The Chalcolithic in Anatolia: continuity and copper

The frame

The Met's timeline for Anatolia and the Caucasus dates the Chalcolithic to about 6400-3800 BCE and says that in this period there is a continuity of Neolithic traditions with an increase in the use of copper. The page's list of periods and cultures includes the Halaf culture, about 6000-5500 BCE, and the Ubaid culture, 5000-4200 BCE. According to the key events, about 6000-4000 BCE the southeastern part of Anatolia is settled by peoples from Mesopotamia, who bring ceramics and everyday objects different from those of the local populations, moving there "apparently" to acquire agricultural products and raw materials such as metal. The site follows this timeline's scheme here. Source 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

Both limits are crossed in the sources. At the start of the period, UNESCO dates the eighteen Neolithic levels of Çatalhöyük's East Mound down to 6200 BC, that is 200 years into the Met's Chalcolithic, and the West Mound's levels, "primarily" Chalcolithic, to 6200-5200 BC. At its end, the Kura-Araxes culture appears on the same Met page with two ranges: about 4000-2200 BCE, which begins 200 years before the end of the row, the key events saying that people of this culture then occupy eastern Anatolia; and about 3500-2200 BCE, which begins after it. Between 3800 BCE and the Early Bronze Age, about 3000 BCE, the Met's list has no period name, and the site shows those years in a separate row, "The Late Chalcolithic in eastern Anatolia", following UNESCO. Sources 1, 2.

On this site

The site currently has one item in this period: "Çatalhöyük, West Mound: the Chalcolithic continuation", which reads UNESCO's account of the Chalcolithic levels of the West Mound and of their continuity with the East Mound. This is a documented gap. Checked were the Met timeline page, where Halaf and Ubaid appear as culture names and the Mesopotamian settlers as an event, with no named site; UNESCO's Çatalhöyük page, where only the West Mound is dated to the Chalcolithic; and the Barcın Höyük excavation page, which mentions Middle and Late Chalcolithic occupation without dates or any description of remains. Missing is a second site with a phase that a source read explicitly dates within 6400-3800 BCE and describes. Sources 1, 2, 3.