EARLY BRONZE AGE DAGGERS IN CENTRAL ... - Bilkent University

destroyed in Anatolia and none of the sites destroyed shows evidence of complete
cultural replacement of the previous inhabitants. Rather, there are minute changes.
One question comeing into one’s mind is how long a site might remain unoccupied by
the natives of that settlement? It would be expected that if a site remains unoccupied
as short as a generation or two, the new residents might get their clay from a different
source which may result in a different paste. Simple changes, but the continuation of
the culture should not be seen as an evidence of cultural replacement. Nowhere in
Central Anatolia have we found a complete cultural assemblage from a foreign
culture. Naturally, the proposal of the “mass migrations” to explain cultural change is
heavily criticized as mass migrations are not the only possible explanation for cultural
change. Acceptance of the “mass migrations” as a cause behind the cultural change in
Anatolia oversimplifies the archaeological record. This theory is also difficult to be
taken as a solution for cultural changes in Anatolia since the chronological position of
the cultures, or cultural periods in question are not completely determined.
The exploitation of metal resources and technologies in the fourth and the third
millennium B.C. can be taken as one of the greatest drives behind the social change in
the Early Bronze Age (Tringham, 1974: 348). The interactions of sedentary and mixed
farming populations within different regions will naturally result in cultural changes of
differing intensity (Tringham, 1974: 348). It is a difficult concept to accept that
metallurgical technologies that showed tremendous developmental qualities solely
arrived into Anatolia due to migrations, rather than as a result of local developments in
tune with the events in the neighboring regions. The metal working tradition in
Anatolia does not start with the supposed arrival of the Indo-Europeans in the third
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