Early Lives: The Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age at Çadır Höyük

Çadır Höyük, located in the Yozgat Province of the north-central Anatolian plateau, was continuously occupied from the late sixth millennium BCE until at least the thirteenth century CE. This article focuses on the fourth millennium BCE during which the Uruk System in southern Mesopotamia emerged, flourished and then retracted, and the Kura-Araxes culture from Transcaucasia ventured into Anatolia and the Levant. A close investigation of the Çadır settlement reveals a population that embraced the opportunities afforded it through the expanded trade and intercultural connections available during the millennium; the community transitioned into new socioeconomic patterns accompanied by changes in socioreligious and possibly sociopolitical behaviors. The disappearance of such opportunities at the end of the fourth millennium, rather than decimating a village that had come to rely on them, revealed the resilience of the community as it once again reoriented its focus to more local endeavors.