There's an ancient temple that I don't have at least cursory knowledge of?

Well, there was.

Behold... Göbekli Tepe.

It's a hill in Turkey with four large stone circle areas and nearby refuse piles filled with game animal bones, kind of like Chaco, but it's 12,000 years old (instead of like 1,600). Just to clear things up, that's before the end of the last ice age.

So when I think of this particular temple I think of the terrible(ish) movie, B.C,. or even maybe Conan movies and think, "Yeah, that might be slightly accurate in some ways."

Even more, I think of my friend Ian, who was prone to saying some crazy things as we drank cupfulls of booze and gingerale and smoked rolling tobacco behind Handlebar; but one of the less crazy things (or at least one of my favorite things) he would bring up was the idea that humans as a species are really smart, and it's quite possible that interesting civilizations and technologies and arts have happened that we haven't found traces of. He would also point out that Ancient Astronauts are not a necessary part of the equation. I whole-heartedly agree with that position, although... I did find out about this archeological wonder from the History Channel show "Ancient Aliens".

Check out the happy, mmm, I'm gonna say albatross (?) and the pretty good scorpion!

That's a pretty cool wild boar too. Also... an admirable attempt at Kurdish dress by a German archeologist.

If you can stand a little tap dancing around speculation, it might be worth reading this Fortean Times article about the whole thing. If you can't, then I'll just say that this temple seems to be near a possible origin of the cultivation of wheat, and it was purposely covered with dirt for some reason or another, which leads some people to believe it is a sort of Garden of Eden which was ruined by deforestation and crop production and then entombed as a forgotten relic of a marshy, foresty, game-stocked Edenic time.

Here's some wild speculation of my own: they built a temple because they discovered how to make beer out of grain, yet they wanted to celebrate the hunt. People came from all around to try beer and it became a vacation/spiritual destination, which meant more need for beer, which meant more grain, which meant more deforestation, which meant destruction of hunting habitat and a hangover without deer guts for proto-menudo and possibly a tea-totaling backlash. It's exactly the same as the other speculation, but with more alcohol.

Anyway, that's my wild speculation, and it completely ignores hallucinogens and aliens, so maybe it isn't even that wild... eh...eh? (Those "eh"s are to be read as verbal elbows to ribs complete with eyebrows being raised, btws.)