UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The Perfect Storm : A New Multicausal Model of the Political Collapse of Titriș Höyük, an Early Bronze Age City-State in Southeastern Anatolia Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3487k0s3 Author Schneider, Adam William Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Perfect Storm: A New Multicausal Model of the Political Collapse of Titriş Höyük, an Early Bronze Age City-State in Southeastern Anatolia A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology by Adam William Schneider Committee in charge: Professor Guillermo Algaze, Chair Professor Wolfgang Berger Professor Neal Driscoll Professor Paul Goldstein Professor Margaret Schoeninger 2015 Copyright Adam William Schneider, 2015 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Adam William Schneider is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: Chair University of California, San Diego 2015 iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved wife, Alysha. Without her patience, support, and the benefit of her many valuable suggestions for revisions to early drafts, this volume would simply not exist. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ............................................................................................................ iii Dedication ................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ......................................................................................................... v List of Tables ............................................................................................................. vii List of Figures .............................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................ x Vita ............................................................................................................................ xii Abstract of the Dissertation ...................................................................................... xiii Chapter 1: An Introduction to the Research Problem ................................................. 1 Chapter 2: Theoretical Approaches to the Archaeological Study of Collapse .......... 17 Chapter 3: The Spatial and Temporal Setting of the Present Study .......................... 46 Chapter 4: Archaeological Evidence for Regional Cultural Developments and Trajectories in Northern Mesopotamia and Northwestern Syria ............. 70 Chapter 5: Long-Distance Trade and the Socioeconomic Development of the Early Bronze Age .................................................................................. 112 Chapter 6: The Early Bronze Age in the Karababa Basin ....................................... 131 Chapter 7: Theoretical Principles of Stable Isotope Analysis ................................. 161 Chapter 8: 3rd Millennium Paleoclimate Proxy Information from the Near East .... 185 Chapter 9: 3rd Millennium Climatic Conditions in the Eastern Mediterranean Basin .............................................................................. 206 Chapter 10: Stable Isotope Analysis of Archaeological Samples ........................... 230 Chapter 11: The “Perfect Storm”: A New Multicausal Scenario for the Political Collapse of Titriş Höyük ....................................................... 258 v Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 293 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 3-1: AMS 14C dates for Titriş Höyük ............................................................. 68 Table 3-2: A Side-by-Side Comparison of the Old Radiocarbon Site Chronology for Titriş Höyük with the New AMS-Based Chronology ....................... 68 Table 10-1: Samples of Titriş Höyük Human Bone Analyzed in this Study ......... 246 Table 10-2: Samples of Faunal Tooth Enamel from the Sites of Titriş Höyük (TH), Gritille Höyük (GH), and Hacinebi (HN) Analyzed in this Study ..... 247 13 15 Table 10-3: δ C(coll) and δ N(coll) Results for All Titriş Höyük Human Bioapatite Samples ............................................................................. 249 13 15 Table 10-4: Mean, Maximum and Minimum δ C(coll) and δ N(coll) Values for Human Collagen Samples from Titriş Höyük .................................... 249 Table 10-5: Results of ATR-FTIR Analysis of Samples of Human Bone Carbonate from Titriş Höyük ............................................................. 249 13 18 Table 10-6: δ C(apa) and δ O(apa) Results for All Titriş Höyük Human Bioapatite Samples ............................................................................................... 250 13 18 Table 10-7: Mean, Maximum and Minimum δ C(apa) and δ O(apa) Values for Human Bioapatite Samples from Titriş Höyük ............................ 250 Table 10-8: Results of the Mann-Whitney U Test for the Mid EBA and Late EBA Titriş Höyük Human Bioapatite Samples .......................... 251 13 18 Table 10-9: δ C(en) and δ O(en) Results for All Study Area Faunal Enamel Samples ............................................................................................... 251 13 18 Table 10-10: Mean δ C(en) and δ O(en) Values of Each Tooth Type for the Gritille Höyük and Titriş Höyük Sample Populations ...................... 253 13 18 Table 10-11: Mean, Maximum and Minimum δ C(en) and δ O(en) Values of the Stable Carbon and Oxygen Isotope Analysis of Faunal Enamel Samples from Titriş Höyük, Gritille Höyük, and Hacinebi .............. 253 Table 10-12: Results of the ANOVA Test for the Mid EBA and Late EBA Gritille Höyük Faunal Tooth Enamel Samples ................................. 254 vii Table 10-13: Results of the ANOVA Test Between Mid and Late EBA Periods for the Titriş Höyük Faunal Tooth Enamel Samples ........... 254 Table 10-14: A Comparison of the Titriş Human Collagen δ15N Values and the δ15N Values for Ovicaprids Reported by Trella ........................ 254 viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2-1: A pictorial representation of the “adaptive cycle” of resilience theory ..................................................................................................... 45 Figure 3-1: A map of the northern Near East (original satellite image courtesy of NASA) ................................................................................ 69 Figure 4-1: A map of northern Mesopotamia (courtesy of NASA) depicting the approximate locations of important Early Bronze Age urban centers discussed in the text ................................................................. 111 Figure 6-1: A LANDSAT photo of the Karababa Basin taken in 1983 (courtesy of NASA) ............................................................................. 160 Figure 8-1: A map of the Near East (courtesy of NASA) showing the approximate location of proxy records discussed in the text ............... 205 Figure 9-1: A map of the Northeastern Mediterranean (original satellite image courtesy of NASA) showing the approximate location of proxy records discussed in the text .................................................. 228 Figure 9-2: A map of the Northeast Africa and the Red Sea Basin (original image courtesy of NASA), depicting the approximate location of proxy records discussed in the text .................................................. 229 13 15 Figure 10-1: Scatterplot of the δ C(coll) and δ N(coll) values from the Titriş Höyük human collagen samples ........................................................ 255 13 18 Figure 10-2: Scatterplot of the δ C(apa) and δ O(apa) values from the Titriş Höyük human bone carbonate samples ............................................. 256 13 18 Figure 10-3: Scatterplots of δ C(en) and δ O(en) values from Titriş Höyük, Gritille Höyük, and Hacinebi ............................................................ 257 ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to gratefully acknowledge the members of my dissertation committee for their support of this project, and especially my committee chair, Dr. Guillermo Algaze, for his advice and assistance, without which this project would never have been completed. I would also like to express my gratitude to Dr. Dilek Erdal, Dr. Yilmaz Erdal, and Ms. Yasemin Demirbaş at Hacettepe University for their invaluable assistance with obtaining both archaeological samples of human bone for isotope analysis and the necessary permits to legally export them from Turkey; to Dr. Phil Trella and Dr. Patricia Wattenmaker at the University of Virginia for graciously agreeing to provide samples of faunal tooth enamel from Titriş Höyük; and Dr. Gil Stein at the Oriental Institute for kindly granting his permission for me to analyze samples of faunal tooth enamel from Gritille Höyük and Hacinebi. I also wish to gratefully acknowledge my friend and colleague, Andrew Somerville, for his invaluable assistance in facilitating the preparation and analysis of samples, and with interpreting the isotope data. I thank the NSF-University of Arizona AMS Radiocarbon Lab for providing us with new AMS chronometric dates, and the UC Academic Senate, the UC-San Diego Department of Anthropology,