Stone Age · c. 12,000–10,000 BC · Şika Rika 5, near Akıncı, Mardin province, Turkey
Prehistoric hunter-gatherer village found in southeastern Turkey outside the Tigris Valley
Round stone houses at Şika Rika 5 in Mardin province date to about 12,000–10,000 BC, and the team says settled life there may have had deeper local roots than thought.
Peer-reviewed paper
Şika Rika 5, near Akıncı, Turkey Archaeologists from Mardin Artuklu University have excavated a settlement of round stone houses in Mardin province, southeastern Turkey. It dates to the end of the Epipalaeolithic, roughly 12,000–10,000 BC. The site, Şika Rika 5, is the first settlement of this period found in Anatolia outside the Tigris Valley.
The team argues that the move to settled life in northern Mesopotamia owed more to local developments than previously thought. The authors are Ergül Kodaş, C. L. Kodaş and B. İpek. Their results are published in the journal Antiquity.
The Epipalaeolithic is the long transition between the Palaeolithic and the Neolithic. In this period some hunter-gatherers in the Near East began to build lasting homes, but they did not yet farm. Almost all known Anatolian sites of this age lie along the Tigris and Euphrates.
Şika Rika 5 lies elsewhere. It is in the limestone foothills of Tur Abdin, in the northern part of the Khabur River valley, close to the Syrian border. This area had not been explored for these periods.
One of 20 villages close together
The site was identified during surface surveys in 2022 and 2023. Excavations led by Kodaş began in 2024.
The wider area, Şika Rika, lies about two kilometres northeast of the village of Akıncı. It holds 20 separate settlements, spaced only about 300 to 500 metres apart. All of them are visible on the surface from the remains of their limestone structures.
The archaeologists sort the settlements into three types. Some have angular plans, and some have large round areas. A third group, including Şika Rika 5, has smaller round structures.
Şika Rika 5 sits on a rocky slope in the northeast of the cluster. Its surface structures cover more than 1,200 square metres. At its centre are three adjacent circular buildings, labelled A1, A2 and A3.
The largest, A1, is 6.3 metres across. It has a circular stone hearth and four stone-lined postholes, which indicate a roof or raised structure. The other two buildings are 5 and 3 metres across. Each has a single central posthole.
A fourth building, A4, is 4.9 metres across. It was excavated urgently because illegal digging had damaged it. It held a posthole and a hearth. It also held a pit that the researchers think may be a burial pit.
Isolated human bones, including teeth, were found inside A1 and A3. Keeping the remains of the dead inside houses is a practice documented in later Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures.
Flint tools, bedrock mortars and bone ornaments
Most of the stone tools are flint. The team thinks the flint was taken from nodules in the local limestone. Some pieces are obsidian, a volcanic glass that must have come from far away. Cores, flakes, unworked blades and hammerstones show that tools were made on site.
Very small tools dominate. They include crescent-shaped lunates and retouched bladelets. These were set into wooden or bone handles to make knives, sickles or projectile points.
Among them are Helwan-type lunates. This form ties the site in date and culture to sites in the Mediterranean Levant. Burins, scrapers and drills complete the assemblage.
The diggers also found many grinding stones and pestles. These were used for processing wild cereals, legumes and other plants. There are also mortars carved into the bedrock. Such fixed installations are usually taken as a sign of a more permanent settlement.
Some finds have no obvious practical use: fragments of bone pendants, pieces of staffs, staff heads and a polished staff fragment. The team reads them as evidence of a developed symbolic and social life.
Animal bones show that people exploited wetlands, forests, mountains and steppe. The economy was therefore still that of hunter-gatherers.
Until now, the Epipalaeolithic record of southeastern Anatolia amounted to three sites, all in the Upper Tigris. They are a partly excavated building at Körtik Tepe, a large building at Boncuklu Tarla and several dwellings at Çemka Höyük.
In the Syrian part of the Khabur Valley, surveys in the 1990s found no Upper Palaeolithic or Epipalaeolithic remains. The same region later saw monumental sites such as Göbekli Tepe, around 9500 BC. But the earlier steps towards village life there were barely documented.
The team's surveys in Mardin have since identified 30 more sites with Epipalaeolithic characteristics. Many have architecture and stone tools similar to those at Şika Rika 5.
Settled life in northern Mesopotamia has often been explained as an influence spreading from the Levant, home of the Natufian culture. The authors conclude that the emergence of sedentary life in this region appears to owe more to local dynamics than could be proposed before. Until now, data were lacking.
The authors set out two possibilities. Either the Natufian area reached much further, into southeastern Anatolia. Or the Mardin sites belong to a distinct regional culture, which researchers will need to define and name.
The Şika Rika 5 project has only just begun. The team plans further excavation to test these ideas.
Sources
- A 10,000-Year-Old Settlement Discovered in Türkiye Could Rewrite the Origins of Sedentary Life and Civilization (La Brújula Verde)
Paper: Kodaş E, Kodas CL, İpek B. The Şika Rika 5 Project: transition to sedentary life in south-eastern Anatolia. Antiquity, 2026: 1–9. doi:10.15184/aqy.2026.10319
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