Making Spaces into Places: The North Aegean, the Balkans and Western Anatolia in the Neolithic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nenad N. Tasić ◽  
Dushka Urem-Kotsou ◽  
Marcel Burić
2019 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 138-156
Author(s):  
Deniz Sari ◽  
Semsettin Akyol

The region of Inner North-western Anatolia was a key node in the transmission of the Neolithic lifestyle from the Near East to Marmara, and from there to the Balkans and the rest of Europe. It formed the intersection between several important routes and trade networks, and the settlement of Keçiçayırı, the subject of this paper, had an essential role in the transfer of cultural elements during the Neolithic. The settlement is located on a natural communication route that connects the region of Emirdag-Bolvadin with Eskisehir across the mountainous area of Phrygia, between the distribution areas of the Hacılar and Fikirtepe cultural groups. Finds from the site include both Pre-Pottery Neolithic material and Early Neolithic ceramics, and it is therefore among the earliest permanent settlements of the Eskisehir region, and contains some of the earliest evidence for the Neolithisation process. In this paper, the pottery assemblage of the Early Neolithic settlement at Keçiçayırı is discussed, and its place in the spread of Neolithisation from the Near East to Northwestern Anatolia is evaluated when compared to other known sites.


2007 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 47-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Turan Efe

AbstractAt the beginning of the second settlement a change that we can define as a ‘breaking point’ takes place in Trojan indigenous cultural development. Behind this change must lie, to a great extent, the intensification of Troy's cultural and economic relations with the interior of Anatolia and beyond (north Syria and Mesopotamia). This change is archaeologically most evident in the pottery; the potter's wheel is introduced to Troy IIb along with new forms and wares. For a long time it has been widely accepted that the wheel – in use in north Syria and Cilicia since the Late Chalcolithic period – became known in the interior of western Anatolia only after its appearance at Troy, and there has been a general consensus that the potter's wheel and other Mesopotamian influences reached Troy through maritime trade from Cilicia westward and northward along the Anatolian coastline. The author, on the other hand, as early as the mid 1980s, had begun to defend the thesis that Trojan-Cilician relations were established over inland western Anatolia, rather than by sea. Here again he deals with the subject, now strengthened by new evidence that continues to come to light from recent investigations and excavations within western Anatolia – most especially that from Küllüoba, where excavation has been continuing under the author's auspices since 1996. The author now goes one step further to define this overland route between Cilicia and the north Aegean as the ‘Great Caravan Route’.


2019 ◽  
Vol 46 ◽  
pp. 138-156
Author(s):  
Deniz Sari ◽  
Semsettin Akyol

The region of Inner North-western Anatolia was a key node in the transmission of the Neolithic lifestyle from the Near East to Marmara, and from there to the Balkans and the rest of Europe. It formed the intersection between several important routes and trade networks, and the settlement of Keçiçayırı, the subject of this paper, had an essential role in the transfer of cultural elements during the Neolithic. The settlement is located on a natural communication route that connects the region of Emirdag-Bolvadin with Eskisehir across the mountainous area of Phrygia, between the distribution areas of the Hacılar and Fikirtepe cultural groups. Finds from the site include both Pre-Pottery Neolithic material and Early Neolithic ceramics, and it is therefore among the earliest permanent settlements of the Eskisehir region, and contains some of the earliest evidence for the Neolithisation process. In this paper, the pottery assemblage of the Early Neolithic settlement at Keçiçayırı is discussed, and its place in the spread of Neolithisation from the Near East to Northwestern Anatolia is evaluated when compared to other known sites.


1957 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 173-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Furness

It is generally recognized that the neolithic arts, and prominent among them, the art of making pottery, spread from a Mesopotamian or Syrian centre westwards into Anatolia, the Aegean and so to the Danube: but in the present light of knowledge it is far from easy to demonstrate this process by means of comparisons of the earliest known pottery in each area. In particular the immediate origins of the Greek neolithic wares are obscure; and while they have good parallels in the Balkans, geographical considerations lead one to suppose that the Balkan cultures were derivatives of, rather than ancestral to, cultures of, for example, the North Aegean sea-board. In these circumstances, links between neolithic Macedonia and sites further east are of special interest. In this paper it is hoped to show, through a detailed comparative study of material from Samos, Kalimnos and Chios, that there existed in these East Aegean Islands a culture related to the earliest civilizations of Troy and Thermi (fig. 1), but which also exhibits parallels to Heurtley's ‘Late Neolithic’ material in Macedonia.The pottery from the lowest levels of Poliokhni in Lemnos almost certainly belongs to the series now to be described. The site, excavated throughout many seasons by the Italians, revealed three or more distinct strata beneath a level corresponding with early Troy I; but there are not many notices of it available and no illustrations or photographs. The recent publication by Brea in these Proceedings gives few details of the relevant levels.


Focaal ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Vasiliki P. Neofotistos

Using the Republic of North Macedonia as a case study, this article analyzes the processes through which national sports teams’ losing performance acquires a broad social and political significance. I explore claims to sporting victory as a direct product of political forces in countries located at the bottom of the global hierarchy that participate in a wider system of coercive rule, frequently referred to as empire. I also analyze how public celebrations of claimed sporting victories are intertwined with nation-building efforts, especially toward the global legitimization of a particular version of national history and heritage. The North Macedonia case provides a fruitful lens through which we can better understand unfolding sociopolitical developments, whereby imaginings of the global interlock with local interests and needs, in the Balkans and beyond.


Author(s):  
Bernhard Weninger ◽  
Lee Clare

Recent advances in palaeoclimatological and meteorological research, combined with new radiocarbon data from western Anatolia and southeast Europe, lead us to formulate a new hypothesis for the temporal and spatial dispersal of Neolithic lifeways from their core areas of genesis. The new hypothesis, which we term the Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) Neolithization Model, incorporates a number of insights from modern vulnerability theory. We focus here on the Late Neolithic (Anatolian terminology), which is followed in the Balkans by the Early Neolithic (European terminology). From high-resolution 14C-case studies, we infer an initial (very rapid) west-directed movement of early farming communities out of the Central Anatolian Plateau towards the Turkish Aegean littoral. This move is exactly in phase (decadal scale) with the onset of ACC conditions (~6600 cal BC). Upon reaching the Aegean coastline, Neolithic dispersal comes to a halt. It is not until some 500 years later—that is, at the close of cumulative ACC and 8.2 ka cal BP Hudson Bay cold conditions—that there occurs a second abrupt movement of farming communities into Southeast Europe, as far as the Pannonian Basin. The spread of early farming from Anatolia into eastern Central Europe is best explained as Neolithic communities’ mitigation of biophysical and social vulnerability to natural (climate-induced) hazards.


Author(s):  
Ilias Lazos ◽  
Sotirios Sboras ◽  
Christos Pikridas ◽  
Spyros Pavlides ◽  
Alexandros Chatzipetros

Author(s):  
Ümitcan Erbil ◽  
Aral I. Okay ◽  
Aynur Hakyemez

AbstractLate Cenozoic was a period of large-scale extension in the Aegean. The extension is mainly recorded in the metamorphic core complexes with little data from the sedimentary sequences. The exception is the Thrace Basin in the northern Aegean, which has a continuous record of Middle Eocene to Oligocene marine sedimentation. In the Thrace Basin, the Late Oligocene–Early Miocene was characterized by north-northwest (N25°W) shortening leading to the termination of sedimentation and formation of large-scale folds. We studied the stratigraphy and structure of one of these folds, the Korudağ anticline. The Korudağ anticline has formed in the uppermost Eocene–Lower Oligocene siliciclastic turbidites with Early Oligocene (31.6 Ma zircon U–Pb age) acidic tuff beds. The turbidites are underlain by a thin sequence of Upper Eocene pelagic limestone. The Korudağ anticline is an east-northeast (N65°E) trending fault-propagation fold, 9 km wide and 22 km long and with a subhorizontal fold axis. It is asymmetric with shallowly-dipping northern and steeply-dipping southern limbs. Its geometry indicates about 1 km of shortening in a N25°W direction. The folded strata are unconformably overlain by Middle Miocene continental sandstones, which constrain the age of folding. The Korudağ anticline and other large folds in the Thrace Basin predate the inception of the North Anatolian Fault (NAF) by at least 12 myr. The Late Oligocene–Early Miocene (28–17 Ma) shortening in the Thrace Basin and elsewhere in the Balkans forms an interlude between two extensional periods, and is probably linked to changes in the subduction dynamics along the Hellenic trench.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (24) ◽  
pp. 10420
Author(s):  
Ioannis Chatziioannou ◽  
Efthimios Bakogiannis ◽  
Charalampos Kyriakidis ◽  
Luis Alvarez-Icaza

One of the biggest challenges of our time is climate change. Every day, at different places of the world, the planet sends alarming messages about the enormous transformations it is experiencing due to human-based activities. The latter are responsible for changing weather patterns that threaten food production, energy production and energy consumption, the desertification of land, the displacement of people and animals because of food and water shortages due to the reductions in rainfall, natural disasters and rising sea levels. The effects of climate change affect us all, and if drastic measures are not considered in a timely manner, it will be more difficult and costly to adapt to the aforementioned effects in the future. Considering this context, the aim of this work is to implement a prospective study/structural analysis to the identified sectors of a regional plan of adaptation to climate change so as to promote the resilience of the region against the negative phenomena generated by the climate crisis. This was achieved in two steps: first, we identified the relationships between the strategic sectors of the plan and organized them in order of importance. Second, we assessed the effectiveness of several public policies oriented towards a city’s resilience according to their impact upon the strategic sectors of the plan and the co-benefits generated by their implementation for society. The results highlight that the most essential sectors for the mitigation of climate change are flood risk management, built environment, forest ecosystem management, human health, tourism and rise in sea level. As a consequence, the most important measures for the resilience of the North Aegean Region against climate change are the ones related to the preparation of strategic master plans for flood protection projects.


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