Spatial Patterning and Social Complexity on Prehistoric Anatolian Tell Sites: Models for Mounds

Abstract

The “tell” is one of the most recognizable features in the Near Eastern landscape. Its complicated stratigraphy signifies the long history of human habitation through the deposition of successive strata of occupation detritus. This study focuses on the organization of domestic architecture on Anatolian mounds from a diachronic perspective. Of particular interest is the observable metamorphosis in spatial patterning of domestic architecture concomitant with the stages of increasingly complex society. Although recent work contains numerous models applicable to prehistoric domestic architectural remains, including those treating greater societal complexity, the data used to generate these models have generally been derived from nonmounded settlements. Therefore, current theoretical frameworks must be reevaluated in order to render them effective in the analysis of architectural remains from tell sites. The domestic architecture on tell sites is examined using three types of spatial patterning analysis: increasingly complex task performance and the associated architectural partitioning of structures; access analysis; and issues of privacy and territoriality. These analytical methods, all interrelated, bear specifically on the physical structure (spatial patterning) of domestic tell architecture as residents experience socioeconomic change.