Ancient site · Settlement
Çayönü
Also known as Çayönü Tepesi
An early farming village near Diyarbakır in southeastern Turkey, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains near a tributary of the Tigris. Over two thousand years its people moved from round huts to rectangular houses on stone 'grill' foundations, built special public buildings, and worked copper and malachite.
Its people grew emmer and einkorn wheat, and it is a key site for the early domestication of pigs and cattle.
- Dates
- c. 8630–6800 BCE
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 38.22° N, 39.73° E
How we know
No writing existed; it is dated by excavations from 1964 to 1991 and radiocarbon.
Nearby sites
- Arslantepe c. 4000–700 BCE; palace c. 3400–3200 BCE
- Karahan Tepe c. 9750–9400 BCE (dates still being refined)
- Göbekli Tepe c. 9500–8000 BCE
- Tell Halaf c. 6100–5400 BCE (Halaf village); later the Aramaean city of Guzana
- Tell Abu Hureyra c. 11,300–5800 BCE
- Nineveh c. 3000–612 BCE (Assyrian capital from c. 700 BCE)
Related
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) archaeological culture