The Late Chalcolithic in eastern Anatolia: a row with a UNESCO label

The frame

This row fills the years between the end of the Chalcolithic on the Met's timeline, about 3800 BCE, and the start of its Early Bronze Age, about 3000 BCE. The Met's list of periods gives these years no name, and the Kura-Araxes culture appears in it only as the name of a culture. The site takes the label "Late Chalcolithic" from UNESCO's page on Arslantepe, where "the Late Chalcolithic period" is tied to 3400-3100 BCE. The row's geographical frame is eastern Anatolia, around Arslantepe. Sources 2, 1.

Boundaries and overlaps

Neither limit is sharp. UNESCO uses "Late Chalcolithic" in two ways: in the synthesis of outstanding universal value it is 3400-3100 BCE, while in the description it begins with phases 1-2, contemporary to Early Uruk, 4300-3900 BCE, that is before the start of the row and within the Met's Chalcolithic. At the upper limit, the Kura-Araxes culture, whose people according to the Met occupy eastern Anatolia, is dated on the same page once to about 4000-2200 BCE and once to about 3500-2200 BCE; both ranges cross 3000 BCE and run into the Early Bronze Age. Arslantepe itself also continues beyond the limit: according to UNESCO, considerable evidence there testifies to the Early Bronze Age, most prominently the Royal Tomb complex. Sources 1, 2.

On this site

The site currently has one item in this row: "Arslantepe: a Late Chalcolithic palace complex", which reads UNESCO's account of the palace complex, the swords and the Royal Tomb, and is also placed in the Early Bronze Age. This is a documented gap. Checked were UNESCO's Arslantepe page, where only this site is explicitly dated to these years; the Met timeline page, which names no Anatolian site for the years between 3800 and 3000 BCE; and the Barcın Höyük excavation page, which mentions Late Chalcolithic occupation in northwest Anatolia, without a date and in terminology the site does not equate with this row. Missing is a second site, in eastern Anatolia or beyond, with a phase that a source read explicitly dates within about 3800-3000 BCE. Sources 1, 2, 3.