It seems that Christians and Zoroastrians in the fifth century lived peacefully side by side in what is today Iraq. A team of archaeologists from Goethe University Frankfurt was able to corroborate this during three years of research work.

A new, freely accessible dataset published in Nature Scientific Data documents 483 substantial settlements from the Middle and Late Bronze Age in western Anatolia, providing the first comprehensive, interoperable geospatial record of settlement in the region during the second millennium BCE. The dataset enables regional-scale analyses of settlement patterns, resources, and connectivity, fundamentally reframing western Anatolia as an autonomous and integral part of the Bronze Age eastern Mediterranean. The density, distribution, and internal coherence of these settlements strongly support the existence of a distinct cultural region – commonly associated with the Luwians – challenging the long-standing view of western Anatolia as merely a peripheral zone between the Mycenaean and Hittite worlds.