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the driver in the formation of the Kura-Araxes package. The red and black color scheme may well have been an Anatolian contribution, but attributes such as small handles set at the juncture of the neck and shoulders and tall (slightly swollen) necked jars are firmly embedded in the Trans-Caucasian Chalcolithic. Rothman aptly described the nature of these highland dynamics as “ripples in a stream of movement of pastoral nomads, traders and small farmers back and forth in the larger region.”60 Moreover, according to him, this movement was prompted by the search for specific natural resources, especially metal ores, population densities, and the adaptation to a range of environmental zones. Recent pollen data from Georgia, pointing to an increase in rainfall and temperature (a “climatic optimum”) beginning after 4000 BC, also suggest that environmental change may have been a factor in economic strategies and expansion.61

Western Anatolia

Compared with the eastern regions, the fourth millennium in western Anatolia, which here includes the central plateau and northern coastal regions, remains rather obscure with the southwest providing the most reasonable picture. Beycesultan, in the upper reaches of the Menderes (Maeander) Valley, offers a deep sequence of immense value for tracing the continuity of occupation. The earliest arrivals at the site established their village on virgin soil in Late Chalcolithic. Once thought to precede immediately the local Early Bronze Age, it now seems better to place this first settlement earlier at 3800–3400 BC, with Kuruçay (Levels 6A–4) following, as the lead up to the third millennium.62 Late Chalcolithic pottery from Beycesultan (Levels XL–XX) can be grouped into four phases dominated by a dark ware with a burnished surface that is sometimes decorated with a matt white paint. Shapes are simple and serviceable, consisting of flat dishes with outcurving sides, open bowls with thick everted rims, and large and small jugs with one handle linking rim to shoulder. Architecture is poorly understood for these lowest levels, but mud brick buildings with a main rectangular room and attached anteroom are clearly discernable.

Meanwhile at Kuruçay alleyways and paths separated freestanding, single structures (Figure 5.11: 1).63 Despite these spaces between the buildings—cross walls blocked circulation at certain points—there does not appear to have been a predetermined plan for the settlement. One building (XXII) was considered a sacred space because of the concentration of ceramics of uncommon forms. Otherwise buildings appear to have been domestic—large enough to accommodate three to five members of a family and sometimes equipped with an oven in the corner. In Level 4 multiroomed units—one main room with storage rooms attached—suggest some social or economic differentiation. At Bag˘ bas¸ı, in the Elmalı Plain, the Late Chalcolithic is poorly preserved, but enough survives there and at other sites in the region to indicate the spread of this southwest tradition to northern Lycia.64

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Northwestern Anatolia and the Pontic Zone

The evidence for the northwest and Pontic regions is patchy. Pattern-burnished ware characterizes Kumtepe B, in the Troad, and has been found at other sites on the Gelibolu Peninsula and around the Sea of Marmara.65 Late Chalcolithic marble figurines of the so-called Kilia type with a flat, “cut-out” body and ovoid head were found at Tigani IV, Pekmez and several sites in the northwest and the Aegean.66 Black burnished wares with white painted ornaments occur at Yazır Höyük, Orman Fidanlıg˘ ı VII, and the Konya Plain.67 Bowls at Orman Fidanlıg˘ ı were also decorated with oblique bands of lines pendant from the rim, which can be notched and rippled.68

Forms include bowls with sharply everted rims and rounded pots with spurred handles. The Late Chalcolithic burials at Ilıpınar, which are not associated with a known settlement, have nonetheless offered evidence on mortuary rites (Figure 5.12).69 Unlike the Neolithic burials, these fourth millennium graves sometimes had two individuals, mostly adults, who were placed in a contracted position together with pottery and metal objects.

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Ikiztepe, the key site in the Black Sea region, incorporates four small mounds, two of which have been investigated extensively. Even so, its stratigraphy is difficult to interpret, with nomenclature complicating matters further; much material attributed originally to the Early Bronze Age has been reassigned to the Late Chalcolithic.70 Discoloration of soil and rows of post holes point to the use of timber and wattle and daub in the construction of freestanding houses, conforming to a rough square or rectangular plan usually with an anteroom. Fixed clay hearths were set into the floors. Potters produced a restricted range of simple shapes that are also attested at Dündartepe—hole-mouth jars sometimes with triangular ledge handles and deep bowls with inverted rim, often producing a sharp profile, are the most common.

Central Anatolia

Of all the Anatolian regions in the Late Chalcolithic period, developments in central Anatolia, in particular the north central region, are the most difficult to comprehend, a situation that no doubt owes much to its geographical circumstance—a cusp region open to influences from neighbors. The Alis¸ar Regional Project, incorporating renewed investigations at Alis¸ar Höyük and new excavations at nearby Çadır Höyük, has done much in recent years to clarify the situation.71 It appears that after the relative obscurity of the Middle Chalcolithic, clusters of sites emerged centred around larger settlements such as Alis¸ar and Çadır.

Alis¸ar Höyük, in the bend of the Kızılırmak, is a key site with a 12 m deep deposit, but has a rather confusing stratigraphy and nomenclature. For a long time it was thought that the many levels before the Early Bronze Age II should be compressed into 500 years with a baseline about 3000 BC. It is more reasonable, however, to extend the beginning of the sequence well into the middle of the fourth millennium.72 The American excavators labelled eight Chalcolithic levels in Early (Levels 19–15) and Late Chalcolithic (Levels 14–12). A distinctive type found both at

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