Ancient Near East, Asia Minor, Prehistory: Chalcolithic Period

Chalcolithic Period (c.6000-c.3300 BC)

The term ‘Chalcolithic’ is used to describe the period in many parts of the Near East and Europe when copper metallurgy was in the process of being adopted by cultures which were otherwise essentially Neolithic in character. Thus in Anatolia the Early Chalcolithic (c.6000-c.5500 BC) is only distinguishable from the Neolithic by the copper pins and small ornaments found in Mersin, Hacilar and Catal Hoyuk. The Middle Chalcolithic (c.5500-c.4000 BC) is used to refer to a ‘dark’ period, when many sequences north of the Taurus ceased.

During the Early Chalcolithic much of the territory south of the Tarsus was associated with the Halaf culture of Upper Mesopotamia. In the southeast, Domuztepe (south of Kahramanmaras) was a huge settlement of about 20 hectares (≈50 acres) dated as later stages of the Early Halaf into the Late Halaf (c.6100-c.5450 BC). A Later Halaf level had architecture of the tholos type and walls set on stone foundations. Rectilinear mud brick buildings continue into the Ubaid. The so-called ‘Death Pit’, an earthen grave approximately 3 in diameter and 1.5m deep, contained disarticulated bones of about forty individuals and a large number of animals.

In the northwest, Ilipinar Hoyuk on the Bosporus (c.6200-c.5500 BC) has an initial phase of single-roomed houses built of mud slabs, followed by a phase with mud brick multi-roomed two-storied houses of central Anatolian type. 

The Late Chalcolithic (c.4000-c.3100 BC) is marked by the emergence from the Ubaid horizon of a series of local centres in the Syro-Anatolian regions. While the extraordinary fertility of the south Mesopotamian alluvium generated the agricultural surplus that was the foundation of the earliest known urbanised state, the plains were not well-endowed with the raw materials required for the further development of the ancient societies. The establishment of the so-called Uruk colonies along the Euphrates in Syria and eastern Anatolia, the so-called Uruk expansion that took place after 3500 BC, was probably a continuation of an old south Mesopotamian interest in east Anatolian minerals, mainly copper. 

In the southeast, Norsuntepe (southeast of Elazig) is a ten hectare (≈25 acres) site where excavations have revealed a sequence of occupation from Chalcolithic to Iron Age times. The earliest levels show connections with the Halaf and Ubaid horizons. During the occupation contemporary with the Late Uruk period, architecture becomes more elaborate and contains a probable copper foundry. Arslantepe (northeast of Malatya) was occupied from the Chalcolithic to late Roman times. Monumental mud brick buildings (VII) referable to the Late Chalcolithic and positioned directly under the monumental building of the successive period (VIA), suggests that there was already an emerging elite.

Hacinebi Tepe on the Euphrates just north of the Turkish/Syrian border has early sequence (phases A and B1) dating to before the Uruk expansion and referred to as the ‘Pre-contact period’. During the later phase B2 (c.3700-c.3300 BC) unmistakable evidence of a minority trading colony from Uruk appears in Hacinebi’s record: ceramics, architecture, stamp seals, jewellery and bitumen of Mesopotamian origin.

Hassek Hoyuk on the Turkish Euphrates had a fortified settlement dominated by a pair of compartmentalised buildings. The compound included grain storage facilities and work areas. Although the ceramics have a strong presence of Uruk origin, the local ceramics are equally well represented.

In the east the character of the eastern highlands began to change. Known as the Kura-Araxes culture (the sites are drained by the Kura and Araxes rivers), the ceramics form one of the most distinctive archaeological horizons of the Near East. Sos Hoyuk (east of Erzurum) has provided important chronological details. In the west, Beycesultan (southwest of Civril) has provided a key stratigraphic sequence of forty levels that run from the Late Chalcolithic to the terminal Bronze Age.