Çayönü Tepesi is a

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

settlement in southeastern

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

which prospered from circa 8,630 to 6,800 BC. It is located in Diyarbakır Province forty kilometres north-west of

Diyarbakır Diyarbakır is the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. It is the administrative center of Diyarbakır Province. Situated around a high plateau by the banks of the Tigris river on which stands the historic Diyarbakır Fortress, it is ...

, at the foot of the Taurus mountains. It lies near the Boğazçay, a tributary of the upper

Tigris The Tigris ( ; see #Etymology, below) is the eastern of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian Desert, Syrian and Arabia ...

River and the Bestakot, an intermittent stream. It is an early example of

agriculture Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

Settlement

At first, Cayonu represented single room structures that were round or had rounded corners. On top were built wattle and daub constructions. The next phase consisted of grill-plan buildings. This refers to a type of the building foundation. : "The grills were composed of a series of parallel linear stone foundations, carefully built of small stones and no more than 15 cm high (Schirmer 1990), which supported an elevated plastered floor, keeping it insulated, ventilated and dry."

Archaeology

The site was excavated for 16 seasons between 1964 and 1991, initially by Robert John Braidwood and Halet Çambel and later by Mehmet Özdoğan and Aslı Erim Özdoğan. The settlement covers the periods of the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) denotes the first stage of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in early Levantine and Anatolian Neolithic culture, dating to years ago, that is, 10,000–8800 BCE. Archaeological remains are located in the Levantine and U ...

(PPNA), the

Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was Type site, typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon ...

(PPNB), and the Pottery Neolithic (PN). The stratigraphy is divided into the following subphases according to the dominant architecture: *round, PPNA *grill, PPNA (grill-plan buildings) *channeled, Early PPNB *cobble paved, Middle PPNB *cell, Late PPNB *large room, final PPNB An analysis of blood found at the site suggested that

human sacrifice Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more humans as part of a ritual, which is usually intended to please or appease deity, gods, a human ruler, public or jurisdictional demands for justice by capital punishment, an authoritative/prie ...

occurred there.

Origin of domestication

Animal life - domestication of pigs and cattle

The settlement attests to the period of transition from hunting and gathering to plant and animal domestication. Domestic animals appear in the final aspects of Phase I (preceramic); prior to that, the bones of wild game are relatively abundant. Mainly sheep was domesticated at first. In regard to cattle domestication, recently (2021) scholars make a distinction between “cattle management” and “domestic cattle”. Çayönü Tepesi provides a time sequence clarifying changes in the human management of Bos populations from the earliest times. Arbuckle and Kassebaum outline several stages of cattle management at Cayonu, and they present a rather complicated picture. Bos remains are abundant already in the earliest levels representing c. 20% of the mammalian remains. Much later, around 7500 BC, cattle reach their maximum abundance at the site, but they are still phenotypically unchanged. Decrease in cattle size is evident only around 7000 BC, and continues thereafter at this and related sites in the area. Çayönü is possibly the place where the pig (''Sus scrofa'') was first domesticated.

Farming - cultivation of cereals

Genetic studies of emmer wheat, the precursor of most current wheat species, show that the slopes of Mount Karaca ( Karaca Dağ), which is located in close vicinity to Çayönü, was the location of first domestication. A different DNA approach pointed to Kartal Daği. Robert Braidwood wrote that "insofar as unit HA can be considered as representing all of the major pre-historic occupation at Cayonu, cultivated emmer along with cultivated einkorn was present from the earliest sub-phase."

Notes

External links

Çayönü
from About.com

from Ancient Near East {{DEFAULTSORT:Cayonu Archaeological sites in Southeastern Anatolia Neolithic settlements Former populated places in Turkey Geography of Diyarbakır Province Buildings and structures in Diyarbakır Province Prehistoric Anatolia Tells (archaeology) Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Late Neolithic