Canhasan Sites I

The mound known as Canhasan Huyuk, in the Konya Plain of south central Turkey, has revealed a series of settlements running throughout the Chalcolithic period (c.5500-3000 BC), and its stratigraphic sequence of archaeological material, especially pottery, is vital for the understanding of this period through western and southern Anatolia. This volume, the first in the definitive publication of the seven seasons of excavation (1961-67), presents the fundamental stratigraphy of the site and the major structural developments of the Chalcolithic period. After the Middle Chalcolithic, the dense and disciplined agglomerations of the earlier layers give way abruptly (it seems) to a more open settlement-plan in the Late Chalcolithic, apparently reflecting a change in social and economic arrangements. There is nothing so far in either Western or Southern Anatolia to match this major break, and future volumes will explore the extent of the discontinuity in the sequence of ceramic (volumes 2 & 3 in preparation). Further volumes will present the material from the smaller mound of Canhasan III, and the important evidence from both mounds for the environment, and for the exploitation of plants and animals at these early settlements.