Abstract

CENTRAL ANATOLIAN ORIGINS                                                            

Didier BINDER
CNRS-UMR 6130, 250 rue Albert Einstein, 06560 Valbonne Sophia-Antipolis, FR.
binder@esep.cnrs.fr

As everybody agrees, it is quite difficult to debate the origins of Central Anatolia (CA) even with the recent relevant discoveries. First of all, briefly, we should look at what we have as knowledge.

1. A Palaeolithic and an Epipalaeolithic (although scarce) background (with no trace of Upper Palaeolithic for the moment).

2. Interactions with the Levant since the Kebarian (obsidian).

3. An imposing settlement, Asikli, different from what we know elsewhere. A different cultural concept (Asikli, Musular, Canhasan...) compared to South-East Anatolia or the Levant.

4. An obsidian workshop, Kaletepe, distinct and possibly earlier than Central Anatolian aceramic cultures, but in contact with the South-East.

5. Overlooked neighboring regions (such as the north or west) which are not defined geographically nor culturally.

We can start to debate the origins once these points are discussed. We can state several hypotheses about the origins, but for the moment none of them outstands the others.

           1. Autochthonous

           2. Colonization

           3. Assimilation

           4. Acculturation

It is hard to test these hypotheses. Anyway, none of them will give the complete solution. There are clear indigenous elements, but influx of people and/or ideas from other regions should be seriously considered. The most important point is to be able to separate the local characteristics from the non-local ones and to argue for their roles/importance/influence in the CA society/societies (intraregional diversity is another problem). Probably we will not arrive at a mutual agreement on the CA origins but it will be an interesting brain-storm.

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