The wider world
How Çayönü fits in.
Çayönü lies in the Tigris region, a neighbour rather than part of Taş Tepeler — but it fills in the broader story of how communities across this world settled down.
Upper Tigris · Southeastern Türkiye
An early Neolithic village on the upper Tigris that traces the long shift toward settled life — with some of the earliest experiments in architecture, and early evidence of working native copper.
Çayönü in context
Çayönü, on the upper Tigris in southeastern Türkiye, was occupied across the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preserves an unusually long sequence of building types — from round huts to rectangular 'cell' and 'grill' plan houses. It holds some of the earliest evidence in the region for the domestication of plants and animals, and a 'skull building' that contained the remains of many people.
Where Göbekli Tepe shows the monumental, gathering side of the early Neolithic, Çayönü shows the parallel everyday story — settling down, building permanent houses, and beginning to farm. The two are complementary halves of the same transformation, unfolding across the same broad landscape.
The wider world
Çayönü lies in the Tigris region, a neighbour rather than part of Taş Tepeler — but it fills in the broader story of how communities across this world settled down.
Visit
Small-group and private tours across the Taş Tepeler landscape, led by people who know the ground.
Full bibliography: the Taş Tepeler reference library →
Last reviewed 21 July 2026. Something wrong?
Last reviewed 21 July 2026. Something wrong?
