely to be revealed in the years to come.