Off-site environmental sequences around Aşıklı Höyük PPN site.(central Anatolia, Turkey): A contribution to 14C chronology of the site occupation on different temporal and spatial scales

International audienceAşıklı Höyük is a unique site in the archaeological network of early sedentary societies in the Eastern Mediterranean. Located in Central Anatolia, it is with Kaletepe, Boncuklu and Balıklı, one the oldest Neolithic sites of Turkey west of the Taurus. The occupation spans the whole Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) in Central Anatolia, from c. > 8350 to 7300 BC (> 10.3 to 9.25 ka cal BP). Excavated since 1989, the site is composed of five cultural levels. It is located in a flood valley environment that was widely filled by Late Glacial deposits, and that showed environmental variability before, during and after the settling of PPN population. Today, the remains of the Late Glacial terrace are positioned c. 4m above the present river bed below Aşıklı mound. Although not seen in today’s landscape of the valley because of active lateral erosion during the Holocene, the terrace is also well preserved below colluvium east of the mound. Six cores and four soundings performed around the site between 2010 and 2015 have revealed an unexpected spatial growth of the site during Level 2 (the latest PPN level). The results of this palaeoenvironmental program, produced in connection with the archaeological project, evidence entangled relationships between the site’s occupation and the environment, which ultimately modified both the landforms and the settlement remains after the abandonment of the site