Reflections about the 3.2ky BP in Central Anatolia

• Main Author: Kuzucuoğlu, Catherine
• Other Authors: Laboratoire de géographie physique : Environnements Quaternaires et Actuels (LGP), Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (UP1)-Université Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne - Paris 12 (UPEC UP12)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), International Research Network "Caucasus, Worlds in transition", Catherine Marro (Archéorient)
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2021
• Subjects: [SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences; Bor; NGRIP
• Online Access: https://paris1.hal.science/hal-03941974

International audience This presentation on the “3.2 ka event” (i.e. the 1300-1000 BC period) in Central Anatolia, uses genuine data recording the environmental responses of hydrogeomorphologic systems to the climatic alternations composing the 3.2 ka cal BP event, part of which is contemporaneous, in Anatolia, with the expansion and vanishment of the Hittite Empire. Main results show that the “3.2” ka cal BP “event” is not a replica of the peaks forming the preceding “4.2” ka cal BP event. On the global scale the ice cores, and on the regional scale the “Bond curve” (western Atlantic Ocean record, also expanding in the Mediterranean area) evidence a timing and composition of the event parted in two or three sub-phases at least.In the NGRIP curve, three warm sub-periods are centered on 1250-1200 BC, 1100-1080 BC (the weakest), and 950-850 BC (the warmest). In the GISP2 curve, two warm spikes occur, with the earliest starting after the Hittite Empire collapse (1080 BC), and the following one, less intensive, peaking between 890 and 840 BC. In the Bond curve, a first peak occurs around 1250 BC, and is followed by another peak spanning 1080-800 BC;In our results, there is no intensive warm “event” on the global scale lasting neither “one year” nor a decade, but there is a series of repetitive heat stresses peaking c. 1500-1350 BC, c. 1280-1200 BC, c.1080-1000 BC, and c. 950 BC. For this reason, the presentation shall span a period wider than the sole “1200-1000 BC years”, and try to define the succession of environments recording precipitation vs temperature (i.e. water depletion, drought) during the 1500 – 800 BC period in central Anatolia, on the basis of our findings in the Bor Plain. In addition, these results will be discussed in light the relationships between climate and the history of the Hittites in central Anatolia, as known from archaeological and historical elements.