Çayönü Tepesi (Cayonu) is a Neolithic settlement in SE Turkey. From c. 8630-6800 BCE it's a site of innovation, agriculture and human sacrificial rites. Cayonu is about 10 days' walk from the oldest megalithic cult center Gobekli Tepe (c. 9600-8200 BCE).
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It would be faster by donkey, but they're not domesticated until c. 4800 BCE. Aurochs or cattle domestication appears by c. 8200 BCE. A progressive center in Neolithic times, Çayönü is known for agriculture, early livestock breeding and evidence of human sacrifice.
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Built on a tributary of the upper Tigris River, Çayönü Tepesi shows developments in animal husbandry and selective seeding. Signs of domestic innovation include terrazzo floors and woven cloth. Female figurines are also discovered, possibly votive or protective.
HIstorian Robert Braidwood writes "... cultivated emmer along with cultivated einkorn was present from the earliest sub-phase." Emmer wheat and einkorn are two of the earliest crops known to humans.
A tell or mound of settlements, Cayonu has distinct levels of occupation, building and architecture. Each stage is built atop the previous. Tells are popular habitation locations in Anatolia and other areas and give archaeologists chronological cross-sections of site use.
The six building levels are:
Round huts (c. 10,500 - 9000 BCE)
Grill-planned buildings (c. 9000 - 8500 BCE)
Channel Buildings (c. 8500 - 8200 BCE)
Cobble-paved buildings (c. 8200 - 7500 BCE)
Cell-planned buildings (c. 7500 - 7000 BCE)
Round huts (c. 10,500 - 9000 BCE)
The first buildings of Cayonu are single room structures as circles or squares with rounded corners. The structures are wattle-and daub huts with sunken floors of plaster. No communal buildings or temples are evident.
A composite building method, the wattle and daub technique uses materials at hand. A woven lattice of wooden twigs or strips, the wattle, is daubed with a mix of wet soil, sand, sticky clay, straw and animal dung.
Wattle and daub has been a practical construction method for thousands of years. Evidence for wattle and daub fire pits, storage bins and buildings appears in Egypt by the 5th millennium BCE, predating the use of mud brick.
Aceramic vessels, bowls and containers made without pottery, are also found from this period. Aceramic materials can include bark, basketry, gourds, stone and leather or animal hide. Clay figurines of animals and a few people are found at this stage.
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Most artifacts are chipped stone tools of flint and obsidian. Obsidian is especially valued due to its sharp edges, and is often found as blades of ritual daggers. Horn and bone tools are also widely used.
Domestic animals are first evident in the final stage of the this phase. Pigs are the first domesticated, followed by sheep. Previously, bones of wild game are abundant, attesting to reliance on hunting.
Grill-planned buildings (c. 9000 - 8500 BCE)
In the grill-planned stage, rectangular houses appear, oriented north-south. The houses are divided into three sub-sections. The largest room is at the north end. It resembles a grill from above and has an unknown function.
Grillwork is built into the foundation. According to Schirmer 1990:
"The grills are composed of a series of parallel linear stone foundations, carefully built of small stones and no more than 15 cm high, which supports an elevated plastered floor, keeping it insulated, ventilated and dry."
The grill phase is superimposed directly on the round hut sub-phase. One large building seems to be created for special use such as rituals or community gatherings. It features a flagstone floor of limestone. Stone floors tell of a settled existence.
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Channel Buildings (c. 8500 - 8200 BCE) - The Skull Building
The constructions have a type of paved floor, contained by parallel drainage channels. One of these is the Skull Building. Housing evolves from the grill phase where grill-like foundation walls are a part of the floor and the previous ventilation openings become the channels.
The skull building yields about 70 skulls from small adjoining chambers. Headless skeletons are later found. The main room features a cut and polished stone block or altar about a ton in weight.
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A large flint knife is uncovered nearby. Microscopic analysis of the smooth surface of the altar shows animal and human blood at least 9000 years old.
This may be a building for ritual blood sacrifice, a common practice in various cultures. Human sacrifice is presumed by blood analysis at the scene. Sacrifice of humans can be for fertility of land and inhabitants, as part of an elite burial rite or to please a god.
One of the later human sacrifice locations is the Temple at Uppsala, Sweden, where males of every species, including humans, are abundantly sacrificed. The practice continues to 1087 AD, when the temple is burned down as part of the Christianization of Scandinavia.
Human sacrifice exists in China by c. 2300 BCE. In ancient Egypt King Djer (c. 3050 BCE) has 318 servants sacrificed and buried in his tomb, with a further 269 buried in enclosures surrounding his tomb. In ancient Japan, maidens are buried alive beneath building pillars.
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In the ancient near East many religious rituals, including human sacrifice, serve an agricultural purpose. Blood mixed with soil improves fertility. In some Mesopotamian royal burials, servants, attendants and musicians commit ritual suicide or may be brutally killed.
Cobble-paved buildings (c. 8200 - 7500 BCE)
The fourth occupation level has stone foundations. It's built of formed cell style units with walls of mud brick.
Cell-planned buildings (c. 7500 - 7000 BCE)
Buildings of the cell type are larger than buildings of the previous phases and are well preserved site-wide. Houses and constructions may have two stories. The second floor is of mud bricks with a flat walled-in roof. After 7000 BCE ambitious larger structures are found.
One of the main discoveries is the 12 × 9 m (40 x 30 ft) Terrazzo Building. The elaborate terrazzo floor is made of white and red chalk stones embedded in chalk mortar or lime, and polished. The stones create a white and red stripe pattern.
Like the Skull Building, this large structure features a type of altar with stylized human face in raised relief. A link to the skull cult at Gobekli Tepe is suggested due to the nature of the Gobekli site.
Created largely as a worship center, Gobekli and adjoining limestone quarry is used and worked by early humans. It features the oldest megaliths known to date.
The Cayonu settlement shows the time of transition from hunting and gathering peoples to the domestication of animals, animal husbandry and cultivation of plants such as wheats and barley.
Several stages of cattle management appear at Cayonu. Remains of cattle in the earliest levels of habitation make up 20% of the mammalian remains. By 7500 BC, cattle reach maximum abundance at the site.
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The wild cows of Eurasia are the massive Bos primigenius or aurochs. Decrease in cattle size is evident only around 7000 BCE. It's thought the pig (Sus scrofa or wild boar) is first domesticated at Çayönü.
Genetic studies of emmer wheat, the precursor of most current wheat species, show the first domestication of the crop on the slopes of Mount Karaca (Karaca Dağ). The great volcano is under a day's walk from Çayönu. It's thought to be the "Eden" of the ancient Sumerians.
Karaca Dağ (Karacadağ) is a shield volcano, a low-lying type formed by millennia of lava flow. Its active time of eruption is about 100,000 years ago. In the nutritious volcanic soil the genetically common ancestor of 68 contemporary types of cereal still grows as a wild plant.
It's also the place of origin of major crops such as chickpeas and lentils. Soil richness comes from volcanic lava and deep layers of sedimentary stone high in organic compounds. The slopes provide lush abundant grazing for livestock.
Water streams originating from Karaca Dağ feed both the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The south slope of the shield volcano is the source of the River Khabur. Mineral water from several groundwater sites in the Karaca Dag area is sold bottled in stores today.
Several hundred people live in Cayönü as the site progresses through the ages, and are believed to be the first farmers. They plant and experiment with crops such as flax, yielding the first known fabric, linen.
The Cayönüsians are also considered the first to domesticate sheep and goats. Initially they domesticate pigs. The wild boar is already a favorite prey animal for hunters human and otherwise.
Cayönü inhabitants are known to have mined and worked copper. Artifacts such as beads, hooks, awls and pins date to 8 200 - 7 500 BCE. In Neolithic times Cayönü native copper comes from an ore deposit at Ergani Maden 20 km (12.4 mi) away.
Metal smiths at Çayönü use cold-hammering techniques along with application of heat between shapings. Besides working with copper, artisans create works of the green copper rock malachite, including hundreds of disc beads.
Debris and other evidence of malachite processing is also found in Cayönü Tepesi. Dating to 8000 BCE, most activity is found in the court yards of buildings from the grill-plane architecture phase. Both malachite and copper are important Neolithic trade goods.
Copper can be extracted from malachite. One ancient extraction procedure involves roasting the rock, which decomposes malachite into black copper oxide. The copper(II) oxide is then thermally reduced with carbon (charcoal) to give copper metal.
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