32 Ancient Cities That Are Older Than the Pyramids

24. Çayönü Tepesi, Turkey: Dawn of Metallurgy

Flourishing between roughly 7200 and 6600 BCE, Çayönü in southeastern Anatolia is a key Neolithic site showcasing crucial steps towards complex society. Long before Egypt's dynasties, inhabitants here practiced early agriculture, lived in planned settlements with distinct building phases, and crucially, experimented with native copper – hammering and heating it in some of the earliest examples of metallurgy. Çayönü offers a vital glimpse into the slow burn of innovation, revealing how foundational technologies and settled life developed millennia before the grand monuments of later civilizations arose.