This study investigates the effect of topography in ancient city Kerkenes using Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Kerkenes, an Iron Age city located on a batholith in Yozgat province, Turkey, was chosen because of its exceptional size, short life and the availability of extensive data. Approximately seven kilometres of city wall in Kerkenes, including towers and seven gates, enclose 2.5 km&sup2 / . The research comprises topographic analysis and settlement data analysis. Elevation values collected by Global Positioning System (GPS) and 1:25000 scaled topographic maps are used to create and analyze elevation, slope and aspect maps. Basic statistics of the city wall, towers and gates are calculated and a procedure is then followed to examine the city wall, towers and gates to understand reasons for the line of the city wall, the uneven distribution of gates, the position of each individual gate, the positions and spacing of towers, and the water catchments. Advantages of the elevated site of Kerkenes for the foundation of a new capital within the region are demonstrated. The GPS data do not show statistically significant differences then the 1:25000 scaled topographic maps in regional scale, especially analyzing the elevation and slope data. Topographic analyses reveal that approximately 75% of the city wall coincides with the topographic divide which shows the city walls may serve both for urban water collection and for defence. City wall has divided into two as East section and West section by a north-south axis from the north end point of the city. There are 41 and 27 towers are detected on the West and East section, respectively. Towers on the West section are more closely spaced than the East section. There are also two and five gates in the West and East section, respectively. The East section of the city wall overlaps with the topographic divide only in the northeastern part. This situation can not be traced along the southeastern part of Kerkenes which may be the reason to include the strategically important two higher altitude areas (Kiremitlik and Kale) inside the city. The city wall in the West section, however, runs along the topographic divide which affects the number and the distribution of the towers.

This masters thesis investigates the environmental/climatic change that is thought to have brought about the economic shift and transition from Palaeolithic economic system of hunting gathering to Neolithic economic system of agriculture and domestication period around 11.000-10.000 years ago. This study uses the collected animal and plant data of the Natufian culture in the Levant region from the previous zooarchaeological and archaeobotanical literature anlyses. It shows a significant mathematical difference in the zooarchaeological assemblage measures between the Early and Late Natufian sites by calculating Economic value parameters of the Early and the Late Natufian sites, a comparison analysis was made in terms of percentage frequencies of animals site by site and between early-late periods. The result shows a significant animal food supply decrease and change-shift shown during the Younger Dryas climatic crisis times of the whole Late Natufian period sites total and early to late site by site individually, compared to whole Early Natufian period sites. It shows there is a possibility that some big-base camp Late Natufian occupation sites were better able to create coping mechanisms against food crisis/food shortage and more successfully than other Late Natufian sites during the climatic food crisis period. It shows supporting with the animal-plant data and changes in the human bones, burial practices, human teeth, diet changes and anthropological studies evidence, a big social-economic-cultural change and a huge food crisis was highly possible and humans highly possibly lived an economic crisis and an highly connected-related social-cultural crisis during the Younger Dryas in the Late Natufian times human societies.

This study aims to construct a predictive model that investigates patterning of settlement mounds by employing environmental variables. The results then will help to search for unknown sites of the same age. The methodology is applied to the Lake District of Anatolia for the period of 9000B.C. &amp / #8211 / 5500B.C. Four main sets of data are used in this study. The first set is the settlement data, which includes the names, coordinates, and periods of the sites. The sources of independent datasets are topography, lithology and soil. The study starts with the straightforward procedure of plotting the sites in the region. Then the layers (independent variables), populated with their sub-fields, are included in the model in the GIS to construct a predictive model by using logistic regression. Results reveal some high potential areas with no known occupation, as well as some zones which need more research. Also, hierarchy of environmental variables is detected, which affected the settlement patterning of the study area.