A River's Alluvial Fan Made Çatalhöyük a Good Place to Live 9,000 years ago, Çatalhöyük was located on the banks of the Çarsamba River. In Neolithic times, as today, this river flowed north from the Taurus Mountains and spread its rich sediments in an alluvial fan over the plain.
Why is the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük important?
The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük, located in the southern Anatolian region of Turkey, offers an ideal case study for addressing these questions, primarily due to the scale of occupation it witnessed, in terms of both ground area and time depth.
How was Çatalhöyük excavated?
Çatalhöyük was excavated in the 1960s in a methodical way, but not using the full range of natural science techniques that are available to us today. Sir James Mellaart who excavated the site in the 1960s came up with all sorts of ideas about the way the site was organized and how it was lived in and so on ...
What can we learn from the Çatalhöyük middens?
Middens are generally described in archaeological literature as rubbish heaps, but the Neolithic inhabitants of Çatalhöyük held a different view – recognising that they were a useful resource in their own right. The Çatalhöyük middens were routinely quarried to create level surfaces for new buildings, or to provide packing material between walls.
How many years of research has been done at Çatalhöyük?
Twenty-Five Years of Research at Çatalhöyük, Near Eastern Archaeology; Chicago, vol. 83, iss. 2, pp. 72–29, June 2020 Hodder, Ian. The Leopard's Tale: Revealing the Mysteries of Çatalhöyük.
Where is Catal Huyuk?
Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia. By James Mellaart, 1967, Thames and Hudson, London. This volume presents Mellaart's analysis of the site based on excavations done in 1961-63. It includes drawings and photos of murals and artifacts. Also online .
Who wrote the book The Goddess and the Bull?
The Goddess and the Bull - Çatalhöyük: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization by Michael Balter
What is Adventures in Fugawiland based on?
Simulation is based on 10 fictitious, but realistic, prehistoric sites in northern Wisconsin. Requires introductory instruction and background. This simulation received an overall rating of 4 stars out of 5 in a recent SAA review of games. $22.95 for Macintosh or Windows. Macintosh software and workbook: ISBN 1-55934-531-4; Windows software and workbook: ISBN 1-55934-530-6. Order from Mayfield Publishing Co., 1240 Villa St., Mountain View, CA 94041. Phone: (800) 433-1279.
What is the significance of archaeological excavations?
The excavations have acquired an impressive reputation for pioneering new scientific methods in archaeology, and for bringing together large numbers of specialists to ensure that the various different categories of archaeological evidence are fully integrated . This approach ensures that the maximum information can be harvested from the abundant plant and animal remains, stone tools, pottery, and human remains.
What is the material found in the middens?
Much of the organic material in middens can be identified as human and animal coprolites. Faeces are rarely the first thing people think of as important archaeological finds, but they provide a key source of information about diet and health. The sheer volume of such material at Çatalhöyük and its excellent preservation, provides an important compliment to other indicators of diet, such as animal and plant remains. It can be difficult to decide what species coprolites belong to simply by looking at their morphology and contents, as some animals have similar diets to humans. Reliance on seeds and bone fragments alone cannot provide clarity here. Humans, however, produce specific types of sterols and bile acids in the gut that distinguish us from other omnivores, and chemical analysis of the coprolites allows us to detect this signature.
Why are middens important?
Middens are particularly important at a site like Çatalhöyük, because the inhabitants’ desire to live in clean homes means that they are the best source of information on the daily lives of the site’s occupants, containing the vast majority of plant and animal remains at the site.
How can archaeologists determine how space was used?
Examining floor and wall surfaces under the microscope allows tiny fragments of plants, bone, craft debris, and other materials to be seen. Armed with such evidence, archaeologists are able to determine how space within buildings was used to a degree that would be impossible using more traditional methods. Even such everyday tasks as wall plastering can be appreciated in a whole new way: the house-proud Neolithic occupants took pains to ensure that living areas remained clean and fresh by applying hundreds of coats of plaster, with a new layer being slapped on at approximately monthly intervals. Storage areas, however, were carefully tucked out of sight and thus treated accordingly – they have a rougher appearance, due in part to only being replastered once a year.
Overview
Çatalhöyük was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic proto-city settlement in southern Anatolia, which existed from approximately 7500 BC to 6400 BC, and flourished around 7000 BC. In July 2012, it was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Çatalhöyük is located overlooking the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-da…
Archaeology
The site was first excavated by James Mellaart in 1958. He later led a team which further excavated there for four seasons between 1961 and 1965. These excavations revealed this section of Anatolia as a centre of advanced culture in the Neolithic period. Excavation revealed 18 successive layers of buildings signifying various stages of the settlement and eras of history. The bottom lay…
Culture
Çatalhöyük was composed entirely of domestic buildings, with no obvious public buildings. While some of the larger ones have rather ornate murals, the purpose of some rooms remains unclear.
The population of the eastern mound has been estimated to be around 10,000 people, but the population likely varied over the community's history. An avera…
Religion
A striking feature of Çatalhöyük are its female figurines. Mellaart, the original excavator, argued that these well-formed, carefully made figurines, carved and molded from marble, blue and brown limestone, schist, calcite, basalt, alabaster, and clay, represented a female deity. Although a male deity existed as well, "statues of a female deity far outnumber those of the male deity, who moreover…
Economy
Çatalhöyük has strong evidence of an egalitarian society, as no houses with distinctive features (belonging to royalty or religious hierarchy, for example) have been found so far. The most recent investigations also reveal little social distinction based on gender, with men and women receiving equivalent nutrition and seeming to have equal social status, as typically found in Paleolithic cultur…
See also
• Boncuklu Höyük
• Cities of the ancient Near East
• Cucuteni–Trypillian culture
• Göbekli Tepe
• Kamyana Mohyla
Sources
• Bailey, Douglass. Prehistoric Figurines: Representation and Corporeality in the Neolithic. New York: Routledge, 2005 (hardcover, ISBN 0-415-33151-X; paperback, ISBN 0-415-33152-8).
• Balter, Michael. The Goddess and the Bull: Çatalhöyük: An Archaeological Journey to the Dawn of Civilization. New York: Free Press, 2004 (hardcover, ISBN 0-7432-4360-9); Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press, 2006 (paperback, ISBN 1-59874-069-5). A highly condensed version was published in The …
External links
• What we learned from 25 Years of Research at Catalhoyuk - Ian Hodder - Oriental Institute lecture Dec 4, 2019
• Çatalhöyük — Excavations of a Neolithic Anatolian Höyük, Çatalhöyük excavation official website
• Çatalhöyük photos