A team of archaeologists working at the Ulucak tumulus, located in İzmir's Kemalpaşa district, have unearthed a Neolithic settlement area dating back some 8,400 years. Archaeologist Fulya Dedeoğlu of Ege University said that excavations had been under way in the area since 1995. She said they believed their latest discovery could be the oldest settlement dating from the Neolithic period unearthed to date and added that further excavations on the lower levels could reveal even older remains.
     Workshops, storage facilities and furnaces are among the most significant structures unearthed in the tumulus, estimated to date back to 6,400 BCE, said Dedeoğlu, adding that mother goddess figures and pieces of ceramics were also discovered. Dedeo?lu said they were lucky that they did not encounter water while excavating the area. "In most of the excavation areas in the Aegean region, underground water covers the area and hinders excavations. We were lucky that it didn't happen here," she explained.

Source: Turkish Daily News (25 September 2006)