Abstrakt
Western Anatolia played a more or less prominent role in a number of archaeological and historical scenarios over the years, notwithstanding the fact that, despite more than a century of research, we still largely know only the coastal sites. The vast area between the coast and the Anatolian plateau is known only from surveys, with the sole exception of Beycesultan.
It is therefore necessary to develop a new chronological periodisation and cultural scheme, appropriate to the fragmentary survey material and lacking stratigraphies. Both will be proposed in this paper.
Using the latest information on Troy, Liman Tepe, Bademgediği Tepe, and Miletus together with firsthand knowledge of material from both East Aegean littoral islands and the West Anatolian inland sites, the article discusses the available settlement structure, makes use of some basic GIS applications, draws eventual cultural boundaries based on pottery distribution, and attempts to compare the thus gained archaeological groupings with the currently valid so-called Hittite political geography for Western Anatolia. Finally, it proposes some lines of thought concerning the identity of the population in the individual archaeologically identifiable cultural groupings.