Interpreting the use of living space in an Early Bronze Age village in Eastern Anatolia: use-wear and spatial analyses of macro-lithic tools of level VI B2 of Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey)

Through the use-wear approach, the study of macro-lithic tools, can lead to significant results in the interpretation of the social and the economic organization of archaeological contexts. This work aims to discuss the results of traces analysis of macro-lithic tools coming from EBA level VI B2 of Arslantepe (East Anatolia, Turkey), combined with other archaeological evidences present in the same level. This data integration allows to suggest hypotheses about the relationships between macro-lithic tools, living spaces and people within the village community of the VI B2 of Arslantepe. The level examined here (2900-2750 B.C.) relates to a village consisting of small residential complexes surrounding a monumental wall of fortification; at the end of this period, the settlement was destroyed by a fire that sealed structures and artefacts in situ. A multidisciplinary research combining data from paleo-botany, archaeozoology, chipped stone tools, ceramic, structures with their spatial position and stratigraphy originated a full body of results to compare with macro-lithic tools. The tools analysed, consisting of grinders and pestles, belong to four different spaces, located in different parts of the village that have been interpreted as functionally different environments. Use-wear analysis on macro-lithic tools confirmed this hypothesis and specified, in some cases even in detail, tasks carried out within each of these spaces highlighting the processing of different raw materials.