Under the supervision of Dr. Wattenmaker, Mr. Trella will conduct archaeological excavations at the Early Bronze Age (3000-2000 B.C.) city of Kazane Hoyuk, in southeastern Turkey. Previous archaeological investigations have indicated that by 2400 B.C., Kazane was the center of an early city-state, incorporating many thousands of citizens including surrounding towns and villages. However, around 2100 B.C., the city itself shrank by roughly 60% in size. The changes evident at Kazane are representative of changes in settlement patterns in other parts of Upper Mesopotamia (southeastern Turkey, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq), where many larger towns and urban centers either contracted to a small portion of their previous size or were abandoned completely at the end of the third millennium. These excavations are intended to provide a better understanding of both the social and environmental processes leading up to these dramatic changes.
At its apex, Kazane was over 100 hectares (about 250 acres) in size with a surrounding city wall and a 20-meter high mound at the center. Due to the fact that the city was completely abandoned by around 1800 BC, the architectural phases dating to the period of the site's contraction are just beneath the present-day surface and are easily reached, making Kazane an ideal site for this study. The goal of the excavations is to uncover a total of 400 m2 of occupation, split evenly between an elite, or upper-class domestic area and a non-elite domestic area. Pre and post-contraction household data from these areas will allow for the monitoring of change throughout a range of socio-economic levels within the urban center.
The data collected during these excavations will consist of architectural plans, domestic refuse such as discarded animal bones, broken pottery and stone tools and environmental data in the form of paleobotanical and phytolith samples. Although some researchers suggest that the collapse of city-states at the end of the third millennium was entirely the result of an abrupt change in climate, local factors such as the intensification of food production and an increased emphasis on the consumption of craft goods may have also played a role in pushing large cities like Kazane to their environmental limits, leaving them prone to collapse. In an effort to untangle these connections, shifts in food production over time will be monitored through detailed analyses of faunal remains and paleobotanical samples. Changes in craft production and consumption will be detected by comparing densities of pottery and other craft goods from successive phases of occupation. Finally, paleobotanical and phytolith analyses will detect shifts in the frequencies of drought resistant crops and weeds, which will speak to changes in climatic conditions.
This research, while certainly shedding light on the collapse of city-states in the third millennium B.C., will also speak to larger issues such as the long-term effects of agricultural intensification and resource extraction. It will also provide for the continued training of Mr. Trella in both excavation and artifact analysis and continue the spirit of collaboration between American archaeologists and Turkish museum officials.
