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Malatya Havzasi'nda Arslantepe Hoyugu ile Iliskili Jeoarkeolojik Arastirmalar
No full textBefore and at the beginning of the Holocene period when Prehistoric people became sedentary, changes in
natural environmental conditions were triggered by climatic changes, that affected human activities,
especially those based on food procurement strategies, the development of settlements, and exchanges.
Most human groups adapted to these changes with care, chosing their settlement locations with much
caution. Research programmes on this period and these evolutions have been numerous in Anatolia,
especially in South-East Anatolia. In this paper, the preliminary results of researches about the
geomophologic and resource contexts of the site of Arslantepe (a Chalcolithic to Iron Age settlement near
Malatya) are exposed.
Since its foundation, Arslantepe has been is an important sedentary to urban center, mainly because of both
(1) its wide hinterland providing a variety of subsistance resources, and (2) its strategic/military location
on routes linking northern Mesopotamia and south-eastern Anatolia, to Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus.
Arslantepe site has been excavated since the 1930’s by archaeologists. The last two excavators, co-directors
with the Malatya Museum Directors, have been Prof. Dr. Marcella Frangipane, followed by Prof. Dr.
Francesca Balossi-Restelli. In the frame of these archaeological excavation program, field studies have also
been carried out toward the end of the 2021 and 2022 summer seasons. The aims of these studies were first,
to determine the geomorphological context of the site and of its surrounding landscape (2021), second to
collect samples spanning the possible sources for lithologic elements used in the site (mainly the lithic
industry) (2022). These field studies have been led by the Universities of Harran and Dicle (Geography
Departments), framed by the close cooperation with Prof. Dr. Francesca Balossi Restelli and her team who
provided the necessary excavation and documentation data related to both these themes. The present article
concerns the first report of these geoarchaeological studies.
A first step consisted in studying the structural and morphological characteristics of the southwestern part
of the Malatya basin, in which the archaeological site is located. Landforms, as well as their controlling
factors, provided its natural landscape and environmental characteristics (especially geomorphological
ones,) within which the first human groups settled at Arslantepe. Field studies (associated with earlier
literature) allowed identification and mapping of these morphologic features. Regarding the reconstruction
of past environmental evolution, our investigations revieled that most spring-fed and wet areas have been
manipulated by men for irrigation and its control. Among the wetlands identified and visited, the authors
chose a today dammed lake (Elemendik lake) with surrounding marshes still fed by an active spring. These
marshes seemed relatively uneffected by the works that must have accompanied the damming of the lake.
They were thus chosen for a coring aiming at providing paleoenvironmental data. The 3m long core
retrieved was sampled on site, for sedimentological and geochemical tests and analyses to be conducted at
the Geography Department of Harran University (Urfa).
In addition, another geomorphological field study was conducted with an archaeologist specialized on
flints, in order to determine possible source areas of the flints used in the past in Arslantepe. Potential areas
were selected on the basi of a literature review as well as of previous exposure observations. This flintoriented
field work explored structural, siliceous limestone exposures around the Malatya basin, without
success as the flints associated with limestone were not suitable for chopping. In a second phase, fluvial
terraces and other alluvial formations in the river valleys draining the Malatya “plain” basin, were visited
in detail. This survey provided a total of six locations where suitable flint samples were collected. This
collect showed that flint sources of this kind have been available in the ancient and very ancient times from
many areas in the plain and its basin (although most of the proper Euphrates terraces were made not
accessible by the Karakaya dam lake extension), The result of this first field survey shows that, within the
proper “Malatya plain and its close, surroundings”, the most important of locations for flints suitable for
chopping are (1) Taş Tepe, 3 km west of Arslantepe (where such flints could be extracted from an Upper
Miocene-Pliocene conglomerateformed by continental clastics), and (2) the Tohma Stream terrace fillings
and floodplain at the extreme West of the Malatya plain
Arslantepe’nin Günümüz ve Gelecek Görünümü. Disiplinlerarası Araştırmalar, Yerleşimin Korunması, Müzeleştirilmesi ve İletişim
No full textThe paper discusses present and future perspectives at Arslantepe: Interdisciplinary researches, site protection, musealization and communicatio
Il linguaggio sensoriale della cultura materiale nella tarda preistoria ad Arslantepe
No full textAnalisi delle forme di arte calcolitica dal sito di Arslantep
Arslantepe, Period VII. The development of a ceremonial/political centre in the first half of the fourth millennium BCE (Late Chalcolithic 3‐4)
No full textVolume monografico sullo scavo dei livelli del Tardo Calcolitico 3-4 (3800-3400 a.C.) presso il sito di Arslantepe. Scavo, stratigrafia, architettura, rituali funerari, materiale amministrativo, economia primaria, classificazione e tipologia ceramica, analisi archeometriche della ceramica e dei materiali costruttivi, materiali in situ e interpretazione dell'uso degli spazi.
Nel volume vi sono contributi di: Corrado Alvaro, Laszlo Bartosiewicz, Susanna Cereda, Yilmaz Selim Erdal, Pamela Fragnoli, Marcella Frangipane, Giovanna Liberotti, Laura Sadori, Cristiano Vignola
Pottery analysis and the archaeological context. Chosing samples, counting, weighing and interpreting materials in context
No full textMost dig houses in the world and certainly all those in the Near East are characterised by thousands of crates with millions of pottery sherds. At the nearly 60-year-campaign-long Arslantepe dig house crates are wooden boxes lined up along the edge of the mound, that overshadow our work area and that get regularly spread out on a more than 100m long line of tables: our “sherd yard” and the “mega puzzle area” for the restorers (Bollati and Ghedin present volume, fig. 1). The pottery specialists - each of us dedicated to one of the periods of occupation of Arslantepe - spend hours, days, weeks, months on these tables, again, like at many other excavations. Differently to other excavations though, we have Marcella Frangipane: forty-three years at the site and it is nearly impossible that she hasn’t noticed something before you and rare that you have an intuition before she does.
The work of a potter analyst may be repetitive and tedious, but with Marcella there is little automatism in this activity. She has showed us why not to embrace an a priori methodology; every choice should be weighted and evaluated on the basis of the character of the assemblage and of the context of retrieval. Every data collection should spring from specific questions.
How should we choose the contexts to analyse in detail? Should sherds be counted, weighted? Should vessel num- bers be estimated? Should diagnostic sherds and amorphous ones be treated differently? The choice of one or the other depends on the aim with which the count is done and on the type of context analysed.
The present paper shall explain how the processing of pottery material at Arslantepe is carried out as to aid its analysis, and then use the case of Late Chalcolithic 3-4 (Arslantepe period VII, 3900-3400 BCE) to discuss why specific methodological choices in pottery analysis have been adopted
The external relations of Arslantepe in the first half of the 4th Millennium BCE
No full textAim of this paper is to investigate external relations of the site of Arslantepe during the first half of the 4th millennium BCE. This corresponds to what we call period VII at Arslantepe, or Late Chalcolithic 3 and 4 in the chronological sequence of Greater Mesopotamia (Rothman ed. 2001). The Arslantepe stratigraphy is dated by more than 130 radiocarbon analyses and period VII falls between 3900 and 3400 BCE (Di Nocera 2000; Vignola et al. 2017, 2018). It is not the first period of occupation of the site, nor is Arslantepe alone in the Malatya plain during this period (Frangipane and Di Nocera 2012; Di Nocera 2016). A little more than a dozen sites have been identified in the surroundings, suggesting a sizable presence and certain interaction between neighbors. Arslantepe is the only one excavated, reason for which we will leave the debate on intraregional relations to future investigations, even though some comments have already been made on the basis of the results of the surveys in the plain and site distribution (Di Nocera 2016)
From pottery manufacture and use to social relations at the beginning of full-time craftsmanship. The case of Late Chalcolithic 3-4 Arslantepe (3900-3400 BCE), South-Eastern Turkey
No full textIn a phase of increasing social complexity and growing craft specialisation, as that of late 4th millennium BCE in Greater Mesopotamia, investigating the relation bewteen material culture technology and typology, and contexts of retrieval of find and use of artifacts may be a key to the understanding of economic and social relations within the investigated community. The paper tackles these issues through a case study: the Late Chalcolithic 3-4 phases of the site of Arslantepe (South-Eastern Turkey): broad pottery forming techniques and paste categories have been confronted with ceramic shapes and functions to investigate production practices. These and the distribution of pottery in different domestic and public areas of the settlement have then been used to answer such questions as: were craftsmen directly controlled and working under the elites? Did elites have different access to pottery craftsmanship? Were there any pottery productions reserved to special events or users that might underline and contribute to explain status or economic distinctions within the community
Organizzazione sociale e paesaggi rituali nella preistoria e protostoria del Vicino Oriente
No full textThe article proposes a synthesis of data on funerary practices in prehistoric and protohistoric
societies of Western Asia, spanning from the Neolithic (10th millennium BCE) to the Late Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BCE). The scarcity of known cemeteries across the region in all chronological phases makes it extremely challenging to analyze demographic composition, social organization, and rituals. Most information must be derived from intramural burials, which we cannot consider representative of the norm in funerary customs. Nonetheless, we demonstrate
how ritual and burial practices played a crucial role in social and identity construction throughout
prehistory. In later phases, these practices also contributed to the creation and maintenance of unequal power relations
Il linguaggio sensoriale della cultura materiale nella tarda preistoria ad Arslantepe
No full textL'articolo presenta vari esempi di espressione artistica preistorica dal sito di Arslantepe, tentando di analizzarne i molteplici significat
Ingredienti, tecniche e contesti della panificazione nel Vicino Oriente Antico
No full textIn this paper we briefly touch issues related to the manipulation of cereals aimed at the production of dough products and specifically bread. We draw upon archaeological and textual data coming from the Ancient Near East, spanning from 20000 BP to historical period, and compare these with ethnographical information mostly regarding bread molds and baking facilities. We start with the earliest traces of flour production, then move to baking techniques and analyze their change in time throughout the millennia, but also list possible ingredients of bread and the role it had in the Ancient Near Eastern diet
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