Being the first village of Central Anatolia and Cappadocia, Aşıklı Höyük leads the technological and cognitive developments in Anatolia with its 10,500-year history.
Excavations at Asikli Höyük near the village of Kızılkaya in the Gülağaç district of Aksaray were excavated in 1989. Dr. Ufuk Esin. Excavations have been carried out with the members of Istanbul University Prehistory Department and an international team. Dr. Mihriban Özbaşaran continues.
Archaeological excavations have revealed that the Asikli people lived here for at least 20 generations. Asikli is the first known village in Central Anatolia, where hunters, gatherers and nomads are settled.
The minstrel people were not only predators and gatherers, but also one of the first agricultural communities; They are the pioneers of technological and cognitive developments such as first settlement, first agriculture, first mining, first brain surgery. In terms of architectural history, the oldest example of Anatolia's traditional adjoining rectangular mudbrick architecture is observed in Aşıklı Höyük. A first in the history of medicine, it is the world's first brain surgery for a young woman. The skull with surgical traces and other finds recovered from Aşıklı Höyük are on display in the Aksaray Museum.
Research shows that the people of Asikli started to deal with agriculture after the establishment. Cereals and plants previously collected in the wild were first cultivated by Asıklı residents. Both wild and cultivated species of barley, wheat and lentils were found during excavations in carbonized layers.
The animal remains found in the excavations indicate that the animals most frequently hunted by the densely and conscious hunters are sheep-goats, cattle, pigs, red deer, fallow deer and roe deer, respectively.
Obsidian, known as the ‘volcanic glass kaynaklanan originating from the geological formation of the region, is the raw material of the tools and weapons of the Asikli people who carry out all kinds of daily activities such as hunting, butchery, hides and leatherwork.
Asikli Höyük, which was opened to visitors in 2009, welcomes tens of thousands of tourists with its ten thousand years of history and is the first stop of Cappadocia.