The Prehistoric Times
The history of Anatolia, the Turkish homeland is simply incredible. The world's oldest
city was discovered, here, at Catal Hoyuk in 7500 BC. The Hittite Empire, little
known in the west, rivaled that of ancient Egypt, and left behind captivating works of
art.
The
heartland of classical Hellenic culture is actually in Turkey, including cities such as
Troy, Pergamum, Ephesus , Miletus and Halicarnassus. Most modern Turkish cities have a
Roman past and all have a Byzantine one. The Seljuk Turkish Empire could boast of people
like Omar Khayyam and Celaleddin Rumi, the poet, mystic and founder of the order of
Whirling Dervishes. Turkey's history is astoundingly long, extending for almost 10,000
years
The Prehistoric Times
Paleolithic Age - Old Stone Age - (2 Million - 8000 BC)
Paleolithic
Age, also known to be the old stone age, begins somewhere between 2 million years ago and
ends 10.000 years before our time. This time period marks the beginning of the existence
of the ancestors of man.
The
early man in the Paleolithic age did not know to farm and raise crops but lived on picking
up vegetables, fruit and on hunting. In search of the new food sources and to be able to
hunt animals, he moved from place to place , and gathered in small groups. His dwelling
was in rocky areas, under big rocks and in caves. In areas where this condition could not
be met he made easy and primitive shelters out of wood. Around 40.000 BC he started making
simple stone tools for hunting and protection purposes.
Between
40.000 and 10.000 is the glacial age on earth. Not being able to move much due to the
climate, the primitive man utilized the skin of the animals that he hunted by successfully
carved stones. To make clothes he used pins made out of bones and saw animal skin covers
for himself. During this hard time of survival , he was able to discover and to control
fire and by doing so he happened to have passed an important step in his development which
helped him be separated from the animals. In this same period the earliest notion of the
need to believe in an other world or in a mightier power can also be traced. In the graves
that were dug for the dead as simple holes he left food by the side of the deceased and
this is interpreted to be his faith in afterlife. To sum up, the hard conditions of life
in the glacial age led the early man develop better socially and technically.
The passage from the very primitive man, namely Home Neanderthal, to
the ancestor of the modern man, namely Home Sapiens who is dated to between 10.000 and
8.000 may also be considered in this period.
In
the last phases of the Paleolithic age the early man could make tools in order to make
different new tools. The first works of art emerged in this era too: paintings made on
cave the walls and various art objects such as low reliefs and figurines.The intellectual
life of the man was beginning. Moreover, animal bones, teeth and shells the ornate objects
demonstrate the first aesthetic concern in man.
The
fact that in Paleolithic Age, the Asia Minor is extremely rich in fossils and fragments of
human beings and animals, of stone, of bone and of vegetation, as well as of works of art
reveals that Anatolian land was intensely inhabited during this period. The most important
place in Anatolia where all the three phases; Upper, Middle and Lower in the Paleolithic
Age can be seen, is the Karain Cave on the 30 km northwest of Antalya. In this
respectively big cave, there are various living sections from each of the three phases of
the Paleolithic Age. Among the finds are many carved stone and bone tools, moveable art
objects, remains of the bones and teeth of Homo Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens, burnt and
unburned animal and bread fossils. Karain cave in the Paleolithic Age is not a crucial
excavation site only for Anatolia but also for the Near East. One can see some of these
remains in the Museums of Karain, in Antalya and in Ankara Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations.
