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©The Archaeological Settlements of Turkey - TAY Project
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Coskuntepe |
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For site maps and drawings please click on the picture...  |
For photographs please click on the photo...  |
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Type:
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Flat Settlement |
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Altitude:
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110 m |
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Region:
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Marmara |
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Province:
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Çanakkale |
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District:
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Ayvacik |
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Village:
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Bademli |
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Investigation Method:
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Survey |
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Period:
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Ceramic |
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| Location: This site is located south of the city of Çanakkale; south-southeast of the town of Gülpinar; 4 km southwest of the village of Bademli. It is possible to reach the site via the village road from Çanakkale to Bademli via Gülpinar. |
| Geography and Environment: The site is located on a rocky outcrop that faces the Island of Midilli in the Aegean Sea and is approximately 100 m above sea-level. Neither the extent of the surface pottery and thus the site-size nor the thickness of the cultural deposit has been determined. The cultural deposit does not appear to be very thick. There are historic ruins on top of the outcrop. Perhaps the reason why this site was settled throughout antiquity is the presence of a nearby prominent water source. The mountainous Biga Peninsula steeply ends when it meets the Aegean Sea. The surrounding soil is not very fertile. The settlement at this site may have been a fishing village. |
| History: |
| Research and Excavation: This site; which was discovered while excavating the Temple of Apollo at Gülpinar; is very close to the site of Asarlik/Palamedyum. This site was named Coskuntepe after C. Özgünel. It is not a local name. |
| Stratigraphy: It has been reported that the site was inhabited heavily during the Late Neolithic; Roman and Hellenistic Periods and rarely during the Chalcolithic Period and the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. |
| Small Finds: Pottery: The ceramic finds which have been assigned to the Neolithic were analyzed by J. Seeher. Seeher reports that the Neolithic ware has been made homogeneous with clay with small grit tempering and no organic temper. Both the interiors and the exteriors of the ceramics are burnished. The surface is covered with thin slip. There is no painted decoration although a box-shaped vessel has incised decoration. The surface colors are dark red; reddish-brown or yellowish red. There are also thick lipped and inturned forms [Seeher 1990a:fig 1]. In addition to steep sided pottery with S profiles; a few examples of flat dishes were found. The pottery is flat bottomed. Some pierced sherds were also found [Seeher 1990a:fig.1 23-29]. Chipped Stone: The chipped stone tools found on the surface have been; although with reservation; assigned to the Neolithic. The fact that there are so many Neolithic sherds compared with sherds of other periods strengthens this hypothesis. Flint is the raw material used. The abundance of chipped stone finds and debitage products suggests that the tools were made at the site. Cores and flakes are common. Simple scrapers on flakes is the most frequent tool type. The surface finds suggest that there is a nearby flint source while the rare obsidian tools must have been imported from another region. The sickle blades indicate that the subsistence of these inhabitants of this site included grains such as wheat; barley and different grasses. Ground Stone: It is difficult to assign these tools to the Neolithic just by their typological qualities. A basalt pestle [Seeher 1990a:fig. 2/10] and similarly a celt might be Neolithic in date. |
| Remains: |
| Interpretation and Dating: It is very difficult to assign the finds from Coskuntepe to a period. This might be because there are no other discovered or excavated Neolithic sites in the area from which a stratigraphic sequence can be based. Attempts were made to compare the finds to those from Fikirtepe; Demircihöyük; Hacilar and Çatalhöyük. The wide rimmed bowls resemble the examples from the early periods at Çatalhöyük. The surface colors of the vessels are different than the Hacilar IX-VIII finds. Forms similar to the incised box-shaped vessel fragment were found at Fikirtepe and Demircihöyük. Seeher mentions that Coskuntepe lacks painted sherds like Hacilar IX-VIII. This researcher further mentions that the cylindrical lugged vessels resemble the Hacilar-Coskuntepe finds on the Aegean coast [Seeher 1990a:15]. It is possible to conclude that Coskuntepe and Fikirtepe are both single layer Neolithic settlements. These two sites suggest that other single layer Neolithic sites in Western Anatolia have been washed away by alluvial fill. The region needs to be researched in more detail. |
