Connecting the Early Bronze I and II periods in the Aegean

With the reappearance of Schliemann's Trojan "Treasures," new excavations and studies in western Turkey, and recent attempts to evaluate the radiocarbon dating of the Early Bronze Age Aegean, it is time to reconsider the chronological and cultural relationships among Troy, western Anatolia, and mainland Greece in the Early Bronze I and II periods. Comparisons of material from the Early Helladic I period in the Peloponnese with material from both Troy I and western Turkish sites suggest direct links in various media. For example, the bowl of the common fruitstand of the recently recognised Talioti phase in the Northeast Peloponnese with its incised rim is virtually identical to the common Trojan bowl A12, also with incised rim. Tanged metal daggers from the Final Neolithic-Early Helladic I period find comparisons to daggers in the Cyclades and Anatolia. The marble earplug from Tsoungiza, similar to the gold earplugs from Sardis and other western Anatolian sites, likewise adds to the connections between the mainland of Greece and western Anatolia south of Troy. Consideration of western Anatolian sites such as those near Sardis which have both funerary and domestic assemblages help tie the Yortan culture to the Trojan and Aegean sequence. And the new Corridor House at Liman Tepe is an important addition to our corpus of monumental architecture of the Early Bronze Age.

Such concrete links among various regions along with the growing series of radiocarbon dates from Tsoungiza, Troy and other sites provides a solid chronological framework onto which we can firmly anchor the regional sequences for the Early Bronze I and II periods in the Aegean.