The Kahramanmarash Valley Survey

"The proposed volume presents a study of local landscape histories in a pivotal, but largelyperipheral, region. It is a final report on the surface surveys carried out in the Kahramanmaraşregion of southeastern Turkey between 1993 and 2000. Maraş was often on a border, removedfrom the centers of political power. It was pulled between Antioch to the south and the areasalong the Euphrates to the east. After an introduction to the project and region, we present anoverview of the environmental factors affecting settlement in the survey area (Chapter 2). Thenwe outline the record of settlement patterns beginning with the first settlement of the valley inthe Neolithic and ending with the Islamic era (Chapters 3-9). We also present the results of an intensive full coverage and transect surveys around Domuztepe, KM 97, and the modeling basedon them (Chapter 10), which evaluates our survey methodologies and offers various possible reconstructions of the total landscape. In the concluding section, these various lines of inquiryare integrated into a broadly based picture of how the ancient residents of the valley made thiszone between Syria and Anatolia their home; we discuss what these landscape signatures meanlocally and how they are tied to the larger patterns of interregional growth and decline"--