Siedlungskammer Kilikien

Abstract

An essential aspect of understanding past human activity is knowledge about the natural environment. Like almost no other landscape in Asia Minor, the Cilician Plain is defined by strong topographic contrasts: a large fertile plain surrounded by the sea and steep mountain ranges. The Cilician Plain is separated by a natural border into a western (Çukurova) and an eastern (Yukarıova) settlement cluster. All central places in the Çukurova have been located over the millennia at the foothills of the mountains. By contrast, the central places in the Yukarıova were less constant. The avulsion of the rivers can be seen as a reason for this development. However, there also exists for the construction of main Late Bronze and Iron Age monuments in the Cilician Plain a correlation with rivers and channels.