| >
CITIES
& TOWNS |
 |
|
|
The history of Anatolia,
the Turkish homeland is simply incredible. The world's oldest city was
founded, 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 and 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 with successfully
carved stones. To make clothes he used pins made out of bones and sewed
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 Homo Neanderthal, to the ancestor of the
modern man, namely Homo Sapiens is dated to between 10,000 and 8,000 may
also be considered in this period. In the last phases of the Paleolithic
age 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 the cave
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 the Paleolithic Age, 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 that reveals that the 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 30 km northwest of Antalya. In this respectively
large 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. |
