İzmir

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History

The city is one of the oldest settlements of the Mediterranean basin. The 2004 discovery of Yeşilova Höyük and the neighboring Yassıtepe, in the small delta of Meles River, now the Bornova plain, reset the starting date of the city's past further back than previously thought. Findings from two seasons of excavations carried out in the Yeşilova Höyük by a team of archaeologists from İzmir's Ege University indicate three levels, two of which are prehistoric. Level 2 bears traces of early to mid-Chalcolithic, and Level 3 of Neolithic settlements. These two levels would have been inhabited by the indigenous peoples of the area, very roughly, between the 7th millennium BC and the 4th millennium BC. As the seashore receded with time, the site was later used as a cemetery. Several graves containing artifacts dating roughly from 3000 BC, and contemporary with the first city of Troy, were found. The first settlement to have commanded the Gulf of İzmir as a whole was established on top of Mount Yamanlar, to the northeast of the inner gulf. In connection with the silt brought by the streams which join the sea along the coastline, the settlement to form later the core of "Old Smyrna" was founded on the slopes of the same mountain, on a hill (then a small peninsula connected to the mainland by a small isthmus) in the present-day neighborhood of Tepekule in Bayraklı. The Bayraklı settlement is thought to have stretched back in time as far as the 3rd millennium BC. Archaeological findings of the late Bronze Age show a certain degree of Mycenaean influence in the settlement and the surrounding region, though further excavations of Bronze Age layers are needed to propose Old Smyrna of that time as a Mycenaean settlement. In the 13th century BC, however, invasions from the Balkans…

Most-observed species

• Hooded Crow

  Corvus cornix Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  928
• Yellow-legged Gull

  Larus michahellis J.F.Naumann, 1840 · Aves
  838
• House Sparrow

  Passer domesticus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  715
• Eurasian Collared-Dove

  Streptopelia decaocto (Frivaldszky, 1838) · Aves
  659
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  621
• Greater Flamingo

  Phoenicopterus roseus Pallas, 1811 · Aves
  607
• Western Jackdaw

  Coloeus monedula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  576
• Rock Pigeon

  Columba livia J.F.Gmelin, 1789 · Aves
  547