Paleolithic Archeology in Turkey

Turkey lies at the interface between distinctive archeological and biotic provinces.7 For example, the Middle Pleistocene sequences of the Levant and the Caucasus include many Acheulean assemblages, whereas Acheulean handaxes and biface technology are seldom found in the contemprary Lower Paleolithic assemblages of the Balkans. Likewise, areas surrounding Turkey, including the Levant, the Zagros mountains of Iran, and the Balkan peninsula, yield distinctive Middle Paleolithic assemblages. The limits of these regional archeological complexes should lie somewhere within the boundaries of Turkey. Examining how these regional complexes interacted at their edges, and particularly whether they remained coherent or blended into one another, has the potential to cast light on population interactions and processes of technological divergence over the course of the Pleistocene. The range of things one would like to know about the Turkish Paleolithic contrasts sharply with what is actually known about it. Although a general picture is beginning to emerge, we have comparatively little hard information about what might have been happening in much of the country during much of the Pleistocene. Some of these gaps in the knowledge base reflect a paucity of research. Turkey encompasses an area of almost 780,000 square kilometers and, despite the efforts of a small number of dedicated researchers, much of the land area simply has not been investigated in detail. In other cases, the absence of evidence is clearly due to gaps in the geological record. In some instances, the absence of evidence may even be evidence of human absence. Nonetheless, a series of projects carried out in Turkey over the past twenty years has produced substantive results on the Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic periods in the region. Although there is a great deal more to be learned, it is instructive at this point to assess the state of knowledge about the Pleistocene prehistory of this vast area.