Çayönü Tepesi
Çayönü Tepesi · Cayonu · Chayonu · Çayönü Höyüğü
PPNA to Late PPNB / Pottery Neolithic·Upper Tigris Neolithic·🇹🇷 Diyarbakır Province, Southeast Anatolia, Turkey
About
About Çayönü Tepesi
Neolithic village (8300–5800 BCE) on the upper Tigris near Ergani, sequence spanning PPNA to Pottery Neolithic with world-firsts: earliest pig domestication evidence, early copper working (native copper hammering), and the Skull Building — a charnel house with 90 skulls under flagstones. Grid-plan and cobbled-plaza architecture evolved to cell-plan mudbrick. Mehmet Özdoğan's excavations documented plant domestication of lentil and einkorn and large-scale communal building.
Why it mattersFirst pig domestication; Skull Building charnel; copper metallurgy origins.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why 90 skulls under the Skull Building?
- 02Did copper experimentation lead to Chalcolithic metallurgy?
Theories
- 01Ancestor cult House of Dead; pig pen to domestication
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.8300–5800 BCE
- Period
- PPNA to Late PPNB / Pottery Neolithic
- Culture
- Upper Tigris Neolithic
- Builders
- Taurus foothill farmers
- Purpose
- Mixed farming, pig domestication, copper and ritual
- Abandoned
- c.5800 BCE
- Rediscovered
- 1963 Braidwood; 1964–91 Çambel/Redman/Özdoğan
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
1963
Joint Istanbul-Chicago project
c.7500 BCE
Skull Building in use
On the ground
Structures & features
38.2183° N · 39.7251° E · 832 m · 3 mapped features
Skull Building (BM1)
charnelCharnel house with human skulls and aurochs horns
38.2184° N · 39.7252° EFlagstone plaza / grill houses
houseGrill-plan communal dwellings
38.2181° N · 39.7250° ECell-plan quarter
housePPNB cell-plan storage-houses
38.2183° N · 39.7249° E
Gallery