Stepping Stones: Investigating Groundstone Economy at the Birth of Agriculture on the Central Anatolian Plateau

The appearance of sedentism - or the permanent occupation of settlements - and agriculture has transformed our species. This transition first occurred in the Neolithic (14,000 - 10,000-years ago) in Southwest Asia, and slowly spread into Anatolia, the Balkans, and Europe in the millennia that followed. Why mobile foragers should abandon extremely successful and low-risk strategies that sustained our species over 290,000-years remains difficult to explain.

Not only did the changes in lifestyle completely alter modes of subsistence, they also instigated massive changes in social configurations and economic behaviour. Remarkably, around this same time communities massively expanded their ground stone toolkits, suggesting ground stone may be closely linked to the onset of early agricultural practices and sedentary lifestyles.

The Stepping Stones project investigates the role of technology in large-scale social and economic change by looking at the ground stone from the Anatolian sites of Boncuklu Höyuk, Pinarbasi, and Mendik Tepe. The developments that took place in Anatolia during the Neolithic are not only pivotal in gaining insight into the successful uptake of new technologies from the south and the east, but also into the processes behind the spread of new ideas.

New and improved tools would have allowed utilisation of a broader range of resources, contributing to a Broad-Spectrum economy underpinning sedentary behaviours. Additionally, ground stone may have allowed the release of extra nutrition and energy within diets, and may have instigated diversity in culinary practices contributing to sedentism and cultivation of key plants.

It also may have enabled larger-scale landscape clearance in the case of axes, and the construction of new forms of long-term habitations in terms of permanence of residence involved in sedentism. These matters will be investigated using the following research methods:

1) Through in-depth typological analysis I plan to gain insight into the similarities and differences in tool assemblages adopted by contemporary site sequences with differing residential and subsistence strategies, including variable degrees of sedentism and plant use.

2) Microscopic wear analysis on the surface of different tool types will be used to understand how the tools were used and what materials these were used to process, which is important for understanding their role in subsistence, food processing and crafts. To this end experimental archaeology involving use-wear will be undertaken.

3) Investigating the procurement of the raw materials used to make ground stone artifacts will inform on early exchange networks and the influence of energy investment on the use and curation of ground stone objects.

4) Lastly, spatial and chronological distribution analysis will be used to reconstruct zones of activity on the sites, and reveal potential divisions in domestic/public activities as well as changes through time in the manufacture and use of these artifacts. The excavations at Pinarbasi, Mendik, and Boncuklu not only focus on the architectural remains and their contents, but also on the "empty" spaces in between structures.

This approach has resulted in a wealth of data concerning overall settlement activity, and lends itself excellently to studies on use and discard within the settlements.

The generated data will be brought together in one comprehensive study, offering a unique window into the complex interplay between society and technology at the dawn of agriculture.