Aşıklı Höyük
Aşıklı Höyük is a settlement mound located nearly 1 km south of Kızılkaya village on the bank of the Melendiz brook, and 25 kilometers south - east of Aksaray, Turkey. Aşıklı Höyük is located in an area covered by the volcanic tuff of central Cappadocia, in Aksaray Province. The archaeological site of Aşıklı Höyük was first settled in the Aceramic Neolithic period, around 9000 B.C.
It is situated 1119.5 metres above sea level; a little higher than the regions average being ca. 1000 metres. The site itself is about 4 ha, considerably smaller than the closely situated site of Çatalhöyük (13 ha). The surrounding landscape is formed by erosion of river valleys into tuff deposits. The Melendiz Valley, where the Aşıklı Höyük is located, constitutes a favourable, fertile, and diverse habitat. The proximity to an obsidian source did become the base of a trade with the material supplying areas as far away as today’s Cyprus and Iraq.
Aşıklı Höyük was first investigated by Professor Ian A. Todd when he visited the site in the summer of 1964. Todd emphasised the importance of the obsidian in the area, based on over 6000 obsidian pieces collected from the surface layer alone. The site was classified as a medium sized mound and partly destroyed by the river situated next to it. On the basis of the lithics and animal bones located in the surface layers the site got known as a contemporary to the Palestine PPNB, which later got reinforced by C14 dates (based on five unstratified radiocarbon dates going from 7008 ± 130 to 6661 ± 108). The first comprehensive excavations took place relatively late: first when the government launched a plan that would result in the rise of the waters of the Mamasın Lake located close to Aşıklı Höyük, Professor Ufuk Esin (University of Istanbul) started the salvage excavations in 1989. There have been altogether undertaken nine excavations to the year 2003; uncovering approximately 4200 m2 on the horizontal plain, making it one of the largest scale excavations in the region.
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