Geç Tunç Çağı mezarları, Miken bağlantıları ve Batı Anadolu kıyısı deniz kültür peyzajı

The relationship between humans and their surroundings in a landscape is a mutual connection. People adapted to their environment by creating a hybrid maritime culture in Western Anatolia during the Late Bronze Age. The landscape forced the region's inhabitants to forge stronger links to the Aegean and rather than inland. People adapted their settlements, harbors, and cemeteries to the environment based on maritime activities, especially sea trade. Maritime trade, harbors, graves, and settlements on the Western Anatolian coastline have been examined previously, but they have not been holistically studied through the concept of the maritime cultural landscape. Aside from a few publications, researchers did not consider cemeteries and burials as a part of the maritime cultural landscape. Burials on the coastline of Western Anatolia were positioned based on the sea direction and concentrated in the field of maritime activities. In some of the sites such as Pilavtepe and Müsgebi, Bronze Age settlements have not yet been found, but the graves provide information on population and maritime activities. The morphology of the sites is known by studies of geological cores. Interactions between the various regions and local activities in Western Anatolia peaked in the LBA, especially c. 1400-1200 BC (LBA c.1700-1100). The advantageous position of the region between the Aegean and the resources of Anatolia made it a transit point. These conditions combined cultural and political interactions with Mycenaeans. Characteristics of the burial customs showing evidence for cross-cultural networks include funerary architecture, burial practices, positions of bodies in graves, the locations of graves and cemeteries, and grave goods. These graves represent Aegean influence particularly, for example, the Marine Style of pottery, both as Mycenaean imports and local imitations, Aegean style of jewellery and metal objects. The LBA cultures of the Western Anatolian coast cannot be examined without considering this network.