Yeşilova Höyük is a höyük (mound

Mound

A mound is a general term for an artificial heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. The most common use is in reference to natural earthen formation such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. The term may also be applied to any rounded area of topographically...

) in Bornova

Bornova

Bornova is a metropolitan district of İzmir in İzmir Province in Turkey. It is the third largest district in İzmir's Greater Metropolitan Area of and is almost fully urbanized at the rate of 98,6 per cent, with corresponding high levels of development in terms of industry and services...

, Turkey

Turkey

Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...

, and is the first known settlement in prehistory in the area of İzmir

Izmir

Izmir is a large metropolis in the western extremity of Anatolia. The metropolitan area in the entire Izmir Province had a population of 3.35 million as of 2010, making the city third most populous in Turkey...

. It was occupied continuously from roughly 6500 to 4000 BCE, and was covered with silt

Silt

Silt is granular material of a size somewhere between sand and clay whose mineral origin is quartz and feldspar. Silt may occur as a soil or as suspended sediment in a surface water body...

 afterwards.

Discovered in 2003

2003 in archaeology

-Finds:* April - First British cave art discovered at Creswell Crags.* Royal Saxon tomb in Prittlewell.* Iron Age gold coin hoard at Henley-on-Thames.-Publications:...

, the site has been explored since 2005

2005 in archaeology

The year 2005 in archaeology involved some significant events.-Publications:* Mark P. Leone - The Archaeology of Liberty in an American Capital: Excavations in Annapolis.* Adrienne Mayor - Fossil Legends of the First Americans....

 by a team under the direction of Associate Professor Zafer Derin of Ege University

Ege University

Ege University is a public university in İzmir, Turkey. It was founded in 1955 with the Faculties of Medicine and Faculty of Agriculture...

. By 2005, important new light had been shed on the Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

-Chalcolithic phases of İzmir's metropolitan area in particular and of Turkey's Aegean Region in general.

A drilled sample section disclosed a first cultural layer associated with the late Roman

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

–early Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 period, and still more importantly, allowed the outlines of two additional layers, which date from the Calcolithic and Neolithic Ages, to be made out. The first settlement in the site, at a depth of 4 meters under the surface level, had started during the Neolithic and reached its zenith towards the end of the same age, and then continued through the Chalcolithic period. Thus, Yeşilova Höyük saw uninterrupted settlement spanning at least fifteen hundred years of prehistory. No artifacts dating from the early Bronze Age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is a period characterized by the use of copper and its alloy bronze as the chief hard materials in the manufacture of some implements and weapons. Chronologically, it stands between the Stone Age and Iron Age...

 are discovered to date but after the full abandon of settlement, part of the mound was used as a cemetery. Habitation in the area of the mound was resumed during the late Roman-early Byzantine period, but was sparser in form and shorter in duration.

In June 2010, The Municipality of Bornova (İzmir) organised a national architectural competition for a visitor center within the excavation site. The competition won by architects Evren Başbuğ (Dist Architects), and Umut Başbuğ.