Aşıklı Höyük

Aşıklı Höyük lies about 25 kilometres south-east of Aksaray, in the village of Kızılkaya. Excavations here have continued for more than 25 years and uncovered one of Anatolia's early farming settlements. At the entrance to the mound, a group of houses has been rebuilt as exact copies using experimental archaeology methods, and opened to visitors.

The reconstruction includes two semi-buried houses dated to the 9th millennium BC. Around a street stand rectangular mudbrick buildings with one or two rooms, typical of the 8th millennium BC. Shrubs and trees such as terebinth, wild almond and wild plum have been planted, and researchers of the Aşıklı Project sow an experimental field of wild wheat every year and harvest it with obsidian tools.

Inside the houses, objects reflecting prehistoric life are displayed, and one scene shows how people once entered the dwellings, by ladder through an opening in the roof. Rather than stone ruins, this is a rare chance to see the scale and materials of a Neolithic village. It suits families and anyone curious about the beginning of settled life.