Unveiling Neolithic Economic Behavior: A Novel Approach to Chert Procurement at Çukuriçi Höyük, Western Anatolia

Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory https://doi.org/10.1007/s10816-024-09681-6 (2025) 32:16 RESEARCH Unveiling Neolithic Economic Behavior: A Novel Approach to Chert Procurement at Çukuriçi Höyük, Western Anatolia Michael Brandl1 · Maria M. Martinez2,3 · Christoph Hauzenberger4 · Peter Filzmoser5 · Bogdana Milić1 · Barbara Horejs1,6 Accepted: 6 September 2024 © The Author(s) 2024 Abstract The expansion of the Neolithic way of life triggered the most profound changes in peoples’ socioeconomic behaviors, including how critical resources for everyday life were managed. Recent research spearheaded by ancient DNA analysis has greatly contributed to our understanding of the main direction of Neolithisation spreading from western Anatolia into central Europe. Due to the diverse processes involved in Neolithisation, which resulted in a high diversity of regional and local phenomena, the underlying mechanisms of these developments are still largely unexplored. One of these mechanisms is economic behavior and resource management. Neolithic economic behavior is the result of social processes involving the physical actions of the procurement, processing, use, discard, and distribution of raw materials as well as finished products for utilitarian needs and to create and maintain social relations. Within this continuum, the key for tracing meaningful behavioral patterns is the identification of raw material procurement. Since stone tools are among the most ubiquitous and stable finds at Neolithic sites, they are ideally suited for this endeavor. Here, we present the results of a case study from the Neolithic site of Çukuriçi Höyük in western Anatolia tracing lithic raw material procurement. We employ a novel approach using geochemical provenance analyses coupled with quantitative technological and econometric methods. The key finding of this diachronic study covering almost 700 years revealed patterns of socioeconomic dynamics undetectable through conventional analytical approaches. We demonstrate that technological concepts fluctuate over time and are subject to innovations, whereas raw material procurement remains a stable element. Keywords Economic behavior · Raw material procurement · Neolithic · Western Anatolia · Çukuriçi Höyük · Geochemistry · Paleoeconomy · Statistics Extended author information available on the last page of the article Vol.:(0123456789) 16 Page 2 of 39 M. Brandl et al. Introduction Neolithisation, i.e., the dispersion of the Neolithic way of life, is one of the most significant transformative processes humanity has undergone. From a European perspective, this development commenced approximately 6700 BC in west Anatolia and was all but straightforward, covering a timespan of roughly 1000 years (e.g., Horejs et al., 2015; Krauß, 2011; Özdoğan et al., 2012). The cultural, social, and economic changes related to the adoption of sedentism, farming and herding in contrast to hunting and gathering ultimately shaped a distinct Neolithic mindset. With the transition to a sedentary lifeway, targeted resource management and storage gained increasing importance since, in contrast to mobile hunter-gatherers, sedentary communities were forced to ensure a more efficient, stable, and continuous supply of resources. These requirements had implications on how raw materials were procured, with a greater emphasis on planned acquisition strategies and stockpiling rather than the opportunistic, embedded procurement typical of more mobile groups. Sedentary Neolithic communities engaged in farming, herding, and fishing developed new technologies associated with these subsistence strategies, which also reduced the reliance on opportunistic raw material procurement. Instead, raw material acquisition became more organized and specialized, including exchange and distribution networks, which were established to build and maintain social relations and acquire specific goods. In short, the Neolithic mindset shifted towards a more targeted economic behavior than in previous periods (e.g., Bogaard, 2005; Kuijt, 2000a, b; Rosenberg, 1998; Sherratt, 1981). The resulting deeply rooted behavioral patterns are reflected in various ways in the archaeological record, particularly site architecture and material culture. Although ancient DNA and isotope analyses were able to demonstrate that the main Neolithic trajectories were oriented from the southeast to the northwest (e.g., Hofmanová et al., 2016; Lazaridis et al., 2022; Marchi et al., 2022), the complex mechanisms underlying this expansion are still not fully understood. The most crucial questions in this regard concern socioeconomic strategies, adaptations, and landscape use of the early farmers and herders. Reconstructing these aspects of Neolithic socioeconomic behavior at the point of departure, in this case western Anatolia, is the foundation for understanding the diversity of economic systems that emerged among early agro-pastoral communities in the Balkans and Central Europe. Within the archaeological record, economic behavior can be traced by analyzing resource management strategies from a diachronic perspective to reveal dynamic processes at play within economic frameworks. One crucial aspect is using materials that allow for such an endeavor. Regarding resource management, chipped stone tools are among the best suited due to their wide use, abundance, and durability at prehistoric and specifically Neolithic sites. Here, we present the results of an integrated analytical case study investigating diachronic lithic resource management, more precisely chert economy, at the Neolithic site of Çukuriçi Höyük in western Anatolia. Çukuriçi Höyük is a coastal Unveiling Neolithic Economic Behavior: A Novel Approach to… Page 3 of 39 16 tell site situated in the hinterland of the ancient city of Ephesus. Today, the tell is deeply covered by alluvium and only visible as a shallow mound; however, recent excavations revealed an overall height of the cultural layers of 7 m covering an area of at least 200 × 160 m equating to 32,000 m2 (Stock et al., 2013). Following initial investigations in 1995, systematic excavations were conducted between 2006 and 2014 (with a break in 2010) by B. Horejs and her team,1 which uncovered settlement traces from the Early Neolithic up to the Early Bronze Age (Horejs, 2012, 2016, 2017; Horejs et al., 2011). The Neolithic phases cover a settlement history of ca. 700 years, which places the site among a series of comparable western Anatolian Neolithic tells, i.e., Ulucak, Ege Gübre, Yesilova, and Dedecik Heybelitepe, of which Çukuriçi and Ulucak represent the earliest Neolithic pioneer sites (e.g., Çilingiroğlu et al., 2012; Derin, 2012; Lichter & Meriç, 2012; Sağlamtimur, 2012; Fig. 1). These sites represent the Neolithic occupation phase along the central Aegean coast known today (Galik & Horejs, 2011, 89), which is why all of them can be regarded as key sites for studying the Neolithisation of (...truncated)