Archaeologists excavating one of Türkiye’s most important Neolithic settlements have uncovered an approximately 9,000-year-old mining workshop, providing striking new evidence of specialised copper and malachite production in prehistoric communities.
The workshop was discovered at Çayönü Hill, in the Ergani district of Diyarbakır, during archaeological excavations authorised by Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Dating to approximately 6900–6800 BC, the production area measures around five square metres.
Excavations are being led by Associate Professor Dr Savaş Sarıaltun of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University.
Purpose-Built Workshop Reveals Organised Production
Located in the western part of the ancient settlement, the workshop appears to have been deliberately constructed as a specialised production area rather than being used for occasional metalworking.
Archaeologists identified at least six post holes surrounding the structure, indicating that the workspace was probably protected by a canopy. At its centre is a stone-paved working surface where prehistoric craftspeople appear to have processed minerals and manufactured objects.
Initial excavation revealed 18 pieces of malachite in the central area and approximately 25 nearby. Further investigation brought the recorded total to 42 malachite fragments.
Crucially, the finds represent different stages of manufacture. Archaeologists recovered raw malachite alongside partly processed and finished material, as well as copper beads and other copper objects.
Together, the discoveries have allowed researchers to reconstruct a production sequence extending from the acquisition and preparation of raw material through to finished objects.
Evidence of Neolithic Craft Specialists
The workshop provides important evidence that mining and mineral working at Çayönü had developed beyond simply collecting useful raw materials.
Instead, the archaeological remains indicate that production took place within a designated working area and was probably undertaken by people possessing specialised skills.
The discovery is particularly significant because the architectural boundaries of the workshop remain identifiable and evidence representing several stages of production has survived together in the same archaeological context.
This combination gives researchers an unusually detailed opportunity to investigate how Neolithic craftspeople organised their work thousands of years before large-scale metallurgy emerged.
Copper Tradition May Have Lasted 2,000 Years
Türkiye’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, said the discovery sheds light on some of the earliest production technologies developed by humans.
According to Ersoy, evidence for the use of copper and malachite at Çayönü stretches back to around 9100 BC. The newly identified workshop, dating to around 6900–6800 BC, therefore suggests that knowledge surrounding these materials persisted at the settlement for approximately two millennia.
The evidence also indicates an increasingly sophisticated organisation of production, with particular areas apparently reserved for specialised craft activities.
Rather than representing metalworking in the later sense of smelting and casting ores on an industrial scale, the finds offer a window into the much earlier development of humanity’s relationship with naturally occurring copper minerals and native copper.
New Evidence of Cultural Continuity
The 2026 excavation season has produced other discoveries that could help archaeologists understand how life at Çayönü changed over time.
In the western section of the settlement, researchers uncovered distinctive ceramic vessels associated with the Proto-Hassuna culture and the early Pottery Neolithic period.
The ceramics have been provisionally dated to approximately 6800–6600 BC. Carbon-14 dating and archaeometric studies are continuing to establish their chronology more precisely.
The finds could provide valuable evidence for cultural connections and continuity as communities in the region adopted new technologies and forms of material culture.
A Key Site in the Story of Early Settled Life
Çayönü occupies an important place in the archaeology of the Neolithic period, when communities across parts of the Middle East underwent profound changes in how they lived, produced food, constructed settlements and organised labour.
The latest discovery adds craft specialisation and early mineral working to that picture.
Its combination of a purpose-built workspace, raw materials, partially worked pieces and finished copper objects offers archaeologists something particularly valuable: evidence not simply of what prehistoric people made, but where and how they made it.
As scientific analysis continues, the workshop could help researchers reconstruct the emergence of specialised craftsmanship at Çayönü and better understand a technological tradition that began more than 11,000 years ago.
Sources : Ministry of Culture and Tourism
