The Prehistory of Asia Minor
From Complex Hunter-Gatherers to Early Urban Societies

An archaeological analysis of Asia Minor, the area equated with much of modern-day Turkey, from 20,000 to 2,000 BC.

Bleda S. Düring (Author)

9780521763134, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 October 2010

374 pages, 62 b/w illus.
26.1 x 18.5 x 2 cm, 0.91 kg

'[This book is] a significant contribution to a much broader effort in the pursuit of a better understood prehistory of Asia Minor … I have no doubt that this book regardless of the more recent publications which cover broader geographic and thematic expanses … will be inspirational to new research into the prehistoric and preliterate periods of Anatolia in the years to come.' Jak Yakar, Bibliotheca Orientalis

In this book, Bleda Düring offers an archaeological analysis of Asia Minor, the area equated with much of modern-day Turkey, from 20,000 to 2,000 BC. During this period human societies moved from small-scale hunter-gatherer groups to complex and hierarchical communities with economies based on agriculture and industry. Dr Düring traces the spread of the Neolithic way of life, which ultimately reached across Eurasia, and the emergence of key human developments, including the domestication of animals, metallurgy, fortified towns and long-distance trading networks. Situated at the junction between Europe and Asia, Asia Minor has often been perceived as a bridge for the movement of technologies and ideas. By contrast, this book argues that cultural developments followed a distinctive trajectory in Asia Minor from as early as 9,000 BC.

Introduction
1. The land of Asia Minor
2. Archaeology in Asia Minor
3. Hunter-gatherers of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic (20,000–6,000 BC)
4. Early farmers of the southern plateau (8,500–6,500 BC)
5. Neolithic dispersals (6,500–5,500 BC)
6. Millennia in the middle (5,500–3,000 BC)
7. Elites and commoners (3,000–2,000 BC)
Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Archaeology [HD], Ancient history: to c 500 CE [HBLA], Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]