BEYOND THE DARK AGE: UNDERSTANDING THE TRANSFORMATION OF SOCIO-ECONOMIC SPACE IN CHALCOLITHIC ANATOLIA THROUGHSPATIAL INTERACTION MODELING (ca. 6000-3000 BCE)

Date

2026-2-19

Author

Sarmusak, Ezgi

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This thesis re-evaluates the “Dark Age” narrative of the Anatolian Chalcolithic (ca. 6000-3000 BCE), a period traditionally characterized as one of stagnation between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. By shifting the focus from isolated site descriptions to regional connectivity, the aim of the thesis is to investigate the structural transformations in settlement networks across three millennia, by utilizing a large dataset consisting of 725 archaeological sites, 3141 calibrated radiocarbon dates, and the locations of key raw materials such as polymetallic ores. The methodology uses Maximum Entropy and Gravity models from the family of Spatial Interaction Modeling, and Least-Cost Path analyses from geographic network analysis, in order to reconstruct settlement hierarchies and interaction networks. Although the low archaeological visibility of the Chalcolithic landscape may have created research gaps and sampling bias, the results demonstrate a decisive reorganisation from the decentralized, household-autonomous “hub-and-spoke” networks of the Early Chalcolithic to the highly centralized, administrative systems of the Late Chalcolithic. The findings suggest that the demographic “thinning” observed in the 5th millennium BCE may reflect not a collapse but a strategic shift toward mobile pastoralism and more flexible land use. It also shows that settlement patterns in the fourth millennium BCE were increasingly shaped by the control of metal resources and extractive industries. This thesis concludes that the Chalcolithic served as a dynamic incubator of complexity, establishing the technological and economic infrastructure, including specialized metallurgy and the Secondary Products Revolution, which directly enabled the subsequent urbanization of the Bronze Age.

Subject Keywords

Chalcolithic, Settlement Patterns, Centralization, Spatial Interaction, Network Analysis

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/118740

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis