| The Sinop Regional Survey has now completed four seasons of field
work. With support from the National Geographic Society, the Kaplan
Foundation, the Samuel Freeman and Oliver S. Donaldson Charitable Trusts,
and private donors, the survey has been documenting settlement in the hinterland
of Sinop port from the Middle Paleolithic period (50,000 B.P.) through
Ottoman times.
The most important periods for studying Black Sea trade systems range from about 3,000 B.C (Chalcolithic period) to the present. The first four seasons have concentrated on settlement on Sinop Promontory, which projects about 25 km into the Pontic basin from the north coast of Turkey (see map above). So far, we have documented about 180 sites, each pinpointed on 1:25,000 topographic maps provided by the Turkish government using a Global Positioning System (GPS). Plans have been drawn of each site, including topographic and geomorphological features in addition to archaeological evidence. Materials, mostly ceramics, from each site were collected and catalogued for further study and deposited in the Sinop Regional Museum. |
