Excavating Catalhoyuk

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From Mellaart’s excavations, we know that the people who lived at Catalhoyuk harvested crops and domesticated animals. They lived in densely packed mudbrick houses, which were occupied for hundreds of years. They expressed themselves vividly in paintings and relief sculptures.

But who were they, why did they settle here, and how did they live?

The modern excavations conducted by the Catalhoyuk Research Project (of which Ian Hodder is overall project director and I am site director) indicate that the landscape has changed significantly since Neolithic times. Located on the flat Konya Plain, the 32-acre mound is today surrounded by agricultural fields; on clear days, the mountain ranges of Karadag, Karacadag and Hasan Dag are visible some 25 miles to the southeast. Nothing suggests that 9,000 years ago this spot witnessed a major change in the development of human civilization: the beginnings of urbanization.

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To understand what the landscape was like then, we have to travel back even further. Until about 13,500 years ago, the Konya Plain was a large lake. Then, toward the end of the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million years ago to 11,000 years ago), the lake began to dry out, leaving behind many smaller lakes. Not until about 9,500 years ago, however, did soil conditions become suitable for farming.

The site of Catalhoyuk arose in the alluvial plain beside a river, today indicated by a line of trees along the ancient river course. By surveying the surrounding area, we hope to answer the question of whether this settlement developed from much smaller communities in the area—perhaps as a means of centralizing resources.

The river provided reeds for matting and roofing, as well as a possible means of transporting large juniper and oak timbers from the mountain ranges 25 miles away. The river’s alluvial plain supported abundant vegetation and waterbirds, whose eggs could be harvested. The ancient lake bed was an excellent source of rich clay used as building material. Clearly, the inhabitants of Catalhoyuk were able to exploit a range of resources—domestic and wild, upland and lowland, animal and plant—allowing the “town” to grow into a fairly large settlement of seven to ten thousand people.

Despite the size of the settlement, our excavations have turned up no evidence of a central administration. People lived in squarish mudbrick houses, which were separated by just a fraction of an inch from neighboring houses. These houses were simply jammed together, with no ground-level access. People entered the houses 030through holes in the roofs, which were of differing heights and probably traversed by steps and ladders. The rooftop was likely also the center of daily life, as the interiors of the buildings would have been dark and poorly ventilated (given the absence of windows).

We have not found any streets or alleyways, though there are open courtyard-like areas—apparently randomly located—where rubbish was discarded and where such animals as sheep or goats may have been kept. These open areas were probably also used for human defecation.

A typical house was about 15 feet square, with built-in shallow steps or demarcations, storage bins and shallow basins used for various household activities. Some houses also had small walled rooms. Walls were covered with white lime-based plaster and sometimes decorated with paintings or relief sculptures. Against some walls were raised platforms, possibly for sleeping. A large domed oven was generally positioned against the south wall, below the access hole from the roof, and a small circular hearth for cooking was usually located nearby.

Numerous renovations were made during the life of a typical house. New ovens and hearths were built; storage bins and basins were added or removed. The internal walls of the house, support posts and “furniture” were replastered at least once a year with a white lime-based clay. Fixing up one’s house was just as important 9,000 years ago as it is today!

Different parts of the house were designated for different activities: preparing food, making stone and bone beads, and weaving baskets.

The inhabitants of Catalhoyuk also made tools of obsidian by flaking the black volcanic glass into razor-sharp knives and blades. Since every source of obsidian has its own unique chemical profile, the artifacts found at Catalhoyuk could be traced to the mountainous region of Cappadocia 120 miles away—a journey that would have taken several days. Once the obsidian supplies were brought back to Catalhoyuk, they were stored in shallow storage pits cut into the floors of houses, rather like a cellar cupboard. These caches were then reopened when a tool was to be made.

Some of the most fascinating items made from obsidian were mirrors. Fragments of black volcanic glass were cut into semi-hemispherical shapes and carefully polished until a reflection was visible.

Houses were typically occupied for about 80 years. When their “life” had run its course, they were usually emptied of portable items, their floors were cleaned, their roofs were collapsed, and posts and beams were 031removed. The tops of the walls were dismantled and used to fill in the lower portion of the house. This infilling then provided a foundation for a new house. (It also preserved the lower part of the house for archaeologists to discover 9,000 years later.) Thus house was built upon house, eventually creating a 65-foot-high mound with 16 layers of buildings erected between about 7400 B.C. and 6200 B.C.

In the houses, we have found ovens and hearths, carbonized wooden bowls and spoons, and baskets and vessels woven from reeds. Baked clay balls were apparently heated and used as “pot-boilers” for heating food in hides, baskets and wooden bowls. (Pottery vessels were not commonly used for cooking during the first 500 to 600 years of Catalhoyuk’s occupation.) Excavated stone pounders indicate that mortars and pestles were used to process seeds and nuts.

One of the most striking and haunting aspects of life in ancient Catalhoyuk was the treatment of the dead, who were buried beneath the houses’ floors and platforms. Some houses had up to 60 burials, some as few as two or three, and some none at all; this suggests the existence of “kinship” houses, where the remains of a group of related people were buried. Some of the young were buried with such items as bead necklaces or finely crafted bone spatulae. Generally, adults were not buried with grave goods, though a few have been found with bone rings or pendants.

The skeletons are always in a crouched position, suggesting that the deceased were tied up when they were placed in the grave. Babies were often buried in reed baskets. A few skeletons have even been found without their skulls, which were possibly removed at the time of death—a practice also known from other contemporaneous sites.^a

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When Mellaart first began uncovering Catalhoyuk’s houses, he was astounded to find wall paintings and relief sculptures—the likes of which were then unknown at Neolithic sites. We now know of other Neolithic sites with incised and carved stone columns, but Catalhoyuk is home to the densest concentration of such Neolithic symbolic art in the eastern Mediterranean.

The art is not only often extremely sophisticated but also incredibly diverse in style and medium. Some wall paintings are geometric patterns in red, white and black, while others are composed of handprints. There are hunting scenes, with exquisite renderings of wild animals. One strange, frightening image shows vulture-like birds hovering over headless figures—a scene that may well be associated with the headless burials. There are also relief sculptures of leopards and bulls’ heads with large protruding horns, as well as small figurines (in both clay and stone) of animals, genderless human beings and voluptuous females. One sculpture is of a seated female (often interpreted as a mother-goddess) whose hands rest on the heads of two leopards. Spotted leopard imagery frequently appears on painted images of clothing and in relief sculpture at Catalhoyuk, though no leopard remains have thus far been found at the site.

This summer will be the 13th year of the modern excavations at Catalhoyuk. Every year brings us more evidence of the material culture of our Neolithic ancestors, and thus more insight into what they may have thought and believed. In the near future, perhaps, we will have reconstructed a representative portion of the ancient site; then we will be able to enter, in some degree, their world.

The Catalhoyuk Research Project is conducted under the auspices of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara (BIAA) with permission and support of the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. We are indebted to our main sponsors, Kocbank and Boeing, our long-term sponsors, Shell and Merko, as well as to Thames Water and IBM. We are also grateful for the support of our academic funding bodies, in particular the BIAA, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research in Cambridge, Stanford University and the Institute of Archaeology of University College London. All photos are courtesy of the Catalhoyuk Research Project.

From Mellaart’s excavations, we know that the people who lived at Catalhoyuk harvested crops and domesticated animals. They lived in densely packed mudbrick houses, which were occupied for hundreds of years. They expressed themselves vividly in paintings and relief sculptures. But who were they, why did they settle here, and how did they live? The modern excavations conducted by the Catalhoyuk Research Project (of which Ian Hodder is overall project director and I am site director) indicate that the landscape has changed significantly since Neolithic times. Located on the flat Konya Plain, the 32-acre mound is today surrounded […]