Interaction, innovation and insularity in the origins of agriculture on Türkiye’s Konya Basin.

Abstract

BIAA-supported research on the Konya Basin has been fundamental in understanding the development and spread of early farming from Hans Helbaek’s collections of crops stores at Çatalhöyük East in 1961, to the initiation of flotation at Canhasan III in 1969 and the ongoing research projects at Boncuklu and Pınarbaşı. This paper explores the origins of agriculture in the Konya Basin, surveying published and new archaeobotanial data from the earliest settlement at Epipalaeolithic Pınarbaşı to the occupation Çatalhöyük. Crops appear unevenly in Konya’s early Neolithic settlements, being introduced to the wetland forager settlement of Boncuklu by 8,300 BC through exchange and being absent from Pınarbaşı. Cropping remained at a low level for 500 years and went through several steps-up in importance, becoming the main subsistence staple at Canhasan III and Çatalhöyük by 7,000 BC. Considering the evidence for interaction, insularity and innovation, this paper outlines the case for a distinctive, local and culturally situated history of agricultural change at the ragged edge of the southwest Asian Neolithic. Significant questions remain about the period from 7,800-7,000 BC with ongoing research fundamental for their resolution to understand more fully the circumstances of cultivation’s initial appearance as a new element of a broad subsistence system to its core staple.