Centralisation and decentralisation processes and pottery production at Arslantepe (SE Anatolia) during the 4th and early 3rd millennium BCE

ABSTRACT We explore the Late Chalcolithic 3–4 to Early Bronze Age I pottery from Arslantepe by combining compositional, technological and morpho-typological analyses. The paper investigates to what extent economic and political changes affected the organisation of production in terms of natural resources, human labour, and practices. The wheel-finished vessels show a strong continuity in the raw materials, while the organisation of labour changed with an increased task division under the control of the central elites from the LC3-4 to the LC5. By the EBA Ib, the pottery manufacture shows the development of a more autonomous, restricted and skilled community of craftspeople. The handmade burnished production conversely exhibits a stable organisation of labour, while the supply strategies manifested drastic changes related to the non-sedentary subsistence economy of the groups producing this pottery. We can imagine a community of practice independent of political hierarchies and aimed at functional and aesthetic results.