Gürcütepe

Gürcütepe is located in the northwest of the Harran Plain, 4 km southeast of Şanlıurfa city center. The settlement was established on a fertile land to the south of Sırrın Stream and right next to the natural spring waters.

Surveys carried out in the region in the 90s revealed that Gürcütepe consists of eight settlements, four of which are mounds and the other four are flat, and that the earliest occupation is dated to the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age. 

As a matter of fact, sounding excavations in the mounds revealed a similar architectural stratification known from the Çayönü Tepesi settlement in Diyarbakır. The "Large Roomed Buildings" and "Cell Planed Buildings", in which two possible special structures were partially identified, are the architectural phases identified.

The second period excavations in Gürcütepe started in 2021. In the 20 years that passed between the two excavation campaigns, the tops of the settlements were subject to resettlement. For this reason, excavation works have started to be carried out in an area used as agricultural land. The agricultural activities carried out in the area and the re-usage of old structures in the houses of the modern village have greatly damaged the settlement.

Interdisciplinary studies show that people living in Gürcütepe, unlike other settlements, started to produce food, domesticated goats, sheep, pigs and possibly cattle, and made agricultural experiments. Therefore, it is seen that a transition to a new social and economic model has been made with the Gürcütepe settlement in the Harran Plain.