Salted Landscapes in the Tuz Gölü (Central Anatolia): The End Stage of a Tertiary Basin

Tuz Gölü (Salt Lake) is a large salt lake located in the heart of Anatolia. Long-term morphological development of the lake is controlled by the Tuz Gölü Fault Zone and the İnönü-Eskişehir Fault System. The Central Black Sea Mountains in the north and the Taurus Mountain Belt in the south are major climatic barriers generating a precipitation shadow effect on the Anatolian Plateau that worsens the continental climatic conditions characterized here by cold winter, hot summer and relative dryness. Climate, together with active tectonics, let Tuz Gölü to preserve a water depth of maximum 1.5 m. Besides the natural beauty of the outstanding landscapes provided by this shining white lake, numerous salt farms are spread over the lake and neighbouring small lakes. Archaeological data evidence that salt exploitation and trade centres around Tuz Gölü were established since prehistoric and during ancient historic times. This natural and cultural heritage is now threatened by anthropogenic and climatic factors that might lead to its disappearance in a foreseeable future. © 2019, Springer Nature Switzerland AG

Before the Neolithic in the Aegean: The Pleistocene and the Early Holocene record of Bozburun - Southwest Turkey

2-s2.0-85090205357The renewed Mesolithic research in the Greek mainland and the islands has been providing new insights into the lively maritime activity within the region; however, the southwest coast of Turkey has been virtually devoid of related investigations until the commencement of the Bozburun Prehistoric Survey project in 2017. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the prehistoric sites discovered at the Bozburun Peninsula during the 2017–2019 field seasons. Preliminary results indicate that the area is rich in prehistoric activity. While Middle Paleolithic chipped stone industries were identified at the sites of Kayabaşı Cave, Çakmak, and Sobalak, flake based microlithic chipped stone industries typical of the Aegean Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene were identified at the sites of Sarnıç, Hurma, Sobalak, Zeytinlik, and Çakmak. A variety of artifacts, suggestive of the Neolithic, were also recorded at the sites of Hurma, Zeytinlik, and possibly at Sobalak and Sarnıç. In specific, the presence of carinated end-scrapers, burins and polyhedric cores at Sarnıç, as well as some geometric microliths at Hurma, demonstrates that Bozburun was frequented during the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic. The presence of a few geometric microliths made on Melos obsidian at Hurma also demonstrates that the region was connected to the Aegean obsidian network routes at least by the beginning of the Holocene. If our relative dating is correct, this constitutes the earliest known use of Melos obsidian in the Anatolian mainland. © 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.Orta Doğu Teknik ÜniversitesiThe permissions for the Bozburun Prehistoric Survey were provided by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. We would like to thank Neyir Kolankaya-Bostancı and Metin Kartal for sharing their thoughts on the chipped stone assemblages of Bozburun, as well as to the three anonymous reviewers and the editors of The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. This project has been supported by Türk Tarih Kurumu (Turkish Historical Association) and METU-TAÇDAM (Middle East Technical University - Centre for Research and Assessment of Historical Environment)