Antropoloji Bölümü

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Citation - WoS: 32
Citation - Scopus: 31
Ancient DNA from Mesopotamia suggests distinct Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic migrations into Anatolia
(Science, 2022) Acar, Ayşe; Lazaridis, Iosif; Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül; Açıkkol, Ayşen; Agelarakis, Anagnostis; Davtyan, Ruben
We present the first ancient DNA data from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Mesopotamia (Southeastern Turkey and Northern Iraq), Cyprus, and the Northwestern Zagros, along with the first data from Neolithic Armenia. We show that these and neighboring populations were formed through admixture of pre-Neolithic sources related to Anatolian, Caucasus, and Levantine hunter-gatherers, forming a Neolithic continuum of ancestry mirroring the geography of West Asia. By analyzing Pre-Pottery and Pottery Neolithic populations of Anatolia, we show that the former were derived from admixture between Mesopotamian-related and local Epipaleolithic-related sources, but the latter experienced additional Levantine-related gene flow, thus documenting at least two pulses of migration from the Fertile Crescent heartland to the early farmers of Anatolia.
Animal exploitation at the Olympos, southwestern Anatolia: Zooarchaeological analysis
(ScienceDirect, 2022) Onar, Vedat; Olcay-Uçkan, B. Yelda; Öztaşkin, Muradiye; Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Öncü, Emre; Öztaşkin, Gökçen K.; Chrószcz, Aleksanderf
This study presents analysis of animal remains unearthed from 2006 to 2021 excavations at Olympos, an important city of ancient Lycia, southwestern Turkey. Seven faunal assemblages were unearthed from seven distinct areas of the city. Each of them was studied according to their distinct archaeological contexts. The zooarchaeological observation was based on taxonomic identification, species diversity, kill-off patterns, nature of bone modification, including taphonomic and anthropogenic marks, and type of species exploitation at the site. The results demonstrated that the majority of the specimens were consumption residues, comprising mainly of ungulate and carnivore mammals, birds and marine fish and mollusks. Goat remains were the most common in all the assemblages, which is consistent with common animal exploitation patterns in Anatolia. Fish bones mostly represented bonito (Sarda sarda), tuna (Thunnus thynnus) and shark (Carcharhinidae sp.). Among the mollusks, the shells of Triton trumpet, rarely found in the Roman-Byzantine Anatolia, were clearly used as trumpets. As Olympos was an important harbour with a strategic location by the Mediterranean Sea, its faunal remains shed new light on the coastal dietary habbit, animal economy, and cultural contacts in the Roman and Early Byzantine periods in Anatolia.
Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 6
A cat skeleton from the balatlar church excavation, sinop, Turkey
(MDPI AG, 2021) Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Onar, Vedat; Köroğlu, Gülgün; Armutak, Altan; Öncü, Öğül Emre; Chrószcz, Aleksander
In the 2015 excavation season, an east–west oriented burial (2015-Grave-14) built with large dimension stone blocks was unearthed on the south edge of “Area IVi” at the Balatlar Church in Sinop, on the northeastern Black Sea coast of Turkey. In this grave, which is dated between the end of the 6th century AD and the first half of the 7th century AD, a human skeleton was found with the head to the west and a cat skeleton was carefully placed next to the right femur. This study on the burial and the cat skeleton within it shows that, compared to the Roman period, the status of cats reached a higher level during the Byzantine period. It was found that alongside of being a pet, the Balatlar cat was a young healthy female individual that instinctively hunted rodents and birds, given that the remains of a rat and a sparrow were found in the region of the abdominal cavity, corresponding with the stomach location in the living animal. The grave presents the most significant direct archaeological evidence of a pet–human bond recorded at any Byzantine site so far.
Citation - WoS: 88
Citation - Scopus: 112
The genetic history of the Southern Arc: A bridge between West Asia and Europe
(Science, 2022) Acar, Ayşe; Lazaridis, Iosif; Alpaslan-Roodenberg, Songül; Açıkko, Ayşen; Agelarakis, Anagnostis; Davtyan, Ruben
Materials and Methods The materials and methods described here are for the combined study of the population history of the Southern Arc and pertain to the present study (which describe the entire dataset and analytically focuses on the Chalcolithic and Bronze Age periods), and two studies on Neolithic populations and the more recent history of the Southern Arc which employ the same analysis dataset and methods
Citation - WoS: 23
Citation - Scopus: 26
A genetic probe into the ancient and medieval history of Southern Europe and West Asia
(Science, 2022) Acar, Ayşe; Lazaridis, Iosif; Alpaslan, Songül; Açıkkol, Ayşen; Agelarakis, Anagnostis; Aghikyan, Levon; Davtyan, Ruben
Literary and archaeological sources have preserved a rich history of Southern Europe and West Asia since the Bronze Age that can be complemented by genetics. Mycenaean period elites in Greece did not differ from the general population and included both people with some steppe ancestry and others, like the Griffin Warrior, without it. Similarly, people in the central area of the Urartian Kingdom around Lake Van lacked the steppe ancestry characteristic of the kingdom's northern provinces. Anatolia exhibited extraordinary continuity down to the Roman and Byzantine periods, with its people serving as the demographic core of much of the Roman Empire, including the city of Rome itself. During medieval times, migrations associated with Slavic and Turkic speakers profoundly affected the region.
Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 6
The iron age dogs from alaybeyi höyük, eastern anatolia
(Animals, 2021) Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Onar, Vedat; Mutuş, Rıfat; Poradowski, Dominik
To date, little is known about the biological and cultural status of Iron Age dogs in Anatolia. Here, we present a zooarchaeological study of an assemblage of 143 Iron Age dog bones, including two dog skeletons, unearthed from the 2016 and 2017 salvage excavations at Alaybeyi Höyük, Eastern Anatolia. At least eight adults and one juvenile individual, along with a large number of miscellaneous specimens, were identified. The morphological status of the Alaybeyi dogs were primarily compared to previously published Iron Age dogs from Yoncatepe in Eastern Anatolia, and with the average mean of 18 modern dog breeds. Unlike in other Eastern Anatolian Iron Age sites, butcher marks were observed in some specimens, indicating at least occasional cynophagy at the site. Noticeable pathologies were found in about 5% of the sample, particularly pathologies of the oral cavity and dentitions, suggesting that some of the dogs at Alaybeyi Höyük might have been undernourished, had to live on solid food, and probably injured by humans. The results of this study reflect both the morphological and biological status of Alaybeyi dogs, as well as the Alaybeyi people’s attitudes toward dogs, adding vital information to the very limited archaeological knowledge of dogs in Anatolia.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 2
Items of fun, utility and divination: The knucklebones from Oluz Höyük, north-central Anatolia (Turkey)
(ScienceDirect, 2022) Onar, Vedat; Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Dönmez, Şevket
Knucklebones (i.e., culturally used astragali) are commonly encountered at many archaeological sites in Anatolia, ranging from the Neolithic to medieval period. Yet, very little is known about the cultural usages of these artifacts through time — as only scant attention has been paid to them. Here, we report a total of 590 even-toed ungulate knucklebones, unearthed from the 2008 to 2017 excavations at Oluz Höyük in north-central Anatolia (Turkey). The specimens were recorded from six cultural occupations, ranging from the Late Bronze Age (Hittite) to the medieval period. The highest number of knucklebones (72%) came from the Iron Age occupations — first associated with a Phrygian mother goddess (Matar Kubileya) temple, and later an early Zoroastrian fire temple complex (Cella) of Achaemenid occupation. Intense cultural marks such as perforating, piercing, polishing, smoothing, coloring, and metal casting were observed – indicating the specimens to be important cultural items with a variety of applications. About 85% of the specimens belonged to sheep and goats, whereas the rest came from cattle (9%), pigs (5%), deer (0.17%) and mouflon (0.85%) — suggesting that the inhabitants of all occupations at Oluz Höyük collected the knucklebones from the animals they commonly consumed. Being by far the first systematic observation of knucklebones from any archaeological site, the results of this study will add vital information to the very limited archaeological knowledge of knucklebones in Anatolia.
Citation - WoS: 5
Citation - Scopus: 6
Length estimation of Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus) using vertebrae
(Wiley, 2022) Andrews, Adam J.; Mylona, Dimitra; Rivera-Charún, Lucia; Winter, Rachel; Onar, Vedat; Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Tinti, Fausto; Morales-Muniz, Arturo
Atlantic bluefin tuna (Thunnus thynnus; BFT) is a large (up to 3.3 m in length) pelagic predator which has been exploited throughout the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean since prehistoric times, as attested by its archeological remains. One key insight derivable from these remains is body size, which can indicate past fishing abilities, the impact of fishing, and past migration behavior. Despite this, there exists no reliable method to estimate the size of BFT found in archeological sites. Here, 13 modern Thunnus spp. skeletons were studied to provide power regression equations that estimate body length from vertebra dimensions. In modern specimens, the majority of BFT vertebrae can be differentiated by their morphological features, and thus, individual regression equations can be applied for each rank (position in vertebral column). In an archeological context, poor preservation may limit one's ability to identify rank; hence, “types” of vertebrae were defined, which enable length estimates when rank cannot be determined. At least one vertebra dimension, height, width, or length correlated highly with body length when vertebrae were ranked (R2 > 0.97) or identified to types (R2 > 0.98). Whether using rank or type, length estimates appear accurate to approximately ±10%. Finally, the method was applied to a sample of Roman-era BFT vertebrae to demonstrate its potential. It is acknowledged that further studies with larger sample sizes would provide more precision in BFT length estimates.
Citation - WoS: 4
Citation - Scopus: 6
Local trend of symbolism at the dawn of the Neolithic: The painted bone plaquettes from PPNA Kortiktepe, Southeast Turkey
(Elsevier, 2021) Sıddıq, Abu Bakar; Şahin, Feridun S.; Özkaya, Vecihi
The PPNA site of Körtiktepe in the Upper Tigris Basin yielded one of the richest Pre-Pottery Neolithic assemblages in Western Asia. The site also stands among a few key Epipalaeolithic–Neolithic transitional centers that played vital roles in the origin and evolution of Neolithic symbolism in Upper Mesopotamia. The site was occupied from the second half of the 11th millennium BCE, and throughout much of the 10th millennium BCE the sedentary hunter-gatherers at Körtiktepe engaged in a socio-symbolic organization with elaborate funerary practice and extensive manufacture of symbolic artifacts, including figurative plaquettes, engraved stone vessels, incised shaft straighteners with elaborate designs, scepters, and large assemblages of beads, mostly unearthed from c2000 intra-site burials. No other PPN site has yielded such an extensive number of burial remains and grave goods. Here, we present a group of painted bone plaquettes displaying morphological features and some imagery so far not seen at any other Pre-Pottery Neolithic site in Western Asia. Assessing the specimens in light of the wider symbolic practices among the first Neolithic societies, we argue that Körtiktepe was an important center of symbolic trend at the dawn of the Neolithic in the Upper Tigris Basin.
Citation - WoS: 1
Citation - Scopus: 1
Tracing Royal Consumption and Socio-Symbolism Through Faunal Remains: Zooarchaeology of Iron Age-Urartu Ayanis Citadel, Eastern Turkiye
(Elsevier, 2024) Siddiq, Abu B.; Isikli, Mehmet
Despite having a research history of more than one and a half centuries, zooarchaeological investigations within Urartian archaeology are still very limited. This study marks a significant contribution presenting a comprehensive zooarchaeological dataset of 11,977 animal bones and fragments, primarily unearthed from a royal midden at the Urartian site of Ayanis citadel, Eastern Turkiye. The analysis encompasses species identification, age estimation, sex determination, and the identification of taphonomic and pathological changes. Rigorous measurements were taken to establish a robust zooarchaeological dataset. Logarithmic Size Index (LSI) was calculated to identify the morphological characteristics of Ayanis sheep, goats, and cattle, as well as potential sex -based exploitation of these animals. Contextualizing the results with faunal remains from contemporary Urartian sites including Bastam in Iran, and Karmir-Blur, Aramus and Horom in Armenia, this study presents hitherto overlooked archaeological evidence of animal -based consumption behavior and rituals, and possible animal taboos practiced by the Urartian royals and elites. It also offers new opportunities for comparative analyses and discussions for the biometric status of domestic livestock and animal -human interactions within the broader context of the Iron Age in the Lesser Caucasus and West Asia.

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