Reconstructing Iron Age Community Dynamics in Eskisehir Province, Central Turkey

Title
Reconstructing Iron Age Community Dynamics in Eskisehir Province, Central Turkey
Publication Date
2012
Author(s)
Grave, Peter
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5076-2386
Email: pgrave@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:pgrave
Kealhofer, Lisa
Marsh, Ben
Sivas, Taciser
Sivas, Hakan
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Springer New York LLC
Place of publication
United States of America
DOI
10.1007/s10816-011-9119-y
UNE publication id
une:11219
Abstract
Current understanding of the Iron Age polity of Phrygia in Central Anatolia is primarily based on excavations and survey in the region of the Phrygian capital of Gordion. In order to expand our knowledge of the Phrygian polity, we assess the scale and nature of Iron Age communities in the western (Eskişehir) region of Phrygia. We address the challenge of interpreting ceramics derived from large-scale archaeological survey by utilizing Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of ceramics from 12 sites across the region collected by the Eskişehir archaeological survey project as well as an excavated assemblage from Şar Höyük. While the uniformity in ceramic technology and styles suggest the region is part of the larger Phrygian community, NAA results reveal that (a) ceramic production was regionally highly localized with limited evidence of standardization during the Iron Age and (b) based on evidence of community interaction it is possible to establish a partial chronological sequence of development. These results have implications not only for understanding the internal dynamics within the Phrygian core but also for developing a methodology for comparing ancient polities using commensurate units of interacting communities. The present study is part of the larger Anatolian Iron Age Ceramics project (http://www.une.edu.au/a-ia).
Link
Citation
Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 19(3), p. 377-406
ISSN
1573-7764
1072-5369
Start page
377
End page
406

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