Technological Choices and Cultural Identities in Konya and Niğde at the Beginning of the Middle Iron Age
The 9th century BCE is a crucial moment in the history of Central Anatolia, and is chosen by many scholars to mark the transition between the Early and Middle Iron Ages, since there are elements of discontinuity such as a new hierarchy in settlement patterns, the diffusion of wheel-made pottery, and the appearance of new burial customs (Genz 2011; Summers 2008). Genz (2011) recognises two distinct ceramic zones in Central Anatolia during this phase: one to the west characterised by the presence of monochrome Gray Ware, and one to the east characterised by the presence of Alishar IV-style ceramics. Recently it has been proposed to backdate the production of Alishar IV-style pottery to at least the 10th BCE (d’Alfonso et al. 2022), while the spread of Gray Ware is associated with the Early Phrygian period (Henrickson 1994). New studies demonstrate that this these wares spread along more elaborate spatial-temporal trajectories. Aim of the paper is to investigate whether different technological styles could be an indicator of a different cultural identity between the Niğde and Konya area and how these different technological traditions may be interpreted. Firing a vessel in a reducing or oxidising environment does not have different functional necessities, but what does change is the symbolic value of an oxidising Vs. reducing ceramic. Many ethno-archaeological studies show how making one technological choice over another can be linked to the symboliccultural value that such a choice entails (Sillar and Tite 2000). In this paper I will deal with the technological aspects of the Gray Ware, presenting two different study cases, one from the excavated site of Kınık Höyük in Cappadocia, and the other concerning survey materials from the KRASP project. Analysing the production of the two regions, we can observe remarkable differences from a functional and technological point of view. I will investigate how these differences could be connected to different cultural identities in the two regions.
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