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of local settlement history are correct, then lake formation and initial humanoccupation may have been roughly contemporary. The precise dating of thisenvironmental transformation is thus of great signifi cance, and it may be relatedalso to wider patterns of environmental and landscape dynamics in Anatolia andthe Near East.The coring program was overseen by Dr. Mark R. Besonen of the University ofMassachusetts Amherst, and was conducted during fi ve days on the lake. Prior tocoring, a roughly 2.5x2.5-meter coring platform was constructed from wood andplastic barrels (Fig. 7). This was towed to coring locations behind a local fi shingboat. Two sediment-core transects leading from shallower to deeper water in thewestern area of the lake, north-northwest of Tekelioğlu, and consisting of four coringsites each were completed (Map: 2). Lake-sediment cores were extracted alongthese transects using a fi ve-centimeter diameter, modifi ed Livingstone Square-Rod Piston Corer, allowing observation of bulk changes in physical sedimentologythat are probably indicative of changing water levels in the lake (Fig. 8). At presentit is possible to make only preliminary comments, as full interpretation awaits fi nalanalyses currently underway in the United States by Dr. Besonen. Each of thecores ended at a uniformly hard and partially oxidized clayey layer that probablyrepresents the pre-lake fl ood plain. A few layers above this basal layer, a signifi cantdesiccation layer indicates that between periods of healthy lake conditions therewas an extended period of drought. Radiocarbon analyses of organic materialtaken from an underlying sedimentary unit will provide a terminus post quem forthis drought.In addition to the coring program, a hydrographic or bathymetric survey of thelake was begun in 2006. The depth and underwater topography of the GygaeanLake is currently not well documented. The establishment of lake bathymetrywill help guide our coring program, and will provide data for reconstructions ofpaleotopography. Using a Garmin GPS178 Sounder, a combination Global PositionSatellite (GPS) receiver–depth sounder, we were able to conduct a hydrographicsurvey of parts of the western area of the lake from a fi shing boat (Fig. 9). Becauseof the abundance and density of lake grasses, however, the survey was successfulonly in the western half of the lake, and in areas where lake grasses were absent.At present we can say that the deepest area of the lake during the late spring/earlysummer period of high water is north and northwest of Tekelioğlu, where depths314