Post‐collapse: The Re‐emergence of Polity in Iron Age Boğazköy, Central Anatolia

Abstract

Summary How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC. Recent work at Boğazköy has significantly expanded our understanding of long‐term occupation in north central Anatolia. This work counters previous suggestions that Boğazköy was abandoned after the collapse of the Hittite Empire during the Early Iron Age. In this paper, we focus on the Iron Age occupations at the site to show how growth in the scale and complexity of ceramic production and trade during this period provides another line of evidence for economic and political re‐emergence. Based on the increasing diversity of non‐local ceramics and ceramic emulations during the Iron Age, we suggest that only in the Late Iron Age, 500–700 years after Hittite collapse, did Boğazköy re‐emerge as a significant polity in central Anatolia.

Patterns of Iron Age interaction in central Anatolia: three sites in Yozgat province

“…If we sample the full range of geochemical variability in the geology of the region, the local ceramic compositional range should be encompassed, allowing us to differentiate non-local from local ceramics. Previous work has demonstrated the general effectiveness of this strategy (Grave et al 2008;Kealhofer et al 2009).…”

“…These most commonly represent geological provenance, but can also reflect clay processing techniques (removal and/or addition of minerals; see Grave et al 2008). Statistical results were graphed and manipulated in three-dimensional space to evaluate group distribution (shape and density) in relation to local sediment samples (see Grave et al 2008;Kealhofer et al 2009 for a more detailed discussion of methods).…”

Non‐destructive analysis using PXRF: methodology and application to archaeological ceramics

“…Previous analysis has shown that Chalcolithic ceramics were manufactured using local sediments 25. As there is no documentation of trade in handmade earthenware ceramics in Anatolia during this period, the compositional groups identified reflect the diversity in the local geography of each site (Tables 4–6).…”

Nothing Lasts Forever: Environmental Discourses on the Collapse of Past Societies

“…Bronson (2006; see also Lewis 1975) usefully defines the way in which people use or discard aspects of the real or imagined past through stimulus or template regeneration. Kealhofer et al (2009) recently adopted a regeneration approach for the reemergence of complexity at Bogazkoy after the Hittite collapse. This approach places a different value on dark ages as periods of reorganization and activity rather than catastrophe and passivity.…”