THE CHALCOLITHIC PERIOD IN CENTRAL ANATOLIA AKSARAY-NIGDE REGION

Cappadocia offered prehistoric societies a flourishing landscape rich in natural resources such as wild plants and animals, wood, salt, clay, obsidian, stone, a variety of minerals and even some copper. The latest archaeological excavations and surveys around the governorships of Aksaray and Nigde have enriched our knowledge about the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods. The results of the excavations and C14 cal. dates from Kosk Hoyuk (Bor-Nigde), Tepecik Ciftlik (Ciftlik-Nigde), Gelveri-Yuk-sekkilise Guzelyurt-Aksaray) and Guvercinkayasi (Gulagac-Aksaray) enable us to set up a reliable chronology from Late Neolithic to the Late Chalcolithic (LC) Period. The EC levels of Tepecik Ciftlik and Kosk Hoyuk form a cultural whole with their architectural layout, figural decorated pottery and other small finds. Gelveri-Yuksekkilise, known since the fifties for their spiral motif pottery, have close links to the Can Hasan I 2A/B at Karaman, and most likely dates to the late EC period. From EC to MC there is a change in settlement layouts involving a shifting of habitats to higher altitudes on naturally protected rock outcrops. The best examples of this phenomenon occur in Gelveri as a slope settlement, in Guvercinkayasi on an outcrop on the right bank of the Melendiz River and even by Kosk Hoyuk, which is situated on a rocky plateau on the edge of the Bor Plain. The MC levels of Guvercinkayasi I-III and Kosk Hoyuk I, also form a integral cultural whole with their basic architectural plans and with their pottery groups and other finds as well as. The MC settlement of Guvercinkayasi (C14 cal. 5200-4750 B.C.) is divided by a fortification line into an upper and a lower settlement. A similar phenomenon is to be seen at Mersin Yumuktepe XVI (Garstang 1953; Caneva points to a citadel tradition at Yumuktepe from level XVI on and tends to interpret the citadel as a specialized area for craft production and conservation, and metal production in particular). At Guvercinkayasi, there is no evidence of metal production except a few finds. The main subsistence economy of the settlements, located in two different habitats, is based on dry farming and animal husbandry. At Guvercinkayasi, as at Yumuktepe, an alignment of attached houses use the inner face of the fortification as their back walls. Here two houses (H 13 and H 14) at the east end of the alignment are especially notable for their storage facilities for field crops and most probably pastoral products as well. At Guvercinkayasi the importance of sheep and goat husbandry is reflected not only by rich finds of butchered animals, but also in the bone and antler industry, and as symbolic designs on pottery. Arbuckle emphasizes a "type B milk" and fiber production, and suggests that Guvercinkayasi may have part of a more complex larger-scale system of sheep husbandry than existed previously in the region. The C14 cal. dates from the citadel of Guvercinkayasi fit fairly well into the Yumuktepe XVI sequence. Consequently Anatolian prehistory is confronted for the first time with the phenomenon of pre-urban settlements, which are divided into two zones before the arrival of Obeid influences.