Following the field season, KRASP researchers are working on a variety of materials with different methodologies. Ceramic specialists Fatma Şahin (Çukurova University), Deniz Sarı (Bilecik University), Laurens Thissen (Archaeological Ceramic Bureau, Holland), Lorenzo D'Alfonso (New York University) and Yusuf Tuna (Hacettepe University) are currently analysing the ceramic collections of the British Institute at Ankara as well as the pottery collected in the KRASP surveys (figure 1). The analysis includes correlations with pottery comparanda from stratigraphic contexts (often in neighbouring regions), as well as visual assessment of forms, fabrics and manufacturing technologies. This research is producing a revised chrono-typology of the pottery of the Konya Plain from the Neolithic to the Iron Age, with which we can map spatial and temporal trends in our study area.
Other specialists are working in close collaboration with ceramics team to arrive at a geochemical characterisation of KRASP’s pottery samples. This research will shed light on patterns of pottery production exchange across the region, including insights into manufacturing technologies that are otherwise inaccessible to visual/typological analysis.
For example, Gülsu Şimşek (Koç University) combines different laboratory techniques to characterise Early Bronze Age Metallic Wares, including a microscopic assessment of polished sections (figure 2), and the geochemical assessment of the composition of fabrics and pigments used for painted decorations.
Additionally, Amy Richardson (University of Reading) employs a portable X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer (pXRF) to determine the chemical composition of different pottery fabric groups, with the aim of pinpointing potential clay sources and thus potential centres of production in the Konya Plain (figure 3).
Neyir Bostancı-Kolankaya (Hacettepe University) focuses instead on the chrono-typological and technological aspects of the chipped stone assemblages, as part of her study of tool-making (knapping) traditions of the region. Here also Amy Richardson’s pXRF analysis of lithics is part of a collaboration to reconstruct larger patterns of lithics production and exchange, including of obsidian and various types of cherts.
