The drive to Gobekli was uneventful. Radevan picked his nose and complained loudly about the Turks. Rob stared out across the wastes, towards the Euphrates, the blue Taurus Mountains beyond. He’d come to like this desert, even if it unnerved him. So old, so weary, so malevolent, so stark. The desert of the wind demons. What else was hiding under its shallow hills? A weird thought. Rob stared across the wilderness.

They got there quickly. With a squeal of bald tyres, Radevan parked. He leaned out of the window as Rob walked to the dig. ‘Three hours, Mr Rob?’

Rob laughed. ‘Yep.’

The dig was frenetic today, busier than Rob had seen it. New trenches were being laid. Deep new gouges into the hills, showing ever more stones. Rob understood that the digging season was coming to an end and Franz was keen to crack on. The digging season was remarkably short-the site was simply too hot in high summer, and too exposed in winter. And anyway the scientists apparently needed nine months of exegesis and laboratory work to process what they had found in the three months of actual digging. That was the archaeological year: three months of spadework, nine months of thinking. Quite relaxed, really.

Franz and Christine and the paleobotanist-Ivan-were having a debate in the tented area. They greeted Rob with a wave and he sat down and more tea was served. Rob liked the endless production line of Turkish tea, the ritual tinkling of spoons and tulip-shaped glasses, the taste of the sweet dark cay. And hot black tea was oddly refreshing in the dry desert sun.

Over his first glass of tea Rob told them his news. That he was finishing up, that this was his last visit. He checked Christine’s face as he said this. Did he see a flicker of regret? Maybe. His mood sashayed a little. But then he remembered his job. He had to ask some more questions, his very last queries. That was why he was here. Nothing else.

His journalistic need was to put the dig in context. He’d been reading some more history books-prehistory books-and he wanted to place Gobekli Tepe somewhere within that history. See how it fitted in, how it gleamed in the mosaic of wider human history-the evolution of man and civilization.

Franz was happy to oblige. ‘This area,’ he waved his arm at the yellow hills beyond the open-sided tents, ‘is where it all began. Human civilization. The first written language is cuneiform, that started not far away. Copper smelting is originally Mesopotamian. And the first true towns were built in Turkey. Isobel Previn could tell you all about that.’

Rob was mystified. Then he remembered the name-Christine’s tutor at Cambridge. Isobel Previn. Rob had also read the name in various history books-Previn had worked with the great James Mellaert, the English archaeologist who excavated Catalhoyuk. Rob had enjoyed reading about Catalhoyuk-not least because they dug it up so quickly. Three years of lusty shovelling and it was nearly all revealed. That was the heroic, Hollywood age of archaeology. Nowadays, as far as Rob could tell, things had slowed down. Now there were so many experts in different fields-archaeometallurgists, zooarchaeologists, ethnohistorians, geomorphologists-it had all got very intricate. A complex site could take decades to unravel.

Gobekli Tepe was such a site. Franz had been digging in Gobekli since 1994; Christine had implied that he would spend the rest of his working life here. A whole working life on one site! But then again, it was the most amazing archaeological site in the world. Which was probably why Franz looked so chuffed most of the time. He was smiling right now-explaining to Rob about the early history of pottery and agriculture, both of which came after Gobekli Tepe was built. Both of which also started nearby.

‘The first ever signs of farming can be found in Syria. Gordon Childe called it the Neolithic Revolution and it happened not far to the south. Abu Hureyra, Tell Aswad, places like that. So you see this really is the cradle. Metalwork, pottery, farming, smelting, writing all began near Gobekli. Ja?’

Christine added, ‘Yes, though actually there is some evidence of rice farming in Korea in 13,000 BC, but it is enigmatic.’

Ivan, who had been silent until now, also joined in: ‘And there is some strange evidence that pottery may have started and then stopped before that, in Siberia.’

Rob turned. ‘Sorry?’ Franz looked slightly irritated by his colleague’s interruption, but Rob was intrigued. ‘Go on?’

Ivan blushed. ‘Erm…we have evidence from eastern Siberia, maybe Japan, of an even earlier civilization. A northern people. Possibly they died out, because the evidence disappears. We do not know. We have no idea where they went.’

Franz looked nettled. ‘Ja, ja, ja, Ivan. But still! This area is where it really happened. The Near East! Here.’ He slapped his hand on the table for emphasis, making the teaspoons rattle. ‘All of it. All of it started here. The first kilns for making pots. That was in Syria, and Iraq. The Hittites made the first iron. In Anatolia. The first domestic pigs were in Cayonu, the first villages were in Anatolia, and…and of course the first temple…’

‘Gobekli Tepe!’

Everyone laughed. Peace had been restored, and the conversation evolved. Rob spent a diligent ten minutes copying out his notes, while the archaeologists chatted amongst themselves about domestication of early animals and the distribution of ‘microliths’. The discussion was technical and obscure; Rob didn’t mind. He had the final pieces to the jigsaw. It wasn’t the whole picture-the mysteries remained-but it was a good picture and a compelling picture and it would have to do. Besides, he was a journalist, not a historian. He wasn’t here to get everything right, he was here to get a vivid impression, quickly. What did they call journalism? ‘The first draft of history’. That was all he was doing and all he was meant to do: he was writing the first rough draft.

He looked up. He’d been annotating for half an hour now. The scientists had left him to it; they had dispersed around the dig to do whatever it was they actually did when they weren’t arguing. Examining dust and sieving old rocks. Sitting in their cabins having more arguments. Rob stood up, rubbed his stiff neck and decided to go for a wander about the place before making his exit. So he hoisted his rucksack and walked out around the nearest hillock, skirting the enclosures and the stones.

Beyond the main area of the dig was a vast bare field, scattered with flints. Christine had showed him this place on his previous visit. Rob had been amazed at the time to see so many twelve-thousand-year-old pieces of flint, knapped by Stone Age man, just lying around. Literally thousands of them. You could just kneel down and after a short search pick up an ancient axe, arrowhead or cutting tool.

Rob decided to do just that: he fancied a souvenir. The sun was hot on his back as he knelt in the dust. Within a few minutes he got lucky. He examined his find, turning it carefully between his fingers. It was an arrowhead, skilfully, even exquisitely knapped. Rob imagined the man who had made it twelve thousand years ago. Working away in the sun, in a loincloth. With a bow slung across his muscled back. A primitive man. Yet someone who had built a great temple, carved with serious artistry. It was a paradox. The cavemen who built a cathedral! It was also a good introduction to Rob’s article. A nice vivid image.

He stood up and slipped the arrowhead into a zipped side pocket of his rucksack. He was probably breaking a hundred Turkish laws, stealing ancient artefacts, but it wasn’t as if Gobekli Tepe was going to run short of Stone Age flint-pieces any time soon. Slinging the rucksack over his back, Rob took one last look at the undulating and treeless plains, burnt by the relentless sun. He thought of Iraq, somewhere out there. Not so far away. If he got in the car and told Radevan to drive he could be at the Iraqi border in a few hours.