New Evidence from Decorative Patterns of Early Bronze Age Pottery at Yanik Tepe, Iran

Beginning in 1948, archaeological surveys and excavations in northwest Iran brought to light evidence of cultural developments related to the movements of people who colonized vast parts of the Near East from northeast Anatolia to southern Levant in the late 4th and early 3rd millennium B.C., prompted by environmental changes, population boom or shortage of biological resources in their homeland. The period is best known in the archaeological literature as the Early Trans-Caucasian (ETC) or Kura-Araxes culture, and is distinguished, by a disparate black burnished pottery with incised decorations. Here is published for the time a sample of decorative patterns on the related pottery from Yanik Tepe. The main question of the study was: To what extent did the newcomer potters communicated on this pottery the artistic traditions they had brought with themselves from their homeland? Data gathered through museum and library enquiries were used to carry out a comparative study. Data analysis was of qualitative nature, and the study represented one of culture-historical.