The Palaeoecology of South Central Anatolia at the end of the Pleistocene and the beginning of the Holocene

Abstract

The origins of agriculture and domestication have long been identified, in theory, with the beginning of permanent settlements; the beginning of the Early Neolithic Period is known, in fact, to be synchronous with the ending of the Last Ice Age. To some scholars, fact and theory have suggested that this synchronism implies a causal relationship between certain assumed climatic changes and the beginnings of food production; for others, this synchronism is not more than a misleading coincidence. It is not the purpose of the writer to discuss the validity of these assumptions except to indicate that opinion seems to be hardening that food production may have had a more complicated and lengthy history than these assumptions suggest. There has grown up over the last 25 years a considerable body of literature expressing the most varied opinion about the causes for the origins of food production, and its variety has not narrowed with the emergence of new evidence. In my opinion, the basis for the solution of this problem will be derived essentially from palaeoecological analyses of selected areas and regions in various parts of the world, and not only in the Near East. This paper is intended to open such a study for the region of south central Anatolia. As might be expected in an ecological study, the evidence derives from a number of disciplines, and, accordingly, several colleagues have contributed to the formulation of the suggested ecological pattern. That pattern itself, however, is the responsibility of the writer.