An evaluation of the Kayadibi lithic assemblage in the context of the Aegean Mesolithic

Due to lack of projects, Early prehistory of western Anatolia is insufficiently known. For this reason, no knowledge existed about the Early Holocene foragers who lived on the Aegean coast of western Turkey Between 9000 – 7000 cal. BC. When the Karaburun Archaeological Survey Project started in 2015, the team discovered the open-air site of Kayadibi, which produced a Lithic assemblages which possibly belonged to the Early Holocene foragers. This study tries to offer a technological and typological analysis of Kayadibi Chipped Stones along with a discussion of their relative dating, which represents the first Mesolithic forager remains in western Turkey. For this purpose, the Kayadibi industry is compared to the Lithic assemblages from the Mesolithic sites in the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands as well as the Anatolian Epipalaeolithic sites. The main objective was to discuss and determine to which Lithic traditon in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean Kayadibi assemblages might belong to. Our investigation demonstrated that the Lithics of Kayadibi display no affinities with the Epipaleolithic traditions of Anatolia and are actually connected with the so-called "Early Holocene Aegean Islands Tradition" as defined by J. K. Kozłowski and M. Kaczanowska. As a result, this study produced the fisrt data on Mesolithic foragers of western Turkey.