Anatolian Civilizations I - TRM 107 Fall 2024 PDF

Anatolian Civilisations I TRM 107/ Fall 2024/ Week 2 30.09.2024  OUTLINE Limitations of the Studies on Anatolia during the Paleolithic Lower Paleolithic Middle Paleolithic Upper Paleolithic...

Anatolian Civilisations I TRM 107/ Fall 2024/ Week 2 30.09.2024  OUTLINE Limitations of the Studies on Anatolia during the Paleolithic Lower Paleolithic Middle Paleolithic Upper Paleolithic Epi-Paleolithic Paleolithic Art and Symbolism Limitations of the Studies on Anatolia during the Paleolithic  Limitations of the Studies on Paleolithic Anatolia Only a handful of systematically excavated sites and a comparatively small number of dedicated researchers Paleolithic sites are often covered by later sediments and represented by ephemeral traces of human activity Stone Axe, Flintstone, Overshadowed by the research devoted to the later historic 1.000.000-200.000 BP, cultures Gaziantep Archeological Museum According to TAY (Türkiye Arkeolojik Yerleşmeleri), there are more than 200 sites with Paleolithic activities  Paleolithic in General Homo erectus and his relatives migrated from Africa (2.500.000-1.500.000 BP) to Near East and Europe, Anatolia playing a crucial role Dmanisi (South Georgia) —>Oldest remains of the hominids outside Africa (1.7-1.8 Million BP) Hunter-gatherers Lived in caves and took shelter in hollow trees. Control of re about 1.000.000 BP and habitual use of re about 400.000 BP Stone, bone, wood tools Small groups of people fi fi  Chronology Lower Paleolithic (ca. 1.000.000-250.000 BP) Middle Paleolithic (250.000-45.000 BP) Upper Paleolithic and Epi-Paleolithic (45.000-9600 BP)  Lower Paleolithic (ca. 1.000.000-250.000 BP)  First evidence for stone tool production (lithic industry) Earliest instances of burials in the end of the period Lithic Technology Lower Paleolithic Sites in Anatolia  Kaletepe Deresi 3 (Niğde, Türkiye) (1.000.000 BP) Human occupation in Anatolia 1 million years ago Obsidian and basalt were utilised for stone artefacts Faunal remains (animal bones) Acheulian Handaxes  Kocabaş (Denizli, Türkiye) 500.000-490.000 BP Fragments of a Homo erectus calvaria (frontal bones and parietals) Insights on the health of the early immigrants Tuberculosis (in amed the meninges, the membrane that surrounds the brain) (Once thought to be a fairly recent disease) (The earliest human ancestors to migrate out of Africa were protected against the ultraviolet dark skin. But as they moved from tropical lands north into temperate Eurasia, this protection became a problem, preventing the absorption of a requisite amount of Vitamin D from sunlight, which in turn, adversely a ected their immune system.) ff fl  Yarımburgaz Cave (Istanbul, Türkiye) 330.000-130.000 BP Dual occupancy (Cave was home to both human and bears, not concurrently) It seems that in winter bears hibernated (and sometimes died) in the cave, and when they left in the spring, humans moved in, using Yarımburgaz Cave as a seasonal shelter. Stone artifacts (quartz, quartzite)  Middle Paleolithic ca 250.000-45.000 BP  Earliest evidence of artistic expression (Rock art, body paint, ritual etc.) Long distance trade between groups for rare commodities (ochre) Small and egalitarian groups Storing food (Smoking and drying meat) Middle Paleolithic Sites in Anatolia  Karain (Antalya, Türkiye) 250.000-200.000 BP It was also occupied in the Lower Paleolithic (500.000-250.000 BP). Technology for the lithic industry developed using greater variety of raw materials Fossilized hominids (presence of Neanderthals) wild sheep, goat, wild boar, aurochs, equids Shared their cave with wild animals UPPER PALAEOLITHIC ca. 45.000-10.000 BP  Earliest known organized settlements Artistic works elaborated The rst evidence of shing Complex social groupings Specialized tool types developed Warm climate in the end of the Upper Paleolithic (End of the last Ice Age) Anatolia sparsely settled in the Upper Paleolithic Adverse climatic conditions a ected human occupation patterns fi fi ff Upper Paleolithic Sites in Anatolia  Üçağızlı (Hatay, Türkiye) ca. 43.000-28.000 BP Technical changes in lithic industry (retouched and pointed blades) Tools manufactured from bones Modi ed shell remains Bead and pendants made from various marine gastropods (earliest evidence for jewelry in the Near East) Emergence of external symbolic human behavior It represents another stage of communication expressed through body decoration Rich sample of animal bones (herbivores, game birds tortoises) fi  Öküzini (Antalya, Türkiye) ca. 17.800 BCE Development in lithic industry, appearance of even smaller tools Awls, needles, spatulas from bone Grinding stones (intensive exploitation of plant foods)  EPI-PALEOLITHIC ca. 20.000-9.600 BP Nomadic hunter gatherers, who lived in small seasonal camps Appearance of microliths (small, nely produced blades, used as hunting weapons, spears and arrows, and other daily objects) Warm climate conditions and population growth Appearance of the domestication of animals, sedentism in the end of Epipalaeolithic and the beginning of the Pre Pottery Neolithic (PPN) The earliest evidence for the use of wild cereal harvest fi In the southeast Türkiye, a number of groups began to change their behavior in a remarkable way. For the rst time in Anatolia, they built houses and lived in them year around. Settlement planning, suggesting some sort of social control, internal organization, social cohesion. People obtained their food primarily by collecting wild plants, shing, and hunting and who produced microlithic chipped stone industries. Some of these groups could have been more or less sedentary for some part of the year, making use of particularly favorable spots in the landscape, but mobility remained an important strategy. fi fi Epi-Paleolithic Sites in Anatolia  Hallan Çemi (Diyarbakır, Türkiye) (11th Millenium BCE) Earliest dwellings were stone built, C-shaped and no more than 2 meters in diameter Later levels, appearance of building with public functions Large central area with animal bones and re cracked stones suggesting a communal feasting fi  Çayönü (Diyarbakır, Türkiye) Round huts partly sunken into the ground Walls of reed or wattle and mud plaster Round huts gradually assumed an oval shape Open spaces for storage, stone snapping, and dumping rubbish, remnants of feasts The deceased were buried in pits dug in open spaces or under the oor of the huts in a tightly exed position accompanied by few pieces of ochre fl fl Körtiktepe (Diyarbakır, Türkiye) 9500-8500 BCE Established alongside Batman River Highly elaborated art Round buildings PALAEOLITHIC ART AND SYMBOLISM  PALAEOLITHIC ROCK ART Dated with analyzing organic/inorganic materials inside the pigments (In Anatolia, not many scienti c analyses, therefore relying on subjective relative chronologies) Representations mainly wild cattle bison, ibexes, deer, wild goats in a realistic or Pectoglyphs (Carved, pecked motifs) Pictographs (Painted Images) stylized fashion, sometimes hybrid creatures of two-headed gures Human were rarely shown, sometimes schematic Rituals related to hunting Engravings (Incisions) fi fi  Aesthetics vs. Experience Paleolithic art is hard to de ne (Western notion of aesthetics is an 18th century construct) Western appreciation of art requires beauty to be judged and emotions to be a ected without any reference to context or utility. These criteria are not generally applicable to nonwestern art, in our case prehistoric art, where the boundaries between aesthetic and utilitarian, and social and religious activities are blurred. ff fi  Paleolithic Art: Neuropsychological Experiences The production of prehistoric art was probably partly of social and ritual events that might have included dancing and miming, rea rming social cohesion. Capturing the qualities brought about magically and perhaps momentarily by whatever activity is being performed. Act performed and reality captured (magical process) Phosphenes are the kaleidoscopic range of images that the human visual system can generate under a range of conditions, including pressure, darkness, sound etc. (Similarity to abstract geometric patterns depicted in prehistoric art) ffi  Shamanism in the Paleolithic Art Shamanism (shaman: One who is excited, moved, raised) is an ecstatic religious phenomenon characterized by an ideology of cosmic ight, undertaken for enlightenment or healing and achieved through trance state. Many religions have mystical exaltations when people speak with the spirit world and become vehicle for communication with the divine. Shamanism of the prehistory should not be seen irrational. One such behavior is the altered states of consciousness most shamans experience. Marked by hallucinogenic substance, sensory deprivation (absence of light and sound), vigorous dancing, rhythmic sound (drumming and chanting), Shaman had the control of the spirits and cured the a ictions of the believer. Maybe there are some similarities with recent past, and sometimes may be helpful to understand ancient societies, but these ethno-archaeology studies should be used wisely. ffl fl  The Experience of Shaman While Experiencing the Art on the Walls of Paleolithic Caves Shaman under trance sees moving luminous geometric forms, then attempt to interpret them as more tangible objects, and nally, in the third stage of trance, the subject can have the sense of traveling thorough a latticed vortex, which terminates in a bright light, to emerge in a frightening world of intensely real hallucinations, comprising demons, animals and bizarre settings. In the nal state, surroundings become animated and shamans can feel that they change into the animals they see. By becoming their hallucinations, they experience a sense of ight, or to blend into features around them. fi fi fl Paleolithic Art Examples Around the World  Blombos Cave (Cape Town, South Africa) Nine red lines drawn on the rock from an ochre crayon (73,000 years ago) Cross-hatching done in ochre on a stone fragment found at Blombos Cave is believed to be the earliest known drawing done by a human in the world  Maros Pangkep Cave Paintings (Indonesia) Considered to be the earliest gurative art in the world (43,900-35,400 years ago) Hand prints (lacing the hand up against the wall and then blowing a mixture of red ochre and water around them, leaving a negative image on the rock) The palm of the hand was believed to have power to ward o "evil forces and wild animals", thus protecting the people who lived inside the cave Babirusa (Deer Pig) and red hog deer depictions fi ff  Woman of Willendorf made from limestone, 11 cm high,from Willendorf, Austria, ca. 24,000 BP  Aspendou Cave Petroglyphs (Crete) Overlapping Upper Paleolithic (at least 11,000 years old) and Bronze Age petroglyphs (3000-5000 years old) Representation of an extinct Candiacervus deer Groups of these deers are depicted facing a number of di erent directions, possibly resembling scattering from hunters; some may represent animals mating ff  The Lion Man, Hohlenstein-Stadel Made of mammoth tusk Oldest known representation of a being that does not exist in physical form but symbolizes ideas about the supernatural The wear on his body caused by handling suggests that he was passed around and rubbed as part of a narrative or ritual that would explain his appearance and meaning It may be a part of a creation story or a human whose experiences on a journey through the cosmos to communicate with spirits caused this transformation A Prehistoric Ivory (Mammoth) Sculpture, Hohlenstein-Stadel (Germany), ca. 40.000-35.000 BCE  Lascaux Cave Paintings Nearly 6000 gures No images of the surrounding landscape or the vegetation of the time Equines, stags, bisons, cattle, birds, felines, bear, a human The cave paintings could be an account of past hunting success, or could represent a mystical ritual in order to improve future hunting endeavors A man with a bird head and a bison, Lascaux (France), ca. 17.000 BP fi Epi-Paleolithic Art Examples in Anatolia  Stone bowls and stone pestle in the form of a goat head from Hallan Çemi Both the bowls and pestles are typically made of a chloritic stone and to approximately the same scale, suggesting they were used together in the formal preparation and consumption of food or drink, presumably in association with said feasting.  Stone bowl fragment from Körtiktepe, 9500-8500 BCE Elaborately decorated with incised anthropomorphic gures, circular and triangular shapes with cross hatching and animals resembling serpent and scorpions The bowl was consciously broken while burying the good and it may suggest a distinctive symbolic meaning for the Körtiktepe burial culture The serpent motive also supports a link to mortuary cult. Elaborate decoration of the grave good distinguished from the other stone bowls found as grave goods. So, this bowl might suggest a hierarchy between the graves and possibly social di erence between buried inhabitants of Körtiktepe ff fi  Tokens, Körtiktepe These representations are not decorative, since these highly worked objects themselves have no other apparent function than to represent this creature (i.e., they are not bowl fragments, pendants, etc.). They are thus fetishes of some kind. A closer inspection points to the depiction more likely being that of a bee (e.g., drooping antennae, folded wing along back, limbs only coming o the thorax, curled abdomen, etc.). The depiction is not completely realistic, with only two limbs, instead of four (if it were an ovicaprid) or six (if it were a realistic depiction of a bee), despite their makers’ obvious capability of depicting other multi-legged creatures accurately is, along with the general consistency of the representations, suggests that for these fetishes, either the aesthetics of the composition (only room for two limbs without cluttering it) was paramount and/or what is being depicted was widely and clearly understood in its cultural context even in the absence of strict representational accuracy. What these fetishes arguably represent is a speci c mythic individual, as opposed to a general category of animal. Last, the “target” motif, which occurs elsewhere in isolation as a decorative motif, is directly associated only with this creature in superposition. Whether this target represents the abdominal segment rings of a bee, the circular patch visible on the back of a bee’s thorax, or some other feature is unclear. fi