The modern Republic of Turkey dates only from 1923, but the history of the land within its borders stretches back to the dawn of humanity. Widespread finds of Stone Age implements in cave excavations show that Anatolia was already inhabited during the Middle of the Palaeolithic period (about 200,000 to 40,000 years ago). By Neolithic times, organized communities had arisen, such as the one at Çatalhöyük, near Konya, Turkey's most important prehistoric site. This town, which flourished between 6500 and 5500 b.c. , had flat-roofed houses of mud and timber decorated with wall-paintings, some of which show patterns that still appear on Anatolian kilims. The advent of the Bronze Age (about 3200 b.c. ), and the spread of city-states ruled by kings, is marked by the appearance of royal tombs containing bronze objects in such places as Troy in the west, and Alacahöyük near Ankara. Around this time the Sumerian civilization living in Mesopotamia (the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq) founded and developed the cuneiform script, the world's oldest form of writing on record. The technique was introduced by Assyrian traders 1,000 years later in­to Anatolia, where it was qui­ck­ly adopted by the indigenous Hatti people, who, at this point, had already reached an ad­­vanced state of civilization. The Hittites: The capital of the Hatti was Kanesh (modern Kültepe, near Kayseri). Cuneiform tablets found here record the arrival in Anatolia of warlike invaders around the second mill­ennium b.c. Their origins remain a my­s­tery (their written language was finally deciphered in 1915), but they came from the direction of the Caucasus moun­tains, spreading destruction and disorder throughout Anatolia. It was two hundred years before they were firmly entrenched in their newly conquered empire. The newcomers were the Hittites, and their domination of Anatolia can be divided into three distinct periods: the Old Kingdom (c. 1600–1450 b.c. ), then the New or Empire Period (c. 1450–1200 b.c. ), and the Late Hittite Period (c. 
What is marked by the appearance of royal tombs containing bronze objects?
The rule of unnamed warrior kings in Mesopotamia