From Distant Volcanoes to the Şanlıurfa Plateau: Obsidian Evidence, Confidence and Modelled Corridors in the Taş Tepeler Project Constellation

Obsidian provides one of the few material traces through which extra-local material access can be assessed for early Pre-Pottery Neolithic communities on the Şanlıurfa plateau. In this paper, we do not reconstruct definitive obsidian routes by which obsidian reached the Taş Tepeler sites. Instead, we ask what can be inferred from a heterogeneous evidence base, and how source-specific analyses, reported presence, comparator assemblages and modelled spatial hypotheses can be integrated without collapsing their different evidential status into a single scale. Harbetsuvan Tepesi currently provides the strongest local analytical locus, but, we argue, its published XRF and mineralogical comparison should be treated as source-zone discussion, not a full artefact-by-artefact table of provenance. Other plateau sites securely attest obsidian presence or reported provenance, yet most lack auditable source-specific datasets. Upper Tigris and Middle Euphrates comparators show what stronger provenance datasets can look like, and they make multi-source access plausible in the wider region; however, they do not prove the source composition of unsourced Şanlıurfa assemblages. The interactive map accompanying this paper is therefore to be used as a ranked, revisable audit tool, because it distinguishes source confidence, corridor hypotheses, and social interpretation, and treats modelled corridors as hypotheses for future testing, not as evidence for actual routes, trade, pilgrimage, or centralised redistribution.