The Prehistory of Asia Minor
The Prehistory of Asia Minor
In this book, Bleda Düring offers an archaeological analysis of Asia Minor, the area equated with much of modern-day Turkey, from 20,000 to 2,000 BC. During this period human societies moved from small-scale hunter-gatherer groups to complex and hierarchical communities with economies based on agriculture and industry. Dr Düring traces the spread of the Neolithic way of life, which ultimately reached across Eurasia, and the emergence of key human developments, including the domestication of animals, metallurgy, fortified towns and long-distance trading networks. Situated at the junction between Europe and Asia, Asia Minor has often been perceived as a bridge for the movement of technologies and ideas. By contrast, this book argues that cultural developments followed a distinctive trajectory in Asia Minor from as early as 9,000 BC.
- Discusses Asia Minor as a cultural area rather than a periphery of Mesopotamia
- Bridges the gap between the Neolithic (rise of farming) and Early Bronze Age (hierarchical societies, international trace)
- Provides a critical assessment of existing interpretations of the prehistory of Asia Minor and introduces alternative ideas
Reviews & endorsements
'[This book is] a significant contribution to a much broader effort in the pursuit of a better understood prehistory of Asia Minor … I have no doubt that this book regardless of the more recent publications which cover broader geographic and thematic expanses … will be inspirational to new research into the prehistoric and preliterate periods of Anatolia in the years to come.' Jak Yakar, Bibliotheca Orientalis
Product details
November 2010Paperback
9780521149815
374 pages
251 × 175 × 20 mm
0.91kg
62 b/w illus.
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The land of Asia Minor
- 2. Archaeology in Asia Minor
- 3. Hunter-gatherers of the Epipalaeolithic and Mesolithic (20,000–6,000 BC)
- 4. Early farmers of the southern plateau (8,500–6,500 BC)
- 5. Neolithic dispersals (6,500–5,500 BC)
- 6. Millennia in the middle (5,500–3,000 BC)
- 7. Elites and commoners (3,000–2,000 BC)
- Conclusions.
