Late/Post-Ubaid-Related Pottery in Volcanic Cappadocia: Evidence from the Aksaray Prehistoric Survey Project (AKYA)

Ubaid-related material traits spread into northern Mesopotamia, southeastern Anatolia, eastern Anatolia, and Cilicia during the second half of the 6th millennium BC. Current research understands this process not as a homogeneous cultural expansion, but as a broad and regionally variable interaction sphere in which shared traits were adopted and reshaped within different local traditions. In Volcanic Cappadocia, Late/Post-Ubaid-related pottery is known from sites such as Fraktin, Güvercinkayası, Bekçitepe, and Adıyaman Mevkii I. Finds documented at Çakılbaşı, Çatalçeşme, Kabakulak, Kayanınaltı, Gülçur Kayaüstü, and Musular during the Aksaray Prehistoric Survey Project (AKYA, 2021-2025) provide new evidence for the westward distribution of this repertoire within the region. This study examines the pottery macroscopically in terms of its technological and morphological characteristics and compares it with published assemblages from Volcanic Cappadocia, Cilicia, eastern Anatolia, and northern Mesopotamia. The results demonstrate that the AKYA data make an important contribution to documenting both the spatial distribution and the technological-morphological variability of Late/Post-Ubaid-related pottery in the interior of Central Anatolia.