Understanding the Shapes of Settlements: The Contribution of an Ethnoarchaeological Study in Central Anatolia (original) (raw)
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edgehill.ac.uk
The aim of this study is to explore cultural and geographical characteristics of space and vernacular settlements where these characteristics can be explicitly seen. The Konya Closed Basin settlements in the Middle Anatolia Region, exhibiting different geographical characteristics, are generally defined in the context of characters of settlement textures. Güneşli village in the basin is examined for the purpose of characterizing the other settlements in the region with similar attributes of settlement typology, dwelling architecture and sources of livelihood that depend on stockbreeding and agriculture and building materials produced by making use of the indigenous earth and plants. The effects of cultural characteristics such as family structure and size, roles, social relations, sources of livelihood, and geographical characteristics such as geological structure, vegetation, topography, climate and direction, are determined in the formation of the residences composed of dwelling and annexes (auxiliary building) around the courtyard, which is one of the basic space components. .
Neolithic Houses and Households in Central Anatolia in multi-regional perspective
2013
I draw attention to the distinctive agglutinative or cellular house pattern observed at numerous prehistoric sites in Central Anatolia, and suggest that these are indicative of a suite of social relations that may have differed markedly from roughly contemporaneous village sites in southeastern Turkey and elsewhere in southwestern Asia. Looking at archaeological and architectural remains from major excavated sites such as Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük, and Canhasan, I argue that a strong local character that persists through a long period of time typifies these sites and many others in the region. This observed continuity underscores and supports views of in situ cultural development within the Anatolian interior. Rather than focusing simply on descriptions of house plan and floor area, integrative approaches explicitly working within a 'House Societies' model of social and settlement organization offer more insight into these unique cultural formations observed at early Holocene in Central Anatolia.
2015
B. Horejs – Ch. Schwall, New Light on a Nebulous Period – Western Anatolia in the 4th Millennium BC: Architecture and Settlement Structures as Cultural Patterns?, in: S. Hansen – P. Raczky – A. Anders – A. Reingruber (Hrsg.), Neolithic and Copper Age between the Carpathians and the Aegean Sea. Chronologies and Technologies from the 6th to the 4th Millennium BCE, Archäologie in Eurasien 31 (Bonn 2015) 457–474. The Late Chalcolithic period in Western Anatolia and the Eastern Aegean islands can be described as poorly investigated. In recent decades, however, the number of excavated sites dating to the 5th and 4th millennia BC has increased. Based on new excavation results from Çukuriçi Höyük, a site on the central Anatolian Aegean coast, in context with previously published studies of other sites, this contribution aims to shed new light on the Late Chalcolithic period in Western Anatolia. Our approach focuses on architectural remains and settlement structures which may point to cultural patterns in this region. It can be demonstrated that different construction techniques of Late Chalcolithic buildings are observable as local patterns. Stone socles and probably walls built entirely of stone are recorded in addition to walls built of mud bricks, or wattle-and-daub constructions. For the superstructure of these socles, walls of mud brick or of simple wattle-and-daub construction are known. From the architectural structures excavated so far, we categorize four principle types of domestic buildings in 4th millennium BC Western Anatolia: rectangular buildings, apsidal/elliptic buildings, circular structures and stone row structures. Solid building techniques with storage facilities as a general pattern in the Late Chalcolithic seem to indicate permanent settlements as the main living strategy. The closed character of the settlements – attested by enclosures or the villages’ spatial organisation – reflects some complex social organisation, even if monumental buildings have thus far not been identified.
Aşıklı Höyük: The Generative Evolution of a Central Anatolian PPN Settlement in Regional Context
Journal of Archaeological Research, 2022
The first Neolithic settlements in Southwest Asia began with a dual commitment to plant cultivation and a sedentary lifestyle. The benefits that foragers-turned-farmers gained from this commitment came with some inescapable constraints, setting new evolutionary pathways for human social and economic activities. We explore the developmental process at the early Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük in central Anatolia (Turkey), specifically the relationship between internal dynamics and external influences in early village formation. Feedback mechanisms inherent to the community were responsible for many of the unique developments there, including domestication of a variant of free-threshing wheat and the early evolution of caprine management, which gave rise to domesticated stock. Gradual change was the rule at Aşıklı, yet the cumulative transformations in architecture, settlement layout, and caprine management were great. The many strands of evidence reveal a largely local (endemic) evolution of an early Pre-Pottery Neolithic community. However, burgeoning inequalities stemming from production surplus such as livestock likely stimulated greater regional interaction toward the end of the sequence.
Settlement Patterns of Altınova in the Early Bronze Age
2003
This study aims to investigate the settlement patterns of Altınova in the Early Bronze Age and its reflection to social and cultural phenomena. Altınova, which is the most arable plain in Eastern Anatolia, is situated in the borders of Elazı province. The region in the Early Bronze Age was the conjunction and interaction area for two main cultural complexes in the Near East, which were Syro-Mesopotamia and Transcaucasia, with a strong local character.
ISTANBULER MITTEILUNGEN, 2021
Boncuklu Tarla was discovered in 2008 during a survey in the catchment area of the Ilısu Dam for the hydroelectric power plant project in the region. Excavations were initiated at the site in 20122. It is located about 3 km to the south-west of the center of the Ilısu Dam, 2 km to the west of the Tigris River, and a few meters to the south of the Nevala Maherk creek (map 1). It is about 550m above the sea level, on the northern edge of a deep valley opening towards the Eastern Taurus range and the Cizre Plain. Volcanic and calcareous mountains and hills surround the site. Archaeological excavations were conducted at the site during 2012, 2017, 2019, and 2020, which have revealed a continuous stratigraphy from the Proto-Neolithic (Late Epipaleolithic Period) to the end of the Late PPNB Level 13: Late PPNB, Level 2: Middle PPNB, Level 3: Early PPNB, Level 4a–b: PPNA-PPNB transition, Levels 5a, 5b, and 6a: PPNA, Levels 6b and 7: Late Epipaleolithic / Proto-Neolithic (fig. 1, table 1)4. Within the long duration of occupation at Bon- cuklu Tarla, levels 4a–4b, 5a–5b, and 6b are dated to the PPNA Period5 while levels 6a and 7 are dated to the 11th millennium BCE, to the Proto-Neolithic (Late Epipaleolithic)6, corresponding with the Younger Dryas. In a regional context, excavations at the PPNA sites of Boncuklu Tarla, Çayönü7, Çemka Höyük8, Demirköy9, Gusir Höyük10, Hallan Çemi11, Hasankeyf Höyük12 and Körtik Tepe13 provided insights into the Neolithization process in the Upper Tigris Valley and the social organization in these early sedentary hunter-gatherer-fisher villages. Monumental communal structures from Göbekli Tepe14 in Şanlıurfa further contributed to our knowledge of the PPNA Period architecture in Southeastern Anatolia.
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
2021
This book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500-5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia into interpretations of social organisation, as well as an exploration of how people in LN/EC central Anatolia used architecture to create communities.