Ricerc@Sapienza

Through the use-wear approach, the study of macro-lithic tools, can lead to significant results in the interpretation of the social and the economic organization of archaeological contexts.

Ongoing excavations at Arslantepe in south-eastern Turkey are revealing settlement continuity spanning two crucial phases at the transition from the second to the first millennium BC: the post-Hittite period and the development of Syro-Anatolian societies.

The article presents a brief overview of the recent discoveries at the site of Arslantepe (Malatya, SE Turkey), from the archaeological campaigns carried out in the years 2017-2019. The fieldwork mainly concentrated in two excavation areas dated to the Late Chalcolithic and Iron Age. The architecture, pottery, sealings, archaeometallurgy and anthropologic remains retrieved are here presented.

The site of Arslantepe, known from the Hittite and Assyrian cuneiform sources as Melid/Mal(i)tiya, has always represented a natural crossroad of the rugged thoroughfares cutting through eastern Anatolia. In political and cultural terms, the settlement has been both an interface and a frontier with different cultural and political entities all through the long history of the site.

Arslantepe is a hoyük (= tell) located within the fertile Malatya Plain, near the right bank of the
Euphrates River. The site is excavated since more than 55 years by the Italian Sapienza University archaeologists
and reveals periods from at least the sixth millennium BCE until the final destruction of the
Neo-Hittite town. This long sequence records the changing relations and connections with various civilizations
and regions of the Near East.
Using the chemical characterization of a large group of artefacts (388 analysed), we propose, in this

The paper discusses present and future perspectives at Arslantepe: Interdisciplinary researches, site protection, musealization and communication

Rationale: Past climate has always influenced human adaptation to the environment.
In order to reconstruct palaeoclimate fluctuations and their role in the evolution of Near
Eastern societies during the mid‐Holocene, high‐resolution Δ13C records from fossil
wood remains at the archaeoloical site of Arslantepe (eastern Turkey) have been
developed.
Methods: After chemical treatment, δ13C values were measured by sample
combustion flow using a FLASH EA‐CHNS instrument interfaced with a Delta V isotope

A considerable amount of charcoal remains from the archaeological site of Arslantepe (Eastern Anatolia) has been analysed. The anthracological assemblage comes from seven archaeological periods, ranging from the Late Chalcolithic 1–2 (mid-5th millennium BCE) to the Early Bronze Age III (late 3rd millennium BCE). The woody taxa exploited by the local communities appeared to have only mi- nor changes throughout the investigated periods. For the eval- uation of wood use practices, charcoal was chronologically grouped according to depositional context.