About the Project
SynopsisThe Anatolian Iron Age Ceramics (AIA) Project, running from 2005 to 2009 and in collaboration with excavators of ca. 25 currently (or recently) excavated sites in Central and Western Anatolia, involves analysis of several thousand ceramic samples. The scale of the AIA project aims to facilitate a new level of understanding for Iron Age economies across this region. ProblemSocieties in Central and Western Anatolia were key players in the political and economic changes that transformed both the Middle East and the Mediterranean after the Bronze Age. Within Anatolia these transformations remain poorly defined. Our research goal is to understand the changing dynamics of trade and exchange in this region for the period 1200-200 BC. DesignCeramics - the single most ubiquitous item traded in the ancient world - have the greatest archaeological potential for defining complex exchange networks. To understand the scale and nature of regional economic and political interaction we need a) a geographically wide selection of sites with well dated Iron Age contexts and b) a sufficient sample population (of both sherds and sites) to represent the major trade wares through this period. MethodThe strengths of ceramic compositional analysis in modelling exchange networks are well established. We combine a robust technique (INAA) with more sensitive but also more time consuming ones (ICP-MS, TIMS), for elemental and isotope species characterisation. The resulting compositional datasets, in combination with other archaeological criteria, will be used for high resolution mapping of the distribution, density, and variability of Iron Age trade patterns.
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