Preliminary report on the 2018 excavation season at Uşaklı Höyük (Yozgat)

During the 2018 (eleventh) excavation season at Uşaklı Höyük, approximately 20 km east of Yozgat, fieldwork aimed to refine the site’s long-term occupational sequence—attested primarily from the late Early Bronze Age to the first centuries CE—with particular emphasis on consolidating the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age frameworks. In Area D, investigations focused on the post-abandonment history of Hittite Building III, plausibly an official/administrative complex, documenting a stratified succession of at least five Iron Age architectural phases with associated assemblages. For the Late Bronze Age, preliminary absolute dating evidence suggests a broad 16th–13th centuries BC range for the construction and use of the building. In the Iron Age sequence, ceramic analysis enables finer relative dating, distinguishing Early Iron Age hand-made and painted productions and defining a coherent Middle Iron Age repertoire, including Silhouette/Alişar IV variants. In Area A, the continued exposure of Building II revealed an exceptional Late Bronze Age mosaic cobbled floor within a large court, prompting renewed discussion on the emergence and circulation of mosaic techniques in central Anatolia/Western Asia. Overall, the results underscore the importance of Uşaklı Höyük within the Late Bronze Age settlement system and illuminate its transformation across the Iron Age, within a broader post-Hittite reconfiguration characterized by the destruction and non-reconstruction of monumental architecture and the development of more village-like occupation patterns.