9,000-year-old mining workshop found in Türkiye

Archaeologists have uncovered a roughly 5-square-meter mining workshop dating to 6900-6800 B.C. at Cayonu Tepesi, a prehistoric settlement in southeastern Türkiye that provides important evidence of the transition to settled life and early agriculture.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said Tuesday that the discovery in the Ergani district of Diyarbakır province included raw and semi-processed malachite, processed malachite pieces, copper beads and other copper objects, as well as a stone-paved working area.

The discovery adds to evidence that people at Cayonu were working with copper and malachite as early as 9100 B.C., suggesting that the settlement had a long tradition of mineral processing and early metalworking.

“The new discovery reveals that the mining tradition here continued for approximately 2,000 years and that specialized production activities were carried out in designated working areas,” Ersoy said in a post on Turkish social media platform NSosyal.

Cayonu, located in the foothills of the Taurus Mountains, is one of the key archaeological sites for understanding the Neolithic period, when communities in the region increasingly adopted settled lifestyles, agriculture and specialized forms of production.

Evidence of an organized production area

The excavation team, led by Savas Sarıaltun of Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, found the workshop in the western part of the settlement, according to the ministry.

At least six postholes were identified around the roughly 5-square-meter area, while a stone-paved working surface was found at its center. The arrangement suggests the area may have been covered by a shade structure and deliberately organized for production activities.

Eighteen malachite pieces were found at the center of the workshop, with another 24-25 malachite samples recovered in and around the structure. The number of malachite and copper finds from the wider working area has reached about 42.

The finds include raw malachite, material that had been partly processed and finished pieces, as well as copper beads and other copper objects.

The combination of raw material and objects at different stages of production in the same area provides evidence that processing and manufacturing activities took place at the site rather than the materials simply being brought there as finished products.

A long record of cultural change

The 2026 excavation season has also produced new evidence of cultural continuity at Cayonu.

Archaeologists working in the western area found high-quality pottery associated with the early stages of the Pottery Neolithic and the Proto-Hassuna culture.

The finds are provisionally dated to about 6800-6600 B.C. Their chronology will be refined through ongoing radiocarbon and other archaeometric analyses.

The mining workshop is considered one of the most significant discoveries of this year's excavation season because its architecture can be identified as a dedicated production area, while raw materials and products at different stages of manufacture were found together and the workshop could be documented as a complete unit.