Contextualizing Kuruçay Höyük: Assessing the Unexplored Late Chalcolithic Landscape Near the Beginning of Early Social Complexity in SW Turkey

Abstract

ABSTRACTKuruçay Höyük can be considered a key site for our understanding of Late Prehistory in southwest Turkey and above all, the poorly known Late Chalcolithic (4200–3100 b.c.). Until now, limited research has been conducted on the relationship between the excavated site and its surrounding. This article discusses the Late Chalcolithic results of an integrated survey in the vicinity of Kuruçay Höyük in the Burdur Plain. Drawing upon these results, this paper illustrates that the site was far from an isolated feature during the 4th millennium b.c. The picture that emerges is one of a differentiated settlement system consisting of both larger höyük/tell settlements (like Kuruçay Höyük) and smaller sized, possibly short-lived, flat settlements. These results are further contextualized within the developments that took place in the region during the Chalcolithic, which seem to have opened the door for communities to become more complex during the Early Bronze Age.