The Paleolithic of Southwestern Marmara Region

Anatolian peninsula is thought to be one of the main land routes for hominin dispersals through the Old World during the Paleolithic. Apart from its strategically important geographical position, the region consists of many different ecological sub-regions and niches. Çanakkale and Balıkesir provinces are situated on the northwestern end of the peninsula and south of the Marmara Sea. The climatic changes during the Pleistocene (2.588 mya-11.700 BP) resulted in global sea level changes and due to the fact that Marmara Sea as an inland sea, the sea level changes were much more. Marmara Sea has never been a natural barrier for hominin dispersals between Thrace and Anatolia. On the west, the sea level changes in Aegean Sea made the continental shelf larger during the Paleolithic, resulting in the land bridges that connect Anatolian and Greek peninsulas until the Early Upper Pleistocene. First systematic surveys in the region were conducted in the late 1980's and revealed many Paleolithic open air sites. The finds are currently stored in the Prehistory Laboratory of Istanbul University. These lithic assemblages are studied, regarding their techno-typology and raw material characteristics. The primary purpose of this study is to describe the lithic industries of the region. Also with the support of Institutum Turcicum Scientiae Antiquitatis (TEBE), a fieldwork was conducted in order to understand geomorphological structures of the sites. Since none of the sites were geologically in situ and it was not possible to obtain absolute dates, the artifacts are dated relatively due to their technological and typological characteristics. In Çanakkale and Balıkesir provinces there are a total of 43 Paleolithic sites, including the ones that are discovered during the recent fieldwork and the single find bearing sites. Middle Paleolithic artifacts are most abundant and variable in almost every site. This indicates that the main occupation in the region took place during the Middle Paleolithic. The technological and typological diversity of the Middle Paleolithic finds is evidenced at almost every site. The Lower and Upper Paleolithic artifacts are much more less in numbers. The Lower Paleolithic finds are represented mainly by chopper and chopping-tools and less by bifacial tools and concentrated in Yenice Plain, Gönen, South Koca Çay and South Susurluk basins. The Upper Paleolithic finds are concentrated in Çan Plain.