Socio-Economy, Interregional Interaction, and Demographic Shift in North Central Anatolia: Excavations at Prehistoric Cadir Hoyuk

Suny College At Cortland, Cortland NY

Investigators

Abstract

With National Science Foundation support Dr. Sharon Steadman and her colleagues will conduct two field seasons of archaeological research in the Yozgat province of central Turkey (Anatolia), at the site of Cadir Hoyuk. The team consists of field archaeologists, specialists in faunal analysis, paleobotany, lithics analysis, and ceramic analysis. Investigation will concentrate on the prehistoric occupation at the site of Cadir Hoyuk in the north central Anatolian plateau, primarily on the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze I periods (ca. 5000-3000 B.C.) prior to the rise of the early second millennium state-level societies. The lack of extensive prehistoric remains in this region has left a large gap in the understanding of the transition in the north central plateau culture history from the early farming/herding settlements in the fifth/fourth millennia to the rise of the Hittite Empire/State in the early second millennium B.C. Previous work in this region has demonstrated that the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze periods witnessed extensive socio-economic changes, including the rise of long-distance ("international") trade, the influx of a new, migratory, population, and the development of increasingly complex society (culminating in the second millennium Hittite empire). However, previously excavated sites were lacking in continuous occupation, making the documentation of a lengthy and coherent occupational sequence impossible. Dr. Steadman's previous work at Cadir Hoyuk has demonstrated that this is a multi-period site, with a long occupational sequence.The NSF-funded research program will focus on the following three investigative goals: 1. What was the nature of the indigenous Chalcolithic/EB occupation in this region of Anatolia? 2. What was the nature and extent of long-distance trade in the north central plateau region? 3. What impact did the Late Chalcolithic arrival of a new population (later to become the second millennium Hittite State) have on the indigenous Anatolian socio-economic organization? The proposed fieldwork provides previously unavailable insight into the north central plateau occupational history before, during, and after two important events in this region's prehistoric sequence: the florescence of long-distance exchange, and the arrival of immigrants who forever after changed the nature of central Anatolian demographics. The site of Cadir Hoyuk has the utmost potential to provide answers to the proposed research questions and will go far in enabling us to establish a secure prehistoric cultural sequence for this little understood region of the Anatolian plateau.