Neolithic Twin of Knossos: First 8,800-Year-Old Farming Houses Discovered in Turkey

Archaeological excavations on Turkey’s westernmost island have uncovered the earliest known agricultural settlement in the Aegean Sea, revealing five circular houses that predate most European farming communities by millennia. The groundbreaking discovery at Uğurlu-Zeytinlik Mound on Gökçeada (ancient Imbros) places this remote Turkish island alongside Crete’s famous Knossos as the only Neolithic settlement documenting the first wave of farming communities to reach the Aegean Islands.

Professor Burçin Erdoğu from Akdeniz University, who has led excavations at the site since 2009, described the find as unprecedented. “This type of architecture has been encountered for the first time in the Aegean Islands,” he explained to Turkish media. The structures, dated to approximately 6800 BC, feature round plans with sunken floors constructed using wattle-and-daub techniques – woven reed walls coated with mud plaster.

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