Körtiktepe

Körtiktepe or Körtik Tepe is the oldest known

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 ...

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or recorded history, historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline ...

in Turkey. Together with Tell Mureybet and

Tell Abu Hureyra Tell Abu Hureyra () is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Upper Euphrates valley in Syria. The tell was inhabited between 13,300 and 7,800 cal. BP in two main phases: Abu Hureyra 1, dated to the Epipalaeolithic, was a village of sedenta ...

in northern Syria, Körtiktepe is one of the only three securely dated

Younger Dryas The Younger Dryas (YD, Greenland Stadial GS-1) was a period in Earth's geologic history that occurred circa 12,900 to 11,700 years Before Present (BP). It is primarily known for the sudden or "abrupt" cooling in the Northern Hemisphere, when the ...

sedentary sites in Upper

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

. The habitation of the site began in the first half of the 11th millennium BCE, approximately 10700 BCE (12,700 years ago), and persisted with consistent density until approximately 10400 BCE. Strontium and oxygen isotope analyses of human tooth enamel indicate that the inhabitants of the

occupations at Körtiktepe were born and grew up in or near the site. Although a potential minor flooding event transpired during the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Early Holocene, the site endured without evident abandonment, at least not for a prolonged interval. Occupation continued and thrived during the Early

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

. The architectural tradition of constructing round plans established around 10400 BCE and continued without any fundamental alterations until the eventual desertion of the site. The site reached its peak in terms of occupation density around 9300 BCE.Benz et al. 2012
/ref> Subsequently, it experienced an unexplained abandonment, possibly attributed to natural disturbances such as flooding induced by the

climate changes. Diyarbakır Museum 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 the ...

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See also