Malatya Havzasi'nda Arslantepe Hoyugu ile Iliskili Jeoarkeolojik Arastirmalar

Before and at the beginning of the Holocene period when Prehistoric people became sedentary, changes in natural environmental conditions were triggered by climatic changes, that affected human activities, especially those based on food procurement strategies, the development of settlements, and exchanges. Most human groups adapted to these changes with care, chosing their settlement locations with much caution. Research programmes on this period and these evolutions have been numerous in Anatolia, especially in South-East Anatolia. In this paper, the preliminary results of researches about the geomophologic and resource contexts of the site of Arslantepe (a Chalcolithic to Iron Age settlement near Malatya) are exposed. Since its foundation, Arslantepe has been is an important sedentary to urban center, mainly because of both (1) its wide hinterland providing a variety of subsistance resources, and (2) its strategic/military location on routes linking northern Mesopotamia and south-eastern Anatolia, to Eastern Anatolia and the Caucasus. Arslantepe site has been excavated since the 1930’s by archaeologists. The last two excavators, co-directors with the Malatya Museum Directors, have been Prof. Dr. Marcella Frangipane, followed by Prof. Dr. Francesca Balossi-Restelli. In the frame of these archaeological excavation program, field studies have also been carried out toward the end of the 2021 and 2022 summer seasons. The aims of these studies were first, to determine the geomorphological context of the site and of its surrounding landscape (2021), second to collect samples spanning the possible sources for lithologic elements used in the site (mainly the lithic industry) (2022). These field studies have been led by the Universities of Harran and Dicle (Geography Departments), framed by the close cooperation with Prof. Dr. Francesca Balossi Restelli and her team who provided the necessary excavation and documentation data related to both these themes. The present article concerns the first report of these geoarchaeological studies. A first step consisted in studying the structural and morphological characteristics of the southwestern part of the Malatya basin, in which the archaeological site is located. Landforms, as well as their controlling factors, provided its natural landscape and environmental characteristics (especially geomorphological ones,) within which the first human groups settled at Arslantepe. Field studies (associated with earlier literature) allowed identification and mapping of these morphologic features. Regarding the reconstruction of past environmental evolution, our investigations revieled that most spring-fed and wet areas have been manipulated by men for irrigation and its control. Among the wetlands identified and visited, the authors chose a today dammed lake (Elemendik lake) with surrounding marshes still fed by an active spring. These marshes seemed relatively uneffected by the works that must have accompanied the damming of the lake. They were thus chosen for a coring aiming at providing paleoenvironmental data. The 3m long core retrieved was sampled on site, for sedimentological and geochemical tests and analyses to be conducted at the Geography Department of Harran University (Urfa). In addition, another geomorphological field study was conducted with an archaeologist specialized on flints, in order to determine possible source areas of the flints used in the past in Arslantepe. Potential areas were selected on the basi of a literature review as well as of previous exposure observations. This flintoriented field work explored structural, siliceous limestone exposures around the Malatya basin, without success as the flints associated with limestone were not suitable for chopping. In a second phase, fluvial terraces and other alluvial formations in the river valleys draining the Malatya “plain” basin, were visited in detail. This survey provided a total of six locations where suitable flint samples were collected. This collect showed that flint sources of this kind have been available in the ancient and very ancient times from many areas in the plain and its basin (although most of the proper Euphrates terraces were made not accessible by the Karakaya dam lake extension), The result of this first field survey shows that, within the proper “Malatya plain and its close, surroundings”, the most important of locations for flints suitable for chopping are (1) Taş Tepe, 3 km west of Arslantepe (where such flints could be extracted from an Upper Miocene-Pliocene conglomerateformed by continental clastics), and (2) the Tohma Stream terrace fillings and floodplain at the extreme West of the Malatya plain.