Archaeologists excavating one of Southwest Asia’s most important Neolithic settlements have uncovered a 9,000-year-old workshop containing malachite, copper objects and evidence of organised production.
A specialised production area dating back approximately 9,000 years has been discovered at Çayönü Hill, near the Ergani district of Diyarbakır in south-eastern Türkiye.
The workshop, believed to date from around 6900–6800 BC, measures approximately five square metres and contains evidence suggesting that Neolithic communities deliberately organised parts of the settlement for working with malachite and copper.
Excavations at Çayönü are being led by Associate Professor Savaş Sarıaltun of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University. The site is regarded as one of the most significant early settlements in Southwest Asia.
According to information released by Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism, archaeologists identified the workshop in the western part of the settlement.
Evidence of a Purpose-Built Working Area
At least six post holes were discovered around the approximately five-square-metre area, while archaeologists found a stone-paved working surface at its centre.
The post holes indicate that the workspace may once have been protected by a lightweight structure or canopy.
Rather than the artefacts simply accumulating in one location by chance, the layout suggests the area may have been deliberately constructed and organised for production activities.
Malachite and Copper Found at Different Stages of Production
Among the most significant discoveries were 18 fragments of malachite found in the centre of the workshop. A further 24 to 25 examples were recorded within and around the area, bringing the total number of malachite and copper finds recovered from the excavation zone to approximately 42.
The material includes raw malachite, partly processed pieces, finished malachite, copper beads and other copper objects.
Crucially, the discoveries represent several stages of the production process.
While an individual finished copper artefact can demonstrate that a prehistoric community possessed and used the material, finding raw material, semi-finished pieces and completed objects together can provide archaeologists with considerably more information about how production was organised.
The workshop could therefore help researchers determine where materials were worked, the stages involved in production and whether particular activities were concentrated within designated parts of the settlement.
Copper Use at Çayönü Dates Back Thousands of Years
Çayönü has long occupied an important position in research into early copper technology.
Türkiye’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, said evidence for the use of copper and malachite at the settlement stretches as far back as 9100 BC.
The newly discovered workshop is considered evidence that this technological tradition continued for roughly 2,000 years and that, over time, specialised production activities were carried out in particular areas.
Communities in Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia are known to have worked naturally occurring copper and copper minerals thousands of years before metal became commonplace in everyday life.
Previous research at Çayönü has produced evidence that natural copper was worked at the settlement using techniques including forging and annealing — a process in which copper is heated in a controlled manner while being worked.
What distinguishes the latest discovery is therefore not simply the presence of copper or malachite objects, but the identification of a defined workspace in which archaeologists can trace multiple stages of production.
What Was a Neolithic ‘Mining Workshop’?
Although the discovered area has been described as a “mining workshop”, the term should not be understood in the context of the large-scale metallurgical facilities that appeared in much later periods.
Instead, the site represents a specialised working area associated with processing malachite and copper.
Neolithic copper technology differed considerably from later metallurgy based on intensive ore processing and large furnaces. Craftspeople could select and shape minerals such as malachite while also working naturally occurring metallic copper through techniques including hammering and controlled heating.
The Çayönü discovery consequently provides another important piece of evidence for the long technological transition through which prehistoric communities gradually developed increasingly specialised knowledge of minerals and metals.
Sources : Ministry of Culture & Tourism
