Diversity of obsidian sources in the northwest Anatolian site of Bahçelievler and the dynamics of Neolithisation

Abstract

Recent excavations at the site of Bahcelievler (in modern Bilecik, northwest Anatolia) revealed a Neolithic settlement that was established during the late 8th/early 7th millennium BCE and continuously occupied until ca. 6000 BCE. One of the earliest Neolithic villages known in the region, its obsidian assemblage offers a good opportunity to investigate regional networks and obtain a better understanding of the mechanisms behind the spread of farming to regions peripheral to the earliest Neolithic communities in southwest Asia. To this end, we present here the results of a portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) analysis conducted on obsidian artefacts representing the entire sequence in Bahcelievler. Results indicate that a wide variety of obsidian sources were utilised, ranging from outcrops in central and northwest Anatolia to the Aegean islands. Even though the majority of the obsidians originated in Nenezi Dag in central Anatolia, some of the other obsidian artefacts in Bahcelievler are from sources known to be only rarely used in prehistory such as Acigo center dot l, Hasan Dag, and Yaglar. Contextualisation of Bahcelievler results within analytically sourced obsidians from Neolithic sites in the region indicates that a coastal colonisation along the Mediterranean shore might not have played a major role in the Neolithisation of west Anatolia.