Yörük Legacies: Space, Scent, and Sediment Geochemistry

Abstract

This paper explores ephemeral landscapes of smell using datasets from ethnographic fieldwork, archaeological survey, and sediment geochemistry in western Anatolia. Our analysis brings together regional datasets from the late Ottoman period to the present to understand the places that mark the transition from the agropastoral migratory lifeways of Yörük tribes to settled communities. We explore one Yörük-legacy (Tekeli tribe) compound to understand ‘settled’ lifeways over three generations, and how study of these legacy traditions may be a valuable contribution to experimental archaeology. Our entry into this discussion is a study of food – its preparation, storage, and consumption – and its associated olfactory landscapes. While ethnography helps determine how aromas define active and contemporary spaces and spheres of intimacy, sediment geochemistry offers a method for investigating archaeologies of aroma.