This survey was planned with the help of the Human Environment Department of the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Fieldwork was carried out with the help of: Bayan Asuman Güngör, the government representative (from Türk İslam Müzesi, Yeşil-Bursa). We also welcomed two visitors from Ege Üniversitesi, Edebiyat Fakültesi: Mr. Kirami Ölgen (geomorphologist and research assistant of Prof, İlhan Kayan, Coğrafya Bölümü) and Dr. Halime Hüryılmaz, (archaeologist, Klasik Arkeoloji Anabilim Dalı), who came to Altınova and provided invaluable expertise. We were also greatly assisted throughout by the advice and involvement of Prof, İlhan Kayan himself before, during and after the coring. Initial analysis of the core samples was carried out at their laboratory at Ege by Prof. Kayan and Mr. Ölgen. The latter also sampled the cores and prepared the chart of the bore-hole findings. Finance was again generously provided by the BIAA and the CRF of London University. Fieldwork took place between 30th October and 8th November 1991.The aim of the survey was to study the geomorphological evolution of the Madra Çay delta and to learn more about the palaeo-environmental history of a mound located on the delta, as part of a study of prehistoric coastal settlement on the Aegean coast of Turkey. Adaptation to the environment is regarded as one of the four functional criteria of cultural systems and we wanted to find out which of the various different phases in the changing environment of the delta had attracted human occupation.

This paper presents previously unpublished material from the archives of the DAI and BSA, assessing its contribution to a better understanding of the settlement pattern on the north-east Aegean island of Lesbos in the Early Bronze Age, a period known only in terms of the single excavated sites of Thermi on its east coast. Using this new material evidence, the study places Thermi in its wider context within EBA Lesbos, demonstrating that several other EBA sites co-existed with Thermi, not only on the coast but also inland. It then places EBA settlements on the island in their west Anatolian context through an examination of ceramic parallels and affinities with mainland sites. It is argued: (1) that in view of the extensive distribution of EBA sites on Lesbos, colonization of the island must have begun long before the emergence of Thermi; (2) that several sources and mechanisms of colonization were involved in the process of settlement, which may be reflected in the fact that at least two distinct groups of sites can be identified on the island; and (3) that some of these sites appear to have relied upon agriculture rather than marine resources. Such inland agricultural sites may represent the first generation of purely endogenous communities which emerged on the island after its colonization.

In 1995 a new series of multi-disciplinary investigations were initiated by the authors into diachronic human occupation of the coastal plain at Altınova, between Ayvalık and Dikili on the Aegean coast of northwest Turkey (Fig. 1). Altınova lies approximately halfway between the much better-known (and certainly more intensively investigated) archaeological regions of Troy to the north and Bayraklı/Izmir to the south (Fig. 1). Through the plain flows the Madra Çay, and during the Holocene the river's depositional activity has created a large delta clearly visible on most maps as a projection outward into the Lesbos Channel (also known as the Mytilene/Midilli Strait), with the port of Mytilene and the marina of Thermi lying directly opposite (20 km. away) on the island of Lesbos (Fig. 1, Pl. XXII(a)). Altınova's iskele, located in a sand-spit which forms a natural marina, has developed into a modern holiday resort with 5 km. or more of holiday villas along its sandy beaches.

Assumptions are always made about the levels and directions of cultural connections across regions in western Anatolia and the eastern Aegean in the Early Bronze Age (EBA). However, a lack of primary fieldwork data still inhibits clear conclusions and an understanding of the subtleties and variations in such patterns. In particular, primary data is still lacking from the critical coastal ‘touch-point’ of these two regions where material evidence is usually obscured by significant geomorphological change. This article looks at this complex issue of variations in regional connectivity in the EBA through a case study of unpublished primary fieldwork material from the Madra River Delta, a coastal region of north-west Anatolia. Material from the excavation and surface survey of two EBA mound sites in the delta, carried out as part of the interdisciplinary research project, gives a rare opportunity to explore ‘connectivity’ on this coastal area through elements of its EBA material culture, ranging from ceramic and textile production to figurines. The article highlights not only the complex, and unexpected, nature of the inter-regional cultural ‘pathways’ visible in the delta itself, but also the implications – and further questions – which this raises for the cultural connections with the neighbouring region of the north-east Aegean.