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Canaanean blades. Kurban Höyük and Lidar Höyük were secondary centres, both with scaleddown features that are redolent of Titris¸.93

The ceramic repertoire expands significantly during the mid-third millennium (Figure 5.18). New shapes such as cups with a corrugated surface augment the Plain Simple Ware assemblage, and vessels that belong to cooking pot ware have triangular handles attached to the rim to aid portability. Among the new wares are: Horizontal reserved slip ware, now decorated with different patterns; Karababa painted ware, with geometric designs executed in a dark red paint; comb wash ware, distinguished by the combing of a painted surface; and metallic ware, a highly fired, crisp fabric with a consistent fine gray biscuit that was used to manufacture, among other shapes, the Syrian bottles (Figure 5.22: 7, 10).

East-central Anatolia (Turkish Upper Euphrates)

Around 3000 BC the impressive Uruk-influenced palace and temple complex at Arslantepe collapsed, and with it centralized organization. What followed was striking change in the nature of the settlement and sociocultural dynamics at Arslantepe and in the greater Malatya-Elazıg˘ region, highlighted by the comingling of several cultural traditions.94 Syro-Mesopotamian influence is still clearly discernable in ceramics—a Plain Simple Ware and Late Reserved Slip horizon with provincial Ninevite 5—but this is embedded in a strong east Anatolian and TransCaucasian context. These relations were not, to be sure, uniform. For instance, although one can now correlate the sequences at the Arslantepe and Nors¸untepe, their developmental phases were certainly not mirror images. Two primary factors are behind this somewhat heterogenous picture. One is geographical location, which exposed sites in the Malatya Plain, for instance, to different foreign trends to those in the Altınova, which had a more direct access to the Upper Tigris route; and the relative isolation of Murat Valley ensured that foreign influences were well diluted before they reached sites like Tas¸kun Mevkii. The second reason has to do with the nature of the contact itself, which continued to be directional rather than uniform.

At Arslantepe, pastoral groups introduced a lifestyle and cultural heritage that had deep roots in Trans-Caucasus. These folk, bearers of the red-black ware that was already in circulation within Period VIA complex, took advantage of the vacuum to establish a settlement that is distinguished by two subphases: Period VIB1 (Early Bronze Age IA) followed in quick succession by VIB2. The earliest was a village of freestanding huts, mostly irregular in plan, but conforming generally to a rectangular shape with rounded corners. These dwellings had wattle and daub walls supported on a framework of wooden posts—mud brick was used sparingly— and a sunken floor. Excavations reveal small clusters of huts sometimes joined by rows of postholes, which probably delineate partitions that penned in livestock. The village was short lived, but its material was remarkably homogenous, comprising handmade red-black pottery of the Trans-Caucasian type. The subsequent and more substantial settlement (Period VIB2) has a similar organization of space and house design, but is constructed with mud bricks. For

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example, one house has a main room furnished with a circular hearth set into the center of the floor, and an anteroom used for storage. Intriguing is the combination of a conceptually TransCaucasian settlement with a ceramic assemblage that has a considerable amount of pale colored, wheelmade vessels, recalling the earlier Syro-Mesopotamian traditions of the VIA complex.

There is no settlement at Nors¸untepe that is contemporary with Arslantepe VIB1. The hiatus in occupation that began around 3300 BC continued until 2900 BC, when, like Arslantepe VIB2, it came under the pervasive influence of Syro-Mesopotamia in the Early Bronze Age IB, which at Nors¸untepe corresponds to Levels 30–25.95 In the earliest layers (30–28), a substantial perimeter wall built of mud bricks on stone foundations surrounded Nors¸untepe, like the ones at its neighbors Tepecik and Tülintepe. A limestone cylinder seal with a herringbone pattern of the Jemdet Nasr style, typical of Amuq G, and a bronze pin with a twisted head common at Carchemish, and among the grave goods in the Birecik cemetery, confirm this southern influence.96 For the most part, houses were freestanding, rectilinear structures constructed of mud bricks, though in Level 26 two multiroomed buildings were partly exposed. Mostly pits follow in Level 25.

Meanwhile, in the Murat Valley, which was isolated from the main traffic with northern Syria, we find an intriguing connection with western regions. At Pulur (Sakyol) the settlement of Level X was laid out in a radial fashion, the Anatolisches Siedlungsschema, with adjoining houses and a communal central court (Figure 5.19: 1).97 Yet the household fittings and con- tents—mud brick benches, horseshoe-shaped hearths with anthropomorphic decoration, ash pit and elaborately ornamented red-black pottery—are redolent of the Kura-Araxes (Early TransCaucasian) tradition. So here we see another tantalizing aspect of cultural interplay at work, this time combining a western concept of village layout, with an eastern sense of domestic space. We should place Tas¸kun Mevkii, with its juxtaposition of freestanding wattle and daub and mud brick buildings, and few examples of metalwork and Jemdat Nasr seals, within this context too.98

During the Early Bronze Age II A (2700–2600 BC), the Syro-Mesopotamian influence at

Nors¸untepe (Levels 24–21) started to wane, with a noticeable rise in Trans-Caucasian black burnished (Kura-Araxes) ceramics that are now associated with red-on-cream Malatya-Elazıg˘ painted vessels, whose ladder motifs mimic the relief designs on the burnished ceramics.99 Architectural designs changed rapidly from a round house (Level 24), through a wattle and daub structure (Level 23) to multiroomed, mud brick buildings (Level 21).100 Arslantepe, by way of contrast, has no corresponding settlement during this interval. Following this, standardization set in and profound changes were experienced at Nors¸untepe. Wattle and daub houses (Pfostenhäuser) are the norm from Level 20 through 14 at Nors¸untepe (Early Bronze Age IIB). They have typical features—rounded corners, benches along the walls, and an eye-catching, horned hearth in the centre—well known from inner Georgia, in Trans-Caucasus.101 The Nors¸untepe dwellings also yielded considerable evidence of metallurgical activity, including crucibles and a bivalve mould for a shaft hole axe. As elsewhere in the region, ceramics show various influences, although Kura-Araxes predominates. Similar structures are also found at Deg˘ irmentepe III,

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north of Nors¸untepe,102 but at Arslantepe pits and lack of architecture in Period VIC indicate that it was still not permanently occupied.

In terms of socioeconomic complexity, Nos¸untepe reached its apogee in the Early Bronze Age III period (Levels 13–6), which lasted some 500 years (2500 to 2000 BC), as indeed did a number of sites in the Altınova Plain. Three superimposed building levels of a palatial complex are well preserved on the summit of the mound and are designated Levels 8–6. Distinguished by blocks of storage rooms and workshops, the settlement was most expansive in Level 6, with a storeroom complex that extended across the summit of the site, measuring over 70 m along its length. The many in situ jars leave no doubt that this was an economic center of considerable importance (Figure 5.19: 2). Interestingly, compared to the Late Chalcolithic complex at Arslantepe VIA, the Nors¸untepe “palace” is conspicuous by the absence of any features that can be interpreted as cultic. Prosperity is also recognizable at Korucutepe (Phase E) where a large and sturdy building (6 by 9 m), termed “the hall” by the excavators, contained a nest of three horseshoe andirons placed on top of a circular raised hearth.103 Despite its period of instability, Arslantepe emerged in the Early Bronze Age III as a permanent settlement, though nowhere as grand as Nors¸untepe.

In addition to the Syro-Mesopotamian ceramic wares that have already been dealt with, in the third millennium the Upper Euphrates is distinguished by two handmade horizons—the Kura-Araxes red-black burnished pottery and the Malatya-Elazıg˘ painted vessels. Kura-Araxes pottery shows some very general trends from Early Bronze Age I to Early Bronze Age III. Relief decoration, for instance, appears to be more popular in the earlier centuries than incised and fluted ornamentation, which found favor towards the middle and end of the millennium. The tall jars with low shoulders from Pulur, often decorated in the upper part with a bold rendering of a human face in a schematic relief pattern, are good examples found in Early Bronze Age I contexts. Recessed necked jars with a rail (squared) rim also commonly bear plastic designs of quartered lozenges, ladder patterns, and pendant crescents. Horizontal flutes (a trait that appears to have arrived from the western regions), and vessels with slightly flattened girth

(pointing to eastern developments) are later developments. Bowls of various profiles, handled pot lids that range from flat to a bevelled edge, and elaborately decorated pot stands are common shapes.

The Upper Euphrates is also the home of a distinctive painted pottery tradition restricted to sites in the Keban (Elazıg˘ region) and Karakaya (Malatya region). Although it is associated with handmade Kura-Araxes pottery, and indeed probably derives from that tradition, it is not found further east in the Anatolian highlands and Trans-Caucasia. Clearly this handmade painted assemblage is a local tradition that developed, according to Catherine Marro, in tandem with the socioeconomic complexity of the Upper Euphrates. In a thorough study, she recognizes four groups (A–D) that can be attributed to the Early Bronze Age II (2850–2550 BC in her chronology) and another four (E–H) to the Early Bronze Age III (2555–2200 BC).104 The general trend in this painted tradition is from one of regionalization (Early Bronze Age II) whereby small valleys are distinguished by local production and traits to one of uniformity as the centralization

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