Mining and mine fields around Elazığ-Malatya in the light of archaeological excavations

Since ancient times, human beings have always been in search of meeting their basic needs such as shelter and nutrition. First of all, they used materials such as soil, stone and wood that they found in nature to use as hunting, decoration and dead gifts. However, the rapid breakage and deterioration of these materials has put human beings in new quests and they have started to produce more durable and useful products by trying a number of different materials they have found from nature. Today, bright, durable minerals with economic value are defined as mines. The period when the mines were used in Anatolia was taken back to the Epipalaeolithic Age. In the beginning, the paint material was collected in pure form without processing, and the mines have been used consciously since the Neolithic period. The fact that the Elazig and Malatya regions have important mineral deposits, the activities of the people of the region by benefiting from the metallurgical developments in Anatolia from the Chalcolithic Age to the Iron Age, and the artifacts they uncovered contributed to the economic and military strengthening of the region.