Archaeologists working at Canhasan 3 Höyük in Turkey’s Karaman province have unearthed what appears to be one of the world’s oldest known streets, dating back approximately 9,750 years. This remarkable discovery predates the famous Çatalhöyük settlement by 750 years, challenging long-held assumptions about early Neolithic settlements and urban planning. Led by Associate Professor Adnan Baysal of Ankara University under Turkey’s “Heritage for the Future Project,” the excavation has revealed a carefully planned passageway between houses that suggests sophisticated early urban planning concepts were already emerging in Central Anatolia nearly 10,000 years ago.
The discovery fundamentally challenges the traditional view of Neolithic urban life in the region as consisting of tightly clustered, roof-accessed homes with minimal external organization. Instead, Canhasan 3 reveals a community that deliberately created space between structures, indicating early experiments in social organization and architectural planning. This finding has profound implications for our understanding of how human settlements evolved from simple agricultural villages to complex urban centers.
