Proceedings, 9 th ICAANE, Basel 2014, Vol. 2, 323–332 Leigh A. Stork The Relationship between Pins and Textiles in the Carchemish Region during the Early 3 rd Millennium BC Pins are the most frequently found metal items in the Carchemish region of the Euphrates Valley, with the vast majority of these found in mortuary contexts. The prevalence of pins in burials is related here to the increased importance of textiles in the Carchemish regional economy at this time. The recent rescue and salvage excavations in the Euphrates River Valley of Syria and Turkey have greatly expanded our understanding of the settlement patterns and socio-political development of the region, especially with regards to the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age and the impact that the episodic incursions of foreign populations and their material culture had on this environmentally and geographically diverse sub-region of the Near East. One such period that witnessed a high degree of foreign impact on the Carchemish region was the Uruk Expansion of the mid–late 4 th millennium. It is currently thought that the demand for commodities drove the southern Mesopotamians increasingly further from their home cities, with timber, precious and utilitarian stone, agro-pastoral resources and metal viewed as the prime movers that motivated this expansion period (Algaze 1989, 1993). Of these commodities, metal and agro-pastoral goods and their long history of exploitation in the Euphrates Valley made the Carchemish area highly attractive to both local and southern Mesopotamian populations, an assumption that is supported by both the number and dura- tion of settlements. The Uruk Expansion halted at the end of the 4 th millennium BC, contributing to the change in settlement patterning and socio-political systems at the beginning of the 3 rd millennium. It is this post-expansion period that is focused on here, particularly the economic develop- ment during the transitional Early Bronze I and II periods. This transitional period lasted between 3100 and 2600 BC and was traditionally viewed as being a period of collapse or decline. However, the EB I–II periods have turned out to be a fairly interesting period of