Modeling the Changes in the Surface Processes at Arslantepe (Malatya) during the Early Bronze Age-I (ca. 5000–4750 cal. BP)

Summary

Agent-based modeling of land use not only illustrates how ancient production mechanisms evolve, but such models also have the power to reconstruct changes in spatio-temporal changes in the dynamics of surface processes in relation with the changes in climatic conditions and varying type and intensity of human land use. Early Bronze Age-I at Arslantepe represents a time period when the paleoclimatic dynamics changed towards more arid conditions while the economy of the site shifted from intensive irrigation farming to site-tethered pastoralism. Concurrently, the social organization moved from a hierarchic to a heterarchic structure. Extensive geoarchaeological research around the site suggests a low rate of sediment deposition for this phase. Under more arid climatic conditions, it is expected that various modes of land use would have different impacts on the surface processes. The results of numerous scenarios tested in agent-based models at Arslantepe during the Early Bronze Age-I show that the rates of erosion and deposition change as patterns of precipitation and the mode of land use change. The results of simulations prove that the shift in economic and social organization alleviated the environmental disturbance that the residents of Arslantepe were faced with at the onset of the Middle Holocene.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22766