The site, Yenice Yani, had been discovered by Dr. Guillermo Algaze in the course of his surveys in the Bismil-Batman region of Turkey, along the Tigris River. He assigned to it the Chalcolithic period. This period is not well-known in this region of Turkey, and was therefore of interest to the excavators. The excavators (myself, and Dr. Reinhard Bernbeck of Binghamton University) visited the site briefly in 2001 and found Chalcolithic pottery and what appeared to be a thick layer of ash near the base of the mound, suggesting the possibility of a destruction layer that might yield in situ evidence.
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Sarah Kielt Costello, of Binghamton University, was a 2002-03 Short-Term Travel Grants [8] fellow.
