A graphical simulation of the 2,000-year lag in Neolithic occupation between Central Anatolia and the Aegean basin

Abstract

The current distribution of radiocarbon dates for the Neolithic in the Anatolian peninsula indicates a significant time lag, of up to 2,000 calibrated years at two standard deviations, between the start of Neolithic occupation on the central Anatolian plateau and in the Aegean basin. This chronological discrepancy appears to match that existing between later aceramic societies in Central Anatolia and Early Neolithic societies in Greece—suggesting that the region now referred to as Western Anatolia, including the Pisidian Lake District, the Eastern Marmara and the Aegean coast, was part of a much broader horizon of Neolithic expansion, extending across the whole of the Aegean basin up to Thrace. This article provides a graphical simulation of the chronological imbalance in the radiometric dates, based on a sample of 848 uniformly recalibrated 14C dates from 59 sites. The evidence supports a model in which the westward spread of farming was punctuated by major ‘halts’, one of which occurred in the highlands of Anatolia.