Some 8,500-year-old human skeletons found in apartment yard

BİLECİK

Nearly 8,500-year-old human skeletons and a three-hole musical instrument were found during an excavation carried out in an apartment yard in the northwestern province of Bilecik’s Bahçelievler neighborhood.

The site, likely to be one of the first spots of human settlements in western Anatolia, was first discovered after a Bilecik resident reported some ceramic fragments found there to the Archaeology Museum.

As a result of the field works that started after the discovery and continued for two years, 11 human skeletons, which are estimated to be 8,500 years old, and musical instruments with three holes from the same period were found in the yard of an apartment building.

Archaeologists also found wheat varieties used in making bread and pasta, as well as grains such as lentils, barley and vetch.

Associate Professor Erkan Fidan, the head of the excavation, said that the human skeletons found in the excavation area belonged to the oldest adolescent humans ever in the Neolithic era in western Anatolia.

“We have uncovered the first villages of human communities that came here 9,000 years ago and remained here for nearly 1,000 years,” Fidan said, adding that the people living in the region who know how to do agriculture also domesticated animals.

Fidan noted that they also found skeletons of other humans in the excavation field and that the skeletons would be examined in detail at Hacettepe University’s Anthropology Department Laboratory.

“In the very near future, we aim to learn many things about ages, genders, diseases these people had as well as the kind of food they ate,” he added.

The finds discovered during the excavation will be exhibited at the Bilecik Archaeology Museum after the completion of the restoration process and research works.