Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One The Land of Asia Minor
- Chapter Two Archaeology in Asia Minor
- Chapter Three Hunter-Gatherers of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic (20,000–6000 BC)
- Chapter Four Early Farmers of the Southern Plateau (8500–6500 BC)
- Chapter Five Neolithic Dispersals (6500–5500 BC)
- Chapter Six Millennia in the Middle (5500–3000 BC)
- Chapter Seven Elites and Commoners (3000–2000 BC)
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter One - The Land of Asia Minor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One The Land of Asia Minor
- Chapter Two Archaeology in Asia Minor
- Chapter Three Hunter-Gatherers of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic (20,000–6000 BC)
- Chapter Four Early Farmers of the Southern Plateau (8500–6500 BC)
- Chapter Five Neolithic Dispersals (6500–5500 BC)
- Chapter Six Millennia in the Middle (5500–3000 BC)
- Chapter Seven Elites and Commoners (3000–2000 BC)
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
‘Asia Minor’ in this book refers to what today is roughly the western half of Turkey-in-Asia, or ‘Anatolia’ (Fig. 1.1). Asia Minor consists of a peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara to the north, the Aegean to the west, and the Mediterranean to the south, and does not include what is presently the easternmost mountainous part of Turkey.
The term ‘Asia Minor’ developed as a variant of the word ‘Asia’. Over the course of millennia, Asia has expanded from a designation for a region in Aegean Turkey to the designation of a significant part of the globe. The word Asia is first documented in Hittite texts, which mention a coalition of small states called ‘Assuwa’ in western Turkey. Subsequently, a Roman province with the name Asia existed in the same region. Later, Asia was used to refer to all of the Near East, and subsequently expanded to include the entire Asian continent as presently defined. The term Asia Minor came into use to identify the western half of Asiatic Turkey more specifically from about 400 AD, and was mainly used by the Byzantines to describe the part of Asia under their control.
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- Information
- The Prehistory of Asia MinorFrom Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies, pp. 4 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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