Supplementing the Environment:

The people who adopted the cave house strategy had an additional problem to solve: How do you grow crops in an area with limited soil nutrients? Cattle are not raised in the area since the cost of doing so remains prohibitive. Therefor cattle dung is not an option for enriching the soil. An alternate strategy was developed.

The geologic structures that provided housing for the inhabitants and their animals, also provided natural nesting areas for birds. Picking up on this, the people in the area made use of smaller “caves” and turned them into pigeon coops. The pigeons themselves were not their concern, but the bird droppings were. These droppings provided nutrients capable of enriching the local soils and thereby enabling agricultural development of the land.

These images show various pigeon coops in and around Goreme and Uchisar (notably the aptly named Pigeon Valley). Similar structures can be found in the Ilhara Valley and throughout the region. These coops are still used.