![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Low-Res_1.-Field-survey-in-Ayvalik-from-left-to-right-Kadriye-Goknur-and-Hande-1.jpg\" "\\"Ancient")
Field survey in Ayval\u0131k from left to right, Kadriye, G\u00f6knur, and Hande. Image credit: Kadriye, G\u00f6knur, and Hande<\/a><\/p>\nA vital land bridge<\/p>\n
When these trailblazing women set out to explore the picturesque coastlines of Ayval\u0131k, they didn\u2019t know what they would find. However, the region\u2019s geology and paleogeography suggested that it held potential \u201cas a dynamic site for interaction and exchange,\u201d according to a press release.<\/p>\n
The theory was that Anatolia, the region in which Ayval\u0131k is situated, and Europe were linked during the last Ice Age, offering early humans a path to cross over via southward island-hopping routes. Most research up until now has focused on northern overland routes.<\/p>\n
The two-week survey, carried out in June 2022, broadened the picture. Archaeologists discovered a new pathway.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur archaeological discovery has unveiled that this now-idyllic region once potentially offered a vital land bridge for human movement during the Pleistocene era\u2014when sea levels dropped and the now-submerged landscape was briefly exposed,\u201d explained Dr G\u00f6knur Karahan from the Department of Archaeology-Prehistory at Hacettepe University in Turkey.<\/p>\n
Artifacts point to a dynamic site<\/p>\n
Archaeologists unearthed artifacts right along the coastline, suggesting that early humans lived and moved across these now-submerged landscapes. <\/p>\n
They weren\u2019t expecting to find much, as \u201cthe widespread, muddy cover was considered a limiting factor for the preservation and detectability of Paleolithic materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, they ended up discovering hundreds of tools such as hand axes and cleavers with one \u201cvery important find,\u201d according to study authors, an iconic piece of technology from the Paleolithic known as a Levallois-style flake tool, or a large cutting instrument associated with Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe presence of these objects in Ayval\u0131k is particularly significant, as they provide direct evidence that the region in Turkey<\/a> was part of wider technological traditions shared across Africa, Asia, and Europe.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n Ayval\u0131k emerges as a key site in human evolution<\/p>\n The discovery left archaeologists even emotional because it demonstrated that Ayval\u0131k was a site of dynamic human activity that was previously unknown in Turkey<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cHolding these objects \u2014after walking across landscapes where no one had ever documented Paleolithic remains before\u2014 was unforgettable,\u201d Karahan stated<\/a> in the press release.<\/p>\n