too quickly derive their interpretations of material culture from analogies with the
MBA, or from pseudo-historical outlines of the third millennium based on other
ambiguous textual evidence. Material culture and textual evidence need to be con-
sidered and combined in new ways to develop more nuanced interpretations of long-
distance interaction during the EBA.THE HISTORICITY OF CONTACT
That some manner of long distance communication existed between these regions
during the third millennium is not in doubt; it is also clear that this communication
was directly related to the vigorous economies, societies and polities of a “Second
Urban Revolution” in northern Syria (beginning c. 2600 BC), and a comparable and
contemporary, if not quite “urban,” development in Anatolia (for critique of
urbanization in EBA Anatolia, see Çevik 2007 ). During the first centuries of the third
millennium, settlements across Anatolia can be best characterized as insular villages
where evidence for social hierarchies is elusive. The two best published sites from this
period include Demircihöyük in the ancient “Phrygian Highlands” of northwest
Central Anatolia (Korfmann 1983 ) and Karatas ̧ in ancient Lycia in southwest Anatolia
(Warner 1994 ; see Bachhuber, forthcoming, for reassessments of both settlements and
their associated cemeteries).
Dramatic changes in settlement patterns, an increased scale of architecture and
monumentality, and a new and extravagant consumption of wealth in mortuary and
other kinds of depositional contexts, announce a major transition across Anatolia,
beginning around 2600 BC(see Bachhuber, in press). Long-distance communication
was clearly part and parcel of this development in EBA Anatolia; it is less clear how this
happened, and why. Many scholars have turned to the well-documented Assyrian
–– Sumer, Akkad, Ebla and Anatolia ––Tro y AlacahöyükMahmatlarAlis ̧arKültepeGöltepeEbla EmarMariCarchemish
Zincirli
SubartuFigure 26.1Map showing key sites mentioned in text