Basalt Landforms and the Prehistory of Eastern Smooth Cilicia and Northern Hatay

Anatolica XLIV, 2018, 43-74. doi: 10.2143/ANA.44.0.3285050 BASALT LANDFORMS AND THE PREHISTORY OF EASTERN SMOOTH CILICIA AND NORTHERN HATAY Bakiye Yükmen Edens* Abstract Survey and excavation in northern Hatay and Smooth Cilicia (Adana and Osmaniye) have largely failed to find Palaeolithic and Aceramic Neolithic sites. The author here reports two seasons of a survey focused specifically on and around basalt landforms in Ceyhan (Adana), Erzin (Hatay) and Hassa (Hatay). The survey succeeded in finding Palaeolithic and Aceramic Neolithic, and later prehistoric, chipped stone. These results are presented and some of the implications of the results are discussed. Introduction Both Hatay and Smooth Cilicia have a long history of archaeological survey, beginning with pioneering projects in the 1930s and 1950s (Braidwood 1937, Seton-Williams 1954). These projects focused on mounds and other readily visible sites. Most subsequent surveys in Hatay (e.g. Alkım 1969, Casana and Wilkinson 2005, Gerritsen et al. 2008) and eastern Smooth Cilicia (summarized in Rutishauser et al. 2017 fig. 4) added to regional site inventories but without greatly changing the research focus. This research agenda has directed attention away from early prehistory (here understood as Palaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic periods). Excavation programs, with some exceptions, have repeated this bias. As a result, several important Pottery Neolithic settlements have seen excavation – Yumuktepe in Mersin (Garstang 1953, Caneva and Jean 2016) and Tell el-Judeideh in Hatay (Braidwood and Braidwood 1960) are the obvious examples – but not earlier sites. The only notable exceptions to this generali- zation are the Palaeolithic surveys and excavations in caves of the Samandağ area and open air localities in northern Yayladağı and nearby uplands south of the Orontes river (e.g. Şenyürek 1961; Şenyürek and Bostancı 1958a, 1958b; Bostancı 1971, Kuhn et al. 2009, Baykara et al. 2015), and survey along the Taurus foothills (e.g. Kökten 1958). In consequence, much of Hatay and all of Smooth Cilicia remain without documented occupation earlier than the Pottery Neolithic. This invisibility does not reflect the absence of early prehistoric occupation of these regions. Rather, geomorphological processes have either eroded away early prehistoric sites or have buried them deeply beneath alluvial and colluvial sediments. In 2016 the author began a continuing survey program designed specifically to find prehistoric chipped stone in Smooth Cilicia and northern Hatay.1 The survey focuses on the * Department of Archaeology, Faculty of Science and Letters, Çukurova University, Adana. 1 The Early Prehistory and Cilicia Basalt Locations Project (EPKİBAP) thanks the Kültür ve Turizm Bakanlığı for research permits to conduct the 2016 and 2017 survey seasons. I especially thank the ministry representatives, 44 Bakiye Yükmen Edens Fig. 1. Topography of the survey region and location of investigated basalts; 1. location of sites C1+C2+C3+C6+C7+C8 on the northwest slope of the Botaş basalt; 2. location of sites C16+C18+C19+C20+C21 on the southwest edge of the Botaş basalt; 3. location of site C17 on the east edge of the Botaş basalt; 4. location of sites H17+H18 on the southeast edge of the Hassa basalt; 5. location of site H27 on the south of the Hassa basalt; 6. location of sites H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, H9, H10, H11, H21, H22, H23, H24, H28 in the informal transect across the southern edge of the Köroğlu basalt and the northern edge of the Yalangoz basalt. Pleistocene basalt flows which cover large areas of eastern Smooth Cilicia and the Karasu valley. The basalts offer numerous advantages, and some disadvantages. The Pleistocene basalts are relatively stable features in the landscape – over time tectonic activity may shift basalts laterally or vertically but it has not folded them. Large proportions of the basalts have gentle slopes and so are not subject to intense erosion, and yet they are raised above the surrounding landscape and so are not subject to heavy sedimentation. The basalts often act as aquifers for springs which Kenan Beşaltı (2016) and Gerçek İnanç Candul (2017) for their invaluable help in the conduct of the survey. The project has been funded in part by the Çukurova Üniversitesi Bilimsel Araştırma Projeleri (BAP) program; I thank Çukurova University, the BAP program, and the staff of the BAP office for their help and patience. Christopher Edens, Enes Ergan, Belkıs Nilgün Şahmaran, Semih Cinkara, Gözde Mert Güldalı, Gizem Koçak, Tülin Tümay Çağlayan, and Hayrettin Koral were team members during the two field seasons – without their enthusiastic work under difficult conditions, the survey would not have been possible. Christopher Edens, the project’s assistant director, requires additional gratitude for his encouragement and intellectual support for the project, for his invaluable assistance with this article, and his editorial help with the foreign language. Anatolica XLIV, 45 issue from the edge of basalt formations; the springs were potential attractions for prehistoric human activity. Soil development on the basalts tends to be thin, and vegetation cover reduced; these factors promote visibility of chipped stone, but they also reduce the possibility of site stratification. Geological research provides radiometric dates for many of the basalts, and these dates provide termini post quem for artifacts found on the basalts. But many of the basalts in the study areas are Middle Pleistocene in age, which greatly reduces the chances of finding Lower Palaeolithic materials on them.2 In addition, the survey is examining landscapes around the basalts. Here the problems of erosion and sedimentation are much more severe, but limestone terrain offers the possibil- ities of caves and rockshelters, of flint sources, and of springs. Like the springs at the edges of basalt formations, all three of these features are spatially fixed points in the calcareous landscape that may attract repeated prehistoric visits (“persistent places”). Survey areas In its 2016 and 2017 seasons, the survey focused on two basalts in Ceyhan (Adana) and Erzin (Hatay) in eastern Smooth Cilicia, and on two basalts in Hassa in the Karasu valley (northern Hatay). Eastern Smooth Cilicia belongs to the middle and lower portions of the Ceyhan drain- age. Thus large portions of eastern Smooth Cilicia are covered by deep deposits of recent allu- vium (see Isola et al. 2017, Rutishauser et al. 2017). The river and its floodplain are separated from the sea by a range of low hills that parallels the coast. These hills, which seldom exceed 350m asl in elevation, are sedimentary rocks raised along a tectonic fault. At two places south of these hills extensive basalt flows appear (Fig. 1), and other basalts exist north and east of the hills. The Botaş basalt3 forms a domed hill, its summit around 200m above sea level, today directly inland from the Bay of Iskenderun. The hill covers an irregular area about 4km north- south by 6km east-west. Several springs are, or until recently were, active at several points along the eastern and western edges of the hill. The Boyalı Dere catchment and associated farmland border the hill to the west, where is also found the previously recorded mound Boyalı Höyük (Seton-Williams 1954, mound 63). The combination of K-Ar dating and magnetic polarity dates the Botaş basalt to the late Lower Pleistocene, perhaps 800kya (Seyrek et al. 2014: 51 summarize the dating evidence). The Delihalil basalt is a relatively horizontal expanse of very rough basalt around an eruption cone on the north side of the formation. The basalt extends some 14km north-south and 9km east-west. The eruption cone itself rises to nearly 450m above sea level, but most of 2 Specifically, many basalts in the Karasu valley have dates between 550-250kya, which is coeval with the Late Acheulian and the transition to the Middle Palaeolithic. The same is true of some basalts in eastern Smooth Cilicia, but here more basalts are Lower Pleistocene in age. 3 The southern terminus of the Baku-Tiflis-Ceyhan petroleum pipeline, operated by Botaş (Boru Hatları ile Petrol Taşıma Anonim Şirketi), sits upon this basalt, and the recent geological literature applies this name to the formation. 46 Bakiye Yükmen Edens the formation is at 150-100m asl descending southward toward the sea. The basalt is extremely broken, with large areas covered by loose rubble (Turkish leçe). Not withstanding this difficult terrain, an important late Roman settlement has been recorded at the eruption cone (Tülek 2014). The Delihalil basalt is not radiometrically dated but it is very young in appearance and it may be as young as the terminal Pleistocene or early Holocene (Seyrek et al. 2014: 51). How- ever, more weathered basalts appear around the edges of the leçe, and this seemingly older basalt may belong to the Middle Pleistocene.4 Springs issue from the southern edges of the basalt. The uplands along the south side of the Ceyhan floodplain around the basalts are composed variously of Paleocene basalt and Eocene-Miocene sedimentary rocks including limestone. Radiolarites are reported from an olistrostome formation (Ünlügenç and Akıncı 2017); although cherty limestones also exist, it seems that the geology of the region does not support sources of knappable flint. The calcareous rocks offer the possibility of caves, and springs emerge from both sides of the ridge at multiple points. The Karasu valley is a north-south fault-bounded structure between the Amanos on the west, and Kurt Dagh (in Syria) and Kartal Dağı (in Turkey) on the east; the valley is part of the Rift system which extends through the Amik plain to Kahramanmaraş. The Karasu valley rises from 100m asl at the Amik plain to 400m asl to the north. Numerous basalt formations cover large sections of the Karasu valley, over an area 94km long and 12-25km wide between Kırıkhan and Gölbaşı (Hatay) in the south to Fevzipaşa (Gaziantep) in the north.

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