Hearth and Home. Interpreting fire installations at Arslantepe, eastern Turkey, from the fourth to the beginning of the second millennium BCE

Cooking methods and practises are crucial in defining group identity, in expressing social and kin networks, and in reflecting domestic economies. In this paper I discuss fire installations and fire related utensils from a functional and typological point of view, throughout the prehistoric and early historic phases of occupation at the East Anatolian site of Arslantepe, over a period of nearly 2500 years (4200-1750 BCE). Arslantepe, through this long sequence, testifies to the development of hierarchical societies, the origin of primary state and its collapse, groups of semi-mobile pastoral communities and then small towns of farmers. Through the distribution of cooking facilities, their attributes and peculiarities, domestic economies and social relations linked to food preparation and consumption are investigated at the site.