Gedikkaya Cave: Epipalaeolithic ritual features and stone circle predating Göbekli Tepe

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Key facts

• Gedikkaya Cave is located approximately 1 km south-southwest of İnhisar in Bilecik province, northwestern Turkey, 350 m above sea level on the northern slopes of Inkaya hill in the Sakarya River Valley.
• The cave is approximately 180 m in length with a north-facing entrance 6 m wide and 3.5 m high; the ceiling rises to 20 m.
• The cave was first explored in 1960 and again in 2001, with archaeological significance reported in 2017 after evidence of illegal excavations; salvage excavations began in 2019.
• Occupation spans from the Epipalaeolithic (13,000–16,500 years ago) through the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods (8th–5th millennia BC), with later Hellenistic activity.
• Two natural niches approximately 20 m from the entrance contained stacked animal remains dated to approximately 13,100 BC, including wild goat and sheep bones, deer antlers, tortoise shells, eagle claw, and mollusk shells, indicating a ritual deposit.
• A semicircular double row of stones approximately 1.2 m in diameter was found 40 m from the entrance, with a natural stalagmite (1 m high, 40 cm wide) at its center, dated to approximately 11,200 BC—approximately 2,000 years older than Göbekli Tepe.
• Artifacts include blades, microliths, flint tools, a stone animal figurine with grooved claws, a pendant, a modified equid phalanx bone resembling anthropomorphic forms, and limestone figurines including one resembling an elephant or mammoth profile.

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