1 Introduction: Some Definitions
The production of the textual corpora lying at the core of this project began no earlier than the second millennium BCE, with the records documenting the Old Assyrian trading activities of the Kārum period (20th–18th centuries BCE, see Chapter 4). Yet it is now clear that the sociolinguistic scenarios attested in these first documents were the result of cultural processes that began several centuries before the formation of the first Anatolian archives and thus are well rooted in what we would call Anatolian ‘prehistory.’ This is the period and context being addressed in this chapter, whose necessary premise, however, lies in a fundamental question: how far back in time should we take our investigation to make it useful for the evaluation of later phenomena?
In answering this question, we arrive at a conundrum that is better addressed at the onset. Insofar as it deals with a ‘prehistory,’ that is, a “history with all the words taken out,”1 the synthesis informing this chapter will be largely based on the archaeological data made available by decades of research on stratigraphic sequences, pottery styles and technologies, craft production, habitation forms, burial customs, etc. The main problem, therefore, is how to employ this plethora of mute assemblages in pursuing a historico-linguistic agenda such as that of the PALaC project. Assumptions of any clear-cut equation between material cultural facies, chiefly pottery, and ethnolinguistic boundaries, although previously common in cultural-historical approaches to archaeology, have been generally abandoned and scholars are in agreement that “pots are not people.”2 Therefore, to use archaeological evidence in conjunction with linguistic data, this chapter starts with the observation that linguistic interference and contact are the long-term products of broad, intersecting, and overlapping webs of sociocultural interactions between groups (see Chapter 2).3 Fortunately, some of the elements that compose such webs leave material traces that are easily recognizable in the archaeological record. The aim of this chapter will be to study these material traces in their broader environment as well as their mechanisms of circulation in a way that may account for the contacts attested later among the preclassical languages of Anatolia.
Within this framework, the upper chronological boundary of this chapter is by necessity the time when the first Indo-European speakers ancestral to the Anatolian group moved into Anatolia and started shaping their identities and interacting with other sociolinguistic groups. Theories by Renfrew (1987) and Bellwood (2001) that identify Anatolia as the homeland of Indo-European speakers and link their subsequent dispersal to the Neolithic expansion of the seventh millennium BCE are given little credit by linguists and archaeologists for reasons that will be discussed below.
Except for these minority views, a broad consensus points to the late fifth to mid-third millennium BCE as a safe timeframe for the separation of PA from PIE.4 This chapter, therefore, will mainly deal with the approximately two millennia situated between the upper terminus post quem and the appearance of literate products in Anatolia, that is, the beginning of the second millennium BCE. These chronological boundaries, based on archeo-linguistic and historical evidence, are particularly convenient as they align well with the mainstream archaeological periodization employed for Anatolian cultural frameworks and their related research agendas.
Each millennium considered in this chapter broadly defines a different period: the Late Chalcolithic (ca. 4200–3200 BCE; hereafter LCh) and the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3200–1950 BCE; hereafter EBA).5 However, this correspondence is only coincidental and by no means related to the arrival of Indo-Europeans or the introduction of literate products in Anatolia. At the beginning of the timespan, there is no perceptible boundary separating the LCh from the preceding Middle Chalcolithic period (ca. 5500–4200). The tripartite division between the Early Chalcolithic (ECh), Middle Chalcolithic (MCh), and LCh is little more than an adaptation to central and western Anatolia of periodizations applied to Upper Mesopotamia, Syria and Eastern Anatolia and based on the Halaf-Ubaid-Uruk cultural sequence.6 The discontinuities that in this context determine the transition from MCh/Ubaid to LCh/Uruk are a reflection of local socioeconomic developments that are variably connected with the incipient urbanization of Lower Mesopotamia. These developments, however, had only marginal effects on Anatolia west of the Upper Euphrates basin. Regrettably, in many areas of the Central and Western Anatolian Plateau there is little evidence for evaluating the transition from the later fifth to early fourth millennium.7
Similar observations also apply to the transition between LCh and EBA. Again, major discontinuities are seen in the east, with the sudden contraction of the Uruk system and its gradual replacement by other forms of social organization and related cultural ‘packages’ (see below). Conversely, in the Anatolian peninsula, the transition was smoother in the wake of a continuous development. At some key sites, a few innovations in material culture, chiefly pottery, start to appear during a first phase of the EBA (ca. 3200–2700; EBA I) and become dominant later (ca. 2700–2500 BCE; EBA II), when LCh traditions were generally abandoned across Anatolia.8
The only remarkable rupture clearly identifiable on the cross-regional archaeological record in Anatolia occurred within the EBA, namely at the transition to the EBA III that occurred around 2500 BCE. In the southeast, around the Upper Euphrates, settlements experienced radical shifts with the emergence of large urban centers that were fortified and provided with large buildings and facilities indicative of a complex social organization. Such changes can be attributed, at least in part, to influences from Syrian and Mesopotamian powers, chiefly Ebla and Akkad.9 Even more marked shifts are reflected by this time in the Central and Western Anatolian record, with a more indirect although no less perceptible echo of Syro-Mesopotamian developments. Here, several sites were abandoned and the relatively dense hierarchical settlement pattern characterizing the EBA I–II gave way to a more scattered landscape of large, fortified urban centers.10 Material culture, formerly regionalized in several local frameworks, becomes now more homogeneous thanks to the expansion and intensification of exchange networks and the widespread diffusion of ideas of governance and new technologies, including the potter’s wheel and the metallurgy of tin-alloyed copper.11 Power centralization and the rush for the acquisition of wealth by the new urban elites are probably at the core of a phase of stark competition and conflict that led, around 2200 BCE, to the destruction of several centers and a generalized drop in settlement density.12 This rupture marked the transition to another phase that represents a prelude to the developments unfolding in the early second millennium BCE.
2 The Fourth and Third Millennia BCE: An Age of Migrations?
2.1 Migration Theory and Archaeology
Human mobility, in one form or another, represented the most obvious primary vector of virtually any process of cultural interaction in the premodern world. No one type of human mobility, however, is as evocative as migration, both as a phenomenon per se (e.g., in light of the impact that it has on political agendas) and as a concept that shaped or contributed to the shaping of major paradigmatic shifts in social sciences. In archaeology, migration is generally defined as a movement of individuals or population groups (i.e., ‘folk migration’) aiming at settling a target area permanently or for long periods. Debates over migration acquire special relevance here, insofar as the penetration in Anatolia of PIE language groups lies at the core of all subsequent linguistic developments.
In tandem with other historical disciplines, archaeology has been at the forefront of intellectual engagements with migration. Broadly considered, there have been three major phases in related debates from the late 19th century onwards.13 In the first phase, which informed mainstream cultural-historical approaches up to the inception of the Cold War, migration was perceived less as a research topic per se than a key tool for explaining cultural change. Within this framework, best exemplified by the work of Kossinna on the German Kulturkreis (1911), any prehistoric archaeological assemblage tended to be identified with ethnolinguistic or racial affiliations. As a consequence, cultural changes were almost automatically assumed to be associated with substantial demographic shifts in the studied context. Childe, for example, identified material cultures with ‘people’ (1925:V) or ‘societies’ (1958:10) and argued that “when a whole culture replaces another we are clearly dealing with a migration” (1950:8).
Dissatisfaction with these mechanic associations, which coupled archaeological assemblages with ethnolinguistic boundaries and migration with cultural change, led to the emergence of the New Archaeology in the 1960s, marking a second phase in the archaeology of migration. The conceptual framework of New Archaeology involved a positivistic approach to the discipline aimed at defining systemic laws or ‘processes’ deemed explanatory of cultural developments. Within this theoretical background, migration was replaced by ‘cultural diffusion,’ which assumed spontaneous, bottom-up processes of acculturation rather than the top-down imposition of foreign traits by active occupants on a passive host. Emphasis was thus placed on internal dynamics, favoring a focus on the indigenous and local. Separating linguistic, ethnic and material cultural data and viewing them as independent and mutually enriching variables is now a foundational part of any well-informed approach to the past. However, far from inspiring a fresh approach to migration, this perspective led to an overall ‘retreat’ from the topic as a whole—the baby was thrown out with the bathwater.14
In the third phase, which started in the 1980s, migration made its way back onto the archaeological agenda. Rouse (1986) made the first self-conscious attempt in this direction in searching archaeological proxies for population movements in the prehistoric Caribbean. This work, however, reiterated several cultural-historical paradigms, resulting in an unclear conceptualization of (material) cultures versus people and a general lack of interest in the mechanisms of migration, which was seen merely as an invasion of one people’s territory by another people.15 Conversely, Renfrew (1987) argued for a more in-depth approach to migration, focusing on the Neolithic dispersal of farming in Europe, which occurred in waves that were ignited by demographic pressures at each wave front. Migration studies were also advanced by developments in bioarchaeological analysis that have enabled archaeologists to define possible geochemical signatures of migratory behaviors and trace archaeogenetic affinities between population groups.16 However, these new tools can be misleading if the results they produce are not adequately examined in conjunction with the linguistic or ethnocultural processes associated with migration.
We owe to Anthony (1990; 1992; 1997; 2007:102–120) the most influential model of migratory processes that applies to archaeology. Incorporating advances in modern migration developed in other social disciplines, such as demography and geography, Anthony’s work represents an authoritative attempt to understand the processes involved in migration dynamics. Lying at the core of Anthony’s approach is the understanding of migration as a structured aspect of human behavior that develops according to a complex set of patterns. Rather than looking for individual primary causes, Anthony posits that the main incentives for most migrations reside in a combination of “negative (push) stresses in the home region and positive (pull) attractions in the destination region.” Push and pull factors are then weighted by considering the transportation costs to the destination before the migration proper is started. Information flow on the situation at the destination and conditions of the routes plays a determinant role in migration processes and, in turn, implies pre-existing contacts between the home and destination regions—for example, through trade. Given these dynamics, Anthony argues, migratory movements are more likely to occur between sociospatial contexts subject to frequent interactions before the migration.17 Looking at the interplay between the push, pull, and transportation cost factors and the processes leading to knowledge thereof, Anthony identifies different patterns of short- and long-distance migration. The basic idea derived from this approach is that most (pre)historic migrations were not unidirectional waves of invading hordes but rather small spin-off movements of people, interspersed with counter-streams back to the place of origin.
From a practical viewpoint, the complex patterns produced by migrations in Anthony’s model require a level of detail and accuracy that available archaeological records cannot provide. For example, without adequate quantitative assessments made on relatively large samples, it would be impossible to distinguish material flows derived from migration from those produced by other types of cross-regional exchanges that precede most migration processes in Anthony’s model. Only in very rare circumstances are single objects or a single class of materials sufficient to hint at the presence of migrants in a given archaeological context. In this regard, Burmeister (2001) suggests that nonindigenous elements leave more visible traces in assemblages belonging to the domestic sphere, whereas host cultural practices are more likely to be adapted in the public sphere. In some well-studied cases, the presence of foreign groups within a community has indeed been assessed based on intra-settlement differences in foodways and other domestic activities.18 Anthony (2007:111) also stresses technological transfers as occurrences that are likely to follow migration streams. By contrast, rare or prestigious foreign goods and conspicuous cultural practices such as elite burial customs could move along channels other than migration, such as trade or emulation. The degree to which migrations become identifiable in the archaeological record is highly dependent on the modalities of movement and the length of time that they lasted: swift migrations covering a long distance are more easily detected than slow-paced migrations proceeding through intermediate stages that have destinations located at short distances from one another. The material implications of this distinction derive from the tendency of migrating foreign elements to become attenuated over time, to the point of disappearing or taking on a completely new shape.
Bearing these considerations in mind, the following paragraphs will be devoted to outlining cultural phenomena involving Anatolia that can or have been addressed in terms of migration. The first phenomenon is purely archaeological in scope: the so-called Early Transcaucasian Culture (hereafter ETC). This emerged in the uplands and intermontane valleys of the southern Caucasus around the mid-fourth millennium BCE and spread during the EBA over a wide area that included northwest Iran and the northern fringes of Mesopotamia and extended as far south as the southern Levant.19 An evaluation of the ETC and its extent will provide some guidelines for examining the possible trajectories of Indo-European expansion in Anatolia that are less archaeologically perceptible than relevant from a linguistic viewpoint.
This treatment is not meant to be comprehensive or original in any capacity given the sheer weight of the ETC and the Indo-European questions in the current literature and the complex interconnections they have with other cultural developments in and around the area addressed in this project. By reviewing the current state of the art, the intent is to bring to light unanswered questions and, at the same time, suggest possible ways to address them in future research.
2.2 The ETC Phenomenon: Areal Contacts with Central Anatolia
In the highlands of eastern Anatolia and the southern Caucasus, the fourth millennium BCE represented a period of dramatic change, intensified by complex interactions between radically different, competing, and partially overlapping forms of social organization and cultural identities. To the south, the Euphrates alluvium and the surrounding uplands became home to the formation of highly stratified societies based on a centralized economy. This development was the result of two main intersecting trends. One was the expansion of Mesopotamian urban models through the foundation of colonies or specialized quarters within preexisting settlements. This phenomenon is known as the Uruk expansion (Fig. 3.1), from the name of the large Lower Mesopotamian center where the first urbanization is deemed to have taken place.20 Uruk settlements were characterized by distinctive traits, including monumental architecture, a quasi-standard repertoire of mass-produced Uruk-style ceramics, and administrative technologies such as seals and clay tablets with numerical symbols. Trade was the primary impetus for this expansion, which aimed at the acquisition of raw materials and exotica not available in the Mesopotamian alluvium such as metals, timber, precious stones and valuable liquids, namely, wine. According to Algaze (2008), exchange networks predating the Uruk system mostly involved slow-paced, down-the-line exchanges among nearby settlements. The Uruk centers, with their complex organization, aimed at replacing these older networks, which no longer sufficed to feed the demand for tools, weapons, jewelry, building materials, and other resources that Mesopotamian elites deemed necessary to increase their prestige and legitimate their power.
It has become clear, however, that the Uruk expansion was not the only complex phenomenon underway in the Euphrates region. Complex forms of organization were already flourishing in the area independently of Uruk as outgrowths of indigenous inputs. This is best exemplified by the frameworks unearthed at Arslantepe VII (3800–3400 BCE). Here the formation of a sophisticated system of staple and wealth management and sociocultural aggregation, with only marginal southern influences, was antecedent to closer contact with Uruk communities. At Arslantepe economic centralization reached an apex in the later levels of VIA (3350–3000 BCE), this time in the context of a tighter involvement of the site in Syro-Mesopotamian networks of exchange.21
Largely coeval with the Uruk expansion, the ETC horizon took shape as an equally distinctive but radically different cultural phenomenon (Fig. 3.1). Early Transcaucasian is one of several labels employed to describe this broad cultural horizon that was native to the southern Caucasus and eastern Turkey. This area is hydrologically governed by the rivers Kura and Araxes, so the cultural phenomenon here dealt with is also often termed the Kura-Araxes horizon vel sim. The processes leading to the genesis of the ETC have attracted much scholarly attention and remain problematic, especially due to the paucity of well-dated contexts relevant to the initial phases.22 It seems, however, that most ETC traits appeared quite abruptly alongside earlier Chalcholitic facies around 3500–3400 BCE. By crosschecking sets of radiometric dates from a wide sample of Armenian sites, Badalyan (2014), followed by Palumbi (2016), hypothesized a twofold sequence with different subphases. The first phase (ca. 3600–2900 BCE) grew out of a period of coexistence between different traditions. Preexisting Chalcolithic frameworks were chiefly represented by a repertoire of handmade chaff-faced ware with possible Syro-Mesopotamian influences23 that appeared initially alongside novel classes of finely burnished handmade wares that were dark in color and often embellished with embossed or incised decorations. Around 3300 BCE, a general formalization of the ETC ceramic repertoire can be observed with the first appearance in the southern Caucasus of the red-and-black burnished pattern that is characterized by black exteriors and red interiors (see below).
Figure 3.1
The main cultural phenomena in Eurasia from the mid-fourth through the third millennium BCE
The range of diffusion of ETC cultural traits during this first phase was still quite limited, approximately extending over a triangle defined by the Lake Urmia, the upper Kura River, and Erzurum, in eastern Anatolia. At the turn of the third millennium, however, the ETC horizon underwent a swift expansion over a vast area, hitherto determined to range from the highlands of northwest Iran and eastern Anatolia to the plains and arid plateaus of the northern and southern Levant. This phenomenon, called the ‘ETC expansion,’ is the hallmark of the second phase of development of the ETC cultural framework and is generally bracketed between 2900 and 2500 BCE.
Subsequently, in undefined stages between 2500 and 2400 BCE, the sociocultural milieu and lifestyles that had characterized the ETC horizon for over a millennium went through a major transition into the so-called Early Kurgan phase, which was rooted in northern Caucasian traditions. At this juncture, most former ETC villages, which practiced an agropastoral economy, were abandoned in favor of more mobile forms of social organization, chiefly based on the metal trade and emphasizing rank through the construction of funerary tumuli. Some traits of the ETC ceramic repertoire survived, but the Early Kurgan horizon nonetheless marked a radical departure from the previous sociocultural trajectory.
The ETC phenomenon featured a high degree of diachronic and regional variation that was particularly evident in settlement types and burial customs. Notwithstanding some shared baselines, the morphological features of the pottery repertoire were also spatially and chronologically diverse.24 Despite this heterogeneity, the ETC horizon featured a set of unifying principles that defined a sort of cultural ‘package’ whose elements recurred with impressive regularity across the entire ETC cultural area. In contrast with the stratified organization of nearby Uruk centers in Mesopotamia and the rank-based Maikop-Novosbodnaya cultures of the northern Caucasus,25 ETC communities displayed traits of a more horizontal social organization, where status differentiation was less marked and, in any case, not legitimized by centralized public institutions. The settlement plans generally consisted of agglomerates of free-standing wattle-and-daub houses, all of similar size and without signs of specialization from one building to the next.
The household seems to have been the focus of most ETC activities as well as a set of ritual practices that mostly gravitated around hearths. Although house forms varied considerably across time and space in the ETC cultural area, hearths, both fixed and portable, represented a permanent feature that was invested with symbolic value. Made of clay, fixed hearths were circular, built into the floor, and often decorated with incisions and protrusions. These installations were often present alongside portable hearths and andirons that were made to carry or lift the sides of a container while cooking. Andirons were a hallmark of ETC assemblages and generally were decorated with zoomorphic or anthropomorphic motifs.26 The conspicuous association with figurative elements indicates that the fixed hearth and andirons had symbolic value that extended far beyond their everyday use and connected them with the sacred role of fire as the place around which the life of a household gravitated. This idea is also conveyed by the many depositions of anthropomorphic or zoomorphic figurines and other objects around hearths.27
Ceramics play an important role in defining the standard ETC cultural package. New developments in the early ETC horizon comprised groups of dark-colored monochrome or mottled burnished ware. During the second stage of the ETC ceramic sequence, a new class of finely burnished wares emerged, characterized by the contrast between black outer surfaces and red inner surfaces of vessels. The red and black traditions of the ETC core area probably borrowed the bi-chromatic pattern from the Red and Black Burnished Ware (RBBW) of the Upper Euphrates region, which emerged slightly earlier. The main difference is that in the ETC horizon the red-and-black pattern was fixed. RBBW traditions, by contrast, show a regular alternation, with black applied in closed forms on the exterior and in open forms on the interior. Interestingly, there are good reasons to suppose that the RBBW emerged in the Upper Euphrates out of cultural contacts with north-central Anatolia, where this tradition was already present in the early fourth millennium.28
Much scholarly attention has been devoted in the last decades to understanding the dynamics behind the astounding expansion of the ETC horizon, which reached from the circum-Mesopotamian highlands to the southern Levant during the third millennium BCE.29 Several models have been put forward in this regard, emphasizing various motors and modes of interaction, including trade, metallurgy, sociocultural emulation and, especially, migration. As already stressed above, ETC communities developed in the frame of a simpler social organization, lacking centralizing institutions. For this reason, top-down models such as those generally employed to explain other pre- or protohistoric phenomena of cultural expansion, such as the Uruk system, cannot be applied to the ETC case. However, it is also recognized that bottom-up dynamics and the material heterogeneity beyond the commonalities of the ETC horizon can be hardly integrated into a single paradigm of expansion. The ETC cultural package is never entirely replicated, nor is there a standard distribution of its elements. The stratigraphic superimposition of ETC cultural sequences on abandoned Uruk occupation levels in North-Western Iran (Godin Tepe IV:2) and the Upper Euphrates area (Arslantepe VIB1) suggests an intimate connection between the ETC expansion and the collapse of the Uruk system. Palumbi (2012) does not exclude a priori that population movements could have played a role in these processes. However, he considers this possibility in the frame of a more complex dialectic, nested upon long-term patterns of intense interaction between the centralized Uruk economies and ETC pastoral groups. This model hypothesizes that, around 3000 BCE, after the collapse of the Uruk complex, local communities reoriented themselves toward the flourishing ETC cultural sphere, which was seen as a new system of sociocultural integration that offered an alternative to the Uruk world. The ETC model was then reshaped into new forms through hybridization and commingling with non-ETC elements, thus giving way to new means of political negotiation and prestige acquisition. The so-called Royal Tomb of Arslantepe VIB1 is considered the best example of this process.30
In other contexts, however, a stronger case for a sustained movement of ETC people can be made. In the southern Levant, local offshoots of ETC cultural frameworks, manifested in the so-called Kirbet Kerak pottery and horseshoe-shaped andirons, were confined to the domestic sphere and have a patterned distribution, segregated from non-ETC contexts.31 A ‘pull’ factor in this movement might be the availability of new markets, especially for metal trade, due to the vacuum left in this area by the contraction of Egyptian influence that was coeval with and in many respects parallel to the Uruk collapse in the north.32
Considering these dynamics: did the Anatolian peninsula interact with the ETC phenomenon and, if so, to what extent? Addressing this question with any confidence would require a degree of spatial and chronological detail on the LCh—EBA I–II transition that is still lacking. There are major gaps in the evidence from areas that might have constituted an interface between Anatolia and the Caucasus. For example, there is virtually no LCh and EBA I–II excavated and published site on the entire northern coast of Anatolia, apart from İkiztepe and Troy. Similarly, very few relevant sequences from central Anatolia have been thoroughly investigated and published, while most available publications are now several decades old.33 Furthermore, LCh and EBA I–II cultural frameworks across Anatolia show a variety of site-specific local traditions that hinder the definition of overarching regional chronologies.
Be that as it may, the little available data suggests that Anatolia took part in a broad network of exchange during the LCh and EBA I–II that encompassed all of the area around the Black Sea, including the southern Caucasus.34 Contacts with the Upper Euphrates and Uruk sphere were also likely in place. LCh finds from Camlıbel Tarlası, near Boğazköy, suggest an engagement of this site in metal, jewelry, and textile production reaching well beyond local consumption needs and thus possibly bolstered by demands from eastern and south-eastern centralized economies.35 The chemical composition of spearheads from Arslantepe VIA shows significant matches with copper deposits from central Anatolia and the Pontic region.36 These hints overlay the trajectories of interaction that are chiefly evidenced by the RBBW with alternating red-and-black patterns. As mentioned above, this ceramic class probably made its way to Arslantepe and the Upper Euphrates through contacts with central Anatolia. RBBW features abundantly in the LCh deposits of Alişar Höyük, Çadır Höyük, and Alaca Höyük (Fig. 3.2), as well as in survey materials from the area of Kayseri.37 Consonant with these patterns of exchange, elements of direct ETC derivation also seem to have reached central Anatolia. Fixed circular hearths and portable fire stands with close ETC parallels feature in the Kızılırmak bend.38 ETC-style portable fire stands also spread to the Konya plain.39 If these contacts with the ETC horizon existed, we can reasonably suppose that they involved some movement of people. Elements intimately connected with the ETC domestic sphere and its symbology, such as fixed and movable fire installations, might well have travelled to central Anatolia together with the carriers of the identities they embodied. However, the scale and impact of these contacts on central Anatolian communities remain difficult to assess.
Figure 3.2
LCh. and EBA sites in Anatolia mentioned in the text
Some instructive hints in this respect may perhaps derive from the recent excavations at Çadır Höyük.40 This small-mounded site yielded three relevant phases of occupation, dating from the beginning of the fourth to the early third millennium BCE. The first phase, corresponding to the Early Uruk in Upper Mesopotamia (ca. 3800–3600 BCE), features an agglomerate of small, semisubterranean structures and household contexts indicative of a village community with no apparent social stratification. In the second phase, however, which was contemporary with the Middle and early Late Uruk periods and the emergent phase of the ETC horizon (ca. 3600–3200 BCE), the settlement experienced a radical shift in habitation patterns and social organization. The uniform layout of domestic buildings characterizing the earlier phase was replaced by larger building complexes facing courtyards and streets. These structures have been termed, from east to west, the Non-Domestic Building, the Burnt House, and the Omphalos Building. Archaeologists interpret these changes in terms of an emergent social stratification and reconfiguration of the settlement toward a more complex organization. Traces of intense productive activities, likely involving textiles, abundant assemblages of obsidian and metals and the presence of foreign goods suggest that the Çadır community was somehow contributing to long-distance networks of exchange, possibly in response to market opportunities arising from the Uruk system in the southeast.41 Ceramics produced during this phase include a substantial repertoire of local RBBW with the alternating color pattern.
The most noteworthy evidence from this phase at Çadır derives from the Omphalos Building. This was a square, mud-brick structure divided in its main phase into two rooms located in the western sector of the LCh trench. The largest room of this building, to the west, was crowded with ceramics that were perhaps positioned on shelves lining the walls. At its center, this room was furnished with a raised platform bearing a small firepit. A bench ran along the southern wall. A box sunken into the floor of the room contained a bull-headed ceramic object of quadrangular form with fine inlay and incised decoration. The Omphalos Building object repertoire also included a clay bull figurine, found on one of its inner floors, and a double-spiral copper pin, discovered just outside the building.
Archaeologists at Çadır emphasize evidence of contacts with the southern Caucasus, represented by the bull-headed ceramic object, which is reminiscent of ETC portable fire stands, and the double-spiral pin, crafted following ETC metallurgical traditions.42 The general organization of the western room also recalls the symbolic system of ETC homes, in which the central fireplace is highlighted. The portable fire stand, bench, and bull figurine might strengthen the parallelism, insofar as they are common paraphernalia in ETC sacred spaces.43 The Omphalos Building is non-domestic in character. Based on the presence of a potter’s kiln at the northeastern corner of the building and the large quantity of ceramics found in the western room, archaeologists interpret this complex as a ceramic distribution facility or workshop.44 However, given the presence of less mundane features, such as the bull-headed fire stand and the figurine, a function related to communal ceremonial activities associated with fire and burning cannot be excluded.
The evidence from Çadır, therefore, paves the way for the possibility that aspects reminiscent of an ETC identity were adopted in the Kızılırmak area and locally reinterpreted in new social forms. If this interpretation is correct, it is possible that this process, implying a transfer of ideas and social beliefs rather than the mere circulation of objects, also involved the movement of ETC people to central Anatolia and their participation in indigenous social contexts.45 Some caution in this respect is nonetheless required, insofar as the manifestation of ETC-style features at Çadır would precede by some centuries the chronological framework previously established for the ETC expansion, which was not thought to reach beyond the southern Caucasus and eastern Anatolia before the end of the fourth millennium BCE.
2.3 Indo-Europeans
The search for the Urheimat of the Indo-European languages and peoples has engaged scholars and intellectuals for over two centuries—since the acknowledgment of their common ancestry. The classical view, first proposed by Marija Gimbutas (1970), associates the spread of the Indo-Europeans with the diffusion across Eurasia of monumental barrow tombs, today called kurgans, that occurred between 4500 and 3000 BCE as the result of multiple migrations of people from the Pontic-Caspian steppes, located between modern Ukraine and the southern Urals (Fig. 3.1). The main pillars of this hypothesis are the numerous analogies between the Kurgan culture, which was largely centered on a pastoral economy enhanced by horse riding and the use of wagons, and the hypothetical Indo-European culture that has been reconstructed through the PIE proto-lexicon. According to Gimbutas’ model, successive waves of migration, coupled with the military advantage offered by horse riding, would have allowed aggressive Indo-European pastoralists to prevail over indigenous ‘Old European’ agriculturalists, leading to the eventual success of Indo-European languages.
Anatolia has a unique place in the debate over the Indo-European Urheimat.46 Traditionally, PA is considered to have separated early from the PIE family because of the features that distinguish it from related languages. While some aspects of this problem have been convincingly reviewed and revised in recent years,47 a recurring problem is the absence, in Hittite, of some categories that emerge in other branches of the family. Some scholars interpret the peculiarities of Anatolian as a simplification of an earlier complexity that was retained by the other Indo-European languages (Schwundhypothese). Others maintain that PA records a pristine situation that evolved later into more complex systems (Herkunfthypothese).48 Advocating the latter view, Forrer (1921) proposed that PA was a sister rather than daughter language of PIE and that PA and PIE branched from a common ancestor, later termed Indo-Hittite by Sturtevant.49 Until recent re-evaluations,50 this view was considered too maximalist and remained marginal in the mainstream linguistic debate. Conversely, the identification of Anatolia as a cradle for Indo-European cultural frameworks, more or less inspired by the Indo-Hittite hypothesis, gained much credit in the archaeological agenda and became very influential in the more general debate on Indo-European antiquities. The first move in this direction was made by Childe, who in 1950 abandoned his former support for a Pontic-Caspian Urheimat (1926), arguing instead for an Anatolian origin of the Indo-Europeans. However, it was Renfrew in the late 1980s who built a robust case for the Anatolian homeland hypothesis by proposing a correlation between the Indo-European expansion and the spread of farming in Europe.51 According to this model, termed the ‘language/ farming dispersal,’ Pre-PIE or Indo-Hittite was first spoken among early Neolithic communities of south-central Anatolia around 7000 BCE.52 A detachment of pioneer farmers then moved from that region to Greece and the Balkans, where PIE could have evolved to its ‘classic’ form independently from PA and then spread through subsequent waves of migration across the rest of Europe in tandem with farming technologies.53
The ‘language/ farming dispersal’ theory is attractive for its plain formulation as it is grounded in verifiable archaeological realities that are examined both in parallel with and independently of linguistic reconstructions. The mechanisms involved in the model are also quite simple as they require a single factor, the increase in productivity allowed by agriculture, to explain the main motors deemed necessary to large-scale language diffusion: the demographic growth of Indo-European communities to kickstart the migratory process and the acceptance of the ‘superior’ economic organization of Indo-Europeans and related sociocultural features, including language, by receptive populations of indigenous hunter-gatherers. However, the strong reliance on archaeological data alone also represents the main flaw in the construct, which fails to provide a satisfying link between the archaeological and linguistic evidence. In this respect, Renfrew criticizes the methods of ‘linguistic paleontology’ but presents comparatively few positive clues in support of his model.
Renfrew’s theory was not widely accepted by historical linguists. Most consider it unlikely that the strong similarities encountered among Indo-European languages could be preserved during the long period (ca. 5000 years) between the Neolithic and the earliest relevant attestations and then down to the latest attestations (first millennium CE), which would require an additional 3000 years of conservatism.54 Moreover, a substantial vocabulary that was shared by several Indo-European languages, including Anatolian ones—such as, for example, the words for ‘wool,’ ‘yoke,’ and ‘hitch-pole’—reflects technological innovations that occurred during the fourth and third millennia BCE and could hardly have been part of a Neolithic language.55 For these and other reasons,56 therefore, Renfrew’s ‘language/ farming dispersal’ model will not be pursued further here.
In a recent, thorough synthesis, Anthony (2007) revisited and modified the Kurgan hypothesis, developing a more solid theoretical approach to migration processes (see above) and enriching the hypothesis with data deriving from his research on horse domestication in Eurasia.57 The strong militarism of the Kurgan model as originally formalized by Gimbutas is now widely rejected and has been replaced by a case-by-case analysis of cultural interactions across Eurasia during the Neolithic and Late Bronze Age (ca. 6000–1500 BCE) that takes into account the social and technological means available in the related contexts. Patchy evidence prevents us from following all of the multiple streams of migration and cultural encounters implied by Anthony’s revised Kurgan model, which unavoidably makes many of his arguments highly speculative. Nonetheless, seen as a whole, this model seems to best match the reconstructed historico-linguistic scenario of the Indo-European expansion in both geographic and chronological terms.
Adjusted through Anthony’s model, the hypothesis of a Pontic-Caspian Urheimat of Indo-Europeans seems, therefore, the most viable or, at any rate, the least problematic of those proposed so far. At this juncture, we are left with the question of how and when Indo-European language groups first entered the Anatolian peninsula. Unfortunately, based on the data presently available, archaeology seems ill-suited to provide a viable solution to this question. Surprisingly, in fact, barring Renfrew’s theory and a few other exceptions (see below), the Indo-European question has not received much attention in the research agenda of mainstream Anatolian archaeology. Due to our patchy knowledge of Anatolian prehistory, we are presently able to identify only few major cultural breaks from the ECh on, all of which are generally explained in terms of internal processes as opposed to swift large scale migration. Recent bioarchaeological research shows a general genetic continuity in Anatolian population groups from ca. 6500 to the end of the second millennium BCE.58 This would require a scenario in which speakers of Indo-European languages entered Anatolia in small groups through osmotic processes and soon intermingled genetically with local non-Indo-European populations also adopting their material culture. Such a pattern would be difficult to identify through the archaeological record, if not altogether invisible.
Lacking or unaware of material evidence that would allow a systemic approach to the problem of Indo-Europeanisation in Anatolia and its trajectories, scholars have generally preferred to isolate individual features considered proxies for an ‘Indo-European’ material culture. This approach is most apparent in scholarly evaluations of the EBA cemetery Alaca Höyük in north-central Anatolia. This is a complex of fourteen shaft graves, roofed with timber beams, that has yielded an astonishing wealth of metal and other objects deposited as burial offerings.59 Most graves contained adult individuals facing west in a flexed position. Others displayed secondary inhumations of articulated or disarticulated bodies. Substantial animal sacrifices accompanied the burials. Most notably, cattle hides were deposed in pairs on the top of the graves, resulting in skull-and-hoof patterns after the deterioration of the skins. The high symbolic value attached to cattle, as well as the grave architecture and rich paraphernalia, bear comparison with the kurgan burials of the Maikop culture in the northwest Caucasus and the Yamnaya horizon of the Russian steppe (Fig. 3.1). On this basis, in the classic version of the Kurgan model, Gimbutas (1970:181–182) proposed that the Alaca Höyük tombs and the similar complex of Horoztepe, ca. 170 km northeast of Alaca, were the work of Indo-European chiefs from the Caucasus. Bronze standards and stag and bull figurines, the most evocative finds in the Alaca Höyük metal assemblage, have been interpreted as fittings for wagons, whose traction could be symbolically represented by the paired cattle hides, hooves, and skulls. On this basis, Orthmann (1967) and others (e.g., Mansfeld 2001) drew parallels to the wagons interred in the second millennium BCE barrow burials at Trialeti in the Caucasus, where cattle pairs are also represented by skulls and hooves.
The main problem with these proposed parallels is chronological. The contextualization of the Alaca Höyük cemetery has long been at the center of scholarly debates, with arguments revolving around cross-dating comparisons and often unreliable stratigraphic data.60 However, recent radiocarbon dates would bracket the foundation and use of the burials within the earlier phases of the Early Bronze Age, between 2800 and 2600 BCE.61 If so, the Alaca Höyük cemetery would be several centuries younger than the Maikop kurgans, now firmly dated to around the mid-fourth millennium BCE and about one millennium older than the Trialeti complex.62 The Yamnaya wagon graves of the Pontic-Caspian steppes might offer a closer chronological match (3400–2600 BCE; Anthony 2007:300–339), but cross-comparisons would be hazardous in the present lack of intermediate geographic links. This negative picture might change with future discoveries, for example on the Anatolian shores of the Black Sea. In any case, one should also bear in mind proposed comparisons with the wagon and oxen interment of the royal cemetery of Ur,63 which is relatively close to Alaca in both time and space, but cannot be attributed to Indo-Europeans.
Regardless of possible comparanda, the wagon burial argument can be misleading. Considering the good state of preservation of the wooden planks forming the roofs of the Alaca Höyük tombs, one would expect to find equally well-preserved wagon components included in the funerary equipment.64 As Zimmermann argues, the interpretation of the highly elaborated bronze standards from Alaca as wagon fittings does not find support in contemporary or later figurative evidence from Anatolia. The ritual association with cattle does not set Alaca Höyük apart from coeval funerary contexts in Anatolia. Cattle hide patterns of skull-and-hooves feature in the EBA III funerary assemblage from Reşuloğlu, not far from Alaca Höyük, and whole bull carcasses were buried in pairs in the necropoleis of Demircihöyük (ca. 2700–2550 BCE) and Çavdarlı Höyük in central-west Anatolia (Fig. 3.2).65 In neither case are cattle associated with evidence of vehicle transportation. Instead, the animal remains are interpreted as resulting from the consumption of funerary feasts celebrated in honor of high-status individuals. Some distant relations of Anatolian cattle burials with the sacrificial practices of the northern Pontic steppe or the Caucasus cannot be excluded, but these would be no more than vague reminiscences, locally reinterpreted within sets of regionally diverse traditions.
The trajectories of Indo-Europeanization in Anatolia are better analyzed as patterns of peer-to-peer interactions between adstrata that took place in the framework of durable contacts between different communities of speakers than as the top-down imposition of foreign cultural traditions over a pre-existing substratum.66 During much of the LCh and EBA, central, northern and western Anatolia participated in a wide network of exchange that joined these regions to the Carpatho-Balkan area, Russian steppe belt, and Caucasus. This network, termed the Circumpontic Metallurgical Province by the archaeologist Černyh, was a “system of rather closely interrelated centers of metalworking and metallurgy.”67 In Anatolia, as elsewhere, Circumpontic connections are manifest in technological transfers, imported goods, and shared stylistic conventions. These connections encompassed metal products as well as other material categories, and, presumably, they also involved an equally intense circulation of people and ideas.68 The sheer scale and the geography involved make this system of contacts the most promising scenario for the Indo-Europeanization of Anatolia, leading us to focus on two possible trajectories: one through the Caucasus and the other through the Balkans.
2.3.1 Indo-Europeans from the East? The Caucasian Trajectory
As discussed above, material cultural records from the Kızılırmak area and, perhaps, the south-central Anatolian plateau, provide evidence of contacts with the ECT horizons of the eastern branch of the Circumpontic network. There are clues, moreover, suggesting that at least some of these contacts may have entailed the long-term settlement of ETC people in central Anatolia. This, of course, does not mean per se that ETC people could exercise any form of linguistic pressure in Anatolia. One can nonetheless start from the assumption that this was the case to better evaluate the hypothesis.
A first step would be to ask whether the ETC groups settling in central Anatolia could have had substantial numbers of members who were carriers of Proto-Anatolian languages. Trying to define the ETC linguistic panorama in this perspective would be little more than an intellectual exercise. The renowned linguistic fragmentation of Caucasia across historical eras discourages any speculation on the linguistic composition of the ETC communities. Kurgan cultural elements, perhaps brought by some PIE speakers, are known to have spread south of the Caucasus by the mid-fourth millennium and reached the lower Kura River and Lake Urmia.69 These appear to be no more than sporadic interactions, as the areas involved were soon absorbed in the ETC cultural sphere. Nonetheless, we cannot exclude the possibility that immigrant PIE communities completely assimilated ETC lifestyles before moving elsewhere. This scenario would align well with the linguistic reconstruction by Gamkrelidze and Ivanov (1995), who argued for a strong early interference between PIE-PA, Proto-Kartvelian, and Mesopotamian languages (Sumerian and Akkadian). On this basis, they proposed that the Urheimat of PIE was located in the ETC cultural area. This construct, however, failed to convince most Indo-Europeanists and will not be pursued here.70
The hypothetical ETC presence within the Kızılırmak bend is at odds with the areal distribution of Indo-European Anatolian languages known from later sources and finds a closer geographical match with the Hattian geolinguistic milieu. Affiliations between Hattian and various Caucasian language families have been often advocated, although they are impossible to prove with the evidence currently available.71 If we consider the ETC frameworks as material manifestations of mixed ethnolinguistic groups, including some Indo-Europeans, we can suppose that the Hattians and Proto-Anatolians cohabited before their respective settlements in Anatolia, at a minimum from the mid-fourth millennium BCE. This scenario might fit well with the case made by Goedegebuure (2008) for strong Hattian-Anatolian interference predating the Kārum period of the early second millennium BCE (see also Chapter 4). However, there is hardly a need to overstretch these contacts in time and space, for which third-millennium Anatolia might represent an equally suitable and even more realistic scenario.
The mismatch noted above between the ETC areal expansion and the known distribution of Indo-European languages can be observed beyond Anatolia. Armenian is the only Indo-European language known to have been spoken in Caucasia, but its late first attestation (first millennium AD) bars any serious attempt to associate it with prehistoric facies. The first historical sources so far available in the Caucasus date to the first millennium BCE and testify to the presence of Urartian, which is a non-Indo-European language close to Hurrian. Significantly, the ETC expansion in Upper Mesopotamia and the northern Levant corresponds well with the spread of Hurrian itself as it is known from second-millennium sources. Hurrian is first attested at Urkeš, in the Syrian Jazira, in the late third millennium, a few centuries later than the first local manifestations of the ETC horizon.72 In contrast, only a few traces of Indo-European are attested the earliest textual sources available in the areas previously involved in the ETC phenomenon. Archi (2011) identifies some Anatolian personal names in Ebla texts and localizes them in the whereabouts of modern Gaziantep, not too far from historically known Luwian regions (e.g., Cilicia). However, the remaining regions with which Ebla was in contact, from the Khabur area south of Urkeš to the lower Orontes valley, display an overwhelming Semitic onomasticon and no trace whatsoever of Indo-European.73
To sum up, while there might be some archaeological evidence for an eastern trajectory of migrations in Anatolia, circumstantial linguistic evidence argues against the identification of Indo-European populations behind these movements. The most imposing obstacle in this respect is the lack of evidence of Indo-European speakers in the Caucasus before the 1st millennium CE. On the contrary, we can more confidently suppose an early Indo-Europeanization of the Balkan and Aegean area, due to the relatively early appearance therein of Mycenaean Greek in the mid-2nd millennium BCE, a few centuries later than Indo-European Anatolian languages. Therefore, the Balkans would appear as a more promising “reservoir” of Indo-European speakers that could have made their way into Anatolia at a given point in time. As we shall, see, however, the reality of this trajectory is not as straightforward on the basis of extant material data. Some degree of speculation is thus required in order to offer a positive archaeological interpretation that could match circumstantial geo-linguistic evidence.
2.3.2 Indo-Europeans from the West? The Balkan Trajectory
Evaluations on the dynamics of LCh and EBA interactions between Anatolia and western cultural frameworks suffer from the same problems emphasized above (2.2.) in relation to the eastern trajectories: major gaps in the data in crucial interface zones (e.g., on the northern Anatolian coast) and elusive regional sequences. The evidence would nonetheless indicate that western influences from the Balkano-Pontic area were significant from at least the late fourth millennium BCE, with possible roots in the fifth millennium based on recent results from the İnönü Cave, on the western Pontic shores of Anatolia.74 Anthropomorphic funerary stelae not indigenous to contemporary Anatolia but showing close parallels with Yamnaya and Kemi-Oba horizons of the northern Caucasus and southern Russian steppes were found at Troy and along the Ionian coast.75 Several sherds of Bulgarian-Ezero I-type (EBA) feature in survey collections from Paphlagonia and other sites in northwestern Anatolia.76
The LCh-EBA I cemetery of İkiztepe, on the Anatolian Black Sea coast (Fig. 3.2), features several bodies placed in a supine, extended position and sprinkled with ochre.77 These customs are otherwise uncommon in Anatolia, if attested at all, but occur regularly in Sredny Stog and Yamnaya horizons of the western and northern Black Sea.78 Moreover, based on strontium-isotope analysis, some individuals in the İkiztepe population recovered from the cemetery can be identified as immigrants, possibly along long-distance trajectories, although their exact provenance cannot be established with certainty.79
In eastern Thrace, the natural interface between the Balkans and Anatolia, data on the LCh and EBA that can complement mainland Anatolian frameworks are scanty and discontinuous, but the evidence available provides very interesting clues. From at least the late fourth millennium to the mid-third, regional assemblages display strong affinities with facies from Bulgaria and the Pontic steppe, including the presence of several burrow burials of the kurgan type. In contrast, influences from mainland Anatolia seem to have been limited to the shores of the Marmara Sea.80
The situation changed suddenly in the second half of the third millennium, as best exemplified by the well-published sequence of Kanlıgeçit, in inland Thrace (Fig. 3.2). This site yielded evidence of a sudden social transformation around the 25th century BCE from a small village community to a hierarchically organized settlement provided with monumental architecture and imposing defensive structures.81 The phases preceding this transition (KG 4–3), dated ca. 2800–2400 BCE, display cultural assemblages largely compliant with contemporary ‘Kurgan-horizons’ (Yamnaya and Ezero), from handmade pottery to domestic architecture, as well as traces of horse domestication.82 However, during the subsequent phases (KG 2–1; ca. 2400–2100), following the destruction of KG 3 settlement, a coherent EBA III Anatolian horizon suddenly appears, represented by a layout of megaron-type buildings almost replicating Troy IIc and typical Anatolian wheel-made pottery traditions.83 These finds are thus best interpreted as evidence of a sudden northwestward expansion of Anatolian cultural models around the 25th century BCE that marked the emergence of a ruling elite that adopted an Anatolian lifestyle.
It is difficult to identify the mechanisms behind this radical shift, which can be attributed either to newcomers from Anatolia or local acceptance and emulation. Özdoğan and Parzinger (2012:273) point to a certain continuity of local pottery types alongside newly introduced Anatolian types in levels KG 1–2, which would suggest spontaneous acculturation by the indigenous communities rather than a radical ethnic or demographic shift. The same impression arises from continuous trends in the archaeozoological record, which are indicative of economy strategies that remained stable throughout the EBA.84 The destruction of KG 3 was likely caused by internal processes since no signs of violent actions provoked by outsiders were found among the burnt debris.
By knitting this sparse evidence together, we can propose the following tentative reconstruction. Yamnaya and Ezero Kurgan horizons started moving to eastern Thrace around the mid/late-fourth millennium, accompanied by a broadly coherent cultural package identifiable by the early third millennium in the first phase at Kanlıgeçit. This development can be interpreted as the southern continuation of the sustained migratory waves that occurred in eastern Bulgaria and the lower Danube valley in the early fourth millennium, signaled by the increasing pressure of steppe traditions (Sredny-Stog, Suvorovo-Novadanilovka) on indigenous Chalcolithic frameworks (Karonovo VI, Tripolye B).85 According to Anthony’s model the peoples participating into these movements included speakers of Indo-European languages and, if so, the same would be true for the carriers of Kurgan-related cultures settling in Eastern Thrace.
Around the end of the fourth millennium, groups of east Thracian/Indo-Europeans also might have left their homeland, leapfrogging in various directions into Anatolia. The funerary assemblage of İkiztepe and other strands of Kurgan(-related) culture found in Anatolia may provide some clues that movements of this kind did in fact occur. Subsistence economies in Anatolia throughout the Bronze Age also saw an increasing focus on cattle.86 This represented an invaluable source of meat food chiefly reserved for consumption in communal meals, a means that Anatolian urban elites employed for legitimating and accruing their power.87 A strong focus on cattle is deemed the main contribution brought to Bronze Age European economies by kurgan(-related) immigrants, generally associated with the Indo-European expansion.88 On account of present data, the possible pull factors triggering these possible movements can only be guessed. Generally speaking, a demand for manpower might have arisen from emerging urban centers and the growing ambitions of indigenous Anatolian elites, who strove to expand their wealth as well as the agrarian base of their power.
Although nothing so far seems to disprove the above scenario, the main obstacle to it is that there is virtually no evidence of Balkan influence in inner Anatolia beyond the Pontus mountains. Involvement in urban dialectics may have led east Thracian/Indo-European expats to integrate relatively quickly into Anatolian communities, inducing them to a relatively rapid adoption of indigenous customs. If so, the expansion of an Anatolian material cultural package toward eastern Thrace, testified by the assemblages of phase KG 2 at Kanlıgeçit, can perhaps be explained as the cumulative result of return streams of migrants who had undergone a full process of “Anatolianization”. In turn, such return streams could have allowed migrants to maintain and reinforce kin relations in their homeland communities and could even have fueled chain migrations along the same Thraco-Anatolian trajectories. Steiner (1981) suggested that Anatolian languages had already differentiated among themselves in the Balkan-Thrace area by roughly the first half of the third millennium. Yakubovich (2009:9–11), argued against this hypothesis, noting that “the Anatolian toponymic substratum is confined to the territory of Asia Minor and … we do not have any positive arguments for the presence of an Anatolian substrate in Europe” (11). He nonetheless supported the idea of a non-Indo-European, Balkan substratum in Anatolian, reflected in the toponymic endings in -(a)nda and -(a)ssa, which are parallel to -(
If we accept the above mechanisms of migration, the key question remains as to how did the vernacular of—likely few—migrants eventually become the dominant language across a large extent of Anatolia. Generally speaking, we can reasonably propose that the Indo-Europeanization of Anatolia could be facilitated by osmosis: through the presence of a significant Indo-European/Anatolian component in the Thraco-Balkan area that could channel fresh cultural energies toward Anatolia. Such osmosis could be enhanced by the involvement of migrant groups as trading partners and interstitial brokers along exchange routes, that had an important axis precisely between south-southeastern Anatolia and the Balkans (e.g., the so-called “Great Caravan Route”; see § 3 below). Over the long period, osmotic cultural pressure might have turned into demographic pressure.
Earlier beliefs that Hittite was an official scribal language used by narrow groups who ruled a largely non-Hittite/non-Indo-European, that is, Hattian, people have been discarded by most linguists. Several morphological changes in Hittite suggest that it continued to be a lively language down to the end of the Late Bronze Age (LBA). This would be typical of a spoken rather than purely scribal language.89 Elements of strong interference from Indo-European Anatolian languages to Hattian require a scenario where speakers of the former already represented numerically significant communities in Anatolia several centuries before the beginning of the Old Hittite Kingdom, that is, by the early second millennium BCE.90 Before the introduction of mass media and the organization of national educational systems, the language(s) of a ruling class could hardly spread among a wider population of allophones except by suppression, strong ideological/religious motivation, or top-down acculturation. Since these possibilities are extremely unlikely in a prehistoric environment such as that analyzed here, we should probably assume some form of demographic pressure by speakers of Indo-European Anatolian languages.
In some of his most influential works, James Mellaart (1958; 1963) identified a major break in Anatolian cultural traditions around 2300 to 2000 BCE that was marked by destruction events at major urban sites (e.g., Troy II). This transition was coupled with large-scale settlement abandonment and the widespread expansion of red slip wheel-made wares. Mellaart (1981) interpreted these shifts in the light of a massive invasion by aggressive Luwians coming from the Balkans, who caused social unrest at major centers and at the same time assimilated the sophisticated urban culture represented at Troy II. Later studies have confirmed the basic datasets underlying this perspective. Destruction events bracketed between 2250 and 1950 BCE are now evidenced in excavated sequences all across the peninsula.91 Moreover, most survey and excavation records reveal a significant drop in settlement numbers and large-scale abandonment of sites dating from around the same period.92 Nevertheless, the ethnolinguistic interpretation proposed by Mellaart has been thoroughly dismissed. Critics have emphasized the broad continuity in the material record of the late third millennium, which is hardly compatible with a mass migration of foreign populations. Moreover, despite the significant clustering of destruction events toward the end of the third millennium, a trend of increasing organized violence across Anatolia had developed at least by the fourth millennium BCE.93 Red slip wheel-made wares had been introduced around ca. 2400 BCE, some generations before widespread destruction events occurred, and spread in a westward rather than eastward trajectory.94 Processual and post-processual evaluations, therefore, tend to stress internal processes of social transformation that were impacted by the growing centralization of resources, changing dynamics of interregional trade, and intensifying conflict among urban centers.95
Paleo-environmental records across the Mediterranean area also point to a swift climatic change toward drier conditions, the so-called ‘4.2 ka event,’ that resulted in a sequence of severe droughts documented between ca. 2300 and 2000 BCE.96 Mirrors of the 4.2 ka event in Mesopotamia and Syria are deemed the principal cause of the collapse of the Akkadian empire and find an archaeological correlate in widespread violence, major settlement shifts, and the transition of many sedentary communities to seminomadic pastoralism.97 Environmental proxies for the 4.2 ka event have now been identified in Anatolia also and are therefore tentatively connected with the archaeological record for the late third millennium, which evidences a situation comparable overall to that in coeval Mesopotamia and Syria.98
In the light of the migration processes argued for above, we can combine the different strands of evidence for the late third millennium in Anatolia organically, inclusive of possible language-change dynamics. However outdated it might sound, Mellaart’s pan-migrationist view finds some support in the linguistic evidence for a substantial presence of Indo-European Anatolian-speaking populations by the early second millennium BCE. Nonetheless, the situation was far more complex and nuanced than Mellaart supposed. Despite social unrest, the final third millennium did not represent a complete cultural rupture from previous facies. Many urban centers, at least in the central plateau,99 quickly re-emerged after their destruction, often recovering their previous complex infrastructures, including administrative buildings and imposing fortifications. In general, wheel-made ceramic traditions show a continuous stylistic development down to the second millennium, despite important regional innovations. Notwithstanding major shifts in trajectories, interregional trade networks also continued, reaching a climax in the Kārum system of the Old Assyrian period.100 Reflecting on societal collapse, Norman Yoffee (2009) argues that a relatively quick regeneration of traditions and social organizations after major outbreaks could be enhanced by resilient interstitial stakeholders, who, having risen to the top ranks of the social hierarchy after the demise of their former patrons, could introduce crucial innovations on the foreground of a general socio-cultural continuity. Following this model, it is possible, although not provable, that Indo-European Anatolian expat groups already partnering with EBA I–II urban elites, for example acting as trading brokers, profited from the late 3rd millennium upheavals to elevate their condition and, eventually in some cases, gain power. From this higher position, Indo-European Anatolians might have attracted in their circles other people from within the networks to which they had the easiest access: most likely, other Indo-European Anatolian groups moving along the Thraco-Anatolian trajectory. This would represent a best scenario to argue for a demographically more significant second phase of infiltration of Indo-Europeans from eastern Thrace toward the late third millennium BCE that followed the streams of chain migration established in the earlier phase. However substantial, this population movement would be virtually invisible in the archaeological record because it would have involved areas that were already sharing the same urban culture since the westward ‘Anatolization’ process of the mid-third millennium.
3 Metallurgy and Areal Interactions in Early Bronze Age Anatolia
Anatolia is blessed with a mineral-rich landscape that has offered multiple attractive venues for extractive industries from the Neolithic to the present day. Several obsidian sources, such as Göllü Dağ in Cappadocia, supplied circulation networks extending across the eastern Mediterranean from the Epipaleolithic to the mid-second millennium.101 As obsidian production began to decline, a flourishing metal industry was already emerging, fed by the rich polymetallic deposits occurring across the Anatolian highlands, including gold, silver, copper, and lead. The most extensive deposits were located in the Taurus-Antitaurus ranges, along the Pontic belt, and in the Troad. Taking advantage of these resources, prehistoric Anatolian communities developed some of the earliest complex pyrometallurgical industries, which reached their apex in the late fourth and third millennia BCE. A combination of rarity, sporadic geographical distribution, and aesthetic and functional qualities gave metals formidable social value, to the point that they became catalysts for economic and political competition. Former assumptions identified increasing demand from the emerging centralized economies of the Mesopotamian lowlands as the main incentive for the development of Anatolian metallurgy.102 However, it has become clear that metal production was first and foremost a response to localized demand within Anatolia, which in turn had a major impact on long-distance exchange networks.103
Since the early Neolithic (ninth to eighth millennia BCE), native copper minerals were worked to obtain ornamental objects, which were then used locally or circulated along long-distance exchange networks that were already well developed (thanks, in particular, to the obsidian trade). The evolution of metallurgy in subsequent centuries led over the sixth and fifth millennia BCE to an increasing specialization of production, especially in lowland agricultural niches close to highland extractive centers such as Cilicia and the Amuq.104 By the LCh a range of metallurgical activities, from smelting to alloying and casting, are attested at several sites. Excavations at Çamlıbel Tarlası, near Boğazköy (Fig. 3.2), brought to light the vestiges of a small Chalcolithic hamlet (ca. 3590–3470 cal. BCE) that probably owed its existence mainly to the presence of copper ores in nearby outcrops.105 The presence of metallurgical activities onsite was signaled by pyrotechnological installations, tools, and several copper slags in various phases of the settlement. Notwithstanding these finds, Çamlıbel Tarlası cannot be characterized as a specialized metallurgical center as other features suggest that the local community engaged in a wide range of craft activities, including textile manufacture and the chipped stone industry. Yet the sheer scale of craft production far exceeded the subsistence needs of the local population, which might suggest that the site had a primary role in extensive trading networks (see above).
Several important metallurgical technologies emerged in the EBA and were accompanied by a novel organization of metal procurement and circulation processes. First, the production of copper-tin alloys (i.e., tin bronze) became widespread. In Anatolia, tin bronzes made their earliest appearance in Cilicia and the Amuq in the late fourth millennium BCE and steadily expanded to the rest of the peninsula from the 27th century onward.106 A second, highly important innovation was the emergence of specialized metallurgical settlements that functioned as second-tier processing sites in association with mining complexes. Thanks to these facilities, ores could be smelted close to extractive sites and circulated from thence in more finished forms. Evidence for this organization mainly derives from the site of Göltepe in the Antitaurus and the associated mining complex of Kestel, which was located 2 km away (Fig. 3.2).107
The development of the EBA settlement at Göltepe can be followed across three occupational layers (IV–II) whose absolute chronology is confirmed by radiometric dates.108 The earliest phases (IV–III), covering the LCh to EBA II (ca. 4400–2400), feature a modest architecture of ovoidal pit houses with wattle-and-daub superstructures. In the third phase (II), corresponding to the EBA III occupation (ca. 2400–1900), the architectural layout of the settlement was aggrandized through the construction of larger, above-surface structures accommodated on terraces and the erection of a circuit wall provided with an entrance gate. Significantly, the vestiges of this latter phase include a limited, but eclectic array of ceramic imports from areas ranging from western Anatolia to Syria.109 The surfaces of all three phases were littered with vestiges of intensive metallurgical activities, including large pyrotechnical installations, crucibles, molds, slags, ore debris, and crushing tools.
The associated mine of Kestel consisted of a series of tunnels whose excavation revealed metallurgical debris, stone tools, and a substantial amount of EBA pottery.110 Several radiocarbon dates confirm that mining activities at Kestel were contemporary with the EBA occupation at Göltepe. Archaeometallurgical data show that the main focus of the Göltepe-Kestel complex was the procurement of tin, which was very rare in Anatolia and elsewhere in the Near East.111 This finding raised some concerns in the light of later Old Assyrian evidence suggesting that the Anatolian bronze industry depended on large volumes of tin imported by Assyrian merchants.112 Subsequent analyses, however, have confirmed the early data.113 Moreover, the Hisarcık mine near Kayseri has supplied further evidence for the existence of EBA and MBA tin extraction industries in Anatolia.114
The new organization of the metal industry signaled by the Göltepe-Kestel complex and other sites115 evidences the emergence of novel cooperation between urban centers and their hinterland. Mining and primary metal procurement were seasonal activities reserved for the late spring and summer when access to upland mining sites was not blocked by snow or poor weather. However, the same season was crucial for most of the productive activities in the lowlands, chiefly farming. Yener (2000:83–84) drew on modern ethnographic examples to propose a convincing correlation between the seasonal mining industry and vertical transhumance: while on their summer pastures in the uplands, herders could simultaneously work as miners at nearby extraction sites. This mining-herding symbiosis might well be reflected in faunal assemblages at Göltepe.116 At the end of the mining season/upland transhumance, the herders would have returned to lowland settlements together with their raw metal products. The latter could then be included in the wider exchange circuit. At least initially, this cooperation likely had an impact on local lowland-upland dialectics, but might have expanded later to involve more distant communities. At Göltepe, this expansive phase might be evidenced by the architectural aggrandizement and ceramic imports of period II.117
The workings and extent of exchange networks regionally tied to Göltepe-Kestel can be best understood by examining the production and circulation of the so-called Anatolian Metallic Ware (hereafter AMW). This is an almost standardized ceramic ware class, characterized by a broadly homogeneous manufacturing technique and a unique repertoire of shapes. AMW vessels, all handmade, feature thin, hard walls and well-fired homogeneous clays that produce a distinctive clinky sound when struck (hence the word ‘metallic’ in their name).118 A substantial subclass of AMW displays distinctive motifs painted in dark colors, lug handles, and other decorative appliques.119 AMW seems to have a main chronological focus in the EBA I–II, although at Göltepe and elsewhere its use continued well into the EBA III.
Archeometric studies suggest a close relationship between AMW and metal production, especially because of the shared chaînes opératoires and know-how required for both industrial processes.120 Moreover, the chemical composition of the clays suggests that AMW was produced in only a few manufacturing centers,121 which aligns well with the sporadic distribution of metallurgical sites. The mining complex of Göltepe-Kestel yielded the most substantial assemblage of AMW known to derive from a single site to date, and thus represents a further testimony of the proposed linkage between AMW and metal industry.122
Consistent with the upland-lowland dynamics outlined above, AMW had a wide circulation among lowland urban centers that seem to have participated in the same metal exchange circuit. This ware prominently features in Cilicia, namely, at Tarsus, Yumuktepe, and Kilise Tepe (Fig. 3.2), and in surface collections from other sites in the Göksu valley.123 Another major pole of AMW distribution was the south-central plateau, where AMW features in EBA surface collections and the stratified contexts of closely connected sites across the Bor-Ereğli and Konya plains.124 The northern limits of the AMW network were at Acemhöyük (levels VIII–XII) and Kültepe (mound level 12) (Fig. 3.2).125 One specimen of AMW reached as far west as Troy (I) as an import and is probably indicative of a supraregional network of interactions that overlapped the local network.126 In this light, it is quite significant that not a single sherd of AMW was retrieved in major EBA sites of the Kızılırmak bend and Phrygian highlands of central-west Anatolia. It seems, therefore, that Cilicia and the south-central plateau cooperated tightly in a system of cultural interactions during the EBA I–II and that they somehow communicated with northwestern Anatolia but were largely independent of the northern plateau.
As demonstrated, for example, by the complex obsidian exchange, Anatolia was deeply involved in long-distance interactions well before the EBA. Yet the beginning of the third millennium represents a turning point. These interactions reached a scale and intensity never seen before, certainly prompted in part by the metallurgical revolution described above. Often cited in this regard is the tradition preserved in a later text known as the šar tamhari (King of Battle), which relates to an expedition conducted by the Akkadian king Sargon (ca. 2300 BCE) against the Anatolian city of Purušhanda in support of a delegation of Akkadian merchants oppressed by the local ruler (see also Chapter 4, § 4.1). This account is certainly fictional as it manipulates past events through worldviews that did not belong to the period in which it is allegedly set. Yet it has been noted that the King of Battle situates in a legendary scenario interactions that were certainly at play during the third millennium.127
Multiple elements would suggest that contacts with Mesopotamia and the Levant were present in Anatolia by the beginning of the third millennium BCE. In particular, metal objects with clear parallels in Cilicia and Syria and a bulla impressed with a Mesopotamian seal were found in EBA I–II assemblages at Demircihöyük in northwestern Anatolia.128 These contacts intensified and expanded in later centuries, reaching an apex in the second half of the third millennium (EBA III). During this period, finished goods of Syro-Mesopotamian derivation, chiefly a class of fine-ware perfume flasks called Syrian bottles, spread across Anatolia and made their way up to the Troad and into the Balkans.129 Conversely, Aegean and western Anatolian drinking sets, represented by the depas and two-handled tankard types, spread south-eastward, reaching Cilicia, the northern Levant, and the upper Euphrates.130 The distinctive shape of an Aegean/western Anatolian tankard even features in the booty carried by war captives who are represented on an unprovenanced Akkadian stele recovered in southern Iraq.131
Although several corridors must have been involved in these long-distance interactions, major trunks have been identified in the route systems known as the Great Caravan Route and the Anatolian Trade Network.132 Leading from the Syro-Cilician area and the Euphrates, these route systems mainly transited through the southern plateau and the Konya plain, thence branching westward toward the Aegean and northwestward to Thracia and the Troad. Significantly, these were also the primary trajectories followed by a coherent ceramic culture that spread across Anatolia, prompted by the diffusion of the technology of the potter’s wheel ca. 2400 BCE.133 Even more than the circulation of finished goods, technological transfers of this kind are likely to occur along well-beaten tracks of continuous contact and are therefore indicative of sustained networks of interaction and exchange. Again, the inner bend of the Kızılırmak was only marginally touched by the Great Caravan Route and the Anatolian Trade Network and also seems to have been a late entrant onto the circuit of wheel-made ceramics, which are not attested there before the 21st century BCE.134 Therefore, inner Anatolian circuits of exchange during the EBA III continued to operate along broadly the same patterns as those implicated in the EBA I–II distribution of AMW, although embedded in wider trade networks. Significantly, as we shall see in the next chapter, the existence of two distinct socioeconomic networks, serving northern and southern Anatolia, respectively, was not limited to the third millennium but continued into the early second millennium in the frame of commercial competition between Old Assyrian and Syro-Babylonian trading systems.
4 Concluding Remarks
The fourth and third millennia BCE were a period of expanding interactions chiefly fuelled by an intensification and systematization of metal industry. In this expanding world, Anatolian communities increasingly participated into exchange networks ranging from the Circumpontic region, to the Aegean and the lower Mesopotamian alluvium. In Anatolia itself, exchange was seemingly organized in several interlocking circuits that, on a long-term perspective, defined southern and western frameworks broadly distinct from northern ones, gravitating around the Kızılırmak area. The channels opened by interregional interactions also involved the in- and outflow of people that variably impacted on the Anatolian cultural makeup. Patterns of contact with Caucasian cultural horizons, possibly also involving migratory movements, left a footprint on the archaeological record, but their effects can hardly be traced on the linguistic corpus available in the second millennium. Viceversa, the entrance of Indo-Europeans in Anatolia can only be argued from the later attestation of daugher Anatolian languages but did not leave a neatly traceable proof in the material cultural evidence. This chapter discussed the different cases for the two possible access trajectories of Indo-European speakers, from either the Caucasus or the Balkans, eventually proposing positive arguments for the latter route, supported by known geographical linguistic frameworks. It is also argued that the widespread diffusion of Indo-European Anatolian languages might have been ultimately determined by the upheavals that marked the late third millennium.
Gosden 2003.
Trigger 2006:211–313.
See also Wilkinson 2014:57–58 and Giusfredi and Matessi 2021.
From different perspectives, see Melchert, forthcoming-a and Kloekhorst 2022: 78.
Sagona and Zimansky 2009:144–224; Düring 2011:200–299; Bachhuber 2015.
Düring 2011:200–203.
Schoop 2011a:161.
Yakar 1985; Steadman 2011:234–241.
Ökse 2011:272–276. Eastern Anatolian periodizations often follow Syro-Mesopotamian chronologies, thus splitting the second half of the third millennium into two periods, EBA III and IV.
Bachhuber 2015:19–21 (with Table 2), 46; Massa 2014b:110–111, Figs. 5–7.
Şahoğlu 2005; Massa 2016.
Mellaart 1958; Bachhuber 2015:46–50.
For some recent overviews, see Batiuk 2005:47–71 and van Dommelen 2014.
Adams et al. 1978; Anthony 1990 and 1992.
Straus 1987; Burmeister 2001: 540; Anthony 1990:897–898.
Bentley 2006; Gokcumen and Frachetti 2020.
Anthony 1990:900–901.
E.g., Yasur-Landau 2010; Greenberg and Palumbi 2015.
For general overviews on the ETC phenomenon, see Palumbi 2016 and Sagona 2017:213–280.
Liverani 1998a; Algaze 1993; Stein 1999.
Frangipane 2001; 2011; Balossi Restelli 2019.
Sagona 2017:224–225.
Marro 2010. But see Badalyan et al. 2010 for a different view.
Palumbi 2016.
Anthony 2007:287–299.
Smogorzewska 2004.
Sagona 2017:252, with references to previous literature.
Palumbi 2008a. See below.
Greenberg and Palumbi 2015.
Greenberg and Palumbi 2015:120–121.
Abay 2005; Greenberg 2007; Paz 2009; Wilkinson 2014: 309–314.
Greenberg and Palumbi 2015.
See, for example, von der Osten 1937, about Alişar Höyük; Arık 1937 and Koşay 1944 about Alaca Höyük. On the ‘Royal Tombs’ of Alaca Höyük, and their recent redating to the EBA I–II, see below.
The so-called Circumpontic Metallurgical Province (see below). See Zimmermann 2007; Massa 2016:225–230.
Schoop 2011b, 2014, and 2015.
Hauptman et al. 2002.
Mellaart 1963:201, 211–212; Palumbi 2008b; Sudo et al. 2017. Conversely, direct influence from ETC pottery traditions has been suggested in the so-called knobbed ware, which mainly features at Çadır (Steadman et al. 2007).
Emre 1979:22, Pl. III.1; Steadman et al. 2018.
Bahar and Koçak 2004:71, Çizim 14. For overviews of the general distribution, see Rahmstorf 2010:273–277 and Massa 2016:491, fig. 7.44.
Steadman et al. 2017; Steadman et al. 2018; Steadman et al. 2019.
Steadman et al. 2019.
Steadman et al. 2017:216; Steadman et al. 2018.
Sagona 2017:248–250.
Steadman et al. 2019:36.
For the possible relationships between the circulation of ideas and circulation of people, see Bevan 2007:21–23.
See also Giusfredi and Matessi 2021.
Melchert (forthcoming-a), with extensive references to previous scholarship.
See Cotticelli-Kurras 2009 and Pisaniello 2020:30–32 for more details on this debate.
Sturtevant 1933.
Carruba 2009; Kloekhorst 2016.
Renfrew 1987.
Renfrew 2000.
For other views on the Indo-Europeanization of Anatolia, see below, §§ 2.3.1–2.
Anthony 2007:75–81; Melchert 2011.
Sherratt and Sherratt 1988; Darden 2001; Anthony 2007:75–81.
For which see Giusfredi and Matessi 2021:28.
E.g., Anthony 1991; see also Anthony and Brown 2003 and Anthony and Ringe 2015. For a critique, see the remarks by Frachetti 2011:202, with references to additional literature.
Skourtanioti et al. 2020.
Koşay 1944; Koşay and Akok 1966; Gürsan-Salzmann 1992.
See the remarks by Özyar 1999.
Yalçın 2011.
Sagona 2017:332–338.
Koşay in Atakuman 2008:226; Orthmann 1967:45–47.
Zimmermann 2006/7:512–514. But see Bachhuber 2015:36–37 on objects from private collections said to have originated near Alaca Höyük.
Massa 2014a.
Steiner 1981; Klinger 1996:16–24; Bryce 2005:15–16.
Černyh et al. 1992.
Zimmermann 2007; Zimmermann 2009; Massa 2016:225–229.
Anthony 2007:294–295, with references to additional literature.
Steiner 1990:189–193; Melchert 2011:706.
See the discussion in Simon 2012:222–259.
Kelly-Buccellati 2004.
Archi 1984; Archi 2013:76–77.
Thissen 1993; Yalçın et al. 2021. On Chalcolithic maritime trade in the Circumpontic area, see Ivanova 2012. I am grateful with Michele Massa for pointing me out some of these references.
Anthony 2007:336–339; Massa 2016:226 and fig. 7.41, with references to additional literature.
Matthews 2007; Matthews and Glatz 2009a:85–87.
Welton 2010:134–141.
Anthony 2007; Massa 2016:226–227.
Welton 2010:435–445.
Özdoğan 2011:671, with references to additional literature.
Özdoğan and Parzinger 2012.
Benecke 2002; Ozdoğan and Parzinger 2012:268–270; Massa 2016:225.
Ozdoğan and Parzinger 2012:270–277; Massa 2016:226.
Benecke in Ozdoğan and Parzinger 2012.
Anthony 2007:225–262.
Arbuckle 2014.
Bachhuber 2015:130–149.
Anthony 2007.
See Melchert 2003:12–13.
Goedegebuure 2008.
Massa 2014b.
Bachhuber 2015:19–21 (with table 2), 46; Massa 2014b:110–111, figs. 5–7.
Selover 2015; see also Massa 2014b, fig. 4.
Türkteki 2013; Massa 2016:148–152.
Bachhuber 2013; 2015; Selover 2015.
Bini et al. 2019.
Weiss et al. 1993; Wossink 2009; Kuzucuoğlu 2011.
Massa 2014b.
Bachhuber 2015:33.
Massa and Palmisano 2018.
Sagona and Zimansky 2009:69–74.
E.g., Childe 1930.
For recent overviews of prehistoric Anatolian metallurgy, see Muhly 2011 and Lehner and Yener 2014.
Yener et al. 1996; Yalçın 2000.
Schoop 2015.
Lehner and Yener 2014:544–545; Massa 2016:191–192.
Yener 2000; Yener 2021.
Yener 2021:23–73.
Hacar et al. in Yener 2021:81–82.
Yener 2000:71–98.
Yener and Vandiver 1993a.
Muhly 1993; Yener and Vandiver 1993b.
E.g., Özbal 2009; Lehner et al. 2009.
Yalçın and Özbal 2009.
E.g., Derektuğun, on the lower Kızılırmak (Yalçın and Maass 2013). For a recent overview of EBA metallurgical complexes, see Massa 2016:174–178.
Gilbert et al. in Yener 2021:160.
Bachhuber 2015:42.
The AMW definition was first introduced by Mellaart (1963:228–229, figs. 14–17).
Hacar 2017.
Friedman 2000.
Gait et al. 2018.
Hacar 2017; Hacar et al. in Yener 2021:79–80.
See the literature cited by Hacar (2017:22, fn. 6) as well as French 1965:183–184 (Göksu valley); Symington 2007:297–298; Şerifoğlu 2019:74, fig. 10 (Kilise Tepe).
Mellaart 1963:228–229; Bahar and Koçak 2004:68–69; Highcock and Matessi 2021.
Öztan 1989; Kamış 2017:168–169 (Acemhöyük); Ozgüç 1986:39, fig. 3–21 (Kültepe).
Blegen 1950:170, fig. 250.7.
Osborne 2018.
Massa et al. 2017.
Efe 2007; Massa and Palmisano 2018:75–76.
Efe 2007.
Mellink 1963:102, no. 4.
According to Efe 2007 and Şahoğlu 2005, respectively.
Türkteki 2014; Massa 2016:146–156.
Massa 2016:151.