News & field journal
From the field.
New discoveries, research, and events from across the Taş Tepeler sites — sourced, and updated as the digs report.
25 August 2026 · Karahan TepeA human riding a leopard: Karahan Tepe's newest statue, straight out of the 2026 digExcavators at Karahan Tepe have lifted a small stone sculpture of a human figure seated on the back of a leopard — an 11,000-year-old image of a person and a predator fused into one, found on a bench where it was set down in the Neolithic.
13 August 2026 · Göbekli TepeA new front opens on Göbekli Tepe's north side — and the great pillars get steel cablesThe 2026 season has opened ground on the northern side of the mound for the first time, while conservators run steel cables to the central pillars of Enclosure D to hold them against earthquakes.
9 August 2026 · YoğunburçChina's first dig in Türkiye opens an untouched site: YoğunburçA Chinese team has begun the first excavation ever carried out at Yoğunburç — the People's Republic of China's first archaeological project in Türkiye, and the first spade in the ground at one of Taş Tepeler's untouched mounds.
9 August 2026 · Karahan TepeA roof is going up over Karahan TepeA modular protective canopy is being built over Karahan Tepe's excavated core. It will preserve the carvings — and change, area by area, what it feels like to stand in the site under open sky.
28 April 2026 · Karahan TepeWhat they ate at Karahan Tepe: gazelle, and a surprise of legumesLaboratory work on the last season's finds has sketched the menu at Karahan Tepe 12,000 years ago — heavy on gazelle, and, unexpectedly, on legumes rather than grain.
27 January 2026 · AdıyamanThe Taş Tepeler map just got bigger: T-pillars found in AdıyamanFalling water in the Atatürk Dam reservoir has exposed Göbekli-style T-shaped pillars near Samsat — the first sign that this culture reached beyond Şanlıurfa and into the Euphrates basin.
15 January 2026 · Karahan TepeA stone-sealed chamber at Karahan Tepe will be opened this seasonArchaeologists plan to open a sealed section of one of Karahan Tepe's unusual Neolithic buildings during the 2026 season — the first access to a space closed for roughly twelve thousand years.
1 December 2025 · Harbetsuvan TepesiA Taş Tepeler site with no monuments: Harbetsuvan turns out to be an ordinary villageA Japanese-led survey has mapped the whole of Harbetsuvan Tepesi — and found a dense warren of fifty-odd small rooms, with none of the great pillars or public enclosures that define its famous neighbours.
28 November 2025 · Karahan TepeKarahan Tepe's 'amphitheatre': a round hall of tiered stone benches and watching facesExcavators have exposed a roughly 17-metre circular building at Karahan Tepe with three curved tiers of stone benching, human heads carved into its walls and seated statues on its floor — a gathering space unlike anything at the site so far.
27 November 2025 · Göbekli TepeA human statue surfaces between Enclosures B and DGöbekli Tepe's 2025 season produced a human figure with clearly defined head and torso — found in the ground between two of the site's best-known enclosures.
26 November 2025 · SefertepeSefertepe joins the family: two carved faces and a double-sided beadNew finds unveiled at the Taş Tepeler project's fifth-season briefing show Sefertepe carving human faces in its own distinct style — proof the symbolic world reached well beyond Göbekli and Karahan.
25 November 2025 · Karahan TepeThe earliest story told in three dimensions?Three tiny carved animals — a fox, a vulture and a wild boar — found sealed inside a vessel at Karahan Tepe are being read as one of the first stories ever staged in three dimensions.
24 November 2025 · SayburçThe stitched-mouth statue of SayburçA carved human figure with a mouth that appears sewn shut, found at Sayburç, is prompting archaeologists to rethink how these communities pictured death — beyond skulls and burials.
18 October 2025 · Karahan TepeThe village beneath Karahan TepeMore than thirty Neolithic houses — with hearths, grinding stones and standing stones inside them — reframe Karahan Tepe as not only a sanctuary but one of the world's earliest villages.
9 October 2025 · Karahan TepeA human face on a T-pillar, for the first timeA T-shaped pillar at Karahan Tepe carved with a human face — a prominent nose, deep-set eyes, an angular jaw — is the first of its kind, and hard evidence that the T-pillars stood for people.
8 October 2025 · Göbekli TepeDid people live at Göbekli Tepe after all? Rectangular buildings suggest homesA newly opened area on the mound's slopes has produced rectangular buildings that the excavators think may be dwellings — reopening the oldest question about the site: was anyone ever at home here?
18 September 2025 · Ayanlar HöyükA Japanese princess breaks ground at Ayanlar HöyükPrincess Akiko of Mikasa and Türkiye's culture minister opened excavations at Ayanlar Höyük, expanding the Taş Tepeler project through a new Türkiye–Japan partnership.
7 September 2025 · SayburçFifty buildings at Sayburç: a Neolithic village, not just a shrineExcavations at Sayburç have revealed more than fifty structures of a 12,600-year-old settlement — houses and communal buildings side by side, T-pillars standing in both.
28 August 2025 · Mendik TepeMendik Tepe: a British-led dig on a site that may be older than Göbekli TepeA small mound southwest of Şanlıurfa, excavated by a University of Liverpool team, is throwing up buildings from the very dawn of the Neolithic — possibly earlier than Göbekli Tepe itself.
17 December 2024 · ÇakmaktepeÇakmaktepe: a site older than Göbekli Tepe, where they burned animal skulls into the wallsA few kilometres from Göbekli Tepe, excavators are digging a settlement that may be a thousand years older — with round bedrock houses and a striking ritual: burned wild-animal skulls set into the base of a wall.
8 October 2023 · Göbekli TepeGöbekli Tepe's painted boar: the first coloured Neolithic statueA life-sized wild boar found in Special Building D still carried red, black and white pigment — the first hard proof that the sculptures of Göbekli Tepe were painted.
8 December 2022 · SayburçThe oldest story ever carved? The Sayburç relief goes publicA five-figure scene carved on a bench at Sayburç, published in Antiquity, is argued to be the earliest known depiction of a narrative in human art.
14 November 2016 · Göbekli TepeDances with cranes: did the first ritual performers dress as birds?Göbekli Tepe's crane reliefs are carved with human-like knees — leading the excavation team to a striking idea: that people performed animal masquerades, costumed as cranes.
19 December 2018 · Göbekli TepeBehind the mask: the Neolithic faces of Göbekli TepeFrom a small clay face found in Enclosure D to a set of miniature stone masks, Göbekli Tepe's people kept making faces to wear and to hold — among the earliest masks known anywhere.
17 January 2018 · Göbekli TepeA 12,000-year-old hunting wound, frozen in boneAn aurochs bone from Göbekli Tepe still holds the broken tip of a flint projectile — a single, vivid moment from a Neolithic hunt, preserved for twelve thousand years.
10 May 2017 · Göbekli TepeA stairway into the circle of boarsEnclosure C — Göbekli Tepe's most rebuilt ring — was entered down a stone stair, past boars carved to meet whoever came in.
14 October 2016 · Göbekli TepeOf animals and a headless man: reading Pillar 43The excavation team's own walk-through of the Vulture Stone — the vulture, the scorpion, the 'bags', and the small headless figure that ties the whole scene to death.
12 December 2016 · Göbekli TepeA tale of snakes and birds: Pillar 56One of Göbekli Tepe's most densely carved pillars packs snakes, birds and other animals across its whole surface — a reminder that these stones could be almost overwhelmingly full.
20 March 2017 · Göbekli TepeGuarded by beasts: a porthole stoneA carved 'porthole' stone from Göbekli Tepe — a doorway-like slab flanked by animals — hints that thresholds themselves were watched over.
3 July 2017 · Göbekli TepeMore than a vulture: the team's answer to the comet theoryWhen researchers claimed Pillar 43 encodes a comet strike, Göbekli Tepe's excavators published a point-by-point rebuttal. It's the clearest statement of why the site's own team rejects the idea.
9 August 2017 · Göbekli TepeA new kind of figurine from Göbekli TepeBeyond the monuments, Göbekli Tepe keeps yielding small things — including a figurine type first described by Oliver Dietrich and the late Klaus Schmidt.