Exploring the Collapse of the Hittite Empire as a Social Phenomenon

Summary

In this paper, I explore how viewing collapse as a social and political phenomenon might change how we interpret the collapse of the Hittite empire in Turkey at the end of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1200 BC). To this end, I consider the implications of changes and continuities in animal management at two sites in central Turkey following the collapse of the Hittite empire. The end of the Late Bronze Age was characterized by significant political and economic disruption throughout the eastern Mediterranean, and the subsequent period has often been understood as a ‘Dark Age.’ Here I present the results of new faunal analyses from the Hittite capital of Hattuşa and from Çadır Höyük, a rural town, monitoring the faunal evidence for changes and continuities in the organization of practices related to the production, processing and distribution of both antemortem and postmortem animal resources. By studying how people used animals and their products at these two very different sites, I look for potential shifts in social practices across the Late Bronze- Early Iron Age transition, and I consider how the Hittite collapse may have been experienced differently by people living in different parts of the empire.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 81st Annual Meeting, Orlando, FL (2016)   •
• "Let's Talk about [Collapse], Baby": Explorations in the Archaeology of Societal Collapse

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