Centralisation and decentralisation processes and pottery production at Arslantepe (SE Anatolia) during the 4th and early 3rd millennium BCE

Abstract

ABSTRACT We explore the Late Chalcolithic 3–4 to Early Bronze Age I pottery from Arslantepe by combining compositional, technological and morpho-typological analyses. The paper investigates to what extent economic and political changes affected the organisation of production in terms of natural resources, human labour, and practices. The wheel-finished vessels show a strong continuity in the raw materials, while the organisation of labour changed with an increased task division under the control of the central elites from the LC3-4 to the LC5. By the EBA Ib, the pottery manufacture shows the development of a more autonomous, restricted and skilled community of craftspeople. The handmade burnished production conversely exhibits a stable organisation of labour, while the supply strategies manifested drastic changes related to the non-sedentary subsistence economy of the groups producing this pottery. We can imagine a community of practice independent of political hierarchies and aimed at functional and aesthetic results.