Did climate empty the Lake District of southwestern Anatolia?

The Chalcolithic of the Lake District, southwestern Anatolia, contains a gap of two millennia. Elsewhere in western Anatolia the Middle Chalcolithic is present; the Lake District alone lacks it. We present the first continuous, high-resolution geochemical record for the region, an ITRAX-scanned, radiocarbon-dated core from the Gencali palaeolake. The gap opens while effective moisture is rising, within the dated section of the core. Climate did not initiate it. Higher in the sequence, between c. 6600 and c. 5850 cal BP, clastic delivery reaches its Holocene maximum, and Middle Chalcolithic settlement elsewhere in western Anatolia appears to end within that interval.