Asikli Hoyuk is located in the West of Cappadocia, in Gulagac district, Kizilkaya (Red Rock) village, 25 km Southeast of Aksaray and 4.5 km to Selime, where Ihlara Valley starts. It is located in a basin surrounded by Hasandag and Melendiz Mountains in a volcanic field at an altitude of 1120 meters. Red Rock ignimbrites, which give the village where Asikli is located its name, are the oldest formations of the region.
Life has continued incessantly for more than 1000 years in Asiklli, which was founded with the settlement of immigrant communities with of hunter-gatherer traditions in 8500 B.C. During this period, the inhabitants of Asikli established social rules, raised plants and domesticated animals. It is seen that the inhabitants of Asikli, the earliest settled community in Central Anatolia, adopted a collective lifestyle and were organized according to age, experience and expertise.
The inhabitants of Asikli, who broke grounds in terms of agriculture and stock farming, also broke grounds in terms of the history of architecture. Obvious changes such as the passage from round plan to quadrilateral plan, and from underground structures to above ground structures are observed in the plans and settlement pattern between 9000 to 8000 B.C.
The traces of brain operation on a skull of a young woman at the age of around 20 to 25, and the traces of a succesful autopsy on the jaw bone of another skull, which were found in Asikli Hoyuk and are in Aksaray Museum, are quite significant for the history of medicine.
The inhabitans of Asikli, who processed the obsidian known as volcanic glass, used it for making sharp objects to carry out daily activities such as hunting, butchery, pelt and skin processing.
Asikli was abandoned around 7300 B.C.
For more information: http://www.asiklihoyuk.org/