The Taş Tepeler, which means "Stone Mounds" in Turkish, are a group of ancient sites in Upper Mesopotamia, a region also called al-Jazira, near the city of Urfa in modern-day Turkey. These sites are what remains of settlements from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, around 10,000 to 7,000 years ago. This time marked a change in the region, as people moved from living as nomadic hunter-gatherers to forming settled farming communities.

Economy and culture

The people of Taş Tepeler had not yet learned to raise animals or grow crops. Instead, they survived by hunting animals and carefully collecting wild grains.

The domestication of animals began in the area of the Taş Tepeler culture. Early attempts to manage animals, such as creating images of them and using traps, happened around the same time as the construction of Göbekli Tepe, as seen in its artwork. The earliest known dates for domesticating specific animals are about 9000 BCE for goats and sheep, 8500 BCE for pigs, and 8000 BCE for cattle. These events took place in Northern Mesopotamia. For example, Çayönü Tepe may have been one of the first places where pigs were domesticated, around 8500 BCE.

Sites like Çayönü Tepe were influenced by the traditions of Göbekli Tepe and began farming around the 9th millennium BCE. Other locations, such as Neva Çori, Cafer Höyük, Hallan Çemi, Abu Hureyra, and Jerf al Amar, also started farming during this time.

• Origin and spread of domesticated animals in the Fertile Crescent (dates before present).
• A man holding a tool and controlling an aurochs, 9th millennium BCE, Sayburç.
• A painted wild boar from Göbekli Tepe, 8700–8200 BCE.

Religion

Many Taş Tepeler sites have large stone buildings with T-shaped pillars, similar to those found at Göbekli Tepe. These structures are much larger than earlier Neolithic sites like Körtik Tepe, which are not part of the Taş Tepeler group.

These buildings may have been early places for ancestor worship. They often included T-shaped stelae, like those at Göbekli Tepe, Karahan Tepe, or the rectangular stelae at Çayönü Tepe. These stelae are believed to represent people or gods. Some had carvings of human figures or heads. These findings suggest a religious practice called stela worship, which was common during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period and continued in the Near East until around 1,000 BCE.

The T-shaped pillars at Göbekli Tepe are unique to the Urfa region but appear at many Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites, such as Nevalı Çori, Hamzan Tepe, Karahan Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, Sefer Tepe, and Taslı Tepe. Other sites, like Çayönü, Qermez Dere, Boncuklu Tarla, and Gusir Höyük, have stelae without the T shape.

On the stelae, geometric shapes ending in hands are often carved, suggesting the pillars represent stylized human figures, with the top of the "T" showing the head. Belts and clothing are also frequently carved.

Totems combining humans and animals were found at Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori. One totem at Nevalı Çori shows a bird, likely a vulture, standing on two seated human figures facing opposite directions. The meaning of these totems is not yet understood.

Phallic symbols appear often in the art of Taş Tepeler sites. Statues of men holding their erect penis are found at places like Yeni Mahalle (the famous Urfa Man statue), Göbekli Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepesi, Karahan Tepe, and Sayburç. Some believe the stelae themselves might represent ancestors in a phallic form. The figures also usually have a V-shaped collar around their necks.

Phallic symbols may also reflect the realistic and bold style of the sculptures, seen in places like Göbekli Tepe, where animals are often shown with open mouths, strong paws, or long tusks, creating a serious or threatening atmosphere.

• Karahan Tepe Man, 10,000–9,500 BCE
• Urfa Man, around 9000 BCE
• Sayburç Man, 9th millennium BCE
• Göbekli Tepe ithyphallic protome
• Kilisik sculpture

Daily artifacts

Some sites from the Taş Tepeler culture have uncovered artifacts that show features of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic or Neolithic periods. Ayanlar Höyük, a site from the early to mid Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, has stone vessels and stone plates (tools used before pottery was made), some of which have animal designs, as well as grindstones.

• Stone vessels with animal designs, Ayanlar Höyük (8800-7000 BCE)
• Top and bottom grindstone from Ayanlar Höyük (8800-7000 BCE)
• Blades and other stone tools, Ayanlar Höyük (8800-7000 BCE)
• Stone necklace, Boncuklu Tarla (8800-6000 BCE)

Sites

The sites include Göbekli Tepe, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and at least eleven others: Nevalı Çori, Yeni Mahalle, Karahan Tepe, Hamzan Tepe, Sefer Tepe, Taşlı Tepe, Kurt Tepe, Harbetsuvan Tepe, Sayburç, Ayanlar Höyük, Çakmaktepe. These locations are currently being studied and preserved through the "Şanlıurfa Neolithic Research Project," a joint effort between Turkish and international researchers.

Desert kites are found near or connected to some of these sites. These structures are large dry-stone walls, often hundreds of meters long, built to guide and trap wild animals like gazelles. They consist of long paths leading to enclosed traps, sometimes surrounded by smaller cells. In the Upper Mesopotamia region, desert kites likely existed at the same time as Göbekli Tepe. They show early attempts to capture and manage animal populations, possibly for storing and using meat over time. These structures represent an early step toward settling in one place and domesticating animals. The study of desert kites is part of the Taş Tepeler archaeological program, managed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture, to explore the beginnings of settled life and farming and herding practices in the region.

Genetics

A recent genetic study included human remains from Boncuklu Tarla (dated to 9000–8500 BCE) and Çayönü (dated to approximately 8300–7500 BCE), which were grouped with a few Nemrik 9 samples into a Mesopotamia_Neolithic cluster. This cluster was identified as a major genetic ancestor of several Levantine and Egyptian Bronze Age individuals, including those from Ebla, Ashkalon, Baq'ah, and Nuwayrat.

One individual from Nuwayrat, an adult male from Egypt’s Old Kingdom (dated to 2855–2570 BCE), was found to have a significant portion of his genetic ancestry linked to North Africa’s Neolithic period. However, about 24% of his genetic makeup was traced to the eastern Fertile Crescent, including Mesopotamia, which corresponds to the Mesopotamia_Neolithic cluster. His genetic profile was best explained by a two-source model: 77.6% ± 3.8% of his ancestry matched genomes from the Middle Neolithic site of Skhirat-Rouazi in Morocco (dated to 4780–4230 BCE), which itself had 76.4 ± 4.0% Levant Neolithic ancestry and 23.6 ± 4.0% Iberomaurusian ancestry. The remaining 22.4% ± 3.8% of his ancestry was most similar to Neolithic genomes from Mesopotamia (dated to 9000–8000 BCE). No other two-source model met the required statistical significance (P > 0.05). Two three-source models also emerged, but they included only small additional contributions from the Neolithic/Chalcolithic Levant.

According to Lazardis, the Nuwayrat individual shows that some people in Egypt at that time had mostly North African ancestry but also had some genetic connections to Mesopotamia. Girdland-Flink noted that 20% of the man’s ancestry matched older Mesopotamian genomes, suggesting that Mesopotamian people may have moved into Egypt in significant numbers at some point.

The exact timing of this genetic mixing cannot be determined from the 2025 study. However, the study found that the Nuwayrat sample had the strongest genetic connection to Neolithic Mesopotamia (9000–8000 BCE). Other research has shown that during the Neolithic period (10,000–5,000 BCE), populations from Mesopotamia and the Zagros region expanded into the Near East, including Anatolia, spreading Neolithic innovations like domesticated plants, pottery, and settled lifestyles. These movements may have also influenced Egypt. Changes in dental features were observed in the Nile Valley around 6000 BCE. Later, cultural influences from Mesopotamia, such as Late Uruk features, appeared in Egypt during the Late Pre-dynastic period (circa 3999–3000 BCE).