Earthquakes rarely leave traces in prehistoric archaeology. However, at Çayönü, a major site in southeastern Turkey, researchers have just uncovered a collapse dating back 5,000 years, directly linked to a
regional earthquake. This discovery, led by Associate Professor Savaş Sarıaltun of the Çanakkale University of Applied Sciences, was made public at the end of his team's sixth excavation campaign.
It concerns a building from the Early Bronze Age whose south mud brick wall collapsed in one piece, probably under the effect of a seismic shock. In the absence of an immediate fault line, archaeologists link this event to known tectonic activity in the north of the region, particularly around Elazığ. The results shed light on the ancient seismic dynamics of Anatolia.
A collapse preserved for five millennia
It is in a stratigraphic layer dating from the 3rd millennium BC that archaeologists have uncovered a building that collapsed in an exceptional manner. This rectangular structure, discovered on the site of Çayönü, in the province of Diyarbakır, presented a very particular collapse. A mudbrick wall collapsed in a single block, approximately 5.2 meters long and 1.25 meters wide. This type of fall remains extremely rare in archaeology. The majority of old buildings collapse gradually or through multiple processes (erosion, fire, abandonment). Here, the integrity of the wall indicates a sudden and one-off event.
Savaş Sarıaltun, head of the excavations, explains to
Arkeonews that the team found no domestic furniture in the room: no ceramics in use, no fireplace, no organic waste. This indicates that the house was unoccupied at the time of the collapse. It is therefore a building that was already abandoned when the earthquake struck it. This hypothesis is reinforced by the total absence of traces of fire or human violence.
The intact state of the wall, despite its fall, suggests a moderate but brutal shock, probably vertical. Photogrammetric surveys and laboratory analyzes concerning the cohesion of the bricks helped support the hypothesis. The 2025 excavations, begun six months earlier, had the main objective of studying the post-Neolithic layers. The event opens a dynamic and rarely documented reading of architectural evolution in prehistoric Anatolia.
Seismic indices without apparent fault
One of the most striking aspects of this discovery concerns the area of the discovery. It is not known for its direct seismic activity. No fault system currently crosses Çayönü Hill. However, the building collapsed according to a very specific dynamic, which clearly evokes the impact of an earthquake. How to explain this geological paradox?
According to Savaş Sarıaltun, we need to broaden our perspective to regional tectonic systems. The Elazığ–Sivrice region, located north of Diyarbakır, is seismically active. It has experienced several earthquakes in recent decades, including one of magnitude 6.7 in January 2020. Although no fault directly crosses the Çayönü site, these events can propagate over several tens of kilometers. They produce perceptible tremors, capable of destabilizing old structures that are already weakened.
The observed collapse pattern supports this hypothesis. The wall collapsed in one piece, retaining its horizontal alignment and its stratification into 12 to 13 courses of bricks. This configuration does not correspond to progressive subsidence due to aging or erosion. On the contrary, it suggests a rapid shock wave, lateral or vertical, without sudden fracture or dispersion of materials. Certainly this type of geoarchaeological signal remains rare. However, it has already been identified at other sites in the Tigris basin, such as Salat Tepe. Seismic sequences have been dated between 2300 and 1600 BC. AD
These comparisons make it possible to construct a coherent hypothesis: earthquakes of medium to strong intensity could have struck Upper Mesopotamia at regular intervals, directly influencing the stability of habitats. Çayönü is part of a broader reading of ancient seismic risk, even outside areas of apparent tectonic rupture.
An architecture revealing local resources
The collapse of the Çayönü building also reveals valuable information about the construction techniques and materials used by prehistoric communities. The collapsed wall, preserved for more than five meters, was built of raw bricks. It is a traditional material made from a mixture of earth, straw and sometimes sand, dried in the sun.
But one detail strikes archaeologists: the uniform red color of these bricks. Contrary to what one might assume, this color is not the result of a fire. It comes from a high content of hematite, an iron oxide naturally present in local clay. “ The populations of Çayönü used the mineral resources of their immediate environment to build durable and functional structures », specifies Sarıaltun.
© iAH
The collapsed wall and the red-tinted bricks. iAH
The wall's foundations were made of stone, a common practice in the Fertile Crescent at that time. This base served to insulate the bricks from the damp ground and to ensure better stability. The mixed construction system, stone and raw earth, shows a high level of adaptation to the climatic and geotechnical constraints of the region.
The durability of this architecture, capable of resisting several centuries before giving in to an external shock, underlines the technical quality of the builders. These elements are essential for understanding how the first agricultural societies structured their habitat. How they distributed the functions of buildings, and anticipated natural degradation. The case of Çayönü thus sheds light on constructive strategies over the long term. And well before the urbanized forms of the classical Bronze Age.
A pivotal site between Neolithic and Bronze Age
Çayönü constitutes one of the major archaeological sites for understanding the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to sedentary agricultural communities. Occupied between 10,200 and 7000 BC. BC, it represents an essential milestone in the Neolithic revolution in Anatolia. Recent discoveries, linked to the collapsed building, enrich this historical sequence by highlighting a later occupation, up to the 3rd millennium BC. BC, period corresponding to the beginning of the Bronze Age.
This continuity remained hypothetical until now. Archaeologists believed the site was abandoned after the Neolithic period. However, the layers studied this year contain architectural and ceramic remains testifying to a reoccupation or partial maintenance of the population. The collapsed building belongs precisely to this poorly documented phase. It shows that some structures have been preserved, reused or reconstructed, even if the density of occupation seems to have decreased.
The ceramic containers discovered nearby — some almost entire — make it possible to refine the dating of the building and identify domestic uses. No signs of violence or hasty abandonment were observed. This suggests a gradual departure, followed by a slow degradation before the earthquake.
Çayönü thus becomes a place for rare observation of the transition between two major historical periods. This chronological overlap between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age highlights the adaptations of communities to environmental, social and natural pressures, over several centuries. The discovery of seismic collapse therefore not only provides geophysical data. But above all a key to better understanding the dynamics of occupation and transformation of habitat in protohistoric societies.
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