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GENERAL TOPICS OF ONGOING AND FUTURE RESEARCH
One of the general questions that
is being addressed by the Kerkenes Dag archaeological survey is the
history of the landscape and the impact of human exploitation and
settlement on the flora and fauna. Several inter-related questions
are under investigation: Geology The background geology of the Kerkenes Dağ is granitic. The soils are therefore acidic, well drained and fairly rich in minerals. More influential, perhaps, is the water bearing and retaining properties of the granite and its sand filled fissures. Geomorphology The Kerkenes Dag is naturally eroding through the agencies of wind, water and ice and displays all the characteristics of an eroded granitic landscape. The natural drainage is to the north and a number of perennial streams drain in this direction. There are springs in many places, ranging from a few meters below the highest peak to the lower valley sides. In normal years the majority of these springs are perennial but in a dry year, as occurred m 1994 when there was almost no snow during the winter, many but by no means all are reduced to the smallest trickle or dry up altogether. The modern habit of making springs into çe~meler lowered the water table to some degree. It is clear that ancient settlement, both seasonal and permanent, is related to the presence of water; hence, there is a much greater density of occupation on the northern side of the Kerkenes Dag than on the southern slopes and foothills. There is no evidence to suggest that mans activity has drastically reduced soil cover as it so obviously has in other area of the eastern Mediterranean. Pollen Analysis and Coring It had been hoped that a program of coring would have provided pollen profiles from which the pattern of floral change might be reconstructed. Cores made in the artificial reservoirs within the ancient city on the Kerkenes Dag revealed that there was no more than one meter of silt above virgin sand and rock. Further, it is known that these reservoirs dry out and exhibit wide cracks by the end of the summer in many years, perhaps most, and that scoops and holes are frequently dug within the reservoirs in order to collect water as the level recedes. Another problem, and one of wider proportions, would be the interpretation of any pollen evidence as it related to the immediate region in view of the proximity of the Pontic forests to the north, the southern edge of which is visible from Kerkenes and which begins just a few kilometers to the north. Very encouraging, however, is the new campaign of excavations which Dr. Ronald Gorny is conducting at the multi-period mound sites of Alişar Höyük and Çadır Höyük. These are only 20 and 5km. away respectively. Pollen and, perhaps more usefully, charcoal analysis from these site ought to provide the floral background to settlement on the Kerkenes Dag. Archaeology There is a considerable, and growing, body of evidence from our survey of archaeological sites on the Kerkenes Dağ and in the immediate vicinity that indirectly but lirmly casts light on the problem of deforestation. There are many tumuli (burial mounds) on the hilltops and ridges and it is obvious enough that these exposed locations were devoid of forest when the tumuli were constructed. A further piece of circumstantial evidence in this respect is the practice of placing the deceased in stone lined cists within the tumuli, in marked contrast to the Phrygian tradition, the center of which lies some 250km. to the west, where timber burial chambers beneath tumuli are the norm. The date of the tumuli in the Kerkenes region remains slightly problematic but it is certain that the earliest were constructed in the kon Age and that the tradition continued after the desertion of the city on the mountain-top. it is, therefore, clear that some of the hilltops and ridges were deforested in or before the Iron Age. There is also evidence for the seasonal exploitation of the region in the form of seasonal huts which are approximately dated to the late Iron Age - Roman period and which are clearly distributed in the landscape in such a way as to indicate that they were related to seasonal grazing. More intriguing is evidence from the Early Bronze Age (EBA = Third Millennium B.C.). A number of small sites with a scatter of distinctive pottery sherds and evidently shallow occupation are located in exposed positions which may be taken as indicative of seasonal occupation. This despite the presence of stone wall footings and large storage vessels. The small number of chipped stone (sickle) blades might be cautiously used to suggest that these people were grazing rather than farming. if this evidence of seasonal grazing on the Kerkenes Dağ in the EBA can be substantiated it follows that the process of deforestation was well under way by this time. On the other hand, these might have been small permanent settlements with a mixed economy: pig, a few cattle, some hunting, some agriculture and fruit farming and gathering of, e.g., acorns. if this were the case the absence of later settlement (EB III and Second Millennium) might be seen as the result of deforestation and resultant erosion. The new excavations at Çadır Höyük
should throw much light on this problem.
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