BEYCESULTAN EARLY BRONZE AGE I POTTERY GROUP IN THE LIGHT OF NEW DATA

Abstract

The beginning of the Anatolian Early Bronze Age (EB I- 3400-3000 BC), roughly contemporary with the Late Uruk period in Mesopotamia, is marked by the rise of small kingodms whose exact character is not clearly definable because of the absence of writing. In this period, the cultural settings of the Anatolian Peninsula are rather varied and seem at least in part to reflect the large range of environmental diversity across the region, and the numerous imposing mountain ranges that act as natural barriers to interaction. Decades of research on pottery analysis have contributed to broadly define geo-cultural groups whose boundaries often coincide with major natural borders. This paper aims at presenting new evidence on one of these cultural groups, the Pisidia/Lakes Region, through the chrono-typological and spatial distribution analysis of ceramic assemblages from ca 40 years of survey projects in the area. During Pisidia/Lake District survey, red or black brilliantly burnished, thin walled and shallow fluted pottery and amphorae characterizing the Beycesultan EBA culture was discovered for the first time in the region. Furthermore a comparison is made to other better-known cultural groups, and with stratified contexts from excavated sites in the western Anatolia including for instance Manisa-Gavurtepe, Beycesultan and Kulluoba. Brilliantly black burnished shallow fluted pottery from Manisa-Gavurtepe.s early phases sign to the western border of Beycesultan EBA I culture. In addition to this, few examples of same type of pottery from Kulluoba excavations shows that, Beycesultan EBA I culture has also relations with northern regions.