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mirror the settlement plans of modern nomadic tent sites; the apparent flimsy construction Early Bronze Age architecture, which seemed incongruous with the harsh climatic conditions of the mountains; the portability of certain artefact types such as andirons. Together these elements have fuelled the ideas of nomadism and, in turn, of rapid and extensive migrations. Recently, however, the analyses of faunal remains from Sos Höyük have provided some sobering conclusions. Two studies have argued against specialized pastoral production, suggesting instead that the inhabitants were sedentary agropastoralists whose economic management minimized risk, encouraged diversification and reflected stability—hardly the strategies of nomads.110 Nonetheless, issues such as seasonality and transhumance need to be explored further.

In the Erzurum region, the late Kura-Araxes horizon extends into the second millennium BC, when the northern regions of Trans-Caucasus are also defined by a dark colored pottery tradition derived from the later kurgans. These dark wares are roughly contemporary to two painted pottery traditions that belong to the Middle Bronze Age. One is situated in the MalatyaElazıg˘ region and is similar to Khabur Ware of northern Syria. The other is concentrated on the high plateau of eastern Anatolia, southern Trans-Caucasus and northwestern Iran, encompassing the greater Aras/Araxes basin.111 This geographical spread, crossing as it does several modern geopolitical boundaries, has generated an often confusing range of terms, including Van-Urmia, Karmir-Vank, Kizyl-Vank, Karmir-Berd, and Sevan-Uzerlik. It has also fuelled the viewed that pastoral nomads, who grazed their stock on mountain pastures, were responsible for this painted pottery tradition. Yet, despite the large quantity of intact ceramic vessels held in various museums, we know very little about these people in eastern Anatolia. The rapacious plunder of their cemeteries in recent times and research strategies that have focused on the excavation of sites in the valley floors have combined to deprive us of contextual information.

Nonetheless, systematic survey work is redressing the situation. We are now aware, for instance, that domestic pottery, as reflected from sherds collected from the surface of sites, was mostly unpainted. Conversely, painted pottery was placed in stone-lined cist tombs such as those found in the extensive and well-circumscribed cemeteries at Küçük Çatma, Suluçem, and Yuvadamı. Both conceptually and in their structure, these necropoleis are markedly different to barrow burials. Vessels are wheelmade and have a fabric that is baked to a brown or brick red color. Their exterior surface is slipped and given a perfunctory burnish. Brown or brick-red slips generally bear geometric patterns executed in black; some containers, slipped a second time with a pale color, exhibit captivating designs painted in a variety of colors.

Western Anatolia

In western Anatolia, there is no sharp break in assemblages at the onset of the Early Bronze Age to suggest an influx of new groups or significant external influences. Instead, we witness the acceleration of internal dynamics across the western peninsula that were eventually crystallized

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in the Early Bronze Age when the boundaries of cultural provinces became clearer. This region did, however, contribute to the population movements to the Aegean. Recent and significant genetic studies have identified intrusive clusters of Y-chromosome populations in the Aegean that connect it with western and northwestern Anatolia and Syro-Palestine.112 The defining centuries in this process were 3300–3000 BC, a period that some regard as a phase transitional to the Early Bronze Age.113 Conspicuous indicators of change are manifested in terms of architecture and use of space with the emergence of a settlement type often referred to as Anatolisches Siedlungsschema—small circular settlements of adjoining rectangular houses arranged in a radial plan centered on a large courtyard, such as Demirichöyük (Figure 5.24: 1).114 Pottery repertoires can be baffling, but certain indicators are worth noting: The association of red slipped and burnished ceramics with black and dark-faced burnished wares; the petering out of white painted ornamentation as fluting and plastic design gained popularity; and the manufacture of jugs with rising (“beaked”) spouts. Turan Efe stresses that pottery best reflects emergent sociopolitical structure in western Anatolia during the Early Bronze Age.115

Stronger regional characteristics became apparent during the Early Bronze Age I (3000– 2700 BC), when four zones can be defined largely on the basis of ceramics (Figure 5.14):116

1One, situated in the northwest, stretched from Iznik to Troy and the Dardanelles, and down past Yortan, incorporating the offshore islands. A slight variation of the Anatolisches Siedlungsschema is found at Troy. Overlooking the Dardanelles, the mound of Hissarlık Höyük, is one of the most celebrated sites in antiquity. Convinced it was Homeric Troy, Hienrich Schliemann led a series of excavations (1870–73, 1878–79, 1882, 1890), and in the process discovered what he thought was the “Treasure of King Priam.”117 Other campaigns followed Schliemann’s—Wilhelm Dörpfeld in the 1890s, then half a century later Carl W. Blegen headed a University of Cincinnati expedition for seven campaigns (1932–38), and more recently a German–American team equipped with the latest technology and codirected by the late Manfred Korfmann, responsible for the prehistoric levels, and Brian Rose, working on the Greek and Roman levels, have extended our understanding of Troy even further.118 These extensive investigations have produced a detailed sequence that has been divided into nine cultural periods (I–IX) and many subperiods. Our concern here is with the earliest, Levels I–V, whose internal developments have been re-interpreted in recent years. Essentially, Korfmann maintained that levels Troy I–III (ca. 3000–2100/2050 BC, or Early Bronze Age I–early III) display a cultural homogeneity, which they shared with coastal sites in western Anatolia and the islands of the eastern Aegean, enough to warrant the term “maritime Troia culture.”119 This reminds us that, when studying prehistoric Troy, we should refrain from according it primacy in the Early Bronze Age and instead assess its achievements within the context of equally significant neighboring sites.

The earliest settlers, arriving sometime towards the end of the fourth millennium BC, had nothing to do with the Homeric period. Theirs was a small village (Troy I). Yet the need for security soon led to the construction of massive, stone fortification walls with a battered

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Figure 5.22 Pottery types of Early Bronze Age western Anatolia (1–6, 8) and Cilicia (7, 9, 10): 1, 2 Twohandled depas. 3, 5 Tankards. 4 Beak-spouted jar with barbotine decoration. 6 Jar with vertical lug handles. 7 and 10 Syrian bottles. 8 Tripod cooking pot. 9 Wheel-made plate

surface and multiple entrances flanked by guard towers. Along the southern section the wall still rises to height of 3 m. Within the enceinte, the community built a row of rectangular houses, not in a radial plan, usually comprising a freestanding large room, with little variation in finds between the dwellings. Among the house types is an apsidal house (103) and a distinctive type of building (House 102), the megaron, which consisted of a freestanding rectangular room with a porch at one end and a large room with a central hearth. The origin of the megaron plan has been discussed and connections with southeast Europe seem

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feasible.120 Level I at Thermi, a site on the island of Lesbos, overlaps with Troy I, and its architecture vaguely conforms to a radial plan with a central courtyard. Ceramics of Troy I- Yortan cultural province are still very much dominated by black burnished vessels and darkfaced wares generally. The red slipped and burnished ceramics that found favor in the western hinterland made little headway here. Among the most characteristic forms well documented in the Troy assemblage is the conical bowl with a thickened, inverted rim (sometimes referred to as “antisplash”). They can have a flat base, or be placed on a pedestal foot, and occasionally have a horizontal lug attached just below the rim. Other simple bowls have a single handle that rises just above the rim. Incised decoration is rare and consists of rectilinear patterns filled with a white paste.

2Another cultural province is located further inland and defined by the Early Bronze I assemblage at Beycesultan. Fine wares are distinctive for their combination of effective ornamentation, graceful forms, and high quality manufacture. Vessels are handmade, yet remarkably thin walled. They are hard fired and slipped in black and red, with exterior surfaces often brilliantly polished; interiors are usually cloth wiped. It is reasonable to suggest that some of the attributes—thin walls, fluting, and strap handles—are ceramic imitations of metalwork elements.

3To the north of the Beycesultan zone is Demiricihöyük and the Upper Sakarya Valley, also referred to as the Phrygian–Bithynian cultural region. An excellent example of the radial plan village was discovered at Demircihöyük, in the Eskis¸ehir Plain, where the houses shared a party wall and had a broad (back) end that abutted an enclosure wall (Figure 5.23: 1). There is little differentiation in the size of the houses, whose occupants used a communal courtyard fitted with bins and other utensils. Ahlatlıbel, outside this culture province near Ankara, is another instance of the radial plan, but as we have seen a clearer one is found a considerable distance to the east at Pulur (Sakyol) in the Upper Euphrates valley.121 Efe has put a persuasive argument forward that the transition towards the radial plan is evidenced at Küllüoba 5–3 (ca. 3200–3000/2900 BC), where a thick layer of packed earth, up to 4 m in width, encircles a well-preserved settlement of clustered rectilinear houses, whose exterior walls form a zigzag around the circumference of the site.122 The houses, with walls rising up to 2.5 m, face onto a central courtyard, foreshadowing the developed version exposed at Demirichöyük. The bulk of Early Bronze Age I ceramics from Demircihöyük are black topped, a style that did not really catch on elsewhere. Forms include simple hemispherical bowls with an upswung handle, occasionally decorated on the inside with a red painted cross.

4Finally, according to Efe, enough evidence is emerging to isolate another ceramic zone in the southwest in the region of Lycia and Psidia.

The map of the Early Bronze Age II (2700–2400 BC) is a rather complicated mosaic of regional variations (Figure 5.14). The extent of the northwestern cultural region remains more or less the same. The fortress of Troy I was burnt, but the survivors constructed soon after a larger citadel, phase IIa, with two gateways (FL, FN) over its debris (Figure 5.24). This

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Figure 5.23 1 Plan of Demircihöyük (adapted from Korfmann 1983). 2 Plan of Küllüoba in the Early Bronze Age II (adapted from Efe 2007).

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contact the community of Troy IIg had with distant lands, and the high level of metallurgical skills.

Pottery begins to change both in color and shape, though on the whole the Troy II repertoire clearly evolves from Troy I. Red and tan colored vessels increased in popularity, though black polished ware was still abundant. Among the innovations is the introduction of the fast wheel in Troy IIb, which facilitated the production of new shapes such as plates and shallow dishes. The most distinctive is the depas amphikypellon, a two-handled tankard introduced in Troy IId (Figure 5.22: 1, 2). This and the popularity of other tankard types suggest the importance placed on feasting and drinking during Troy II. Also noteworthy is the appearance of pots and lids bearing face designs, which are essentially an evolved form of the practice of incising facial features on bowl rims in Troy I.

In the Early Bronze Age, the settlement at Beycesultan (Levels XIX–XVII) showed a marked change in plan, defined by a series of buildings that the excavators termed shrines. Beginning as a modest building in Level XVII, they developed into twin structures (Shrines A and B), with internal fittings—a pair of mud brick stelae and a horned structure—and “votive pottery” in the Early Bronze Age II. In the west Anatolian hinterland, the extensive zone of the Beycesultan Early Bronze Age I continued into the Early Bronze Age II, although subregional differences can be discerned, probably reflecting clusters of village potting traditions. The most significant development in the Beycesultan sequence is the sharp break between the ceramics of the Early Bronze Age I and II. After the destruction of Beycsultan Level XIIIa, the pottery changed markedly. Although still handmade, vessels were built with thick walls and are rather heavy. Gone are the thin fine wares. Exterior surfaces have a crackled appearance from firing, which baked vessels to a bright red or black. They are also burnished, but not to the high polish of the Early Bronze Age I. Their forms tend to be new, large and striking, in contrast to the smaller, elegant shapes of the Early Bronze Age I. Horned pedestalled bowls, large bowls on a tripod base and a high loop handle, wide-mouthed cups on three feet, and hole-mouthed jars with two twisted loop handles are among the profusion of new shapes. Grooved and ribbed ornamentation is effectively used to complement the form of vessels and is often found in combination with applied ribs, lugs and bars. All these many and striking elements suggest that while the pottery of Beycesultan Early Bronze Age II may have been manufactured locally, it is derived from traditions more akin to Troy I and Yortan.

By the middle third millennium, we start to witness some major changes in settlement plan at Karatas¸-Semayük. A large, independent megaron structure constructed on the highest point of the mound, overlooking the settlement, is conceptually different to the radial settlement (Figure 5.11: 2). The court along three sides of the megaron and the earthen embankment around its perimeter heighten the feeling of difference.124 Enclosing the settlement was a palisade and beyond that pairs of ditches. These changes in architecture are likely to reflect a different level of social complexity. To this can now be added the large megaron building at Aizanoi, near Kutahya, built on a platform.125 Even though it did not contain any fitments, its size (11 m in length), position and the attention paid to the surrounding area and slopes, which were paved

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