Industrial archaeology and windmills: The case of Karakol village

This master?s thesis aims to examine the windmills of the village of Karakol in Balıkesir Province in northwestern Anatolia from an industrial archaeological perspective. As a branch of archaeology, industrial archaeology focuses on the study of material culture of the past with a focus on industry. Although its a well developed branch of archaeology in Europe and North America, industrial archaeology has just become to evolve in Turkey. Industrial archaeology has often been viewed as a field of archaeology largely dealing with the periods post-dating Industrial Revolution in the 18th century, focusing on issues such as technology, transportation and buildings associated with manufacture or raw material prouction. Thus, the issues such as engineering, architecture, economy and the social history of manufacturing and extracting industry constitute the essence of industrial archaeology. In this context, the windmills have often viewed as one of the areas of study in countries where industrial archaeology is practiced. This is the reason why this thesis picked to focus on the subject of windmills identified at the village of Karakol in Balıkesir. These windmills identified at the village of Karakol are also important because they are diffrenet than the Mediterranean type tower windmills frequantly found on most coastal areas of western Turkey. In contrast, the windmills of the village of Karakol represent the post-mill type known Eureope as early as the 12th ecentury.