THE COLLAPSE OF THE 4TH MILLENNIUM CENTRALISED SYSTEM AT ARSLANTEPE AND THE FAR-REACHING CHANGES IN 3RD MILLENNIUM SOCIETIES

The paper is a summary of the key-elements of the 3rd millennium BC sequence at Arslantepe, and is aimed at giving a general picture of the complex events which took place in the region as reflected by the Arslantepe site. By so doing, it also intends to introduce and contextualise the information presented on individual aspects in the other papers in the same section of this volume. The author stresses the far-reaching changes occurred in the site after the Late Chalcolithic 5 crisis, with successive, sometimes abrupt interruptions in the continuity of the cultural, organisational and socio-economic development of the Arslantepe society, as well as in the site’s external relations. Two main breaks have been recognised: the first around 3000 BC, after the collapse of the Late Uruk centralised system, and the second around 2700 BC, at the transition between Early Bronze I and II, when Arslantepe and the Malatya region underwent radical changes, bringing to a kind of isolation and then to a new position in the network of interregional political and cultural relations.