Decorated stone vessels from Körtik Tepe in southeastern Turkey date to 10,400–9,250 BCE, among the earliest known examples. Çayönü is another important Aceramic Neolithic site, with figurines and more than a millennium of occupation, but it is not established as Turkey's oldest. Karahan Tepe, occupied roughly from 9,500 to 8,200 BCE, is best known for T-shaped pillars and anthropomorphic statues; the vessel-and-figurine claim is misattributed.
The three sites are in southeastern Anatolia, not the Levant. Körtik's date puts its vessels several millennia before early Egyptian stone vessels, but 10,700 BCE is not a secure date for all three. The Pre-Pottery Neolithic was not an age before farming: plant cultivation and animal management were already under way.
Later Levantine stone vessels include thin-walled, polished limestone, chlorite and grainstone pieces. Neolithic contexts also contain flint and obsidian tools, grindstones and perforated stones interpreted as drill weights, but those identifications do not establish continuous pump- or bow-drill use from more than 12,000 years ago to the Industrial Revolution.
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Ancient Figurines From Turkey Could Be Earliest Storytelling Objectsnews.artnet.comThis large stone vessel that archaeologists excavated at Karahan Tepe included a fox, a vulture, and a wild boar figurine carefully packed away.
Discovery of Turkish 11400-year-old village challenges ideas of ...theartnewspaper.comExcavations at monumental site Karahan Tepe, near the Turkish-Syrian border, suggest that society was established before the dawn of agriculture.
New statues found in Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepearchaeologymag.comArchaeologists in Turkey have uncovered several new monumental statues and architectural elements at Göbekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe.
Tiny carved animals found in Turkey tell story of prehistoric ... - Reutersreuters.comDating back some 11,500 years, the trio of figurines found at the Karahantepe archaeological site is the first known example of objects being ...
At 'Neolithic capital' in Turkey, carved faces upend narrative of a ...timesofisrael.comThe project includes the UNESCO heritage site Gobekli Tepe — “Potbelly Hill” in Turkish — which is home to the oldest known megalithic ...
Cayönü Tepesitf.uni-kiel.deAceramic or without pottery vessels but with (sun-baked?) clay figurines of animals and a few of humanoid form. Interestingly, no pictures of these figures ...
Çayönü Tepesi: The Site That Came Before Göbeklitepetheothertour.comÇayönü Tepesi is the Neolithic mound near Diyarbakır where farming, the first pigs and the oldest worked copper began, long before Göbeklitepe's fame.
Körtiktepe and the Early Neolithization in Upper ...hoyuk.gov.trIt is especially noteworthy that Körtiktepe-type stone vessels, stone and bone plaquettes, as well as various other material objects such as shaft-straighteners ...
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