Kaman-Kalehöyük: Japan’s Anatolian Connection

There are traces suggesting earlier human activity, but the excavated settlement story begins later.

This is the “shadow prehistory” of the mound: Chalcolithic and Neolithic materials have been found, although actual settlements from those periods have not yet been excavated at the site.

Roughly 3rd millennium BCE / especially c. 23rd–20th centuries BCE

This is where the excavated story really begins. Stratum IV belongs to the Early Bronze Age, and one excavation summary dates it roughly to the 23rd–20th centuries BCE.

Kaman-Kalehöyük helps us see Central Anatolia before it became “Hittite.”

This period matters because it places Kaman-Kalehöyük within the world of early Central Anatolian communities before the rise of the Hittite kingdom. We are dealing with local societies, early metallurgy, developing settlement patterns, and the pre-Hittite cultural landscape of the Kızılırmak basin.

Roughly 20th–18th/17th centuries BCE

Kaman-Kalehöyük was part of the commercial and cultural build-up that prepared the ground for the Hittite world.

This is one of the most important phases. Stratum III includes the Middle and Late Bronze Ages, and the 2nd millennium BCE sequence includes the Assyrian Colony Period, Old Hittite, and Hittite Empire phases.

Historically, this is the age of the karum trade network, when Assyrian merchants from northern Mesopotamia were deeply active in Anatolia. Kültepe/Kanesh is the great center of this world, but Kaman-Kalehöyük belongs to the broader Central Anatolian landscape shaped by commerce, writing, metals, textiles, donkeys, credit, and long-distance exchange.

Roughly 17th–15th centuries BCE

This phase belongs to the early Hittite political world. Some summaries identify Stratum IIIb with the Old Hittite period, roughly around the 17th–15th centuries BCE.

This is the age when Central Anatolia begins to consolidate into a kingdom centered around Hattusa. Kaman-Kalehöyük was not the capital, of course, but it sat in the same wider cultural zone. It helps us understand how Hittite power was not just a palace phenomenon — it was tied to towns, villages, roads, production zones, and regional communities.

Roughly 15th–12th centuries BCE

This is the imperial Hittite phase. Stratum IIIa is generally associated with the Late Bronze Age / Hittite Empire period, roughly c. 1500–1200 BCE.

Interestingly, the nearby site of Büklükale becomes important here because the Hittite Empire layer at Kaman-Kalehöyük is not very thick and was damaged by later Iron Age buildings. The Japanese Institute notes that Büklükale may help fill in the gaps for this less well-preserved Hittite imperial phase at Kaman-Kalehöyük.

This is crucial. It means Kaman-Kalehöyük is important, but for the Hittite Empire phase, it should be read together with neighboring sites.

Also, some of the oldest glass finds in the region have been associated with Kaman-Kalehöyük and Büklükale, and studies have discussed Hittite and Early Iron Age glass as evidence for local production and continuity.

After c. 1200 BCE

This may be one of the most intellectually exciting phases. After the collapse of the Hittite Empire around the late 13th / early 12th century BCE, Anatolia is often described as entering a “Dark Age.” But Kaman-Kalehöyük complicates that picture.

Excavations in the Early Iron Age levels, especially Stratum IId, show that life and cultural development continued at the site after the Hittite collapse.

This is big. It means Kaman-Kalehöyük is not just a Hittite site; it is a post-Hittite survival site. It helps answer the question: what happened in Central Anatolia after the empire fell?

The answer is not simple collapse and silence. It is adaptation, local continuity, new pottery traditions, changing identities, and regional reorganization.

Roughly 9th–7th centuries BCE

In the Iron Age, Kaman-Kalehöyük was no longer simply “Hittite afterlife”; it became part of a more hybrid Central Anatolian world, open to influences from east, west, and the old Hittite heartland.

The Iron Age at Kaman-Kalehöyük is broad and complex. Stratum II covers the Iron Age, roughly from the 12th to 4th centuries BCE in one excavation summary.

The site has yielded Iron Age material such as fibulae, arrowheads, decorated bone objects, painted ceramics, and seals. It is often discussed alongside major Central Anatolian Iron Age sites such as Hattusa and Alişar.

This is the period when the region becomes a meeting ground of post-Hittite, Phrygian, local Anatolian, and wider Near Eastern influences.

Roughly 6th–4th centuries BCE

Persian power reached the region, but local Anatolian life continued underneath it.

By the 6th century BCE, Central Anatolia came under Achaemenid Persian imperial influence. At Kaman-Kalehöyük, the Iron Age sequence includes later phases linked with the Late Iron Age, and Persian-period seals have been reported.

This is not the site’s most visually famous period, but historically it matters: Kaman-Kalehöyük becomes part of the Persian-controlled Anatolian interior — a world of satrapies, roads, imperial administration, and mixed local traditions.

After Alexander, from late 4th century BCE onward

Some summaries place the upper Iron Age phases into the Hellenistic period, after Alexander the Great and his successors.

For Kaman-Kalehöyük, this is not as dominant as the Bronze and Iron Age phases. But regionally, this is the time when Central Anatolia is increasingly drawn into the Hellenistic political world: Cappadocia, Galatia, Seleucid influence, and later Roman power.

Important caution: I would not describe Kaman-Kalehöyük as a major Hellenistic city. It is better to say that the mound preserves traces of the broader Hellenistic transformation of Central Anatolia.

Late Antique / Medieval, roughly 6th–11th centuries CE evidence

Stratum I includes later historical occupation, with a Byzantine subphase often identified as Ib. Byzantine coins from the site have been noted from the 6th to 11th centuries, and Byzantine pottery has been specifically studied.

The key is not to exaggerate it. There is no major church, monastery, mosaic program, or fortification at Kaman-Kalehöyük itself that defines the site as Byzantine. The evidence is more like: pottery, coins, burial traces, and the continued use or memory of the mound in the medieval landscape.

Especially 15th–17th centuries CE

The uppermost major layer is Ottoman. One excavation summary identifies Stratum I as the Ottoman period, roughly 15th–17th centuries CE, though Stratum I also includes Byzantine material in its lower level.

This is the final historical occupation layer before the site becomes an archaeological mound. The Ottoman period is important because it shows how these ancient höyüks did not simply disappear. They remained useful as elevated, recognizable places in the rural landscape.