The Ministry of Culture calls the Büyük Menderes basin the Valley of Civilisations, and the name is earned: with a climate fit for settlement and fertile ground, the valley has been lived in during every period of history. The rock paintings Peschlow found in the Beşparmak mountains take its cultural record back ten thousand years, and Aydın, sitting at the junction of the roads to İzmir, Denizli and Muğla, has a particular place in it.
Prehistoric mounds and settlements have been identified across the province. The most important is Deştepe, also called Dedekuyusu, now inside the municipal boundary; its pottery finds date the settlement to around 4500 BC. The first written references to the area are Hittite, and researchers reading those records against the sites on the ground match Apasa to Ephesus, Milavanda to Miletus, Pariyana to Priene, İlyalanda to Alinda and Waliwanda to Alabanda.
