Prehistoric Occupation and Lithic Procurement at the Bozburun Peninsula in Southwest Anatolia

Date

2025-1-29

Author

Gemici, Hasan Can

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Surveys in the Bozburun Peninsula (Marmaris/Muğla) detected a prehistoric presence that pushed the earliest occupation of the region back to the Middle Paleolithic period. The discovery of assemblages pertaining to the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene, both in Bozburun and the surrounding region, highlighted a potential to contribute new perspectives on the dynamics responsible for the Neolithization of the Aegean. Prehistoric groups that inhabited Bozburun left behind remains that consisted predominantly of chipped stones. Obsidian, a volcanic rock not native to southwest Anatolia, was documented in large numbers. This dissertation examines these findings to understand the exploitation of the Bozburun Peninsula in different time periods, to investigate the procurement of local and foreign materials by prehistoric communities, and to contextualize the archaeological record of the peninsula within the developments that took place in the region. This is accomplished through an analytical framework that combines (1) the identification of raw material variability within the Bozburun assemblages and probable source areas, coupled with the pXRF analysis of obsidian artifacts, (2) the evaluation of lithic inventories to establish a technological basis for comparison, and (3) the construction of a GIS model to track corridors of obsidian transmission via least-cost path calculations within the paleogeography of the Aegean. Results of these investigations make it possible to reconstruct the occupational patterns in Bozburun on a sub-regional basis, and to offer a chain of interaction and exchange networks in the Early Holocene that might have facilitated the spread of ideas and innovations in the south Aegean.

Subject Keywords

Caria, Late Pleistocene, Early Holocene, Neolithization, Obsidian

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/113391

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis