The cultural and political changes that happened in Anatolia after the collapse of the Hittite Empire have only recently been recognised as a significant, but as yet unexplained, phenomenon. Here we present the results of analyses of ceramics from three sites south and southwest of the present-day town of Sorgun − Çadır Höyük, Kerkenes Dağ and Tilkigediği Tepe − to identity how regional groups within the Hittite core area regrouped in the aftermath of the collapse. Ceramic analyses provide a means to assess both cultural continuity and the scale and nature of interaction in a region. Results suggest some evidence of cultural continuity at Çadır Höyük from the Late Bronze Age into the Middle Iron Age, and highlight the variable local responses in the aftermath of Hittite collapse.

The Achaemenids conquered Anatolia in the sixth century bce. However, in contrast to the historical descriptions of political response to Achaemenid control, e.g. the so-called 'Ionian revolt' of east Greek territories in Western Anatolia, the operation of Achaemenid-period economies in this region remains obscure. Only a handful of occupation sites in western Turkey provide archaeological data contemporary with Achaemenid rule. In this paper, we compare the results of compositional analysis on Achaemenid-period ceramics from a provincial centre, Seyitömer, with comparable analyses from similar periods at Sardis and Gordion. During the period of Achaemenid control a comparatively high level of compositional and typological diversity at this provincial centre suggests a surprising increase in regional connectivity, both locally and with East Greek and Greek centres.

The island of Cyprus was a major producer of copper and stood at the heart of east Mediterranean trade networks during the Late Bronze Age. It may also have been the source of the Red Lustrous Wheelmade Ware that has been found in mortuary contexts in Egypt and the Levant, and in Hittite temple assemblages in Anatolia. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) has enabled the source area of this special ceramic to be located in a geologically highly localised and geochemically distinctive area of western Cyprus. This discovery offers a new perspective on the spatial organisation of Cypriot economies in the production and exchange of elite goods around the eastern Mediterranean at this time.

How communities reorganize after collapse is drawing increasing attention across a wide spectrum of disciplines. Iron Age Boğazköy provides an archaeological case study of urban and political regeneration after the widespread collapse of eastern Mediterranean Late Bronze Age empires in the early twelfth century BC. Recent work at Boğazköy has significantly expanded our understanding of long-term occupation in north central Anatolia. This work counters previous suggestions that Boğazköy was abandoned after the collapse of the Hittite Empire during the Early Iron Age. In this paper, we focus on the Iron Age occupations at the site to show how growth in the scale and complexity of ceramic production and trade during this period provides another line of evidence for economic and political re-emergence. Based on the increasing diversity of non-local ceramics and ceramic emulations during the Iron Age, we suggest that only in the Late Iron Age, 500–700 years after Hittite collapse, did Boğazköy re-emerge as a significant polity in central Anatolia.

This paper explores how Iron Age Anatolian communities constructed their identities within the fluid political and economic landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean after the Late Bronze Age collapse. Our study focuses on archaeological survey ceramics from sixteen sites in the Konya-Beyșehir region (KBR), south central Anatolia, a contested zone between the Phrygian and Neo-Assyrian polities. We use a combined stylistic and geochemical analysis to address political/economic interaction within this landscape. Comparing KBR site ceramic decorative styles with those of inland and coastal Anatolian sites allows us to identify local patterns of emulation. We differentiate emulation from actual exchange using geochemical elemental characterization. Together these techniques allow us to evaluate how local communities used emulation and exchange to construct their identities. Our results reveal that Iron Age KBR communities operated within a complex regional exchange sphere, and beyond this showed greatest affinity with Phrygian ceramic styles.

Phrygian Gordion was the political center of an influential Iron Age polity that extended across west central Anatolia during the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Though the borders of this polity remain vague a characteristic of the Phrygian 'footprint' is the distribution of highly distinctive ceramics. The extent to which Gordion potters were the originators of these wares remains uncertain. In this paper we use Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) to establish the local signature of predominantly Iron Age ceramics for this site by combining samples from several decades of excavation with an extensive regional sediment sequence. We also compare previous NAA work at Gordion to suggest that the formative stages of the Phrygian state appears to have involved a more extensive network of non-local specialist producers than previously thought.

Current understanding of the Iron Age polity of Phrygia in Central Anatolia is primarily based on excavations and survey in the region of the Phrygian capital of Gordion. In order to expand our knowledge of the Phrygian polity, we assess the scale and nature of Iron Age communities in the western (Eskişehir) region of Phrygia. We address the challenge of interpreting ceramics derived from large-scale archaeological survey by utilizing Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) of ceramics from 12 sites across the region collected by the Eskişehir archaeological survey project as well as an excavated assemblage from Şar Höyük. While the uniformity in ceramic technology and styles suggest the region is part of the larger Phrygian community, NAA results reveal that (a) ceramic production was regionally highly localized with limited evidence of standardization during the Iron Age and (b) based on evidence of community interaction it is possible to establish a partial chronological sequence of development. These results have implications not only for understanding the internal dynamics within the Phrygian core but also for developing a methodology for comparing ancient polities using commensurate units of interacting communities. The present study is part of the larger Anatolian Iron Age Ceramics project (http://www.une.edu.au/a-ia).