Pre-Pottery Neolithic Timeline

10500 BCE – 1500 CE · 10 sites

Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites in south-eastern Anatolia — Göbekli Tepe and the wider Taş Tepeler group — preserve monumental stone architecture before pottery and before the classic farming village package. Read excavation pages for what radiocarbon and architecture actually show.

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Hittite

All sites in this period

T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe archaeological site

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Continent Record

Most-Visited Ancient Site in Asia

Göbekli Tepe

9600 BCE – 8000 BCE

The world's oldest known monumental sanctuary, predating Stonehenge by roughly 6,000 years. Massive carved T-shaped pillars arranged in circles suggest complex ritual activity among pre-agricultural communities.

422

Neolithic

The Stone Tower of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan), c. 8500 BCE — among the world's earliest stone monuments

Country Record

Oldest Settlement in Palestine

Jericho

9600 BCE – 700 CE

The world's oldest continuously inhabited city — a Neolithic settlement in the Jordan Valley where humans first built permanent stone structures and cultivated crops around 9600 BCE. The Tower of Jericho, erected by an early Neolithic community around 8500 BCE, is one of the earliest stone monuments on Earth, predating Stonehenge by more than 5,000 years and the Egyptian pyramids by more than 6,000.

NeolithicChalcolithicBronze Age

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Oldest Sanctuary in Asia

Karahan Tepe

9500 BCE – 7800 BCE

Karahan Tepe is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement in southeastern Türkiye, contemporaneous with Göbekli Tepe, featuring monumental architecture and ritual enclosures.

621

Neolithic

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Country Record

Oldest Settlement in Turkey

Çayönü Tepesi

9100 BCE – 5500 BCE

A Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement on the Ergani plain near Diyarbakır, famous for its grill-plan and cell-plan houses, a skull building, and some of the earliest copper and malachite working in Southwest Asia. In 2026 excavators uncovered a 5 m² workshop dated 6900-6800 BCE.

211

NeolithicChalcolithic

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World Record

Oldest City in the World

Hasankeyf

10000 BCE – 1500 CE

A 12,000-year-old cliff city on the Tigris River with cave dwellings, medieval bridges, and Artukid monuments — one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in the world, now partially submerged by the Ilısu Dam in one of the most controversial heritage losses of the 21st century.

411

NeolithicBronze AgePrehistoric

Tell es-Sultan, ancient Jericho — the 10-metre occupation mound in the Jordan Valley, Palestine

Continent Record

Oldest Settlement in Asia

Tell es-Sultan

10500 BCE – 600 CE

The world's oldest walled settlement — a 10-metre earthen mound in the Jordan Valley preserving over 10,000 years of continuous occupation, including a Pre-Pottery Neolithic stone tower built around 8300 BCE that is the oldest known free-standing stone structure, and the Natufian base camp that may represent the world's first permanent village.

PrehistoricNeolithicChalcolithic

Excavated Pre-Pottery Neolithic buildings at Sayburç, Şanlıurfa

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Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Turkey

Sayburç

9000 BCE – 7000 BCE

A Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement on the Şanlıurfa plateau, part of Taş Tepeler, with T-shaped pillars and a bench relief that is among the earliest narrative stone scenes known. In 2026 the ministry announced plans to open the excavated village as an open-air museum.

111

Neolithic

Country Record

Known by the Most Names in Turkey

Sefertepe

8000 BCE – 6500 BCE

A Pre-Pottery Neolithic Taş Tepeler site in Viranşehir, Şanlıurfa, with T-shaped stelae, a skull room, micro-carved beads, and human-face reliefs announced in late 2025.

Neolithic

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Earliest Known Site in Asia

Boncuklu Tarla

10000 BCE – 7000 BCE

A Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlement in Batman province whose earliest layers may predate Göbekli Tepe, featuring communal buildings, bead workshops, and evidence of early ritual practices that illuminate the dawn of settled life in Upper Mesopotamia.

321

PrehistoricNeolithic

Lime-plaster statue with bitumen eyes from ʿAin Ghazal, Jordan

Country Record

Longest Continuously Occupied Site in Jordan

'Ain Ghazal

7200 BCE – 5000 BCE

A large Pre-Pottery Neolithic town on the Zarqa River at Amman, Jordan, famous for lime-plaster statues with bitumen eyes. The figures are among the earliest large-scale human representations in the Levant.

111

Neolithic