Veget Hist Archaeobot (2006) 15: 205–215DOI 10.1007/s00334-005-0029-3

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Laura Sadori · Francesca Susanna · Carlo Persiani

Archaeobotanical data and crop storage evidence from an earlyBronze Age 2 burnt house at Arslantepe, Malatya, Turkey

Received: 20 October 2004 / Accepted: 23 November 2005 / Published online: 3 February 2006C© Springer-Verlag 2005

Abstract Excavations on the southwest area at Arslantepe,Malatya, Turkey, by far the largest tell on the Malatya plainfrom the 5th millennium to the Neo-Hittite age, revealed animportant change in the settlement patterns during the twomain levels of the VI C Period of the site (Early BronzeAge 2, 2750–2500 cal b.c.). The latter level correspondsto a village founded on neatly shaped terraces in a layoutwhich lasted for centuries, well into the following EarlyBronze Age 3. This continuity was not broken even by vi-olent fires that at times destroyed some houses, producinga huge quantity of charred plant remains, which comprisedfruits, seeds and wood charcoal. The archaeobotanical dataso far obtained from the EB2 house A607, the richest onein macro-remains, on which efforts have been concentratedfirst, provides much data about the use of the surround-ing land. Charcoal of Quercus (deciduous oaks) (85%)followed by Populus (poplar) (9%) are dominant amongwood remains, while Hordeum (barley) (70%) is the domi-nant crop found, followed by Cicer (chickpea) (17%). Thecrop storage methods were investigated by mapping thepositions of charred fruits and seeds both according to thegrid system and in comparison to the layout of facilities(grinding stone, hearths, oven) and the distribution of pot-tery (jars, bowls, pots) in order to detect where the cropswere kept and the ways in which they were stored, pro-cessed, and used. The house facilities and furniture suggestthat the house was a multifunctional place, which includedstorage space, but which was limited to household needs.

L. Sadori (�) · F. SusannaDipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, Universita di Roma “LaSapienza”,P.le A. Moro 5,00185 Roma, Italye-mail: laura.sadori@uniroma1.it

C. PersianiSovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali del Comune di Roma,Viale Ostiense 106,00154 Roma, ItalyMissione Archeologica Italiana nell’Anatolia Orientale,Universita di Roma “La Sapienza”e-mail: c.persiani@comune.roma.it

The new archaeobotanical investigation so far carried outon the burnt house A607 suggests some implications onthe degree of agriculture, on crop storage and on food pro-cessing practises and also gives information on the naturallandscape surrounding the site.

Keywords Archaeobotany . Charred seeds and fruitsstorage . Charcoals . Eastern Anatolia . Early BronzeAge Arslantepe

Introduction

Arslantepe is a tell located in eastern Turkey (Figs. 1a, b ande), 6 km north of the city of Malatya (941 m a.s.l.) and 15 kmsouth of the right bank of the river Euphrates, at the centreof a fertile, well watered and widely cultivated plateau. TheItalian Archaeological Mission in eastern Anatolia financedby Universita “La Sapienza” of Rome started excavationsin 1961, first led by S.M. Puglisi, later by A. Palmieri andat present by M. Frangipane. The finds discussed here wereexcavated in 1991 under the field responsibility of one ofthe authors (c.p).

Literature on archaeobotanical evidence in the Ar-slantepe region is rather scarce and often sparse inlocal reviews and in interim excavation reports, al-though there are several Bronze Age sites investigatedin the region. In the last decade Nesbitt and Samuel(Nesbitt 1995; Nesbitt and Samuel 1996) gathered allthe information available then on archaeobotanical re-search in Turkey. Miller (2004) recently reported on theweb (http://WWW.sas.upenn.edu/∼nmiller0/turkey.html)the available literature on archaeobotanical studies inTurkey, while an archaeobotanical database of easternMediterranean and Near Eastern sites has been createdby Riehl (http://www.cuminum.de/archaeobotany). A de-tailed list of the archaeological settlements of Turkeycan be found at the web address of the Tay Project(http://www.tayproject.org/veritabeng.html). A big im-pulse to the research in the regions near Arslantepe was

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Fig. 1 Arslantepe (Malatya).a. Map of Turkey, the rectanglemarks the archaeological site; b.the mound with the VI C periodfinds area; c. map of late VI Cbuilding level; d. pit andpost-hole building of early VIC; e. aerial view of the mound

given by the building of the Keban and Karakaya damsbetween the 1960s and the 1980s, when many results wereproduced from the Altınova plain Bronze Age settlements(Van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres 1975; Kosay 1976). The agediscussed in this paper, Early Bronze Age 2 (2750–2500years cal b.c.) belongs to a period when the Malatya—Elazıg region was settled by groups with different culturalbackgrounds, and with deeply diverging social and eco-nomic systems. Thus, a useful parallel for the case studycan be found in sites like Korucutepe, Tepecik and Pulur-

Sakyol in the Altınova Plain (Van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres1975; Kosay 1976) with remains belonging to the East-Anatolian Transcaucasian cultural complex.

Environmental setting

The Malatya plain lies in a tectonic depression with meanannual temperatures lower than those of its surroundingsand mean annual precipitation of about 400 mm. The

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Table 1 Arslantepe (Malatya).Archaeological phases and theirchronologies

General chronological sequenceof eastern Anatolia

Arslantepeperiods

date, cal b.c main cultural sequence of Anatolia,Syria and Mesopotamia

Late Roman and Byzantine age IIron Age II-III 1100–712 Neo-Hittite kingdomsLate Bronze Age 2 IV 1600–1200 Middle Hittite kingdom and Hittite

empire ageLate Bronze Age 1 VB 1750–1600 Old Hittite kingdomMiddle Bronze Age VA 2000–1750 age of Old Assyrian coloniesEarly Bronze Age 3 VID 2500–2000 Early Dynastic IIIb, III Ur dynastyEarly Bronze Age 2 VIC 2750–2500 Early Dynastic II-IIIaEarly Bronze Age 1 VIB1/VIB2 3000–2750 Jemdet Nasr and Early Dynastic ILate Chalcholithic 5/late Uruk VIA 3350–3000 Late Uruk cultureLate Chalcholithic 3-4 VII 3800–3400 Ancient and Middle Uruk cultureLate Chalcholithic 1-2 VIII 4250–3900 end of Ubaid culture

climate is of a semi-arid type and not sub-humid as in theclose-by Taurus mountains where the precipitation is be-tween 600 and 1000 mm/yr. Nevertheless the surroundingsof Arslantepe are favoured by a privileged hydrogeologicalsituation due to the presence of a number of springs from theoutcrop of water-bearing strata, which make the land sur-rounding the tell particularly fertile and exploitable from anagricultural point of view (Marcolongo and Palmieri 1983).

Malatya is located in the east Anatolian phytogeograph-ical region, close to the meeting point of three differentphytogeographical areas. The naturally watered soil al-lows the growth of a mesophilous vegetation, while thepotential vegetation of the plain would consist of decidu-ous broadleaved woods, with montane coniferous woodsand mixed broadleaf and conifer woods on the Antitaurusmountains, some tens of kilometres north of the investi-gated site (Atalay 1994).

The archaeological site

The mound, about 30 m high, is far the largest in theMalatya plain and was settled almost without break fromat least the early 5th millennium b.c. to the Neo-HittiteAge (Figs. 1b, 1e). The general sequence of the excavatedlevels is now divided into eight main periods (I–VIII, Ta-ble 1). Late Chalcolithic 5 and Early Bronze Age levels aregrouped in Period VI with four main divisions from A toD. The excavation revealed repeated changes of settlementstructure, from mud brick architecture with huge publicbuildings to wooden huts, and again to a well planned mudbrick village (Frangipane and Palmieri 1983; Frangipane1993). This paper deals with Period VI C of the site cor-responding to Early Bronze Age 2, about 2750–2500 calb.c., the chronology of which was established on the basisof both cross-dating (Conti and Persiani 1993) and an im-portant set of radiocarbon dates from every level (Alessioet al. 1983). Most important for VI C is a set of seven datesfrom building A607 discussed in this paper (Calderoni et al.1994) which belongs to the end of period VI C. These datescluster into two groups: 2860–2490 and 2560–2340 cal b.c.(1 σ-range). As the earlier group comprises samples from

either cereals or charcoal from a fireplace, it appears a soundrange and, if balanced with the more recent group, suggeststhat the overlapping time span of 2560–2490 cal b.c. canbe considered as the limit between period VI C and VI D.

The two main levels of Period VI C show importantchanges in the settlement pattern. The earliest level com-prises a series of wooden structures and mud brick housessurrounded by several storage pits and round activity ar-eas, the positions of which shifted repeatedly with time(Fig. 1d). Houses of this period were deserted after a shortlife, pits filled with rubbish and new ones were dug throughtheir remains. This settlement instability, together with thepresence of secondary burials in some activity areas, as wellas the regional settlement pattern, suggest the presence ofa somewhat restless village society (Persiani, in press). Incontrast, the last level corresponds to a solidly founded vil-lage with a layout that lasted for centuries, well into thefollowing Period VI D (Fig. 1c).

A violent fire completely destroyed room A607 theconsequent collapse of its ceiling and walls covered itssmashed and burned furniture (Fig. 2, Conti and Persiani1993) and many plant macro-remains were preserved thereby charring. A607 belongs to a building complex composedof a series of rooms with an internal layout dominated bya large central fireplace with a horseshoe shaped andirona layout appearing with little changes in many EB2-3sites of the Malatya-Elazig region, the first phase of A607likewise. Later on, A607 was rearranged into two smallerrooms communicating by a central doorway, each onehaving a separate entrance from the western courtyard, andalmost all its facilities were doubled. The room was filledby two strata: above there was a mixture of burnt debris andstumps of mud bricks, and directly lying on the floor therewas a layer of charred organic matter and many potsherds.

Some other EB2-3A buildings were found in a state sim-ilar to A607 in the Keban dam area sites: Norsuntepe,Tepecik, Korucutepe and Pulur-Sakyol (Hauptmann 1982;Esin 1972; Van Loon 1978; Kosay 1976). Unfortunately,so far almost all have only been published in interim re-ports, but data show that large storage vases are quite rare.A situation much more similar to the storage rooms of As-siros (Jones et al. 1986) is visible only at the very end of

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Fig. 2 Arslantepe (Malatya),period VIC. Room A607; a.general view from North; b, c,d. close up of wooden remainsfrom the floor

EB3 in the so called “palace” of Norsuntepe (Hauptmann1969/1970).

Materials and methods

Botanical samples from Chalcolithic to Bronze Age lev-els were always collected according to a topographicaland stratigraphical reference system (Follieri and Coccolini1983; Follieri and Sadori 2001; Sadori et al. 1990; Sadoriand Susanna 2004; Sadori et al. 2004). The rich finds inA607 solicited a particularly careful retrieval of data. Thepositions of charred wooden beams, fruits and seeds was

fixed using a grid system and mapped against those of ves-sels in order to recognize their original positions and theircontents (Fig. 3).

From the floor of the room A607, 30 samples containingseeds and fruits, taken either in topographical or strati-graphical order, have been analysed so far. They were drysieved directly on site using sieves of 5, 2 and 0.5 mm.The water separation method was not applied to avoidthe complete deterioration of charred plant remains. Thecharred remains were sorted, examining all the fractions.The charred plant remains were generally in a rather poorstate of preservation and often fragmented. Charcoal anal-yses were carried out on 49 samples, first using a reflected

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Fig. 3 Arslantepe (Malatya),period VI C. Room A607;distribution of in situ potteryand botanical samples. Vesselsare represented to scale andlabelled according to Fig. 4.The shadowed area marks theboundary of charred seeds andfruits dispersion

light microscope, and then, for detailed wood identifica-tions a Nomarski microscope (phase contrast microscopewith differential interference contrast) was used. In somecases a scanning electron microscope turned out to be usefultoo. For charcoal identification the anatomical descriptionsand diagnostic surface photographs available in Fahn et al.(1986), Greguss (1955, 1959), Schoch et al. (1988) andSchweingruber (1978, 1990) were employed. Seed and fruitidentifications were carried out with a reflected light mi-croscope at different magnifications. A video camera wasconnected to a computer for measuring and image analy-ses using the LUCIA software. Botanical nomenclature forcrop names follows Jacomet (1987), Renfrew (1973), VanZeist (1984) and Zohary and Hopf (1993). Mansfeld’s En-cyclopedia of Agricultural and Horticultural Crops (Haneltand Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research,2001) was consulted.

Results

The archaeological evidence

The painstaking mapping of every item permitted a recon-struction of the original positions of the vessels, even whentheir sherds lay scattered from the conflagration. Out of 35restored vessels found inside the filling layers, 18 lay onthe floor. Among these, three are pithoi, eight jars, threepots with triangular lugs on the rim, one large bowl, onesmall painted jar and two imported Metallic Ware vessels:one cup and one jarlet (Figs. 4 and 5). The sherds of an

Fig. 4 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VIC. Room A607; estimatedvolume of vessels found on the floor

additional 17 vessels lay in the upper filling debris, in astratigraphical position that suggested that they had fallendown from above, for instance from a terrace roof. But somevessels among those on the floor—especially the smallerones—could also have fallen down from a wooden shelf orsome other resting place.

In spite of the chaotic situation following the fire, theboundary of the area covered by charred seeds was ratherclear, partly overlapping with the position of vessels. Threeof them are cooking pots and only three are large storagepithoi. Pithoi always have flat bases and no resting placeson the floor were detected for larger ones.

An oven (a in Fig. 6) with a flat vault and a side channelto sweep out ashes, two fireplaces (b, c), working platforms(d, e), sitting benches all around the walls (f, g), mortarsbuilt inside the floor (h, i), and grinding stones (j, k) wereexcavated. A group of burnt stakes connected to holes (l)

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Fig. 5 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VI C. Room A607; pottery. a.pot; b. jar; c. pithos (photos by Roberto Ceccacci)

near the oven (a) seems to be the remains of a woodenframework for such activities as drying or weaving. A largestump of the central post was found (m), still resting on astone base. Unfortunately, after the fire a large part of theroom was cut away by two pits, marked by a dotted line inthe illustration (Figs. 3 and 6).

One pit cut away its north-eastern corner where perhapsan oven was situated like the one in the south-western cor-ner. A grinding stone was embedded in the southern bench,while two others were lying near the western working bench(Fig. 6).

The archaeobotanical data

In Fig. 3 the area with a concentration of seeds and fruitsis shadowed, while charcoal was sparse in the whole room.The results of macro-remains analyses are summarized inTables 2 and 3 (seeds and fruits found in a large quantitywere measured and the data summarized in Table 4), andthe charcoal data is shown in Table 5 and Fig. 6.

Charred seeds and fruits

A total of about 13,000 unbroken charred seeds and fruitsplus many identifiable fragments have been ascribed toeight taxa (Table 2), of which seven are cultivated plants.

Hordeum vulgare L. ssp. distichum (two row barley)(>70%) is the dominant crop (Table 2), with very badpreservation, always hulled, never germinated caryopses;their ventral furrow is straight, never twisted (Fig. 7). Norachis parts were found. At Arslantepe there is no evidenceof beer brewing, as barley caryopses were not germinatedand no remains of beer-flavouring plants have been found(Van Zeist 1991). Follieri and Coccolini (1983) recordedcharred hulled barley in the underlying burnt levels of thesame site belonging to Late Chalcolithic 5 (VI A, 3350-3000 cal b.c.) and Early Bronze Age 1 (VI B2, 2800-2750 cal b.c.). More than 50% showed a twisted ventralfurrow on asymmetrical caryopses. The average measure-ments show lower values than the two-rowed hulled barleyof A607. Archaeobotanical data from Anatolia, Syria andMesopotamia (Miller 1991; Schwartz et al. 2000) seems toindicate that two-rowed barley was an important crop at thebeginning of and during the 3rd millennium b.c. Van Zeistand Bakker-Heeres (1975) found in the samples of the thirdmillennium from Korucutepe and Tepecik the same type ofcharred barley of A607, two-rowed, with symmetrical andhulled grains; the caryopses were in both sites smaller thanthose from Arslantepe. At Pulur-Sakyol, another site onthe Altınova Plain, Kosay (1976) reports the presence ofcharred caryopses of Hordeum vulgare L. convar. distichonAlef. s.l. (two-rowed barley). At the pre-pottery Neolithicsite of Asikli Hoyuk, central Anatolia (6000–5500 cal b.c.)which is some millennia older, Van Zeist and de Roller(1995) also found two types of two-rowed hulled barley,both domesticated and wild as well as a few naked barleygrains. Only two fragments of barley caryopses were foundat the pre-pottery site of Cayonu (7500–6500 b.c., Van Zeist1972) suggesting that the plant was not growing in the area.Recently at the Neolithic site of Catalhoyuk, Fairbairn et al.(2002) identified only domesticated six-rowed naked barleyfrom two rich deposits of the pre-pottery phase.

Table 2 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VI C. Room A607; charredseeds and fruits

Taxa number

Hordeum vulgare ssp. distichum (grain) 9718Triticum aestivum/durum (grain) 514Triticum dicoccum (grain) 35Cicer arietinum (seed) 2308Cicer arietinum (cotyledon) 994Pisum sativum (seed) 6Pisum sativum (cotyledon) 1Lens culinaris (seed) 3Vitis vinifera (pip) 2Polygonum sp. (fruit) 3Total 13584

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Fig. 6 Arslantepe (Malatya),period VIC. Room A607;position of facilities, charredwood and in situ potteryremains on the floor; a oven, b-cfireplaces, d-e working benches,f-g sitting benches, h-i fixedmortars, j-k grinding stones, lstakes and holes, m central post

Triticum aestivum/durum is the wheat found in majorquantities (Tables 2 and 4) with more than 500 caryopses(about 4%). Their morphological features and L/B in-dices are within the range suggested by Jacomet (1987)for Triticum aestivum s. str., but due to the absence ofrachis fragments, the grains were ascribed to Triticum aes-tivum/durum. The absence of T. monococcum, and the pres-ence of only few T. dicoccum grains (<1%, Table 2) inhouse A607 is in contrast to the previous level VI B2 whereimportant quantities were found (Sadori et al. 1990). Fur-ther investigations are necessary to clarify whether finds ofA607 are an exception or a rule for the investigated period(2750–2500 cal b.c.). Tosun (Kosay 1976) identified club,bread and durum wheats from a Late Chalcolithic room atPulur-Sakyol (Altınova plain). Nesbitt (1995) highlightedthe abrupt disappearance of both einkorn and emmer wheatfrom the archaeological record in southeast Turkey at about3000 b.c.

Cicer arietinum L. represents the second important crop(17%, Table 2) with small (Table 4), angular and not verywell preserved seeds (Fig. 8). Its probable wild ancestor,C. reticulatum Ladiz. was described by Ladizinsky (1975)from a rather remote, relatively small area of southeastTurkey (Hopf 1986), not far from the study site. Moderncultivars of C. arietinum largely used in the area of Ar-slantepe have small, dark-coloured seeds similar at firstsight to those found in A607 and in the Altınova plain(Van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres 1975). Chick pea was notdocumented for the Late Chalcolithic and Early BronzeAge 1 at Arslantepe by Follieri and Coccolini (1983). Thechick pea seeds from Korucutepe (Van Zeist and Bakker-

Heeres 1975) are slightly smaller than those measured atArslantepe (Table 4). In Neolithic sites in Anatolia, thepresence of poorly preserved Cicer seeds was reported fromCayonu (Van Zeist 1972), while slightly fewer than 200seeds of Cicer were found at Catalhoyuk, far away from thenatural distribution area of the wild species. For this reasonthey were ascribed to C. cf. arietinum (Fairbairn et al. 2002)even though showing a morphology compatible either withC. arietinum or with its wild progenitor C. reticulatum.

A few other cultivated plants were found in negligiblequantities, suggesting a completely fortuitous presence,Pisum sativum L. (pea) (6 seeds), Lens culinaris Medik.(lentil) (3 seeds), and Vitis vinifera L. (grape) (2 pips).Only one pip was found complete, with morphologicalfeatures of the wild type. The Stummer (1911) index,67 (=breadth/length ×100) resulted in the intermediatetype between wild and cultivated vine. Pips of both typeswere found in storerooms of the Late Chalcolithic (periodVI A, 3350–3000 cal b.c.) at Arslantepe (Belisario et al.1994), suggesting that at this site domestication was justbeginning at the end of Chalcolithic, as Arslantepe atpresent lies outside the range of the wild Vitis (Zoharyand Spiegel-Roy 1975). As only three fruits of the weedPolygonum sp. were found near the fireplace, the cropswere probably carefully sifted.

Charcoal

Charred wood, sometimes in small fragments, was recov-ered in large quantities. More than 2.5 kg charcoal has been

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Table 3 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VI C. Room A607; charred seeds and fruits (samples connected to pottery); weight (g) in brackets

Taxa Hordeum vulgare ssp.distichum

T.aest./durum

Triticumdicoccum

Cicer arietinum Pisumsativum

Lensculinaris

Sample MinusculeGrains

fragm grains grains seeds cotyledons fragm seeds seeds

1045 236 (2.7) (1.87) 5 (0.05)1048 1317 (17.14) (19.15) 20 (0.2) 1 (0.01)1050 47 (0.54) (0.35) 1 (0.01) 258 (8.12) 139 (2.29) (2.91)1051 199 (2.44) (2.89) 1 (0.01)1053 88 (1.23) (0.29) 1 (0.01)1054 45 (0.48) (1.55)1055 227 (2.56) (4.94) 17 (0.16) 5 (0.05)1056 114 (1.49) (1.32) 1 (0.01)1062 5 (0.06) (0.11) 435 (14.68) 188 (3.11) (6.12)1073 216 (2.62) (3.84) 6 (0.06)1080 136 (1.61) (1.72)1771 111 (1.42) (1.52)1775 469 (7.54) (8.69) 12 (0.12)1780 281 (4.1) (1.06) 8 (0.1) 1 (0.01)1785 556 (8.36) (7.27) 1 (0.01)1793 70 (0.87) (1.18) 1 (0.01)1799 25 (0.3) (0.49) 1 (0.01) 566 (17.58) 266 (4.19) (7.82)1801 252 (3.06) (4.61) 1 (0.01)1811 419 (5.13) (9.87) 6 (0.07) 1 (0.01) 1 (0.01)Total 4813 (63.66) (71.4) 81 (0.83) 6 (0.06) 1259 (40.3) 593 (9.59) 0 (16.85) 2 (0.02) 1 (0.01)

Table 4 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VI C. Room A607; measurements of seeds and fruits

Taxa type of macro-remain n Length mm [min-max(mean)]

Breadth mm[min-max (mean)]

Thickness mm[min-max (mean)]

Cicer arietinum seed 50 4.28–6.35 (5.04) 3.13–4.88 (3.9) 3.28–4.86 (4.1)Hordeum vulgare ssp. distichum caryopsis 50 5.61–8.54 (6.88) 2.6–4.37 (3.41) 2.03–5.53 (2.65)Triticum aestivum/durum caryopsis 50 4.32–6.22 (5.19) 2.05–3.86 (3.18) 2.09–3.22 (2.55)

identified (Table 5) and the largest pieces are displayedin the plan (Fig. 6). Among deciduous Quercus, Populussp. Fraxinus sp., Crataegus sp., Juniperus sp., Pinus cf.sylvestris, and Alnus sp., some charred, thin atactostele (astem with vascular bundles scattered through the pith andconcentrated in the outer portions typical of Angiosper-mae Monocotyledones) structures, generally ascribable tomonocots, were also identified.

Deciduous Quercus (oak) charcoal constitutes the ma-jor find from room A607, with more than 85%, followed

Table 5 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VI C. Room A607; charcoal

Taxa Minuscule g %

deciduous Quercus 2240 85.19Populus sp 254 9.65Fraxinus sp 5 0.17Crataegus sp 20 0.76monocots 28 1.08Juniperus sp 24 0.90Pinus cf. sylvestris 57 2.15Alnus sp 3 0.10Total 2630 100.00

Fig. 7 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VIC. Room A607; Hordeumvulgare ssp. distichum caryopsis. a. ventral, b. dorsal, c. lateral andd. top view

by Populus (poplar) (almost 10%) and Pinus (pine) (about2%) and by the other taxa of minor importance alreadymentioned. The distribution of charred wood (Fig. 6) doesnot appear to be fortuitous, but linked to the house struc-ture. The large stump of the central post (m in Fig. 6) wasmade of deciduous oak, the main wood used in the room.Charred monocotyledons (28 g) were found not far fromthe wooden structure (Figs. 6l) placed close to the oven,which was probably made of many kinds of timber and

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used for drying or weaving. There is neither archaeologicalnor archaeobotanical evidence for the use of this woodenframework, as neither loom-weights, cereals nor legumeswere found in that part of the house.

Follieri and Coccolini (1983) found charcoal of Pinussylvestris type, Quercus, Ulmus, and Populus in other Ar-slantepe contexts. The same taxa except pine were foundby Van Zeist and Bakker-Heeres (1975) in levels attributedto the end of 4th millennium at Korucutepe. New data ob-tained from the big beams of a late Chalcolithic temple ofArslantepe (Sadori et al. 2004) show a different distribu-tion of wood taxa, with riparian trees (Alnus and Populus)dominant, and mainly accompanied by conifers such as Ju-niperus and Pinus. The striking quantitative but not qual-itative difference between the charcoals of the two burntlevels could be caused either by the different skills and ac-quaintance in the use of wood in different populations, orby the different use and size of the two buildings, a tem-ple and a house respectively. A third explanation, even ifless plausible, is that of a possible change in the environ-ment between the two periods in question. A huge quantityof charred wood recovered by trench sampling and watersieving during the Asvan area excavations (Willcox 1974)seems to indicate that deciduous oaks were dominant inthe region either in the Chalcolithic or in the early BronzeAge. However, the author states that the relative abundanceof each taxon does not reflect “the species composition orfrequency of the ancient forest” (it should however be con-sidered that generally only woody taxa are preserved bycharring) and that “cultural influences affected selection offirewood and timber”. Pollen analysis can help to recon-struct the past regional vegetation of the Malatya plain inthe mid 3rd millennium B.C. In the lake Van area (Van Zeistand Woldring 1978; Van Zeist and Bottema 1982), although350 km east from Arslantepe but with a similar present-dayprecipitation regime, pollen data indicates that there was acontinuous and slight expansion of trees around between5500 and 1800 B.C. (mainly deciduous oak and secondlypine). In that period open woods with steppe plants andsparse trees were common in south-eastern Anatolia, whilein south-western regions pine was by far the dominant treeand deciduous oaks showed lower percentages (Eastwoodet al. 1999).

The dominance of deciduous oak charcoals in EB2 at Ar-slantepe is therefore well corroborated by the palaeoenvi-ronmental reconstruction of south-eastern Anatolia. Finds

Fig. 8 Arslantepe (Malatya), period VIC. Room A607; Cicer ariet-inum seed. a. ventral, b. dorsal, and c. lateral view

of Fraxinus and Rosaceae could be placed in the samecontext, while the presence of Populus and Alnus can beexplained by the existence of damp soils fed by local watersources. Conifers like scattered Pinus and Juniperus mayhave grown in the surroundings or they were brought infrom the mountains some 10 km from Arslantepe.

Discussion

The data displayed on the map (Fig. 3) shows the corre-spondence between the distribution of seeds and fruits andthe position of vessels represented at the same scale. Thereis a clear concentration of pottery, fruits and seeds in theeastern part of the house near the fireplaces, while the west-ern half was left free. The crops were probably either storedor processed in the house, but anyway carefully cleaned.Pots with triangular lugs on the rim were mainly used forcooking, and bowls for food processing and presentation,while pithoi and large jars show that A607 was used forstorage as well. They were concentrated in the central andsoutheastern parts of the room, near the fireplaces. In partic-ular chickpea concentration coincided with the two largestpithoi placed near the western working bench. Barley wasspread everywhere, but the main heap of it was near thesoutheastern bench still embedding a grinding stone. Somejars lay inside the barley distribution, but it seems reason-able that the original amount of barley was larger than thevolume of these vessels (Fig. 4). Thus the presence of sackswhich could have contained most of the crop found in thehouse cannot be denied. The sparse and negligible wheatfinds were always found in connection with barley, neverwith chick peas alone. Jones et al. (1986) reported findingscomparable to A607 and gave an insight into the agricul-tural economy on the basis of the estimated volumes ofthe pithoi, the standing places of which were detected in-side a series of store rooms at Assiros (northern Greece), aMiddle Bronze Age pre-palatial settlement. The architec-tural layout and organizational context of Assiros are quitedifferent from Arslantepe. The pottery set from A607 isnot homogeneous, since its items differ from each otherin both shape and volume, and indicate that storage waspresent, but limited to household needs. In fact, the majorpart consisted of medium sized or large jars unsuitable forlong term storage (Fig. 4), which was performed instead byseveral straw-lined storage pits like those still being usedin modern times in Altınova (Peters 1979, pp 136–137; Ta-ble 86). Besides, if it is considered that some vessels couldhave been used for water storage or for food processing, itcan be doubted whether it is really possible to assess thequantity of dry goods stored in a room like A607.

Conclusions

Even if archaeobotany in Turkey is not at all a neglecteddiscipline and new data are added every year, much workhas still to be carried out in the region of Arslantepe, andabove all in the site itself, also to establish its relationships

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with other sites in neighbouring areas like Syria andMesopotamia (e.g. Hald and Charles 2004; Van Zeistand Bakker-Heeres 1985). It has to be confirmed whethera difference in farming and land exploitation capabilitycorresponds with the different cultures following eachother on the Arslantepe mound. The archaeobotanicaldata so far obtained from house A607 has given manyinsights about the use of the surrounding land and the skillof its farmers. As soon as new data becomes availablefrom several other archaeological periods, a more precisereconstruction of the past will be possible.

The house facilities and furniture suggest that the housewas a multifunctional place, in which storage was presentbut limited to household needs. Obviously the occupantsof house A607 were capable of obtaining an almost pureyield of food grains, both depleted of cereal rachis frag-ments and weed seeds. Crops were stored according totheir type and use, with chick peas separated from bar-ley and probably kept mainly in the large storage pithoi,whereas barley was probably kept in bags, but not inwooden boxes as there are no charcoal remains in con-nection with this last find. Cereals and legumes could havebeen dried on the fixed wooden structure, placed near theoven and made of stakes of at least five kinds of wood.Charcoal analyses are not enough to reconstruct past envi-ronmental conditions because archaeological finds gener-ally do not represent the real proportions of trees in the pastlandscapes, as they may rather be linked to the expertiseand the skills in timber use of human populations exploit-ing a region. However, by putting the wood finds fromArslantepe in their palaeonvironmental context as shownby the pollen results, although from the wider area, it canbe argued that in EB2 at Arslantepe the climate was notparticularly dry and that water was freely available to itsinhabitants.

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank M. Frangipane, theDirector of Arslantepe excavations, and M. Follieri for their adviceand stimulus. Many thanks to F. Nocca for co-operation in char-coals identification, and to A. M. Conti and M. Giardini for theirsuggestions and helpful discussion.

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