Subsistence Economy and Land Use Strategies in the Burdur Province (SW Anatolia) from Prehistory to the Byzantine Period

Bioarchaeological and geoarchaeological research provides a valuable contribution to the exploration of the ancient subsistence economy in relation to the land use strategies. This presentation is based on the results from archaeozoological,archaeobotanical and stable isotope analyses from Early Bronze Age Hacılar, the Classical/Hellenistic site of Düzen Tepe and the antique site of Sagalassos. Those will be supplemented by already published data from several prehistoric settlements from the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age in the Burdur plain. While almost no archaeological and bioarchaeological evidence is available until now for the Middle and Late Bronze Age, and the Early Iron Age, palynological data from the intramountain valleys clearly show increasing human occupation from the seventh century BC onwards. Results from bioarchaeological and stable isotope analyses show changing agricultural and husbandry practices through time, ranging between rural self-sustaining economies to specialised husbandry practices and an intensive agricultural exploitation of the landscape. The data will be integrated with the available information on settlement dynamics in the area and the first results of land use modelling, in order to describe the subsistence economy and land use strategies in the region from prehistory to the Byzantine period. Addresses the value of materials and of the personal ornaments they were used to make in this island context.status: publishe