21/03/2022
Delighted to share with you this major article from the Yalburt Project team that just came out from Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies. This is the product of over two years of bi-weekly meetings and radically collaborative practice of writing together. So much labor and love went into this article!
This article layers material, physical, and textual landscapes of the Hittite Empire in a compact borderland region. We argue that a real strength of landscape archaeology is in understanding and articulating medium-scale landscapes through archaeological survey methods and critical study of physical geography. Medium-scale landscapes are a milieu of daily human experience, movement, and visuality that spawn a densely textured countryside involving settlements, sacred places, quarries, roads, transhumance routes, and water infrastructures. Using the data and the experience from eight field seasons by the Yalburt Yaylası Archaeological Landscape Research Project team since 2010, we offer accounts of three specific landscapes: the Ilgın Plain, the Bulasan River valley near the Hittite fortress of Kale Tepesi, and the pastoral uplands of Yalburt Yaylası. For each, we demonstrate different sets of relationships and landscape dynamics during the Late Bronze Age, with specific emphasis on movement, settlement, taskscapes, land use, and human experience.
Thanks to the editors of the Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, who patiently worked with us on this article. Note the cover image too!
ABSTRACT. This article layers material, physical, and textual landscapes of the Hittite Empire in a compact borderland region. We argue that a real strength of landscape archaeology is in understanding and articulating medium-scale landscapes through archaeological survey methods and critical study....
