Uşaklı Höyük, a site in the upland of Central Anatolia. From archaeology to history.

Since 2008, first year of the Uşaklı Höyük Archaeological Project, our team has been working to obtain new information about the development of the settlement, from its initial phase of urbanisation to its transformation during the periods of the formation of states in the Bronze and Iron Ages. Part of this objective has now been achieved, as documented by the results of the surface survey and recent excavations (Mazzoni and Pecchioli 2015; Mazzoni, D'Agostino and Orsi 2019). The archaeological survey carried out around Uşaklı between 2008 and 2012 revealed a long local sequence of occupation from the Late Chalcolithic and Bronze and Iron Ages to the Late Roman and Byzantine periods (D'Agostino and Orsi 2015), attesting to the strategic role of the area for both the control of the routes across the Anatolian plateau and the exploitation of the favourable environment (D'Agostino 2019). Within the area east of Yozgat, the site of Uşaklı soon proved to be particularly interesting because of its geographical position, topography, and the typology of our survey findings. For all these reasons, after the first years of archaeological prospection we decided to apply to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for a program of systematic digging operations at the site. Since 2013 when we began excavations we have recovered clear evidence of a significant occupation dating to the 2nd and 1st millennium BC, showing that the site hosted an important settlement at the time of the Hittite period and continued to be inhabited through the course of the Iron Age (Mazzoni, D'Agostino and Orsi 2019)