Towards a Chronology for the Anatolian Early Bronze Age

Renfrew has rightly remarked that in Anatolian Early Bronze Age chronology “the basic problem is to decide how to correlate the Trojan early bronze age periods … with the sequence of Tarsus”. It is largely to this problem that the following article is addressed. Professor Mellink has argued that Troy I is contemporary with Tarsus EBII on the grounds that Troy II and Tarsus EBIII appear to her to be contemporary. Since she places the start of Tarsus EBI atc.3000 B.C. this scheme places the beginning of Troy I considerably after that date, perhaps atc.2700 B.C. Mellaart, by contrast, disputes the equation between Troy I and Tarsus EBII and argued at first that Tarsus EBIIIa must begin later than the beginning of Troy II, envisaging a period of overlap. He has subsequently suggested that it actually follows theendof Troy II. According to this correlation Troy I would be contemporary with Tarsus EBI, and not Tarsus EBII.