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This response to J.D. Muhly's essay (supra pp. 239-53) focuses on a series of key issues that have arisen concerning the chronology, technology, and archaeological context in which prehistoric metallurgy developed. Additional radiocarbon dates and information on EBA ceramics from soundings in the Kestel mine are presented, which are relevant to the dating of the operations. The tin-bronze industry at Tarsus and the question of 'intentionality' in the manufacture of bronze alloys are further discussed. No data exist to support Muhly's contention that gold and iron were produced at Goltepe and Kestel. It is stressed that although particles of cassiterite and tin metal are small, they are dense and characteristically colored, and hence easily identified. Replication experiments in 1992 have suggested a method of producing tin metal compatible with the analyses of the crucibles and coatings. In an appendix, Lynn Willies discusses the geological nature of tin deposits in general and at Kestel in particular, and considers Muhly's interpretation of the deposits in the Eastern Desert.

This paper presents the archaeological contexts and results of analyses of slags, surface residues, and earthenware refractories from the third-millennium B.C. site of Goltepe in south-central Turkey. These materials are only part of a workshop/habitation assemblage at the site, which also includes ore nodules, multifaceted molds, and metal fragments as well as groundstone tools utilized in ore dressing and beneficiation. Twenty-four ceramic fragments of bowl-shaped crucibles were analyzed as a representative sample from some 250 examples excavated in the 1990 season. Analysis suggests the intentional production of tin metal by reduction firing of tin oxide (cassiterite, SnO2) in crucibles. Tin oxide was identified on the interior surfaces of the crucible fragments by x-ray fluorescence, x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive x-ray analysis, and wavelength dispersive microprobe analysis. The results of these tests have a direct bearing on the question of tin sources in ancient Anatolia.

The Amuq plain in southeast Turkey is of major importance to the development of Near Eastern cultural sequences. Recent investigations of geoarchaeology, settlement patterns, and individual sites now provide a framework for the assessment of the original work by the University of Chicago and Sir Leonard Woolley. Geoarchaeological investigations provide a dynamic context for the interpretation of settlement patterns and show that sedimentation over the plain has been variable and patchy. The density and patterning of settlement has changed through time, partly in response to changes in the local environment, partly as a result of developments in the political economy. Excavations at Tells Kurdu and al-Judaidah as well as section-cleaning operations at other sites in the area have started to provide a radiocarbon framework for the original chronology and are filling in gaps in that sequence. At the site of Kurdu, approximately 15 hectares in area, domestic and perhaps public architecture are now being defined more coherently than in the first investigations, and the excavations are supplying insights into a subsistence economy that tapped into a verdant mosaic of local environments.

The design found on a piece of krater found in Alalakh, Turkey gives an idea into the extent of contact between civilizations of the Aegean and the Eastern Mediterranean during the Late Bronze Age. The piece of Greek vase depicts a man flying off a bull's back which is a widely used design in other Minoan sites.