NEW EVIDENCE OF CHALCOLITHIC AGE STEATITE BEADS FROM INONU CAVE: TYPOLOGY AND TECHNOLOGY ASPECTS WITH ARCHAEOMETRIC TECHNIQUES

During the excavations conducted at level V of Inonu Cave, which is located on the western Black Sea coast of Anatolia, 10.198 beads were found in a small pot above the bedrock. While 93 of the beads, the vast majority of which were produced from steatite, were produced from agate, 27 of them were produced from gold, 1 of them was produced from electrum, and 1 of them was produced from radiolarite. C14 analyses that were performed to obtain the absolute dates of this level, which bears the traces of the first settlers of the cave, and to date this group of finds, revealed that this level belonged to the last quarter of the 5th millennium BC (cal. 4260-3976 BC).