Archaeobotany at Early Neolithic (PPNB) Aşıklı Höyük - M. Ergun, G. Duru, N. Kayacan, M. Özbaşaran

Описание: Archaeobotany at Early Neolithic (PPNB) Aşıklı Höyük:
Exploring The Beginning of Agriculture and Sedentary Life in
Cappadocia, Central Anatolia
Müge Ergun[1], Güneş Duru[2], Nurcan Kayacan[3], Mihriban Özbaşaran[4]
[1] School of Archaeology, University of Oxford
[2] Conservation and Restoration Department, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University
[3] Department of Prehistory, Istanbul University
[4] Department of Prehistory, Istanbul University

31 October 2022
16.00 CET (Rome, Paris, Berlin / GMT+2)
17.00 (Istanbul, Athens / GMT+3)
10.00 (New York / GMT-4)

Aşıklı Höyük (8350–7300 cal. BCE) is an Aceramic Neolithic site
continuously inhabited for a millennium in the region today known as
Volcanic Cappadocia. The open woodland-steppes, together with the
riverine environment and volcanic formations, provided a rich and
diverse environment for the site’s inhabitants. Throughout its
occupation, lifeways at the settlement went through important changes.
While adopting a more sedentary life and forming a densely populated
early village, the community also depended more on the cultivation of
plants and caprine management, indicating a shift in their
broad-spectrum foraging strategies. This paper discusses what we know
of the beginnings of plant food production and its dynamics within
this community, and explores the trends and changes that occurred in
plant-based subsistence strategies during the long-term occupation of
the settlement. The paper also explores how plant cultivation and the
growing emphasis on food production influenced the Aceramic Neolithic
community and shaped people’s lives both in socio-cultural and
economic respects. Being one of the earliest settlements in Volcanic Cappadocia and one of the few known 9th–8th millennium cal BCE settlements from Central Anatolia,
Aşıklı Höyük provides the great opportunity to investigate the
beginnings of agriculture and Neolithic sedentary life on a local
scale in this part of Southwest Asia.