Çatalhöyük is an important symbol of the Neolithic in Anatolia. Within the buildings of this settlement spectacular ‘art’ was found, and beneath the floors of these buildings elaborately furnished burials were unearthed. Among the characteristics of the settlement the absence of streets constitutes a central element for understanding this period. Despite the unique and well known remains found at the site, its architecture has not been studied systematically. The buildings remain to be distinguished. The distinction between shrines and nonshrines has not been fully scrutinised. Most importantly, the appearance of public space at the site has not been studied. In this paper an analysis of the architecture of Çatalhöyük levels VIII–II is presented. A method of distinguishing buildings is proposed. On that basis the analysis focuses on three themes. The first theme is the variability of features associated with the buildings, and the feasibility of the shrines / non-shrines distinction. It is argued that some buildings did indeed function as ritual centres for the inhabitants of other buildings, although they also had domestic functions.

Research into the emergence of animal husbandry west of the Taurus mountains has been primarily confined to central Anatolia, the Lake District and the Marmara region in Anatolia, leaving a c. 85,000km area in western Anatolia largely unexplored. This vast region is crucial to understand the developmental trajectories of early farming practices in Anatolia and to explain the expansion of Neolithic agro-pastoralist lifeways into southeast Europe. The hand-collected faunal assemblage from Ulucak Höyük near Izmir provides a first opportunity to examine the beginnings and the evolution of Neolithic animal husbandry practices in this region across an uninterrupted cultural sequence dating between c. 7040–5660 cal. BC. Taxonomic, osteometric and demographic analyses suggest that all four initial food animals (sheep, goat, cattle and pig) appeared simultaneously at the beginning of the seventh millennium BC. The relative proportions of the domestic food animals indicate that beef was as significant a resource as sheep and goat meat. Fusion data for cattle and combined tootheruption and wear data for sheep and goat suggest that milk exploitation may have begun towards the end of the seventh millennium BC and intensified during the first quarter of the sixth. Evidence for post-adult caprines and cattle is thought to represent a strategy employed to maximise herd size and buffer risk. No clear evidence for cattle traction was found. Fallow deer seems to have become an increasingly important resource throughout the period. Small amounts of fish remains and substantial amounts of marine molluscs demonstrate that coastal environments were also exploited. These results indicate that central-west Anatolia played an essential role in the expansion of animal husbandry technologies into southeast Europe.

The pottery described in this article was collected during a survey of ancient sites in eastern Turkey carried out in the summer of 1956. More than 150 Chalcolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age sites were recorded: only the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age pottery is discussed here, the later periods being reserved for a future article. A considerable quantity of potsherds was collected, so that only a selection of the more significant examples has been illustrated. The zone covered by this survey is best described as eastern Anatolia within the mountains, excluding both the Pontic region and the south-eastern provinces of Turkey, bordering on Syria and Iraq: it is the narrowest part of the great natural bridge between Asia and Europe that has given Anatolia its long and varied history. The survey covered the greater part of the provinces of Sivas, Malatya, Elazığ, Muş, Bitlis and Van. Sites near Adıyaman, also visited, are not dealt with here. The plain of Iğdır, north of Mount Ararat, was partially explored in 1957, and yielded important material, but the plain of Karaköse proved to have few sites, and those with little surface pottery. The sherds here described are supplemented by intact vessels from Ernis, on the north-eastern shore of Lake Van, now in Van Museum.

This article explores the character of social transformations within Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic communities of central Anatolia. This comprises the demise of neighbourhood communities that formed the social basis of the Early Neolithic period and the emergence of the household as a well-defined and autonomous entity. These changes are examined by focusing mainly on settlement patterns, the organisation of space and changes in architecture. The transformations are examined on the microscale, using Çatalhöyük as a case study, and on a regional scale focused on three areas of central Anatolia: the Beyşehir-Seydişehir area, the Konya plain and the Cappadocian region.

Beads and personal ornamentation have often been overlooked in the intense debates that have surrounded archaeological work on the Neolithic settlements of the Konya plain. In this article I assess the bead assemblages from the ninth- to eighth-millennium BC calibrated sites of Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu Höyük to ask what they can tell us about the technology, sense of personal expression and interactions with the wider landscape of Neolithic populations. The two sites in question occupy significantly different positions within the plain: the former right at the edge; the latter next to a low ridge surrounded by wetland. Evidence suggests that these communities adopted some materials, ideas and influences from outside sources, while holding on to their own, very local identities.

The development of the skills necessary for working in iron, making possible the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age, has long been regarded as one of the major break-throughs in man's technological history. For Lewis Henry Morgan, writing in 1877, the smelting of iron ore was a development on a par with the domestication of animals (Morgan 1877:39):

The importance of the appearance of iron as a practical, utilitarian metal has usually been seen in terms of a military context. With iron it was possible to produce weapons not only superior to those of bronze but also much cheaper. These improvements made it possible to arm a large peasant infantry in order to challenge the military superiority of the chariot forces of the Late Bronze Age aristocracy, armed with bronze weapons.

The survey, the results of which are detailed below, was conducted by the writer as Fellow of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara in company with the Misses du Plat Taylor and Munn-Rankin, Dr. J. Waechter and J. Mellaart, with the approval of the Director-General of Antiquities, Bay Hayrullah Örs and with the aid of a grant from the British Academy. The primary object was to examine and record the pre-classical sites in the Plain of Cilicia and round the Gulf of Iskenderun and to determine as far as possible the periods of their occupation, but many later settlements, usually under modern villages, were discovered and recorded. The survey was carried out during June and July, 1951, the best season for travel in this swampy area, but even so much time was lost owing to thunderstorms and heavy rains making the roads impassable for days.

In this article I have presented the second synthesis of information and material gathered from surface survey in Western Anatolia. This article, in fact, completes the publication of the work that I undertook in 1959–60 when I was joint Scholar of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. My aim in 1959–60 was to discover what prehistoric remains could be found, especially in the Akhisar/Manisa region but also in the area around Balıkesir. Both regions were archaeologically almost terra incognita—at least in the publications.

I have, therefore, felt that it is justifiable to publish the information that was recorded ten years ago although, at the same time, it must be admitted that aims and methods in archaeology have radically changed since 1959, and that methods of illustration and publication have changed along with the aims themselves. Much of modern archaeology is turning (? rightly) to the new approaches—the new “models”—but analytical archaeology, however propounded, is at the mercy of the data available for it. Data must still be collected, especially from sources where basic, primary information did not exist before. It is perhaps unfortunate that in Anatolia, until recently, scant attention has been paid to the accurate compilation of basic information.

To the west of Çatal Hüyük and directly across the old river bed lies the second mound, occupied after the desertion of the neolithic site, perhaps from c. 5600 B.C. Roughly circular in size, with a diameter of c. 400 m., it still rises to a height of 7·5 m. above the surrounding fields. A modern road and two of the canals which now take the place of the old river, cut into its sides, but like its sister site, it is not under cultivation.

This mound, the successor of the neolithic city, is strewn with painted pottery of the Early Chalcolithic period, some of which was published before. Its range of occupation would seem to be almost entirely of this period, but it is possible that Late Neolithic levels exist further down in the mound. Some surface sherds even suggest a possible occupation in what D. H. French has called “Middle Chalcolithic” at Can Hasan, some fifty miles to the south-east, but situated in the same plain of Konya.

Few will doubt that in the East Mediterranean world and in the Near East the development of metallurgy was an important factor (though certainly not the only one) in the evolution of socio-economic organization in the Late Chalcolithic and especially in the Early and Late Bronze Age. The availability of silver, lead and gold added markedly to the possibilities of the acquisition of prestigious objects by the few, to developments in the concept of wealth and in the development of hierarchical societies. The availability of copper, arsenical copper, and later, tin bronze made possible the production of tools which transformed certain crafts (perhaps particularly carpentry and shipbuilding) and, with the development of weapons, revolutionized warfare.

This no doubt led to something of an arms race which put its own pressures on societies in the search for and exploitation of metals. The more successful population groups will have greatly increased the density of their population and changed their structure, not only by moving from local chief to regional monarch but also by that monarch securing his authority by the creation of dependent privileged groups and by the encouragement of the emergence of specialized workers and craftsmen. In turn such socio-economic developments, in which the emergence of class differentiation led to the creation of aristocracies or other forms of elite ruling classes, eventually provided the environments in which skilled metal workers could find the time, necessary incentives and artistic inspiration to develop advanced metalworking skills.

The high Anatolian plateau is divided from the south coast of Turkey by the far higher Taurus chain. This extends south-west from Armenia in a vast double-curve, accommodating the coastal plains of Cilicia and Pamphylia and terminating abruptly in the wide, rugged promontory of Lycia (Fig. 1). The width of the promontory is about 120 km.; its mountains rise to 3,000 m., and it was aptly characterized by Strabo as τραχὺς καὶ χαλεπός ἀλλ' εὐλίμενος. Between Fethiye and Antalya steep cliffs give way to sandy beaches in three places, the Xanthus valley and the plains of Demre and Finike. West of Demre, beneath towering cliffs, is the little harbour of Kaş; behind these cliffs the ground drops to a wide inland basin, whose outlet is the long and spectacular Demre gorge. Inland roads, where they exist, are steep and tortuous. The Xanthus valley carries a road to Fethiye; a poor road from Kaş, and a tolerable one from Finike lead to the upland plain of Elmalı, which has roads leading west to Fethiye and north-east to Korkuteli; from this last town there is an easy road north-east towards Burdur, and more difficult routes north-west to Tefenni and south-east to Antalya.

Evidence for the presence of storage pits described in Hittite texts by the Sumerogram ÉSAG is presented from Kaman-Kalehöyük, a multi-period tell site in central Turkey occupied during the second and first millennia BC. Small earthen pits matching the description of ÉSAG were part of the normal suite of domestic installations at the site throughout the period. Similar to pits seen across western Eurasia, they were probably used to store seed corn or seed for trade. Large earthen pits (>7m in diameter) were also present that matched the description of the ÉSAG form, and in some cases contained archaeological cereal remains. Evidence from Kaman shows ÉSAG were part of Anatolian life for at least 4,000 years and suggests that the term was generic for lined, earthen storage pits. The presence of so many small pits at Kaman-Kalehöyük showed that it was an agricultural production site for much of its existence. The appearance of the large pits, confined to the Hittite period, reflects centralised control of grain supply, probably by the Hittite Kingdom, and fits a pattern seen at other sites in the region during the second millennium BC.

The historic series of excavations of Hisarlik-Troy have been continued over the last 15 years by a collaboration between teams from the universities of Tübingen and Cincinnati with fruitful results. Over the year 2001 however the director, Manfred Korfmann, attracted sharp criticism from colleagues, largely through the medium of the press, for his methods and publications. He was accused of exaggerating the importance of the site in the Late Bronze Age, particularly as a political capital and trading centre of Anatolia, and more specifically of unduly inflating the results of his investigations of the lower city. A symposium was convened by the University of Tübingen in February 2002 with a view to discussing these criticisms and the defence in an academic atmosphere. The four authors of this article attended the Tübingen symposium. After listening to the contributions it seemed to us that an assessment of the issues from our respective view-points would be timely: thus a detailed consideration of the archaeological questions, a review of the notable recent progress in Hittite sources firming up the historical geography of western Anatolia, and an evaluation of Troy's position in Late Bronze Age trade. In all these areas we conclude that the criticisms of Korfmann are themselves considerably exaggerated.

The text of Sargon's Eighth Campaign provides a challenge to the archaeologist to seek the towns which he mentions, though one must remember that many of his “towns” were hardly more than villages. For two months (mid-June till mid-August 1956) I worked on a survey of Urartian and earlier sites in the districts around Lake Van and eastward as far as the Persian frontier. Later I visited sites in the districts of Bulanık and Malazgirt (Manzikert), and two Urartian sites far to the west, at Palu and in the mountainous Dersim. Among the sites visited are several of which nothing has hitherto been published, whilst nearly all the rest are known only from the discovery of inscriptions. A few fragmentary cuneiform inscriptions were found, in addition to those already known, but the chief purpose of this survey was to discover the Urartian fortresses and towns in this region and to make sketch-plans, wherever possible, of the walls visible above the surface. Circumstances did not allow of the drawing of accurately measured plans: that is an important task, which should be carried out as soon as possible, if only because of the constant and increasing danger of stone-quarrying by local peasants. At remarkably many Urartian sites it is possible to trace the defensive wall for the greater part of its circuit.

The origins of agriculture and domestication have long been identified, in theory, with the beginning of permanent settlements; the beginning of the Early Neolithic Period is known, in fact, to be synchronous with the ending of the Last Ice Age. To some scholars, fact and theory have suggested that this synchronism implies a causal relationship between certain assumed climatic changes and the beginnings of food production; for others, this synchronism is not more than a misleading coincidence. It is not the purpose of the writer to discuss the validity of these assumptions except to indicate that opinion seems to be hardening that food production may have had a more complicated and lengthy history than these assumptions suggest. There has grown up over the last 25 years a considerable body of literature expressing the most varied opinion about the causes for the origins of food production, and its variety has not narrowed with the emergence of new evidence. In my opinion, the basis for the solution of this problem will be derived essentially from palaeoecological analyses of selected areas and regions in various parts of the world, and not only in the Near East. This paper is intended to open such a study for the region of south central Anatolia. As might be expected in an ecological study, the evidence derives from a number of disciplines, and, accordingly, several colleagues have contributed to the formulation of the suggested ecological pattern. That pattern itself, however, is the responsibility of the writer.

This article is a preliminary case-study concerning the importance of flax/Linum and Eruca as oil plants in central Anatolia. Linseed oil (‘beziryaği’) was produced from both Linum and Eruca seeds, and this oil was used in Anatolian culinary culture, in addition to olive, sesame, cotton, poppy, sunflower, hazel, Cephalaria, safflower and hackberry oils. Linseed oil was also used in oil lamps, to oil wooden-wheeled carts and to rub on the skins of water-buffalo. Both linseed oil and flax seeds were widely used in folk medicine.

The production of linseed oil may have started thousands of years ago in central Anatolia. Both plants are native to Anatolia, and flax seeds have been found at several Neolithic sites. The earliest historical documents concerning linseed oil mills (‘bezirhane’) are Ottoman tax records from 1500–1. Until the 1970s there were still several oil mills in the Aksaray area producing linseed oil during the winter. The residue was used as fodder for draft animals.

The evidence of Minoan and Mycenaean trade with and settlement in Anatolia has never been comprehensively studied. Bittel (1967:5–23), Buchholz (1974:365–8), Cook and Blackman (1959–60:39–50, 1964–5:44–55, 1970–1:39–53), D. French (1969:73–4), Hiller (1975:406–11), Hope Simpson and Lazenby (1973:174–9), Lloyd and Mellaart (1955:81–3), Mellaart (1968:187–90) and Stubbings (1951:22–4 and 88–9) have discussed some of the sites involved but not in depth. Obviously it is only by considering the evidence as a whole that a definitive assessment is possible, so that a further study is not superfluous.

Problems arising from the decipherment of the Boğazköy/Hattusas archives are not considered but I would hope that this study might nevertheless assist those concerned with the political geography of Anatolia in the second millennium.

This paper reviews 50 years of obsidian studies at Neolithic Çatalhöyük in the Konya plain, central Anatolia. A number of key issues are addressed: (1) the source of the site's raw materials, the means and forms by which the obsidian was introduced to the site and the role of Çatalhöyük in the supra-regional dissemination of these raw materials; (2) the alleged gender associations of certain obsidian goods in the burial record and beyond; (3) a more general consideration of the social significance of the circulation and consumption of obsidian at the site, including the phenomena of hoarding and gifting, plus the important role of projectiles in the creation of social identities and various forms of ritual behaviour, not least the termination of the life of a building/individual; (4) the technotypological and raw material variability through time; (5) the use of obsidian in daily practice and craft-working.

It is a good maxim that all controversial archaeological issues should be reviewed regularly in the light of new material and/or changing perspectives; and certainly one of the most controversial issues in the history of the early first millennium B.C. in the Near East has been the dating of the reliefs and inscriptions built into the two Citadel Gates at Karatepe.

The site itself, set on the west bank of the Ceyhan River in the northeast corner of Cilicia, sits on a natural hill just south of a spur of the foothills that mark the beginning of the juncture of the Taurus and Amanus mountain ranges (cf. Maps, Figs. 2, 3). It was first discovered and explored in 1946 by a Turkish team, headed by H. Th. Bossert, investigating ancient road systems of the “Neo-Hittite” period. Active field seasons were initiated at Karatepe, along with soundings at the neighbouring site of Domuztepe on the opposite bank of the Ceyhan, and were continued through the mid-1950s, since which time restoration has been in process at Karatepe under the direction of Professor Halet Çambel of Istanbul University.

It has been known from textual sources for some time that besides clay tablets, the traditional writing material in the Ancient Near East, wooden writing-boards were also used by the scribes.

M. San Nicolò first drew attention to the fact that writing-boards were widely employed in temple and palace administration in Mesopotamia in the first millennium B.C. and the textual evidence gathered by him was soon to be confirmed archaeologically by the discovery of several such writing-boards at Nimrud. Equally, the existence of wooden writing material in Hittite context has long been established, but no example has ever been found. It is generally thought that private and economic records which are almost totally lacking in the archives at Boǧazköy must have been written on perishable material.

The elusive nature of wooden writing-boards manifests itself not only archaeologically by the unlikelihood of their survival but also by the fact that, as a rule, they deserved little mention in the cuneiform texts. Consequently, the quantity of wooden writing material that may have been in use and did not survive is impossible to gauge. Similarly, it would be unwarranted to deduce that centres whose archives have not contributed to the subject, were unfamiliar with writing on wood.