Çayönü


Çayönü Tepesi is a Neolithic settlement in southeastern Turkey which prospered from circa 8,630 to 6,800 BC. It is located forty kilometres north-west of Diyarbakır, at the foot of the Taurus mountains. It lies near the Boğazçay, a tributary of the upper Tigris River and the Bestakot, an intermittent stream.

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, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, and the Pottery Neolithic.
The stratigraphy is divided into the following subphases according to the dominant architecture:
An analysis of blood found at the site suggested that human sacrifice occurred there.

Origin of domestication

Animal life - domestication of pigs and cattle

Çayönü is possibly the place where the pig 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, 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."