3400 BC to 1650 BC

First farmers and traders

Anatolia holds some of the oldest monuments on earth: the carved stone pillars of Göbekli Tepe, raised about 11,500 years ago, and Çatalhöyük, a town of mud brick houses from about 9,000 years ago. Troy rises on the Dardanelles from about 3000 BC, and around 1900 BC Assyrian merchants run a trading colony at Kanesh, in central Anatolia.