9,000-year-old discovery at Diyarbakır’s Çayönü sheds light on mining history

A small workshop at Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey is offering an unusually detailed look at early mining. The structure, about five square meters in size, dates to 6900-6800 BC.

Excavators found at least six postholes around the workshop and a stone-paved work area at its center. Evidence suggests that the space had been covered by a canopy, creating a defined area for production.

The excavation recovered 42 malachite and copper items. They included raw and partly processed malachite, copper beads and various finished copper objects. Researchers said the finds document a production sequence that extends from raw material to final product within a single archaeological context.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy said copper and malachite use in the area reaches back to around 9100 BC. He described the new discovery as evidence that a specialized mining tradition continued for roughly 2,000 years.

The 2026 excavations also uncovered high-quality pottery associated with the Proto-Hassuna culture, dated to 6800-6600 BC. Carbon-14 dating and archaeometric analyses are still under way to establish the finds’ chronology more precisely.

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At Çayönü Tepesi, which bears traces of great transformations, we continue to carry the marks of the past into the future through scientific excavations. The new discovery shows that a mining tradition continued here for about 2,000 years and that specialized production activities took place in designated work areas.