Ancient Anatolia

Prehistoric cultures of Anatolia

Anatolia may be defined in geographic terms as the area bounded to
the north by the Black Sea, to the east and south by the Southeastern
Taurus Mountains and the Mediterranean Sea, and to the west by the
Aegean Sea and Sea of Marmara; culturally the area also includes the
islands of the eastern Aegean Sea. In most prehistoric periods the
regions to the south and west of Anatolia were under the influence of,
respectively, Syria and the Balkans. Much visible evidence of the earliest
cultures of Anatolia may have been lost owing to the large rise in sea
levels that followed the end of the last Ice Age (about 10,000 years ago)
and to deposition of deep alluvium in many coastal and inland valleys.
Nevertheless, there are widespread—though little studied—signs of
human occupation in cave sites from at least the Upper Paleolithic
Period, and earlier Lower Paleolithic remains are evident in Yarımburgaz
Cave near Istanbul. Rock engravings of animals on the walls of caves
near Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast, suggest a relationship with
the Upper Paleolithic art of western Europe. Associated with these are
rock shelters, the stratified occupational debris of which has the
potential finally to clarify the transitional phases between cave-dwelling
society and the Neolithic economy of the first agricultural communities.
In the Middle East the first indications of the beginning of the Neolithic
transition from food gathering to food producing can be dated to
approximately 9000 BCE; the true Neolithic began about 7300 BCE, by
which time farming and stock breeding were well established, and
lasted until about 6250 BCE. The Neolithic was succeeded by the
Chalcolithic Period, during which metal weapons and tools gradually
took their place beside their stone prototypes, and painted pottery came
generally into use. The Chalcolithic ended in the middle centuries of the
4th millennium BCE, when the invention of writing foreshadowed the
rise of the great dynastic civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, and
was followed by periods of more advanced metalworking known as the
Early and Middle Bronze Ages.