Taşlı Geçit Höyük. Report on the Excavations and Survey of the Outskirts of the Main Mound

The site of Taşlı Geçit Höyük and the so-called Chalcolithic mound are located on a basaltic outcrop system in the south-eastern branch of the valley of Islahiye in Turkey, about 11 km south of Tilmen Höyük and at a short distance from the bed of the Kara Su river. They lie near a ford through which the road connecting Kilis to Islahiye used to cross until as late as the Ottoman period. At Taşlı Geçit Höyük, rescue excavations were conducted between 2009 and 2010 by a joint Turco-Italian expedition, under the direction of Nicolò Marchetti of the University of Bologna. This initiative was of the greatest urgency since gradual erosion caused by the seasonal flooding of the Tahtaköprü dam reservoir had been seriously damaging the site since the dam’s completion in 1974. The aim of the two seasons was to reconstruct the chronological development of the urban layout of the site through time.