Distribution of artifacts and ecofacts in an Early Bronze Age house in Eastern Anatolia: Space use and household economy at Arslantepe VI B2 (2900–2750 BCE)☆ Paola Piccione a , Corrado Alvaro b , Laszlo Bartosiewicz c , Cristina Lemorini d , Alessia Masi e, ⁎, Laura Sadori e a Missione Archeologica Italiana nell'Anatolia Orientale, Sapienza Università, Rome, Italy b Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, Sapienza Università, Rome, Italy c School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edimburgh, UK d Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, Sapienza Università, Rome, Italy e Dipartimento di Biologia Ambientale, Sapienza Università, Rome, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 17 April 2015 Received in revised form 24 July 2015 Accepted 22 August 2015 Available online xxxx Keywords: Eastern Anatolia Early Bronze Age I Archaeozoology Archaeobotany Artifacts Use of space Household economy Arslantepe, one of the best documented mounds in Eastern Anatolia, is well known especially for its Late Chalcolithic ‘palace’, testifying to the emergence of a centralized and redistributive economy, typical in the 4th millennium BCE Uruk and Uruk-related worlds. At the beginning of the Early Bronze Age this socio-economic sys- tem undergoes a collapse, and the degree of control of the economy on behalf of the ‘elites’ seems to be, here and in other sites, significantly lower or even non-existent. This topic (in need of further investigation) may be enriched by studies focusing on the household level and aimed at assessing the role of household economy. By applying a multidisciplinary approach, this research combines zoological, botanical and artifactual evidence from a multi-roomed mud-brick dwelling in the Early Bronze Age settlement of Arslantepe — VI B2 (2900– 2750 BCE), which was destroyed by a fire and suddenly abandoned: an event entailing the retrieval of a very rich assemblage of in situ ecofacts and artifacts. In this paper we present in detail the carpological, anthracological and archaeozoological finds and – after describing the architectural layout of the house under examination – we assess the morpho-functional characteristics of both ceramics and lithics (the latter determined through use- wear analysis) and examine the spatial and stratigraphic patterning of all the materials: although partly biased by taphonomic modifications, the sub-assemblages of the different indoor and outdoor spaces of the examined dwelling reflect the functional characteristics of each area. Additionally, we combine our results with preliminary data from other parts of the extensively excavated village of period VI B2, pointing out the prominent role of household economy in this phase. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Biological records associated with archeological evidence can be ad- vantageously used to reconstruct the socio-economic characteristics of past societies and their interaction with the environment. Multidisci- plinary approaches are widespread in studies concerning the earlier phases of prehistory and are now becoming more common also for later periods, but they often face the difficulty of tackling a full set of di- verse data (i.e., material culture, plant, animal and environmental evi- dence) that need to be analyzed by well-balanced teams of specialists. When carried out, multidisciplinary cooperation leads to significant re- sults and has proven to be decisive in clarifying dubious interpretations of past human–environment interrelations (Cremaschi et al., 2014; Di Lernia et al., 2013; Masi et al., 2014; Mazzini et al., 2011; Pepe et al., 2013; Sabato et al., 2014). In this article we analyze all the human traces (artifacts and ecofacts) recovered in a domestic structure of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) I period at the site of Arslantepe (Turkey): through this case study we aim at outlining a methodology for the interpretation of archeological contexts based on a fine-grained analysis of the spatial distribution of varied finds; additionally, we intend to contribute to the field of household archeology – which has recently undergone a consid- erable development also in Near Eastern studies (i.e., Foster, 2012; Nishimura, 2008; Özbal, 2006; Parker and Foster, 2012) – by focusing Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 4 (2015) 8–22 ☆ Authorship statement: P.P. coordinated the research, provided data on ceramics and wrote the conclusions. Together with C.A. she also examined stratigraphic and distributional data in the Arslantepe archive. C.A. discussed the architectural features and elaborated all plans and sections. C.L. carried out analyses on lithics. L.B. examined and discussed the archaeozoological data and laid out all figures concerning archaeozoological finds. Plant materials were analyzed and interpreted by A.M. and L.S. The introduction was written jointly by A.M. and P.P. Finally, all authors contributed equally to the discussion section and commented on the manuscript at all stages. ⁎ Corresponding author at: Sapienza Università, P.le A. Moro, 5, 00185 Rome, Italy. E-mail addresses: paopiccione@hotmail.com (P. Piccione), corrado.alvaro@uniroma1.it (C. Alvaro), Laszlo.Bart@ed.ac.uk (L. Bartosiewicz), cristina.lemorini@uniroma1.it (C. Lemorini), alessia.masi@uniroma1.it (A. Masi), laura.sadori@uniroma1.it (L. Sadori). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2015.08.035 2352-409X/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/jasrep