Settlements, population and landscape on the Upper Euphrates between V and II millennium BC. Results of the Archaeological Survey Project 2003-2005 in the Malatya Plain

Abstract

The archaeological survey of the territory of Malatya (eastern Anatolia), is carried out by the Department of Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences of the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Aim is that of identifying, from an archaeological point of view, the changes in the life style and in the social and economic relations in the region, in a period going from the V to the II millennium BC, in connection with the complex events and radical changes that are documented by the excavation of the site of Arslantepe, the land mark of the region. The results obtained until today have evidenced different typologies of site occupation in the Malatya territory. Our intention was to identify the relationship between stability and mobility in terms of the settlement models through the different ways of exploiting the local resources.