Journal

An Opportunity for a Winter-Break Visit

Gygaia Projects

Opportunity knocked with some time to get away during Koç University’s winter break…

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Spring in the Marmara Lake Basin and the Blooming of the Asphodel

Gygaia Projects

An early April trip to the lake basin allowed time to take in the sights and sounds of Kaymakçı in Spring!

Sounds of the spring landscape

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Presentations at the Online WANAT Symposium on Western Anatolia in Second Millennium BCE

Gygaia Projects

Kaymakçı and the Marmara Lake basin were well represented at the WANAT symposium—Western Anatolia in the Second Millennium BCE: Recent Developments and Future Prospects—a collaboration between three institutions (Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), Charles University’s Faculty of Arts (Prague), and the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen) hosted by ANAMED. See below for papers by project members, most of which included material from KAP and CLAS!

Of Types and Elements: A Combined Assessment of Western Anatolian Metallurgical Industries in the Second Millennium BCE

Dalila M. Alberghina and Miloš Roháček

Abstract: The study of ancient metallurgical industries in western Anatolia has focused primarily on the crucial technological, stylistic, and cultural developments characterizing the third millennium BCE across the entire peninsula. The shared vision of a politically fragmented and, somehow, culturally backward region during the second millennium BCE has deeply affected the interpretation of material evidence dating to the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) and Late Bronze Age (LBA) phases. Thus, the analysis of the growing amount of metallurgical data available in the region dating to the second millennium has often been conducted only in terms of affinity to and/or difference from the better known contemporary cultural horizons of the Aegean and central Anatolia.

Through the integration of typological and archaeometric datasets, this paper aims to provide an updated analysis of the current state of knowledge on the developments of MBA and LBA metallurgical industries in western Anatolia. The analysis of new archaeometric data from the second millennium BCE citadel of Kaymakçı in the Middle Gediz river valley is here combined with the overview of collected, typologically sorted, and analyzed published metal items from sites located both in coastal and inland western Anatolia. The comparison with published datasets highlights existing shared patterns and diversified strategies in terms of raw material provenance and trade, technological choices, and stylistic preferences on diachronic and regional levels. Conclusions include a challenge to the idea of a progressive downfall of local metal industries and a highlighting of the combination of external inputs and autonomous innovations that characterize the western Anatolian metallurgical horizons of the MBA and LBA.

Animal Husbandry in Late Bronze Age Western Anatolia

Canan Çakırlar, Francesca Slim, and Şengül Fındıklar

Abstract: Animal husbandry congruently adapted to the economic and socio-political transformation of Bronze Age communities to early state societies of the Late Bronze Age. These transformations are tracked in early writings and in the zooarchaeological record from administrative centers in Mycenaean Greece and Hittite Anatolia. The centralization and intensification of animal economy ensured animal products to feed the working population, supply military forces, and provision for palatial and ceremonial uses. Palatial centers kept large flocks of sheep and goats for wool and meat production, and cattle were valuable property for agricultural labor and prestige. Pig husbandry varied across centers and regions in Greece and Anatolia, but even in Hittite Anatolia small-scale pig husbandry provided food and lard.Our recent understanding of animal economies in wider LBA Anatolia and Greece has been largely dependent on the zooarchaeological data from large Hittite and Mycenaean centers. Systematic collection and analysis of faunal remains found at ongoing archaeological excavations in western Anatolia currently allow us to investigate basic subsistence and systems of economic and socio-political organization in this region. Based on faunal data from Kaymakçı, Troy, Clazomenae, and Beycesultan, we discuss western Anatolian patterns of animal husbandry. We compare the relative importance of the main food taxa (sheep, goat, cattle, and pigs) versus wild food resources, and detail husbandry strategies based on mortality and biometry data. We conclude by suggesting discussion foci that we feel are essential in future zooarchaeological studies in western Anatolia, namely connectivity, scale, ecology, and cultural influences.

Dull, Mostly Undecorated Monochrome Pots? The Hidden Beauty of Western Anatolian Second-Millennium BCE Pottery

Peter Pavúk and Tunç Kaner

Abstract: When experts complain that western Anatolia lies in the shadow of its more famous neighbors, the most neglected member of the family is always local pottery. The little attention given to pottery anyway almost always concerns Mycenaean and other painted wares.

This paper looks at broader patterns recognizable in western Anatolian Middle and Late Bronze Age pottery traditions and how they match (or do not match) what we see in neighboring regions. Covering functional and technological but also aesthetic aspects, we approach the pottery repertoire as seen from within and from outside.

Based on first-hand knowledge of pottery from Troy, the Bakırçay Valley, Kaymakçı, and Bademgediği Tepe, we convey a structured view of western Anatolian pottery, targeting the distributions of various wares, surface treatments, and decorative elements across this large area. We try to make clear how the region could have been structured in different ways, depending on which aspects one stresses. In terms of shapes, we look at general functional categories such as table wares to compare habits between western Anatolia and its neighbors to the east and the west. Where possible, we address also changes throughout the millennium.

As pars pro toto, we use Anatolian Gray Ware and Gold Wash Ware as two case studies. Even though large areas of western Anatolia are known only from surface materials recovered during surveys, we aim to offer a holistic picture of the area, reflecting the state of knowledge in the year 2020.

Western Anatolia and its Neighbors: Communication and Exchange during the Late Bronze Age

Magda Pieniążek

Abstract: Growing archaeological and textual evidence portray the picture of Late Bronze Age western Anatolia as a cultural landscape dominated by strong polities, such as Arzawa, Mira, or the Seha River Land, which conducted ambitious domestic and external policies. Such development must have been based on a strong economic system, and exchange was surely one of its most important components. Evidence coming from older and recent western Anatolian excavations demonstrate exchange relations with the Aegean, central Anatolia, but also more distant areas in the Levant. Especially the finds coming from the sites located on the Aegean coast, such as Miletus, Bakla Tepe, Panaztepe, Beşik-Tepe, or Troy, show that the role of this area in the Late Bronze Age regional and interregional exchange networks was underestimated in the previous research. This point refers both to the maritime routes along the coast as well as to the land routes connecting the Aegean and inner Anatolia.

Some of the western Anatolian sites were centers of production and were considerable “consumers” of foreign goods, while others may have played the role of an important intermediary at the regional or interregional level. The evidence includes not only personal adornments such as carnelian, glass, faience jewelry, or foreign pottery, but also various kinds of weapons, seals, and other objects. This presentation not only addresses the question of what kind of objects were transported and exchanged, but also how trans-interregional communication might have worked, which maritime routes could have been used, and who might have stood behind it—thus asking who acted as sponsors and organizers and who as agents of the enterprise.

Spatial Structure and Stratigraphy at Second-Millennium BCE Kaymakçı

Christopher H. Roosevelt

Abstract: The ridgetop remains of Kaymakçı in the Marmara Lake basin of the Gediz River valley provide one of the fullest exposures available of the spatial structure of a second-millennium BCE citadel in western Anatolia. With the exception of extensively excavated sites such as Seyitömer, no other site in the area has provided so full a picture of spatial structure, even before excavations began. Thanks both to the abandonment of Kaymakçı after its primary period of use and to its exposed location that allows only minimal sediment accumulation, second-millennium BCE remains are preserved at or near the surface, readily detectable by non-invasive approaches (e.g., microtopography and geophysics). Only with excavation, however, has it become possible to assess the stratigraphy and dating of near-surface remains, showing unsurprisingly that they are a palimpsest of Kaymakçı’s second-millennium BCE occupation history. Natural erosion associated with the exposed location together with anthropogenic degradation from recent plow-zone perturbations have resulted in non-uniform preservation of the latest Late Bronze Age features of the site, preserved in some places and eroded elsewhere. With reference to the spatial structures of nearby sites known only from surface explorations, this paper juxtaposes Kaymakçı’s spatial structure with stratigraphic evidence to discuss what parts of the site have been most degraded as well as the dating and development of its best preserved areas.

Preliminary Analysis of Stable Carbon (δ13C) Isotopes of Cereal Remains from Bronze Age Kaymakçı, Western Anatolia

Nami Shin and Benjamin Irvine

Abstract: Archaeobotanical analysis from Late Bronze Age Kaymakçı, a citadel site in western Anatolia, provides new insights into the agricultural patterns and practices of this understudied region. The citadel’s size, location, and close proximity to several contemporary citadels demonstrate its importance and point to the potential of a larger network of interaction between these different citadels. Preliminary analysis of the stable carbon (δ13C) isotopes of barley (Hordeum vulgare) and free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum) grains from Kaymakçı provides new insights about the agricultural practices of the citadel’s inhabitants.

Archaeobotanical analyses at Kaymakçı thus far have revealed that barley (Hordeum vulgare), free-threshing wheat (Triticum aestivum/durum), bitter vetch (Vicia ervilia), chickpea (Cicer arietinum), and grape (Vitis vinifera) are the major crops at the site. Complementary to the current archaeobotanical data, stable carbon isotopes of the barley and free-threshing wheat of the site aid in understanding possible use of intensification practices of plant cultivation, which include irrigation or seasonal lakeside inundation. Though preliminary, stable isotope analysis of the cereal remains from Kaymakçı offer new data for reconstructing agricultural practices not only for the citadel but also for western Anatolia as a region.

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Presentations at the Online 15^th International ANAMED Annual Symposium (IAAS)

Gygaia Projects

We’re back again with another presentation at the 15^th IAAS, Winds of Change: Environment and Society in Anatolia. This one brought out a new area of research that focuses on climate change, wetland management, and voices from the Ottoman archives. We’re very excited about this ongoing work. See below for more details!

Of Wetlands and Reclamation Regimes: Climate Change, Social Upheaval and Political Practice in Western Anatolia in the Long Nineteenth Century

Semih Çelik and Christina Luke

Abstract: Recently, Ottoman waterscapes have garnered attention, and there has been a revived interest in local and regional studies. A growing corpus of Ottoman environmental histories focus on waterscapes as part of social, political, and economic transformations of the economic and natural landscapes of the empire. Despite this interest, wetlands have been understood and discussed as empty, malarial, putrid, and unproductive spaces, often dominated by nomadic tribes and transhumant communities. In part this perspective has been cultivated by historians who celebrated late Ottoman efforts to desiccate and reclaim wetlands. In this chapter, we scrutinize evidence that late-nineteenth-century wetlands were in fact resilient ecosystems with unique micro-ecological characteristics and with major actors who were active in the transformation of these social, economic, and ecologic systems. To do so, three wetland areas from western Anatolia were chosen, each of which tells a unique, but interconnected story. Seemingly small in spatial scale, these wetlands were connected to a much larger world of villagers, merchants, bureaucrats, administrators, entrepreneurs, and even imperial and trans-imperial institutions that defined much of western Anatolia. These resilient micro-ecologies also supported significant macro-climate patterns that in turn balanced patterns of migratory birds and animals, including transhumant lifeways. We argue that the quest to control wetlands as well as to move towards capitalist modes of production in late-nineteenth-century western Anatolia pivoted on competition and conflict among various actors with different interests, rather than a monolithic group of entrepreneurs solely in pursuit of profits through agricultural production and destruction of wetlands. We illustrate that negotiations reached across multiple scales and in turn influenced how specific actors came to understand natural history and the importance of integrating policy and human manipulation of ecosystems. Finally, we set each of these narratives within the significant and shifting climate changes that took place in the mid- to late nineteenth century

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A Presentation on Pigs at the TAG-TURKEY 2021 Online Symposium

Gygaia Projects

More good news! It has been a very busy month for presentations. Francesca G. Slim, Canan Çakırlar, and Christina Luke presented Human-Pig Interactions and Group Identities in The Late Bronze Age Aegean and Anatolia at the Third Meeting of the Theoretical Archaeology Group-Turkey (TAG-TURKEY 2021).

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A New Publication on Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Environmental Archaeology

Gygaia Projects

We are pleased to share news that a new publication on agropastoral economies and land use at Kaymakçı and environs has just appeared in Environmental Archaeology (the Journal of Human Palaeoecology). See below for details!

Agropastoral Economies and Land Use in Bronze Age Western Anatolia

John M. Marston, Canan Çakırlar, Christina Luke, Peter Kováčik, Francesca G. Slim, Nami Shin, and Christopher H. Roosevelt

Abstract: The Middle and Late Bronze Ages of western Anatolia (modern Turkey) remains poorly understood in comparison with its Mycenaean and Hittite neighbours, especially in agricultural economies and land use. Kaymakçı is the largest Middle and Late Bronze Age citadel excavated to date in western Anatolia and new archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data from the site presented here shed new light on regional agricultural economies and land use. Agricultural practices at Kaymakçı focused on barley and bitter vetch farming and pig, caprine, and cattle husbandry within a diverse and extensive economic system that made substantial use of wild plants and animals for food, technology, and fuel. Goats and pigs were managed primarily for meat, while sheep and cattle were managed to produce a range of secondary products. Wood charcoal analysis reconstructs both deciduous and evergreen oak woodlands, which also dominate the contemporary landscape. In regional perspective, Kaymakçı is most similar to the northern Aegean agricultural tradition, but with elements of Anatolian practices as well, representing a hybrid position between the Aegean and Anatolian worlds as seen in other lines of archaeological evidence from the site.

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