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In the modern day Batman River tributary system, southeastern Turkey. There is an important pre pottery neolithic site called Demirköy Höyük. It represents a small sedentary settlement with no clear evidence for intensive cereal farming yet, but with strong signs of wild plant exploitation, symbolic behavior, and early craft production.

Site setting is Central Fertile Crescent – Upper Tigris zone. A small mound settlement (Höyük). Nearby Körtik Tepe, Çemka Höyük and Hallan Çemi (40 km)

Predominantly round and circular structures (PPNA tradition)
Semi-subterranean house floors, posthole-supported roofs. No clear standardized rectangular architecture in earliest phases. Its aligned with nearby sites: Hallan Çemi (round PPNA houses), and Körtik Tepe (dense circular domestic clusters).

No temple architecture, no large enclosure complexes or no Göbekli Tepe-style pillars
But there are important PPNA patterns: structured burial practices, repeated domestic rebuilding and possible shared outdoor activity areas. It shows household-based village organization, not monumental ritual architecture.

Regional archaeobotanical synthesis for Upper Tigris PPNA sites (including Demirköy) show no strong evidence for intensive crop progenitor exploitation in PPNA layers
Wild plant gathering dominates subsistence systems. Likely plant economy: wild grasses (C3 cereals present environmentally), wild barley relatives (Hordeum spontaneum regionally available), wild einkorn-type wheat ancestors (Triticum boeoticum complex in broader region) and nuts and gathered plants (pistachio, acorns in wider Upper Tigris landscape). Demirköy is pre-domestication or very early cultivation stage, not established wheat/barley farming. It sits in the “threshold phase” before farming becomes dominant.

Upper Tigris PPNA faunal systems typically include: gazelle (major hunted species), wild boar and deer (regional). Early caprine management signals appear later in the basin. Interpretation: economy is still hunting-dominant with early animal control experiments

It is limited stratigraphy and a shallow mound formation compared to later Neolithic tells. Not a deep multi-millennial village
Discovered in regional survey work (late 20th century Upper Tigris projects). By archaeologist working on the Batman River basin PPNA settlements, upper Tigris Neolithic corridor. Including Michael Rosenberg (Upper Tigris PPNA surveys and synthesis work) and Upper Tigris PPNA research tradition like the American–Turkish collaboration framework and Hallan Çemi–Körtik Tepe network.

Significant facts about Demirköy (early sedentism, PPNA upper Tigris settlment network, predomestication plant economy evidence and craft and symbolic behaviour)
1) Early sedentism without farming dominance. Shows villages can exist before agriculture is fully established.
2) PPNA Upper Tigris settlement network. Part of a chain including Hallan Çemi, Körtik Tepe and Hasankeyf Höyük
3) Pre-domestication plant economy evidence. Supports the model that cultivation and domestication were gradual and regionally variable
4) Craft and symbolic behavior. Early ornaments (including bitumen-use artifacts in broader site assemblages).

Lithics and materials
Flint, chert, obsidian; and polished stone were used for stone tool production. Obsidian appears via exchange routes. The upper Tigris acts as a distribution corridor, not a volcanic source zone. They also had bone tools.

Climate: 10,000–12,000 years ago vs eastern Fertile Crescent
Central Fertile Crescent = settlement + ritual + aggregation networks
Eastern Fertile Crescent = animal domestication core zones

Demirköy Höyük was a small PPNA Upper Tigris village with circular architecture, and no confirmed farming dominance yet. They had heavy reliance on wild plant and animal resources, emerging sedentary life, and participation in a wider Central Fertile Crescent network. Linking early settlements before full wheat–barley agriculture and pastoral economies became totally established.

References: Rosenberg, Michael & Peasnall, Brian. (2001). A preliminary description of the lithic industry from Demirköy Höyük. Beyond Tools. Redefinig the PPN Lithic Assemblages of the Levant. 363-387.

Connan, Jacques & Kavak, Orhan & Akin, E. & Yalçın, M. & Imbus, K. & Zumberge, John. (2006). Identification and origin of bitumen in Neolithic artefacts from Demirköy Höyük (8100 BC): Comparison with oil seeps and crude oils from southeastern Turkey. Organic Geochemistry. 37. 1752-1767. 10.1016/j.orggeochem.2006.07.023.

Rosenberg, M. (Upper Tigris PPNA survey reports and synthesis)

Algaze et al. (Upper Tigris archaeological reconnaissance)

Nature Scientific Reports (Hallan Çemi / Demirköy archaeobotanical synthesis)

ScienceDirect geochemical studies of Demirköy artefacts (bitumen use evidence)

Upper Tigris PPNA burial and settlement synthesis literature