Yeşilova Höyük

Yeşilova Höyük is a höyük ("mound") situated within the boundaries of the present-day metropolitan district of Bornova, and was the first settlement in prehistory of the native people of İzmir, Turkey. It was occupied in an uninterrupted manner between, very roughly, 6500 to 4000 BCE, and was covered with silt afterwards.

Discovered in 2003, the site has been explored since 2005 by a team under the direction of Associate Professor Zafer Derin of Ege University. On its second season only, and through means drawn at present principally from within the university framework, important new light could already be shed on the Neolithic-Chalcolithic phases of İzmir's metropolitan area in particular and of Turkey's Aegean Region in general.

Drilled sample section disclosed a first cultural layer associated with the late Roman–early Byzantine period, and still more importantly, allowed the outlines of two additional layers, which date from the Calcolithic and Neolithic Ages, to be made out. The first settlement in the site, at a depth of 4 meters under the surface level, had started out at some point during the Neolithic and had reached its zenith towards the end of the same age. The same settlement was seen to have continued its existence also through the Chalcolithic period in part. Thus, Yeşilova Höyük saw uninterrupted settlement spanning at least fifteen hundred years during prehistory. No artifacts dating from the early Bronze Age are discovered to date but after the full abandon of settlement, part of the mound was used as a cemetery. Habitation in the area of the mound was resumed during the late Roman-early Byzantine period, but was sparser in form and shorter in duration.

External links

* [http://www.yesilova.ege.edu.tr/eng/kazieng.htm Web site of the excavations (pages in English)]
* [http://www.ege.edu.tr/english Ege University (pages in English)]