CHATAL HÖYÜK PHASE M

The site of Chatal Höyük, located 30km to the east of Tell Atchana, and excavated during the 30s by the Oriental Institute provided a continuous sequence from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age III. This article presents and analyses the levels belonging to the Late Bronze Age with special reference to the pottery assemblage. The Late Bronze age archaeological levels provide many useful data as far as the LBA occupation is concerned: changes in architecture and functional use of spaces in the excavated parts of the town may eventually mirror the progressive economic changes in the region and the growing political uncertainty: towards the end of the Late Bronze Age the archaeological evidence in the excavated parts of the village with domestic structures including large storage installations and open working areas, as well as graveyards inside the open spaces seem to point towards a decrease in population, an economic impoverishment and an unsecure countryside. By contrast pottery and material culture seem to indicate a strong continuity in domestic behavioural changes: pottery inventories as well as small finds show very strong continuity with the local LBI tradition of the region, and to its local production and does not mirror any material changes until the end of the LBA, when it absorbs Mediterranean traits and shapes the new Iron Age material culture