In the beginning, Noah's Ark landed on Mount Ararat, or so recovered fossilized wood and boatlike support beams might indicate. Actually, the beginning in Turkey was much earlier; archaeological findings in central Anatolia indicate the presence of cave dwellers as early as 10,000 B.C., living a crude nomadic existence. The oldest documented tribe in Anatolia was the Hatti, a nameless, faceless civilization that seems to have established small city kingdoms in central Anatolia and ruled there for about 500 years. Cuneiform tablets discovered in the regions to the east of Kayseri evidence a thriving trade between these indigenous settlers and Assyrian merchants, who appear on the scene around 2000 B.C. With the arrival of the Hittites, an ancient tribe of uncertain mixed Indo-European origins, all evidence of the Hatti seems to dissolve, while commerce between the Assyrian merchants and now-ruling Hittites continues.
