Anatolian Radiocarbon Dating Project

A NeW 14C project !
- Last update: March 16th, 2007 -

Dear CANeW users,

We are happy and proud to give you news about the radiocarbon dating project, resulting from a recently established scientific cooperation between the CANeW group, a large number of Turkish archaeologists, and the University of Cologne Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory, represented by Bernhard Weninger. Beginning with the excavation season of 2006, and estimated to cover the next three years, the Anatolian Radiocarbon Dating Project will involve the 14C-dating of up to 100 charcoal and bone samples from crucial archaeological sites currently under excavation in Turkey for the time span 10,000–5000 calBC. The goals of the project are both to expand and supplement the network of 14C-data already available for key sites, as well as to provide comprehensive new series of 14C-dates for selected archaeological sites that are presently undated. The project focus is on the transition from the Younger Dryas to the Climatic Optimum, the transition to farming, the first appearance and development of pottery, and notably on the archaeological implications of the 8.2 ka calBP climate event. The project will target key sites in archaeologically critical areas such as Western Anatolia, Central Anatolia and Southeast Anatolia. Beyond addressing these specific research issues, the Anatolian Radiocarbon Dating Project also aims at exploring some of the (many) prevailing gaps in the Epipalaeolithic/Mesolithic and Neolithic chronology of Turkey. Although the project has the Early Holocene as its prime focus, we will do our best also to cover the radiometric dating of selected key events for all younger periods.

The project is presently (March 2007) in the results stage. Arrangements have been made to provide 14C-dates for the following seven sites:

Ulucak (Altan Çilingiroğlu & Eşref Abay, Izmir University) in West Anatolia. This is the first Neolithic site to be excavated in this region. The excavations are of crucial importance for understanding the cultural sequence both in this region, as well as in the larger Aegean area;

Aktopraklık (Necmi Karul, Istanbul University) in West Anatolia. Near Bursa, this site shows promising results already, linking up to Ilıpınar Phase VA and possibly earlier. It will provide a welcome corroboration of the Ilıpınar sequence and material culture distribution;

Bademağacı (Refik Duru & Gülsün Umurtak, Istanbul University)
in the Lakes Region, SW Anatolia, yielding deposits predating Hacılar and possibly provıdıng a link between Çatalhöyük and the west, as well as to the southern Mediterranean and inland Anatolia;

Barçın Höyük (former Yenişehir II) (Fokke Gerritsen, Netherlands Institute in Turkey, Istanbul) in between the Marmara region and Central Anatolia, is another early farming settlement contemporary to nearby Menteşe, and predating the Ilıpınar sequence;

Köşk Höyük (Aliye Öztan, Ankara University) in Central Anatolia, appears to continue the Çatalhöyük cultural tradition, but maybe dates 1000 years later;

Akarçay Tepe (Mihriban Özbaşaran, Istanbul University) in the Euphrates (Carchemish) Dam area. This site has a long, unbroken sequence spanning the Pre-Pottery Neolithic up to the Pottery Neolithic, yielding evidence for the earliest pottery presently know from Turkey and North Syria;

Mezraa-Teleilat (Mehmet Özdoğan & Necmi Karul, Istanbul University) in the Euphrates (Carchemish) Dam area, covering similar and later portions of this early pottery sequence, selected to corroborate the dating results obtained for Akarçay Tepe.

The following chart presents the chronological position of the sites (except Barçın Höyük):

                        
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