The Kahramanmaraş Valley Survey: A Crossroads Along the Syro-Anatolian Frontier


Forthcoming

Series: Monumenta Archaeologica 51
ISBN: 978-1-950446-48-3
Publication Date: Mar 2024

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Elizabeth Carter

This volume presents a study of local landscape histories in the Kahramanmaraş valley—a previously understudied, but pivotal, crossroads along the Syro-Anatolian frontier. The Holocene vegetation history is explored in relation to climatic changes and human impact through the pollen analytical results of a deep core obtained from a former Sağlık (Gavur) lakebed. Extensive surface surveys carried out in the region between 1993 and 2000 form the basis of the settlement pattern studies beginning with the first permanent settlement of the valley in the Neolithic, and ending with the Islamic era. Including results of a series of intensive full coverage and transect surveys around Domuztepe, the analysis of a long historical record, diverse physical environment, and a significant number of archaeological sites are used to outline the myriad ways the ancient residents of this region between Syria and Anatolia made it their home for over seven thousand years. 

 

 
Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Kahramanmaraş Valley—A Crossroads at the Foot of the Mountains
Elizabeth Carter
Chapter 2
Part I: Holocene Environmental Change in the Kahramanmaraş Valley: The Palynological
Evidence of the Sağlik Ovası
Hendrik Woldring, Harm Jan Streurman, Johannes van der Plicht, Elsa Kleine, and Ceran
Şekeryapan
Part II: Climate Change in the Kahramanmaraş Valley during the Late Glacial and Early
Holocene
Ceran Şekeryapan, Mehmet Yeşiltaş, and Hendrik Woldring
Chapter 3: The Neolithic: The First Settlers in the Kahramanmaraş Valley
Çiğdem Atakuman
Chapter 4: The Local Late Chalcolithic: The Expansion of Settlement in the Kahramanmaraş
Valley
Elizabeth Carter
Chapter 5: The Early Bronze Age: Fragmentation within the Kahrmamanmaraş Valley
Elizabeth Carter
Chapter 6: The Middle and Late Bronze Ages in the Kahramanmaraş Valley: From the Kingdom
of Mamma to the Rise of Gurgum
Elizabeth Carter
Chapter 7: The Iron Age in Gurgum and Assyria
Elizabeth Carter
Chapter 8: The Hellenistic–Late Roman Period in Maraş and Commagene
Elizabeth Carter and Peter Stone
Chapter 9: ‘Amq al-Mar‘ash: Settlement and Land Use on the Frontier in the Islamic Periods
Alexander Asa Eger
Chapter 10: Model Building and the Identification of Settlement Change in the Kahramanmaraş
Valley
Elizabeth Mullane Steadman
Chapter 11: Summary and Prospects for Future Research
Elizabeth Carter
Appendix 1: Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic Traces
Jeffrey Brantingham and Elizabeth Healey
Appendix 2: Site Gazetteer, online at the Alexandrian Archive Institute
Elizabeth Carter et al