Book Reviews

The Neolithic of Central Anatolia: Internal Developments and External Relations during the 9th
6th Millennia CAL BC: Proceedings of the International CANeW Table Ronde, Istanbul, 2324
November 2001, edited by Frdric Grard and
Laurens Thissen. Istanbul: Ege Yaynlar, 2002. vii
+ 348 pp., 37 gures, 8 tables, 1 map, 5 charts.
Paper. $30.00.

A total of six papers, including two appendixes, deal

with problems of chronology and terminology: L. Thissen,
Time Trajectories for the Neolithic of Central Anatolia
(pp. 1326) and Appendix I. The CANeW 14C Databases:
Anatolia, 10,0005000 cal bc (pp. 299337); F. Grard,
CANeW Archaeological Sites Database, Central Anatolia,
10,0005000 cal bc (pp. 33948); C. Cessford, Bayesian Statistics and the Dating of atalhyk East (pp.
2731); P. Kuniholm and M. Newton, Radiocarbon and
Dendrochronology (pp. 27577); M. zbavaran and H.
Buitenhuis, Proposal for a Regional Terminology for
Central Anatolia (pp. 6777). The regional terminology
proposed by M. zbavaran and H. Buitenhuis, adopting the
term ECA (Early Central Anatolia), is more or less what
is also proposed by R. Matthews (compare the proposed
periodization tables 1 and 2, pp. 91103). Using the term
ECA for Central Anatolia, or EA (Early Anatolia) for
the prehistoric and protohistoric sequences of Anatolia,
will create harmony with the Cycladic, Helladic, or
Cypriote sequences. Choosing this terminological option one could then assign Early Anatolian I with its
subdivisions for the entire Neolithic period, starting from
its Aceramic phase (as EA Ia, EA Ib, EA Ic, etc.).
Then EA II with its subdivisions could be assigned for
the entire Chalcolithic period, and EA III with its subphases can dene the Early Bronze Age. Such a scheme is
exible enough to incorporate cultural subphases yet to be
discovered.
Two articles cover the topic of natural environment:
C. Kuzucuoglu, The Environmental Frame in Central
Anatolia from the 9th to the 6th Millennia cal. bc (pp.
3358), and H. Woldring, Climate Change and the Onset
of Sedentism in Cappadocia (pp. 5966). Both emphasize the well-known fact that continuity or change was
dictated primarily, though not solely, by the degree of
environmental stability or instability. They explain the
palaeoenvironmental differences between the Konya Plain
and Cappadocia as the consequence of macro- and microclimatic variations due to spells or cycles of change in the
seasonality of winds, temperatures, and precipitation. Thus,
they reafrm the conviction of some of us that at the core
of chronological differences in the emergence of similar
patterns of settlement (subsistence oriented, trade oriented,
long or short duration, seasonality, large versus small villages, clusters versus isolated villages, organization) lays
the environmental factor guiding the subsistence-related
activities of hunter-gatherers. Such scientic explanations
make even the most skeptical among archaeologists begin
to realize that even a relatively short-term instability in
climatic conditions could have affected the living conditions in a particular environmental niche by affecting the
growth and migratory patterns of food resources and the
subsistence requirements of those dependent on them.

This book is a compilation of papers presented during

the Central Anatolian Neolithic Workshop held in Istanbul. Prior to their presentation, during the two days of the
workshop, 2324 November 2001, most of the problematic topics were deliberated among members of the discussion groups, and with them, through a series of e-mail
exchanges. In scientic meetings held in Turkey, this is a
welcome novelty that should perhaps become a norm when
organizing problem-oriented colloquia and workshops in
the eld of Anatolian archaeology.
Reading the proceedings of the CANeWa total of 27
articles, including transcripts of the discussions that followed each paperone gets the feeling that the current
differences of opinion on various subjects, and in particular those relating to terminology, natural environment, or
chronology, are not easy to bridge.
In his paper On Terminology in Near Eastern Prehistory (pp. 710), J. Perrot rightly points out that archaeology as a discipline suffers from a state of confusion due to
the bulk of archaeological data and simultaneously . . .
big gaps in knowledge. His remarks concerning the
weakness of a poorly structured ensemble of information,
the scientic status of which is still tentative; and, perhaps
rst of all, our vocabulary and terminology [which] remain
inadequate or his declaration that the archaeological
reality is a reality that owes much to the imagination and
intuition of the excavator reect his skepticism concerning the currently used methods in archaeology. Referring
to the value of interdisciplinary scientic research, Perrot
expresses his view quite bluntly: The numerous specialists from various disciplines that the archaeologist invites
to scrutinize the reality that he lays before them are not
always aware of its limitations; just as the archaeologist
is not always conscious of the frailties of the disciplines
whose advice he seeks. The equivocal interdisciplinary,
not only for archaeology, muddles the reconstruction of
what really happened, the nature and turn of events that
are the raw materials of historical reconstruction (p. 7).
The papers in the book cover a variety of topics ranging from terminology and chronology to natural environment, including archaeozoology and archaeobotany; from
settlement forms and social structure to aspects of culture
and spiritual symbolism.

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BOOK REVIEWS

Three papers provide a detailed overview on the state

of archaeozoological and archaeobotanical research and
ndings relating to the subsistence strategies of Neolithic
Anatolian communities: Eleni Asouti and Andrew Fairbairn, Subsistence Economy in Central Anatolia during
the Neolithic: The Archaeobotanical Evidence (pp. 181
92); Louis Martin, Nerissa Russell, and Denise Carruthers
Animal Remains from the Central Anatolian Neolithic
(pp. 193216); and Hijlke Buitenhuis, Two Annotated
Charts of the State of Archaeozoological Research in
Central and Western Anatolia, 10,0005000 cal bc (pp.
21718). On the origins of agriculture in Central Anatolia,
Asouti and Fairbairn consider the possibility that it may
have been introduced by colonizing agriculturalists from
the southeast (p. 189). As for faunal patterning at principal
Neolithic sites in Central Anatolia, Martin, Russell, and
Carruthers draw our attention to the fact that Avkl Hyk
shows evidence for the appropriation of sheep and goat
by human groups, but no full domestication, whereas at
atalhyk East there is evidence for full mixed farming
and domestication of sheep and goat from the earliest
known deposits (p. 203).
Two papers contribute to the general topic of settlement forms, locations, and environmental contexts: Geoffrey Summers, Concerning the Identication, Location
and Distribution of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Settlements in Central Anatolia (pp. 13137); and Douglas
Baird, Early Holocene Settlement in Central Anatolia:
Problems and Prospects as Seen from the Konya Plain
(pp. 13959). Summers dwells on the likely reasons for
the elusiveness of Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlements,
which in turn can explain their sparse distribution in the
central Anatolian plateau. Bairds paper focuses on the
importance of combining geomorphological and geoarchaeological approaches in designing intensive eld surveys. He suggests that evidence collected through such an
interdisciplinary approach can go a long way in explaining changes in the social landscape of settlement during
the early Holocene. In the Konya Plain, he believes that
uctuations in population aggregation and dispersal were
quite independent of specic environmental developments.
His ndings in a certain way may challenge the assessments of Kuzucuoglu and Woldring.
Two papers deal with the question of social structure:
F. Grard, Transformations and Societies in the Neolithic
of Central Anatolia (pp. 10517); and I. Caneva, Ethnicity as a Form of Social Relationship between Neolithic
Cilicia and Central Anatolia (pp. 11928). Grard tries
to dene the nature of sociocultural transformations in
Central Anatolia between 7500 and 5500 b.c. His briey
presented suggestions triggered a long debate that made
very little headway on the subject. Canevas paper focuses
on the notion of ethnicity in ancient societies and proposes
a more complex approach in explaining the reasons for the
emergence of cultural variability even within a circumscribed, homogeneous territory and limited time span.

BASOR 331

A total of seven papers deal with various cultural aspects of the Central Anatolian Neolithic: Roger Matthews,
Homogeneity versus Diversity: Dynamics of the Central
Anatolian Neolithic (pp. 91104); Didier Binder, Stones
Making Sense: What Obsidian Could Tell Us about the
Origins of the Central Anatolian Neolithic (pp. 7990);
Clemens Lichter, Central Western AnatoliaA Key Region in the Neolithisation of Europe? (pp. 16169); Gnev
Duru, Some Architectural Indications for the Origins of
Central Anatolia (pp. 17180); Bleda Dring, Cultural
Dynamics of the Central Anatolian Neolithic: The Early
Ceramic NeolithicLate Ceramic Neolithic Transition
(pp. 21935); Mehmet zdogan, Dening the Neolithic
of Central Anatolia (pp. 25361); and Harald Hauptmann, Upper Mesopotamia in Its Regional Context during the Early Neolithic (pp. 26371). Matthews examines
the likely role of internal and external dynamics in the
establishment of the Neolithic cultural identity in Central
Anatolia. Taking into consideration the currently available
lithic and radiometric data, Binder proposes a four-stage
development in the Neolithization process in Central Anatolia that lasted between prior to 8600 and 6700 cal b.c.
zdogan, using his advantage of detailed knowledge of
the eld and archaeological data, provides a brief but very
important overview of the Central Anatolian Neolithic. He
proposes to try to see Central Anatolia as a frontier zone,
or as a bridge, representing a different model of neolithisation (p. 258). Hauptmann, focusing mainly on southeastern Anatolian Aceramic Neolithic sites, draws our attention
to the possibility that the spread of farming during the
neolithisation of the Anatolian highlands from a common
source in Upper Mesopotamia and the Levant may have
inuenced also the symbolic world of Neolithic Central
Anatolia, materialized in the art of atalhyk (p. 267).
The paper of Damien Bischoff, Symbolic Worlds of
Central and Southeast Anatolia in the Neolithic (pp. 237
51), speculates on the spiritual world of hunter-gatherer
and farming communities. Bischoff rightly points out that
in the shamanistic cosmos of the hunter-gatherers, with
its telluric and chthonic forces, hunters could have tried
to attain a mystical symbiosis with the animal world.
Changes in the cosmic order would have occurred, according to Bischoff, during the Achieved Neolithic stage
when farmers are supposed to have mastered their environment (p. 238). Mystical solidarity with vegetation,
periodic world renovation through chthonic fertility, and
social order are perceived as the basis of the new cosmic
order.
Finally, Appendix II: The CANeW Central Anatolian
sites Database, 10,0005000 cal bc by Frdric Grard
(pp. 33948) is a useful addition to this book.
The discussion sessions that followed the papers demonstrate the divergence of views concerning certain topics.
On the question of terminology, the necessity for an alternative nomenclature to replace the currently used cultural
periodizations, such as Epipalaeolithic, Aceramic or Pre-

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BOOK REVIEWS

Pottery Neolithic, Early and Late Neolithic, or Early, Middle, and Late Chalcolithic, is understandably not shared by
all. Nevertheless, the view that cultural periods should not
be dened according to single material-culture elements
stands a good chance of obtaining a broader consensus.
Since archaeology investigates the social, economic, technologic, and spiritual aspects of a culture through their
artifactual and nonartifactual assemblages, cultural denitions should be more descriptive. For instance, the term
Aceramic Neolithic does not really dene the subsistence
strategy of hunter-gatherer communities settled in permanent villages, involved or not yet involved in food-plant
cultivation and animal domestication. By the same token,
this term is hardly appropriate to describe the culture of
hunter-gatherers whose high technological achievements
in monumental architecture and plastic art, or economic
activities and social complexity were in many ways more
impressive than anything observed in the Pottery Neolithic period. In the absence of a clear consensus for an
alternative terminology, it is certain that this traditional
nomenclature is bound to remain in use for some time to
come. In my opinion, the term Prehistoric Village Culture as a general denition for the Neolithic and Chalcolithic entities and their particular cultural frameworks
could be an appropriate alternative. This term then could
be either preceded by a reference to the level of technology (e.g., Pre-Pottery Stage, Pottery Stage, Painted
Pottery Stage), and/or followed by a time-scale reference
(e.g., Prehistoric Village Culture of the Sixth Millennium
b.c.). It is important to point out that the hunting and gathering mode of subsistence, which was sometimes accompanied by selective cultivation of wild food-plants and
perhaps by local attempts to keep certain wild food-animals in captivity, continued to be pursued at different
levels of intensity by most village communitieseven by
those already involved in broad range cultivation and
domestication, in other words, in mixed farming. As for
the use of the term Chalcolithic in reference to painted
potteryproducing early village communities of the late
sixth/early fth millennium b.c., it remains a misnomer
in view of the fact that a basic copper metallurgy existed
in parts of Anatolia long before the introduction of pottery. One can argue that this know-how at such an early
time was not applied to the manufacture of household
implements, but mainly trinkets. Nevertheless, it still indicates that some sedentarized hunter-gatherer communities in Anatolia were successfully experimenting with a
technology complex enough that it required at least some
familiarity with mineral identication, as well as cold working, annealing, and smelting procedures.
This book is certainly an important addition to the long
list of scientic publications on the subject of prehistoric
Anatolia. It will be consulted by students and researchers
alike, and not only for updating purposes but also to understand the scientic limits imposed on interpretation of
archaeological data. After all, it is the interpretation of

69

archaeological data that causes the frequent divergence

of views concerning almost every possible aspect of the
Neolithic culture of Central Anatolia.
Jak Yakar
Tel Aviv University
yakar@post.tau.ac.il

The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in

the Southern Levant: New Data from the Site of
Teleilat Ghassul, Jordan, by Jaimie L. Lovell. BAR
International Series 974; Monographs of the Sydney University Teleilat Ghassul Project 1. Oxford:
Archaeopress, 2001. viii + 259 pp., 103 gures, 38
plates, 3 maps. Paper. 35.00.
The site of Teleilat Ghassul, rst discovered and excavated by A. Mallon under the auspices of the Pontical Biblical Institute (PBI) in Jerusalem during the 1920s
and 1930s, established the rst recognition of a new culture predating the Bronze Age in the southern Levant.
Ensuing debate about where the site t chronologically inspired Albright to coin the term Chalcolithic for the
period. Ren Neuville later used the term Ghassulian,
which became synonymous with this period, and established Teleilat Ghassul as the type site for the period.
Despite extensive excavations and a rich material cultural assemblage, the chronological and cultural relationships of Ghassul to other sites in the region continue to be
problematic. Efforts by archaeologists to understand the
relationship of Teleilat Ghassul to other regions, sites, and
material cultural assemblages have been hampered by the
limitations of earlier excavation methodology, older publication standards, and the absence of published precise
stratigraphic and contextual information for most artifacts.
For these reasons, the results of renewed excavations at
Ghassul by subsequent Australian teams from the University of Sydney during 19671977 (excavations led by J. B.
Hennessy) and 19941997 (excavated by S. J. Bourkes
team) are of critical importance to scholars of this period
and promise to clarify many of the questionable assumptions based on Ghassul as a type site. The Late Neolithic
and Chalcolithic Periods in the Southern Levant represents a key publication based on those more exacting eld
and analytical techniques that have the potential to establish a new, sharper understanding of this site, the period, and the relationship of Ghassul to different regional
assemblages.
The Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods in the
Southern Levant is based on the authors dissertation work
and provides a detailed analysis of ceramics, particularly
the ceramic sequence from both Hennessys and Bourkes
excavations. Material for detailed analysis is drawn from
Area A, a deep cut at the site that provides the only area
where a complete sequence is present (p. 19), and the