The 12,000-year-old Göbekli Tepe site in Turkey is often called the “zero point of history”, said The Archaeologist . But recent excavations at the nearby Mendik Tepe site suggest it dates back even further, and could offer “newer insights into humanity’s earliest steps toward settled life”.

‘Earliest stages’ of human settlement

Mendik Tepe (Mendik Hill or Peak) is in a rural area of south-eastern Anatolia, about 130 miles east of the city of Şanlıurfa. It’s in this region that the first permanent human settlements are thought to have been established in the early Neolithic period. A Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry project called Taş Tepeler (Stone Hills) is overseeing architectural digs in the area.

Excavation at Mendik Tepe got underway last year, led by University of Liverpool

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