Paste charaterization of 3rd and 4th millennium BCE ceramics from Arslantepe, Turkey (3350-2800 BCE)

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This research aims at defining the main characteristics of technological and compositional variability of ceramic production at Arslantepe during Periods VIA, VIB1 and VIB2 (3400-2800BC) in a framework of socioeconomic and political development. The stereomicroscope in a reflectance mode at a magnification of 1–6.3x was used to analyze a total number of 158 ceramic samples to identify and characterize the principal inclusions in the ceramic pastes, their dimensions, shape, color, concentration, distribution, which may be well-dispersed or clustered, and orientation. The stereomicroscope does not provide detailed identification of all minerals and rock types, but allows to hypothesize the presence of some lithic components which should be confirmed under the polarizing microscope. However, the presence of some inclusions such as chaff, quartz, and mica can be easily distinguished using the stereomicroscope. The nature of inclusions (lithic and mineral components, chaff, mixed) and their features (size, proportion, shape and orientation) were the primary variables for determining compositional and technological variability in the ceramic production of Arslantepe. Arslantepe is a high mound in the Malatya plain and was always the dominant center in its region. In the earliest phases of its history – the Chalcolithic period, Arslantepe had close links with the Syro-Mesopotamian world with which it shared many cultural features, structural models, and development trajectories. But in the early centuries of the 3rd millennium BC, vast changes occurred which halted the development of the Mesopotamiantype centralized system and reoriented Arslantepe‘s external relations toward Eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia.