Yoğunburç

Yoğunburç in context

The first spade in the ground

Yoğunburç is a Neolithic mound of about 22,000 square metres in the Karaköprü district of Şanlıurfa, and one of the twelve sites in the Taş Tepeler project. Until recently it had never been excavated. On 16 July 2026 a team began the first dig ever carried out there — reported as the People's Republic of China's first archaeological excavation in Türkiye.

Work is directed by Prof. Gan Caichao of the Archaeological Research Center of China's National Cultural Heritage Administration, in cooperation with the Şanlıurfa Archaeology Museum, with an opening team of 22 people, seven of them Chinese archaeologists.

An opening season

This is a first season, and its aims are modest and methodical: the team cut long trenches on east–west and north–south lines to find the edges of the settlement and see where remains lie thickest, and marked out a square area in the centre for closer work — tracing the site, not exposing monuments.

The early finds are small but telling of daily life: beads worn for decoration, worked flint and stone tools, and wild boar teeth. No walls, buildings or pillars have been reported yet, and no date specific to Yoğunburç has been published — for now it is simply placed in the same Neolithic horizon as Göbekli Tepe, roughly 12,000 years ago.

Part of a network

There is real value in watching a site read this way. A previously untouched Taş Tepeler mound, opened with modern method from the very first trench, is a rare chance to see a Neolithic site built up from a blank page rather than reinterpreted from an old dig. As with any opening season, expect the picture to change as work continues — and note that the first reports so far trace to a single news dispatch, so the detail should be treated as preliminary.