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Apart from showing us that the trajectory of Early Neolithic societies in southeast Anatolia was different to that pursued in the Levant, these economic data also support the view that, in the shift to food production, domesticated resources were supplements to the diet rather than staples.88 In the case of Hallan Çemi, for instance, the young pigs consumed by its inhabitants would have been seen as a type of dietary insurance, that is, an early form of risk management geared towards the possible depletion of wild local resources. Nonetheless, in time communities began to rely less on wild foods, preferring instead to grow plants and herd animals, thereby ensuring a steady supply.

Pınarbas¸ı A, in central Anatolia, offers some interesting zooarchaeological patterning.89

Most of the animal remains show no trace of morphological change, but doubt still surrounds sheep and goats, the largest category (less than 50%), which may have been herded. Other animals include wild pig (20%) and cattle (about 12%). Clearer evidence of human control has come from As¸ıklı Höyük where over 70% of the animal bones that display all the morphological characteristics of wild fauna are caprine. Yet the proportionally large quantity of bones belonging to sheep and goat, and the fact that most were juvenile (under 4 years of age) suggest that these animals were herded and the young consumed for food.90 A similar picture is reflected at Suberde, where sheep were the main source of meat for the villagers, who also consumed goat, cattle (Bos), pig, and red deer.91 Other species, including dog, are represented in smaller quantities. According to Perkins and Daly this was a hunters’ settle- ment—all animals were wild apart from the dog. However, their comment that none of the sheep was older than 3 years argues against this. Without detailed data, the situation is difficult to assess, but indications are that the inhabitants at Suberde herded sheep and managed them by culling. Whether this practice was applied to other species is difficult to say. At Can Hasan III Bos was the main source of meat, although sheep/goat, pig, and an equid (probably onager) were also on the menu. But the village had an agricultural economy, and the predominant cereals were bread wheat and club wheat, emmer, wild and domestic einkorn and two-row hulled barley.92

Contact and exchange: The obsidian trade

Obsidian (volcanic glass) had a special role in the ancient Near East, engendering a most enduring trade network, which lasted several millennia. It occurs naturally when acidic volcanic lavas cool rapidly and transform into a vitreous material that was highly prized in antiquity for the making of tools. Its hardness and predictable conchoidal fracture made obsidian as desirable as flint, if not more so, whereas its brittleness also ensured the sharpest of edges with even the most expedient technology.93 Such are the qualities of obsidian that it was also used to manufacture luxury items, including polished mirrors.94 Usually black, obsidian can also come in a range of colors from gray and brown, through dark green and red, to translucent. Sometimes it is mottled or banded, combining two different colors. But it is obsidian’s geochemical qualities

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that make it particularly useful for archaeology, enabling its distribution across much of the Near East to be tracked over time.

Several geochemical qualities of obsidian should be noted. First, obsidian is an unstable product that recrystallizes over geological time. Generally, deposits younger than 10 million years old offer the best quality obsidian; older deposits are mostly unsuitable for tool working. This characteristic has a significant implication for archaeology because only some of the recorded sources were exploited. Impurities and recrystallization rendered the others of no use to the ancients. So a distinction ought to be made between “archaeological” and “geological” obsidian. Second, individual obsidian sources have diagnostic trace elements. Although the composition within a single flow may vary, it is far less than the difference between flows, permitting each source to be attributed with its own geochemical fingerprint. Finally, unlike metals whose makeup is altered through recycling practices, manufacture and usage do not change the physical and chemical properties of obsidian, making it an extremely sensitive indicator in provenance studies such as trade. Several methods are available to detect the trace elements with varying degrees of accuracy.95

In the Near East, obsidian occurs naturally in distinct regions in Anatolia and TransCaucasus, areas that have witnessed complex geological activity since the Miocene.96 Obsidian outcrops in three regions in Anatolia—the west, the centre (Cappadocia), and the eastern highlands (Figure 3.14: 1). Of these, the central Anatolian sources—Acıgöl, Göllü Dag˘ ı, Nenezi Dag˘ ı, Hasan Dag˘ ı, Erciyes Dag˘ ı, and Karakören—which fall within the Aksaray–Nevs¸ehir– Nig˘ de triangle have been studied the most.97 Two tuffs distinguish the Acıgöl source, but only the Upper Acıgöl Tuff, at the peak of Koca Dag˘ ı, has an abundance of black obsidian. Even so, within this tuff only the East Acıgöl ante-caldera, the richest obsidian area of the Acıgöl complex, was exploited in prehistory.98 Göllü Dag˘ ı (Çiftlik), with six separate deposits and two geochemical groups (west and east), was also extensively utilized. Substantial workshops, notably those at Kömürcü and Kaltepe, are carpeted with stone-working debris—cores, blades, and flakes—much of it highly standardized that suggests some form of organized production.99 A complimentary source to Göllü Dag˘ ı is Nenezi Dag˘ ı, which has an obsidian workshop on its western plateau. Hasan Dag˘ ı is conspicuous—a large stratovolcano, near Aksaray. So, too, is its obsidian, which is the only source in central Anatolia to contain quartz. But there is no convincing evidence that Hasan Dag˘ ı was ever used. The same can be said of Erciyes Dag˘ ı, whereas the deposits near Karakören village have only a couple of tools ascribed to them.

Two distinct obsidian sources are known in western Anatolia, and a third is inferred from geochemical analyses. The two known deposits, located relatively recently, are Yag˘ lar and Sakaeli-Orta. Artefacts from Güdül have shown a different range of trace elements, which has fuelled the view of another as yet undiscovered source located somewhere nearby in the Galatian

Massif.

The eastern Anatolian obsidian sources are less well known, although recent sampling and analyses are making headway in better understanding these extensive flows.100 Two broad regions in the east contain obsidian—the northeastern highlands and the basin of Lake Van.

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Those in the northeast include Pasinler, Güzelyurt, Ömertepe, Ikizdere, Erzincan, and Sarıkamıs¸. The Pasinler source is the most extensive, stretching from its northernmost point near Calyazı village, located at an altitude of 2356 m, down through two plateaux—one a vast area north of Büyükdere village—to the bed of the Büyükdere River, a tributary of Aras River, which cuts through the Malikom Gorge. The obsidian at Büyükdere is black and gray in color, and embedded in a soft gray or pale brown tuff (Figure 3.14: 2). Strewn across the ground is clear evidence of expedient tool manufacture (Figure 3.14: 2–3). Meanwhile, waterworn cobbles that were certainly utilized in antiquity can be found beyond the Büyükdere River to the town of Pasinler, where they settle along the rocky banks. Two relatively nearby sources are located at Güzelyurt

(Tambura) and west of Ömertepe (Pulur), whose mound was investigated by Hamit Z. Kos¸ay. Güzelyurt obsidian was of no practical use to the ancients, being poor in quality, and the Ömertepe sources are thinly scattered on the eastern slope of Güney Dag˘ ı. Further west another source is located at Boztepe, near Erzincan, but like Güzelyurt it is not suitable for stone tool production, showing no regular conchoidal fracture and a considerable amount of crystals. The Sarıkamıs¸ source is extensive and outcrops in a couple of locations, but the best known is the cutting along the Erzurum to Kars road. Obsidian from Sarıkamıs¸ varies in color, but black and mottled red-black are the most common. Finally, we also have a source in the Pontic Mountains

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at Ikizdere positioned between the villages of Büyük Yayla and Çag˘ ırankaya Yayla. Not well studied, and perhaps not exploited in antiquity, this formation appears to have different flows, some of which is eye-catching red and red-black banded obsidian.

Obsidian of the southeastern region, which stretches from Bingöl to the Iranian border, is part of a complex geological area precisely where the various plates collide. Two phases of volcanism are evident, the second of which created the stratovolcanoes of Süphan Dag˘ ı and Ag˘ rı Dag˘ ı (Mt. Ararat). Further tectonic activity also created the peralkaline obsidian flows at Nemrut Dag˘ ı and Bingöl. Analyses of the Bingöl source have revealed two distinct groups. A peralkaline type101 (Bingöl A), gray or green in color, is found at the small flow of Orta Düz, which has been redistributed through river action to Çavus¸lar, where rounded cobbles can be found. The second group, a cal-alkaline variety (Bingöl B) gray or black in color, is located at the flow dome Alatepe and redistributed to Çatak. Nemrut Dag˘ ı is a stratovalcano (2935 m high) with a vast caldera now containing Lake Nemrut. Obsidian from this source can be divided into two types based on location—from outside and from inside the caldera. Black to semitransparent obsidian can be found on the slope of the mountain and along the edge of the caldera, but it is not homogenous and contains a lot of crystals, making it unsuitable for knapping. Another variety, however, is like the Bingöl B variety distinctly green in color, owing to their peralkaline state, and easily distinguishable from other obsidian groups in Anatolia. Obsidian also occurs in the Mus¸ basin, near the village of Mercimekkale, but no analyses are available as yet. Süphan Dag˘ ı, rising to 4434 m, is the second highest peak in Anatolia. Analyses of its obsidian reveal two groups (Suphan I and II), which have impurities very similar to those of Göllü Dag˘ ı, Acıgöl, and Erzincan. Near Süphan is Meydan Dag˘ ı, with flows of gray and black obsidian around its large caldera. Finally, there is the high shield volcano at Tendürek, south of Dog˘ ubayazıt, where

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obsidian has been observed near its crater summit. But as yet no analyses have been performed on these outcrops.

Communities in southeast Anatolia were already engaged in sustained cultural interaction with their neighbors from the time the first round huts were founded at Hallan Çemi. This degree of community organization is seen in the procurement of copper ore and obsidian, both imported from sources as far away as 150 km, which suggest that the inhabitants were also involved in a long distance network of exchange. Making use of the major natural thoroughfares across the rim of the Fertile Crescent and down the Levant Corridor, obsidian from sources north of the Taurus was traded, initially in small quantities and probably as part of a gift exchange system, to communities as far as 1000 km from the sources.102 Equally remarkable is the longevity of this trade. Beginning in the Epipalaeolithic, it peaked in the seventh and sixth millennia BC, but continued in a piecemeal fashion well into the historic period. In its heyday it was the most enduring exchange network of the ancient Near East. No doubt other valued commodities such as plant products were also trafficked along the same axes of communication, but these have not survived in the archaeological record.

Some insight into the nature of this pre-urban trade is afforded by the ethnographically welldocumented exchange systems of Melanesia, where shell bracelets (Spondylus) are exchanged between trading partners together with a host of more mundane items such as food and pottery.103 These modes of Melanesian trade survive up to the present because the items exchanged were not precious and were of no interest to the outside world. Similarly, we may assume that the trade and demand of high value materials such as metals and lapis lazuli prompted the eventual fragmentation of the obsidian network in western Asia.

The late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers were the first to exchange obsidian. From about 14,000 to 12,000 BC, a small quantity of obsidian from central Anatolia crossed the Taurus Mountains and reached the northern Levant where it was fashioned into geometric Kebaran tools. At the other end of the Fertile Crescent, Bingöl obsidian made its way to the Zarzian communities of the northern Zagros Mountains. The subsequent cold snap of the Younger Dryas did not impact on the trade. Indeed between 12,000–9500 BC the Middle Euphrates appears to have become an intermediary region between the central Anatolian sources and the Natufian communities of the Levant, while the Bingöl source continued to supply the Zagros region, as tools from Zawi Chemi indicate. Then, with the amelioration of the climate, larger quantities of obsidian were circulated during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period. The two regions of central Anatolia and Bingöl remained relatively discrete exchange zones, although we now find eastern obsidian finding its way to the Levant through the Middle Euphrates. When Pre-Pottery Neolithic B was fully established, obsidian criss-crossed the Near East, even reaching Cyprus and the Middle Zagros. Towards the end of that period the trafficking of obsidian was increasingly being controlled by a number of large nodal settlements, such as Bouqras and Tell Abu Hureyra, in Syria, Ain Ghazal, in Jordan, and Çatalhöyük. During the Pottery Neolithic, the obsidian exchange system develops into a highly reticulated one. The most significant change to the previous network is the diversification of routes and sites that handled obsidian, effectively

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