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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia J A N A A N VA R I
B A R I N T E R NAT I O NA L S E R I E S 3 0 6 1
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Rethinking Late Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia in Central Anatolia J A N A A N VA R I J A N A A N VA R I B A R I N T E R NAT I O NA L S E R I E S 3 0 6 1
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Published in 2021 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 3061 Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia ISBN 978 1 4073 5771 3 paperback ISBN 978 1 4073 5772 0 e-format doi https://doi.org/10.30861/ 9781407357713 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. © Jana Anvari 2021 Cover image Reconstruction of life in a Neolithic or Chalcolithic village in central Anatolia (created by Anja Rüschmann and Jana Anvari) The Author’s moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. Links to third party websites are provided by BAR Publishing in good faith and for information only. BAR Publishing disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third-party website referenced in this work.
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The Diffusion of Neolithic Practices from Anatolia to Europe A contextual study of residential construction, 8,500–5,500 BC cal. Maxime Brami Oxford, BAR Publishing, 2017
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Early Farming in Central Anatolia An archaeobotanical study of crop husbandry, animal diet and land use at Neolithic Çatalhöyük Dragana Filipovic Oxford, BAR Publishing, 2014
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Acknowledgements This book is a revised version of my PhD thesis, which I submitted at the Flinders University of South Australia in October 2016. I want to thank all of those who provided the support and inspiration that helped me and this research project grow. Thanks to Flinders University for providing wonderful work conditions, a great support system for PhD students, and a Flinders International Postgraduate Research Scholarship. To my PhD supervisors, Claire Smith, Heather Burke, Peter Biehl, Eva Rosenstock and Serena Love: Thank you very much for enabling me to do this research, for constant support and advice including during the work on this revised book version of my thesis. Special thanks to Peter and Eva for bringing me into the West Mound team and sharing all their knowledge on Anatolian archaeology, to Claire for welcoming me at Flinders University and supporting me throughout, to Heather for keeping my head straight, and to Serena for generously sharing all her knowledge on architecture and mudbrick. Also, thanks to the two external PhD reviewers, Bleda Düring and Ian Hodder, for providing helpful feedback. Thanks to BAR Publishing, and especially Ruth Fisher and Lisa Eaton, for making this book a reality. To two anonymous reviewers for helping me make the book better. And certainly not last to Patrick Willett for his thoughtful proofreading and copyediting of the manuscript, for advice on making figures and for creating maps for this book (Figures 3.1, 6.1, 6.3, 6.7, 6.10, 6.12). Thanks to the publishing companies and individuals who gave permissions for the reprinting of figures in this book. Special thanks to Bleda Düring (Figures 5.11, 5.12, 5.13, 6.2, 8.4, 8.5, 8.6), Douglas Baird (Figures 10.1, 10.2), Ben Arbuckle (Figures 5.17, 6.8), Erhan Bıçakçı and Yasin Gökhan Çakan (Figures 5.23, 5.24), Burçin Erdoǧu (Figure 5.10), Varlık Indere (Figure 6.9) and Ralf Vandam (Figure 6.6) for providing copies of their figures. Thanks to Anja Rüschmann for drawing the cover image. And the most important thanks is for my husband Farid, for always being spectacularly supportive.
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To my granddad Bernd von Bredow, and Farid’s dad Syed Anvari, for whom education was a hard-won privilege.
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Contents List of Figures . . .......................................................................................................................................... xiii List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................................... xv List of Abbreviations������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ xvii Abstract ............................................................................................................................................................................................xix 1. Rethinking 60 years of Architectural Epistemology................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Purpose of this book.................................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2. Chapter outline.......................................................................................................................................................... 2 2. Theoretical Foundations................................................................................................................................................ 5 2.1. Archaeological reflexivity......................................................................................................................................... 5 2.2. A contextual approach............................................................................................................................................... 5 3. Time and Place�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 7 3.1. Place: Geographical scope........................................................................................................................................ 7 3.2. Time........................................................................................................................................................................ 10 3.2.1. Periodisation................................................................................................................................................. 10 3.2.2. Defining the temporal scope......................................................................................................................... 12 3.2.3. Site chronologies........................................................................................................................................... 13 4. A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia.............................................. 17 4.1. Ignorance (pre-1960)............................................................................................................................................... 17 4.2. Pioneering field work (1950s–1960s)..................................................................................................................... 19 4.3. Consolidation, reflection, publication (1970s)........................................................................................................ 20 4.4. Re-intensification and broadening of field work (since the 1980s)........................................................................ 21 4.5. Renewed reflection (2000s–2010s), the current state of research and a reflection on the research literature landscape���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 21 4.6. Dealing with legacy: existing research on Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture in central Anatolia....... 23 4.6.1. The architectural record as legacy data......................................................................................................... 23 4.6.2. Previous comparative works on Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture........................................... 24 5. Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia............................................... 27 5.1. Hacılar..................................................................................................................................................................... 27 5.1.1. The chronology of Hacılar............................................................................................................................ 27 5.1.2. The architecture of Aceramic Hacılar........................................................................................................... 34 5.1.3. The architecture of Hacılar Level VI with Levels IX–VII............................................................................ 35 5.1.4. The architecture of Hacılar Levels V–III...................................................................................................... 42 5.1.5. The architecture of Hacılar Level II.............................................................................................................. 42 5.1.6. The architecture of Hacılar Level I............................................................................................................... 49 5.2. Çatalhöyük East...................................................................................................................................................... 55 5.2.1. The chronology of Çatalhöyük East.............................................................................................................. 55 5.2.2. The architecture of Çatalhöyük East............................................................................................................. 58 5.3. Çatalhöyük West..................................................................................................................................................... 58 5.3.1. The chronology of Çatalhöyük West............................................................................................................. 59 5.3.2. The architecture of Çatalhöyük West............................................................................................................ 59 5.4. Canhasan I............................................................................................................................................................... 63 5.4.1. The chronology of Canhasan I...................................................................................................................... 64 5.4.2. The architecture of Canhasan I Layer 2........................................................................................................ 67 5.5. Erbaba..................................................................................................................................................................... 74 5.5.1. The chronology of Erbaba............................................................................................................................. 75 5.5.2. The architecture of Erbaba Level I............................................................................................................... 76
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 5.6. Kuruçay................................................................................................................................................................... 77 5.6.1. The chronology of Kuruçay.......................................................................................................................... 77 5.6.2. The architecture of Kuruçay......................................................................................................................... 79 5.7. Köşk Höyük............................................................................................................................................................ 83 5.7.1. The chronology of Köşk Höyük................................................................................................................... 83 5.7.2. The architecture of Köşk Höyük................................................................................................................... 85 5.8. Höyücek.................................................................................................................................................................. 88 5.8.1. The chronology of Höyücek......................................................................................................................... 88 5.8.2. The architecture of the Höyücek Shrine Phase............................................................................................. 92 5.9. Gelveri..................................................................................................................................................................... 97 5.9.1. The chronology of Gelveri............................................................................................................................ 98 5.9.2. The architecture of Gelveri........................................................................................................................... 98 5.10. Bademağacı........................................................................................................................................................... 98 5.10.1. The chronology of Bademağacı................................................................................................................ 98 5.10.2. The architecture of Bademağacı............................................................................................................. 101 5.11. Pınarbaşı B.......................................................................................................................................................... 107 5.11.1. The chronology of Pınarbaşı B............................................................................................................... 107 5.11.2. The architecture of Pınarbaşı B............................................................................................................... 107 5.12. Musular............................................................................................................................................................... 107 5.12.1. The chronology of Musular.................................................................................................................... 108 5.12.2. The architecture of Early Chalcolithic Musular...................................................................................... 108 5.13. Tepecik-Çiftlik.................................................................................................................................................... 108 5.13.1. The chronology of Tepecik..................................................................................................................... 108 5.13.2. The architecture of Tepecik Levels 4–2.................................................................................................. 109 5.14. Gökhöyük Baǧları................................................................................................................................................111 6. Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC..........................................................................................113 6.1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................................... 113 6.2. 8500–6500 BC: The Early Neolithic in the Konya plain and Cappadocia and hunter-gatherers of the Lake District������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 113 6.2.1. Research framework................................................................................................................................... 113 6.2.2. The neolithisation of central Anatolia......................................................................................................... 113 6.2.3. Making households, making communities................................................................................................. 116 6.2.4. Egalitarianism............................................................................................................................................. 121 6.3. 6500–5500 BC: The Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic................................................................................. 122 6.3.1. The neolithisation of the Lake District and western Anatolia..................................................................... 122 6.3.2. Climate change and a possible influence on socioeconomic changes......................................................... 125 6.3.3. Household autonomy and social competition............................................................................................. 126 6.3.4. Mobility, dispersal and the development of dense cultural landscapes...................................................... 131 6.3.5. Warfare?...................................................................................................................................................... 134 6.4. 5500–4000 BC: The Middle Chalcolithic............................................................................................................. 134 6.4.1. Absence of evidence or evidence of absence?............................................................................................ 135 6.4.2. Middle Chalcolithic mobility?.................................................................................................................... 137 6.4.3. Cappadocian villagers, pastoralists and chiefs............................................................................................ 138 6.5. 4000–3000 BC: The Late Chalcolithic................................................................................................................. 141 6.5.1. Late Chalcolithic: regional perspectives..................................................................................................... 141 6.5.2. Early urban centres in the Lake District?.................................................................................................... 143 6.6. 3000–2000 BC: The Early Bronze Age................................................................................................................ 144 6.6.1. Research framework................................................................................................................................... 144 6.6.2. Early Bronze Age cultural landscapes......................................................................................................... 145 6.6.3. Early Bronze Age elite-making................................................................................................................... 146 7. Methods����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 151 7.1. Text as data: content analysis................................................................................................................................ 151 7.1.1. Content analysis.......................................................................................................................................... 151 7.1.2. Grounded theory and applying content analysis in reflexive archaeology................................................. 151 7.2. Defining a body of literature to code������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 152
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Contents 7.3. Coding indicators and themes............................................................................................................................... 153 7.3.1. Identifying relevant text passages............................................................................................................... 153 7.3.2. Coding indicators and themes..................................................................................................................... 156 7.3.3. Exploratory coding...................................................................................................................................... 157 7.3.4. Including and excluding text passages from coding................................................................................... 157 7.3.5. Challenges encountered.............................................................................................................................. 158 7.3.6. Limitations.................................................................................................................................................. 159 7.4. Exploring and evaluating indicators and themes.................................................................................................. 159 8. Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 161 8.1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................... 162 8.2. Early Neolithic household autonomy................................................................................................................... 162 8.2.1. Theme 1: The complete house.................................................................................................................... 162 8.2.2. Theme 2: Constructing individualities........................................................................................................ 167 8.2.3. Theme 3: Symbols of the household........................................................................................................... 170 8.2.4. Theme 4: Leaving and continuing the house.............................................................................................. 175 8.3. Suprahousehold integration................................................................................................................................... 175 8.3.1. Theme 9: Living close together................................................................................................................... 178 8.3.2. Theme 10: A paradox of division and cohesion.......................................................................................... 181 8.3.3. Theme 11: Building and destroying together.............................................................................................. 184 8.3.4. Theme 12: Constructing similarities........................................................................................................... 187 8.3.5. Theme 13: Sharing social and economic space........................................................................................... 190 8.3.6. Theme 14: Symbols of community............................................................................................................. 195 8.3.7. Theme 15: On common ground.................................................................................................................. 205 8.3.8. Theme 16: Constructing community space................................................................................................. 210 8.4. Post-6500 BC household autonomy...................................................................................................................... 214 8.4.1. Theme 5: Ritually breaking with the past................................................................................................... 214 8.4.2. Theme 6: Giving each other space.............................................................................................................. 216 8.4.3. Theme 7: Building independently............................................................................................................... 220 8.4.4. Theme 8: More productive space................................................................................................................ 223 8.5. Summary and reflections....................................................................................................................................... 227 9. Social Competition and Social Stratification���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 231 9.1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................................................... 231 9.2. Social competition................................................................................................................................................ 231 9.2.1. Themes 17 and 18: Concealing and displaying......................................................................................... 231 9.3. Social stratification............................................................................................................................................... 235 9.3.1. Theme 19: The elite residence................................................................................................................... 235 9.3.2. Theme 20: Ruling the settlement............................................................................................................... 245 9.3.3. Theme 21: The pre-citadel......................................................................................................................... 247 9.4. Summary and reflections....................................................................................................................................... 250 10. Mobility��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 253 10.1. Introduction......................................................................................................................................................... 253 10.2. The architecture of mobility in prehistoric Anatolia........................................................................................... 253 10.2.1. Theme 22: Living light............................................................................................................................ 253 10.2.2. Theme 23: Shortening house histories.................................................................................................... 258 10.2.3. Theme 24: The pastoral home................................................................................................................. 258 10.2.4. Theme 25: Ritual in the landscape.......................................................................................................... 259 10.3.Summary and reflections...................................................................................................................................... 260 11. Warfare��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 263 11.1. Introduction........................................................................................................................................................ 263 11.2.Architectural indicators of warfare..................................................................................................................... 263 11.2.1.Theme 26: Fortifying the settlement......................................................................................................... 263 11.2.2.Theme 27: Fortifying houses..................................................................................................................... 270 11.2.3.Theme 28: Results of warfare................................................................................................................... 270 11.3. Summary and reflections..................................................................................................................................... 273
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 12. Looking Forward and Back������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 275 12.1. Evaluating the methodology used in this book.................................................................................................. 275 12.2. Building blocks of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic social organisation.................................................. 275 12.3. Reflections: the epistemology of architecture and social organisation.............................................................. 277 Bibliography������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 281 Appendices���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 317
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List of Figures Figure 3.1. Map showing important geographical features discussed in the chapter........................................................... 8 Figure 3.2. The periodisation of (central) Anatolian prehistory discussed in the literature................................................ 11 Figure 3.3. Occupation spans of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia. Darker grey: based on radiocarbon evidence. Lighter grey: not based on radiocarbon evidence. .................................... 14 Figure 5.1. Hacılar VI: plan of excavated structures. The slight irregularities in the middle are due to the original plan having been printed on two pages............................................................................................................................... 36 Figure 5.2. Hacılar VI: two slightly different reconstructions of the settlement layout by Mellaart.................................. 38 Figure 5.3. Hacılar IIa: plan of excavated structures. The slight irregularities in the middle are due to the original plan having been printed on two pages................................................................................................................. 43 Figure 5.4. Hacılar IIa: isometric reconstruction of the settlement by Mellaart................................................................. 44 Figure 5.5. Hacılar I: plan of excavated structures. The gap in the middle is due to the original plan having been printed on two pages................................................................................................................................................... 51 Figure 5.6. Hacılar I: reconstruction of the settlement layout by Mellaart......................................................................... 52 Figure 5.7. Map of the two mounds at Çatalhöyük and excavation areas.......................................................................... 56 Figure 5.8. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures in Trench 1............................................................................. 61 Figure 5.9. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures in Trench 5............................................................................. 62 Figure 5.10. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures Trench 8............................................................................... 63 Figure 5.11. Canhasan I: plan of excavated structures in Layers 2A and 2B..................................................................... 69 Figure 5.12. Canhasan I: Harris Matrix of buildings in Layer 2......................................................................................... 70 Figure 5.13. Erbaba: plan of excavated structures in Level I............................................................................................. 75 Figure 5.14. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 12........................................................................................ 81 Figure 5.15. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 11........................................................................................ 81 Figure 5.16. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 7.......................................................................................... 82 Figure 5.17. Köşk Höyük: plan of excavated structures in Level III.................................................................................. 86 Figure 5.18. Höyücek: plan of excavated structures in the Shrine Phase........................................................................... 91 Figure 5.19. Höyücek: isometric reconstruction of buildings in the Shrine Phase by Duru .............................................. 94 Figure 5.20. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures in Levels EN II/3 and EN II/2................................................... 103 Figure 5.21. Bademağacı: photo of Structure 8 in Level EN II/3 .................................................................................... 105 Figure 5.22. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures in Level LN............................................................................... 106
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Figure 5.23. Tepecik: plan of excavated structures in Level 4......................................................................................... 110 Figure 5.24. Tepecik: plan of excavated structures in Level 3.2.......................................................................................111 Figure 6.1. Map of excavated Early Neolithic (8500–6500 BC) sites in central Anatolia............................................... 114 Figure 6.2. Clustered neighbourhoods at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2....................................................................................... 119 Figure 6.3. Map of excavated Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500–5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia............ 122 Figure 6.4. Reconstruction of dispersed occupation at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük.......................................................... 127 Figure 6.5. Painted vessels from Trench 5 on the Çatalhöyük West Mound ................................................................... 130 Figure 6.6. Early Chalcolithic settlements around Hacılar and Kuruçay attested by survey............................................ 133 Figure 6.7. Map of excavated Middle Chalcolithic (5500–4000 BC) sites in central Anatolia........................................ 135 Figure 6.8. Köşk Höyük: plan of excavated structures in Level I.................................................................................... 139 Figure 6.9. Güvercinkayası: plan of excavated structures from Levels I–II (grey) and Level III (red) .......................... 140 Figure 6.10. Map of excavated Late Chalcolithic (4000–3000 BC) sites in central Anatolia.......................................... 142 Figure 6.11. Kuruçay: reconstruction of the Level 6 settlement by Duru........................................................................ 143 Figure 6.12. Map of excavated Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC) sites in central Anatolia......................................... 145 Figure 6.13. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures dating to the EBA, MBA and Medieval period. Structures labelled ‘İTC’ and ‘saray’ are dated to the EBA (red, yellow, blue), including the stone slope surrounding the settlement, labelled ‘İTC yamaç döşemesi’ ........................................................................................... 147 Figure 8.1. Canhasan I: Reconstruction of the Level 2B roofscape with Karadağ mountain in the background........................................................................................................................................................................ 180 Figure 8.2. The typical layout of an Early Neolithic house at Çatalhöyük....................................................................... 188 Figure 8.3. Terraces, radial divisions as well as ritual ties connecting contemporary houses in the Çatalhöyük South excavation area.................................................................................................................................... 196 Figure 8.4. Building continuity documented in the deep sounding at Aşıklı Höyük........................................................ 201 Figure 8.5. Building continuity within a house cluster in the South excavation area at Çatalhöyük............................... 202 Figure 8.6. Building HV at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2............................................................................................................ 202 Figure 9.1. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 6A2..................................................................................... 248 Figure 10.1. Pınarbaşı B: plan of the built structure......................................................................................................... 256 Figure 10.2. Pınarbaşı B: photo of the built structure....................................................................................................... 257 Figure 11.1. Hacılar: reconstruction of the Level IIa settlement by Mellaart................................................................... 267 Figure 11.2. Kuruçay: reconstruction of the Level 11 fortification walls by Duru........................................................... 268
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List of Tables Table 3.1. Periodisation used in this book.......................................................................................................................... 12 Table 4.1. Excavations of Neolithic to Early Bronze Age sites in central Anatolia .......................................................... 20 Table 5.1. The chronology of Hacılar discussed in the literature....................................................................................... 28 Table 5.2. The stratigraphy and cultural history of Hacılar as described by Mellaart, and stratigraphic revisions suggested by other researchers............................................................................................................................................ 29 Table 5.3. Radiocarbon dates and dendrochronological dates from Hacılar...................................................................... 30 Table 5.4. The chronology of Hacılar used in this book..................................................................................................... 33 Table 5.5. The chronology of Çatalhöyük East discussed in the literature......................................................................... 57 Table 5.6. The chronology of Çatalhöyük West discussed in the literature........................................................................ 59 Table 5.7. Radiocarbon dates from Çatalhöyük West�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60 Table 5.8. The chronology of Canhasan I discussed in the literature................................................................................. 65 Table 5.9. Radiocarbon dates and wiggle-match dates from Canhasan I........................................................................... 66 Table 5.10. The chronology of Canhasan I used in this book............................................................................................. 67 Table 5.11. The chronology of Erbaba discussed in the literature...................................................................................... 76 Table 5.12. Radiocarbon dates from Erbaba....................................................................................................................... 76 Table 5.13. The chronology of Kuruçay discussed in the literature................................................................................... 78 Table 5.14. Radiocarbon dates from Kuruçay.................................................................................................................... 79 Table 5.15. The chronology of Kuruçay used in this book................................................................................................. 80 Table 5.16. The chronology of Köşk Höyük discussed in the literature; radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates from Köşk Höyük...................................................................................................................................................... 84 Table 5.17. The chronology of Köşk Höyük used in this book.......................................................................................... 85 Table 5.18. The chronology of Höyücek discussed in the literature................................................................................... 88 Table 5.19. Radiocarbon dates from Höyücek.................................................................................................................... 89 Table 5.20. The chronology of Höyücek used in this book................................................................................................ 92 Table 5.21. The chronology of Bademağacı discussed in the literature............................................................................. 99 Table 5.22. Radiocarbon dates from Bademağacı............................................................................................................ 100 Table 5.23. The chronology of Bademağacı used in this book......................................................................................... 101 Table 5.24. Bademağacı: buildings in EN II�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 105
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.25. The dating of Pınarbaşı B discussed in the literature������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 107 Table 5.26. Radiocarbon dates from Pınarbaşı B������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 107 Table 5.27. The chronology of Tepecik discussed in the literature���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 109 Table 5.28. Radiocarbon dates from Tepecik������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 109 Table 5.29. The chronology of Tepecik used in this book����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 110 Table 7.1. Literature used for the content analysis���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 154 Table 7.2. Search terms used to identify text passages discussing architectural indicators of social organisation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 156 Table 8.1. Themes identified in the household autonomy and suprahousehold integration debate��������������������������������� 161 Table 8.2. Chronological relevance of themes identified in the household autonomy and suprahousehold integration debate������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 161 Table 8.3. Burnt buildings at Çatalhöyük, their date and elaboration/building continuity status������������������������������������ 217 Table 9.1. Themes identified in the social competition and social stratification debate�������������������������������������������������� 231 Table 10.1. Themes identified in the mobility debate listed by site types����������������������������������������������������������������������� 253 Table 10.2. Chronological relevance of themes identified in the mobility debate����������������������������������������������������������� 253 Table 11.1. Themes identified in the warfare debate������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 263
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List of Abbreviations BC:
All dates with the label BC refer to dates cal. BC, unless stated otherwise
EN:
Early Neolithic
LN:
Late Neolithic
EC:
Early Chalcolithic
MC:
Middle Chalcolithic
LC:
Late Chalcolithic
EBA:
Early Bronze Age
cf.:
reference to a citation that is contradictory to the point being made in this book
m asl: meters above sea level
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Abstract This book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record excavated at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500–5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia into interpretations of social organisation. More specifically, this book focuses on four social processes that were central to the formation of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic societies in central Anatolia (Cappadocia, the Konya plain and the Lake District): increasing household autonomy paired with decreasing suprahousehold integration; incipient social stratification; increasing mobility; and warfare. The first part of the book (Chapters 1–6) details the research context, including chronological and geographic setting, the research history of the region, and a summary of current knowledge about the development of social organisation in central Anatolian prehistory. This part of the book can be used as an entry-level overview of research on the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in central Anatolia, and on the architecture in particular. The second part of the book (Chapters 7–12) conducts a content analysis of 284 publications from the last 60 years that have discussed the above named four processes and their expression in settlement architecture. Content analysis is a method from the social sciences that identifies patterns in large quantities of text (Chapter 7). In this study, content analysis is used to systematically map the archaeological discourse around architecture and its relationship with household autonomy, suprahousehold integration, social stratification, mobility, and warfare. To this end, the analysis identified so-called indicators which capture a particular social interpretation of a particular architectural feature, for example the notion that the clustered settlement layout characteristic of several central Anatolian sites is an expression of tight communal integration. Indicators can be further combined into themes that encapsulate overall patterns in the social use of architecture in the study region. Chapters 8–11 describe in detail the 200 indicators and 28 themes identified through content analysis and evaluate the validity of the archaeological interpretations connected to them against archaeological evidence. As a by-product of this indicator discussion, this book also offers an exploration of the social use of architecture in the past, i.e. how people in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia used architecture to build the kinds of communities they wanted to create. In the tradition of reflexive archaeology, the main purpose of this book is to critically evaluate past archaeological research practices with the aim of contributing to their improvement. Specifically, this book seeks to improve the research tools by which archaeology can understand an important transformative time period in Anatolian prehistory, the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, where transitions took place that would influence other regions and the further course of Southwest Asian and European prehistory – for example by providing an impetus for Neolithic lifeways to spread to western Anatolia and Europe and by initiating a development towards ever more stratified societies (Chapter 6).
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1 Rethinking 60 Years of Architectural Epistemology Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. (Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade) 1.1. Purpose of this book
no way, however, be seen as complete. The first of these side products is a synthesis of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architectural data. Thirteen sites have been excavated in LN/EC central Anatolia, but their architecture has never before been summarised in one publication. As a preparation for my epistemological discussion, I briefly summarise the existing architectural record from these 13 sites. I also review chronological evidence from each site to determine the dating of sites and occupation levels (Chapter 5). This book can therefore be used as an entrylevel overview of architecture data from Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia, but not a complete or exhaustive summary – and certainly not a new analysis of architecture data, since the main purpose of this book is not to research architecture data directly, but to analyse what past archaeological publications have stated about the interpretation of this data. In other words, when an analysed source suggests that a settlement enclosure wall, e.g. at Hacılar II, signifies the existence of warfare in the study area (11.2.1), the main purpose of this book is to scrutinise the assumption that an enclosure wall translates into warfare, not the identification of an enclosure wall at Hacılar II. However, some elements of critique on the architectural record —including on the mentioned Hacılar II wall—are contained in Chapter 5 and 8–11 where it seemed particularly necessary.
This book has one main objective: to systematically and comprehensively research the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record excavated at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500– 5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia into interpretations of social organisation. More specifically, this book aims to be an exhaustive (and for readers possibly exhausting) dissection of a particular archaeological discourse – that concerned with architecture and its use for understanding the four social processes that will be identified in Chapter 6 as central to the formation of Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic societies: increasing household autonomy paired with decreasing suprahousehold integration, incipient social competition and stratification, increasing mobility, and warfare. It aims to first, make visible the interpretational patterns that have been used to interpret social organisation based on architectural data; and second, to critically evaluate this epistemology in order to suggest improvements for future research. To achieve this, this book uses content analysis, a method derived from social sciences that systematically identifies patterns in large quantities of text. Content analysis has been used in the past in some reflexive archaeology projects (7.1). This book, too, is in essence a contribution to archaeological reflexivity: a critical evaluation of archaeology’s own research practices with the aim of improving them. I conducted a content analysis of 284 archaeological publications on the prehistory of central Anatolia with the aim of identifying patterns and themes in the academic discourse around architecture and society. The oldest analysed publication being from 1958, this book researches more than 60 years of archaeological thought since the excavation of the first Neolithic/Chalcolithic site in central Anatolia (Hacılar). In Chapters 8–12, I extensively discuss the results of this content analysis, thereby exploring and evaluating the ways past research has understood the social meaning of prehistoric architecture in the study region. This discussion produces foremost a better understanding of epistemology, but also a tool kit for architecture research specific to Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia, in accordance with the contextual approach taken by this book (2.2).
The second side product is an improved understanding of how people in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia used architecture to build the kinds of communities they wanted to create. The patterns identified in the content analysis provide a structure for describing the social use of architecture in the past, for example how social hierarchies were constructed through built environments that produced, communicated and reinforced differences in social status (Chapter 9). The indicators and themes identified through content analysis therefore also tell the story of architectural choices that formed and transformed societies during Anatolian prehistory. However, this book does not directly investigate the social use of architecture in the past, but observes what past researchers have said about this social use of architecture, which provides an indirect and in parts biased view. Why does all this matter, within the bigger picture, looking beyond architecture and central Anatolia during the time period 6500–5500 BC? By critically reflecting on epistemology, by contributing towards a synthesis of architectural data from the LN/EC and towards an understanding of the social use of architecture during that
Apart from its primary objective to research epistemology, this book also produces two additional outcomes that are something like side effects of the epistemological discussion. Because these were not primary research aims, the exploration of these two secondary outcomes can in 1
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia time period, I contribute also to an improved understanding of the long-term transformation of Anatolian prehistoric societies between the first farmers of the Early Neolithic and the first stratified pre-state societies of the Early Bronze Age. The “millennia in the middle” (Düring 2011b)— between the agricultural revolution of the Early Neolithic and the formation of social complexity in the Early Bronze Age—have in previous research received less attention due to a seeming absence of major cultural transformation (6.4.1). However, newer research has demonstrated that the millennium between 6500 and 5500 BC was an important transformative time in central Anatolian prehistory during which social structures established in the Early Neolithic unravelled as households became more autonomous, competitive and mobile. Chapter 6 will describe these changes and demonstrate their impact on later prehistory, including on the development of social complexity in the Early Bronze Age. That is not to say that the period of the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic is only relevant because of its impact on the formation of complex societies, but this is one way in which they are relevant in a wider forum.
concerned with the study of central Anatolian prehistory, and Baird (2012a:432) explicitly names the debate around early complexity as one example: “Debates continue about the nature of early social complexity and how much this was a response to the development of sedentary farming communities of scale. The Anatolian evidence allows us to understand whether and how social complexity might have operated in environments that contrast with those where the developments have been more fully studied, especially the Levant, but also northern Mesopotamia.” And indeed, Diamond cites Anatolia as the place from where markers of ‘civilisation’ such as agriculture, metallurgy and “towns and cities, chiefdoms and kingdoms, and organized religions” (Diamond 2005:180) spread to Europe and transformed that continent. Recent overviews on the history of European and Southwest Asian warfare also routinely refer to the very sites studied in this book (Ferguson 2013:218–220; Hamblin 2006:24–27), making them part of the larger story of the deeper origins of European modernity. If central Anatolian prehistoric archaeology is relevant to public and academic debates, for example those surrounding the beginning of complex societies, then it needs to produce reliable interpretations. This book contributes to increased reliability by describing and critiquing the gaps, disagreements and unquestioned assumptions that exist in the interpretational frameworks that archaeologists use to translate architectural evidence into social organisation. Chapter 6 will show that social complexity, in Anatolia and probably beyond, can best be understood as the unintended outcome of various small changes to the social makeup of local communities, and that society in this part of Anatolia moved towards social complexity via previously unperceived mechanisms and pathways, for example through mobile pastoralism. My aim is to contribute to an accurate understanding of these small- and large-scale shifts in the social fabric of communities.
Social complexity in Southwest Asia and Europe is defined by features such as: urban centres, population density, centralised political administration through formalised law, social differentiation and stratification (Barton 2014:307), hereditary ranking, long-distance trade, craft specialisation, centralised production, writing (Verhoeven 2010:12), metallurgy (Düring 2011b:809; Steadman 2011:251) and organised religion (Düring 2011c:253). The word ‘civilisation’ is often used in place of ‘complex society’ outside of archaeology, and sometimes also within it (e.g. Sagona and Zimansky 2009:172), though it is avoided in most current archaeological writing (Verhoeven 2010:11–12). Why does the formation of social complexity matter? Condensed down to its essence, the emergence and further development of social complexity is part of the story of how the modern world came to be the way that it is. This makes social complexity or ‘civilisation’ relevant within archaeology but also for a general public (Herrero 2013). To name just one example from the non-academic sphere, the commercial success of books by Jared Diamond (1997, 2005) is based on the public interest in the emergence, development and ‘collapse’ of complex societies. And central Anatolia is very much part of academic and non-academic debates around social complexity or ‘civilisation’. The region hosted the earliest pre-Bronze Age research ever conducted on the Anatolian plateau (Chapter 4), and remains one of the more thoroughly researched areas within prehistoric Anatolia (Düring 2011c:28; Özdoğan 1995, 1999:10). This has led to central Anatolia having an exemplary character for the study of prehistory in other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean region, both within archaeology (Baird 2012a:432) and outside of it, for example in form of the site of Çatalhöyük, which has attracted public interest as an early ‘town’ (e.g. Hodder 2006; Mellaart 1962a, 1963a, 1963b, 1963c). Interpretations made here therefore have significance beyond the circle of archaeologists directly
1.2. Chapter outline This book has two parts: The introductory chapters (Chapters 1–6) describe the research context around the epistemology that is analysed in the second part of the book (Chapters 7–12). Chapter 1 has defined the objectives and significance of this research project. Chapter 2 describes the two elements of archaeological theory that influenced the way this research was designed: reflexive and contextual archaeology. Chapter 3 defines the geographical and chronological scope examined in the book. Chapter 4 provides a brief history both of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic archaeological research in central Anatolia more generally and architecture research in the study region more specifically. Chapter 5 summarises the architectural evidence from each of the 13 LN/EC sites in central Anatolia as well as their chronology. Chapter 6 summarises the current state of knowledge on the development of social organisation between the Early Neolithic and Early Bronze Age (8500–2000 BC) in central 2
Rethinking 60 Years of Architectural Epistemology Anatolia. Chapter 7 describes the research methodology employed in my analysis. Chapters 8 (Household autonomy and suprahousehold integration), Chapter 9 (Social competition and social stratification), Chapter 10 (Mobility) and Chapter 11 (Warfare) discuss the results of the content analysis. The final Chapter 12 provides a summary of the main outcomes of this research. It is also relevant to mention here that the cut-off date for literature to be included was 30 April 2021. Literature published after this date is not included in this book with the exception of chapters from two edited volumes published in 2022 that I, as editor of one (Biehl et al. 2022) and editorial assistant of the other (Biehl and Rosenstock 2022), had advance access to and that contained new research highly relevant to some issues discussed in this book. Also, since this is a reflection on past research, I made the decision to reprint figures such as architecture plans and reconstructions from the original publications without modifications or without recreating them – sometimes at the expense of picture quality and resolution.
3
2 Theoretical Foundations Learning archaeological theory [i]s something akin to taking medicine: important but nothing to look forward to. (Urban and Schortman 2012:9) 2.1. Archaeological reflexivity
be taken for granted (Burke et al. 1994:20), such as the geographical and chronological categorisations that will be reviewed in Chapter 3.
This chapter describes the theoretical considerations that influenced this work: archaeological reflexivity and contextual archaeology (2.2). In essence, this book is an exercise in archaeological reflexivity. Archaeological reflexivity describes a critical awareness of the archaeological research process and its influence on the results of research. The first publications to introduce the term reflexivity to archaeology were published in 1987 (Leone et al. 1987; Shanks and Tilley 1987:2). Burke et al. (1994:14) point out that “the explicit use of reflexive methods in archaeology and the social sciences may be relatively recent, but reflexivity underlies and imbues the Western intellectual tradition”. Similarly, Leone et al. (1987:283; also Wilkie and Bartoy 2000) connect reflexive archaeology with Marxist critical theory, which originated in Frankfurt (Germany) in the 1920s. Reflexive archaeology shares many common goals with critical archaeology and the terms are at times used interchangeably (e.g. Shanks and Tilley 1992:67).
Awareness of the biases introduced by archaeological research form the basis of attempts to overcome these biases and to achieve a clearer view of past cultures. Rather than viewing an awareness of the subjective nature of archaeological research as a destructive source of “uncertainty, insecurity and general unrest” (Burke et al. 1994:20), destabilisation (Hodder 2000a:8) and “chaos” (Chadwick 1998), reflexive archaeology advocates an acceptance but critical awareness of subjectivities (Shanks and Tilley 1992:67) and welcomes the inclusion of many varying positions to enrich archaeological knowledge (Edgeworth 2006b:16; Hodder 2003:58). Central to the notion of reflexivity is the belief “that a self-critical awareness of present practices will lead to refinements and/or changes in those practices which, in turn, will produce a better archaeology” (Burke et al. 1994:20) with greater methodological rigour and more reliable research outcomes (Berggren and Hodder 2003:431; Burke et al. 1994:14; Leone et al. 1987:285). Reflexive methodology can thus not only help in understanding the present (present archaeological practice and thought), but also the past. This book aims to do both, since the two are interrelated: I work towards a better understanding of the archaeological research process in order to suggest improvements in our understanding of the past.
Archaeological reflexivity applies the notion of human behaviour and knowledge always being conditioned by cultural context (2.2) to archaeology itself in order to realise that there is no objective truth to be found through archaeological research, and that all archaeological knowledge is a product of the social context in which it was produced. As Edgeworth (2006c:xii–xiv) points out, reflexivity is simply following through with archaeology’s own logic in which human action is seen as social or cultural practice, and thus also seeing archaeological practice as socially situated. The sociopolitical framework within which archaeology takes place encompasses the archaeologists involved in a particular research project; other scholars from archaeology and related disciplines; the procedures and conditions inherent to academic culture; local communities, government authorities, the interested public; and the economic constraints on archaeological fieldwork and research (Burke et al. 1994:14; Hodder 2000a; Leone et al. 1987:284). With so many groups and individuals involved in the process of producing knowledge, conclusions are always subject to change (Hodder 2000a:9) and there are no ‘facts’ that can be separated from ‘interpretation’ (Hodder 1999a:81). Reflexive archaeology thus advocates the questioning of assumptions through investigation of the archaeological practice itself: its methods, theories, and practitioners. This includes questioning the very basic presuppositions that archaeological research is based on and that might
2.2. A contextual approach Postprocessual archaeology recognises that a research methodology is most successful when it considers the specific context that a research project is set within. ‘Context’ encompasses a number of things, but is composed broadly of two parts: the modern context within which the involved archaeologists work; and the specific cultural context under which the material studied by archaeology was produced in the past (Hodder 1991:154). The first part includes the specific conditions, pre-understandings and biases created by previous research traditions and previous researchers which influence the research aims and the data available to new research projects. Not least, the researchers’ own personas, forged by previous research experience—here: my prior experience, knowledge and beliefs—comprises part of the context. A critical awareness of these multiple influences shaping the results of the archaeological research process was part of the original ‘contextual archaeology’ as formulated by Hodder 5
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (1991:109, 125, 173; Johnsen and Olsen 1992:426) and has subsequently matured into archaeological reflexivity as introduced in 2.1.
as essentially the same. It enables archaeologists to reconstruct human history as a mosaic of specific social strategies created under specific conditions (Barrett 1987:470). Chapter 1 has articulated the aim of this book to reconstruct developments towards ‘social complexity’ in central Anatolia as an unintended consequence of the strategies chosen by groups of people in order to deal with the challenges of living together permanently in large groups. A contextual framework for understanding these developments therefore is ideally suited to this work’s research aim.
The second element of ‘context’ is the past cultural context being researched and material culture through which it is researched (here: architecture). Postprocessual approaches are founded on the notion that material culture needs to be interpreted by understanding it within the particular social and cultural context in which it was created, and that archaeological methods need to be suitable for doing so (Hodder 1995:12–13, 17). Initially named ‘contextual archaeology’ (Barrett 1987; Hodder 1991:121–155, 1995; Johnsen and Olsen 1992), this conviction subsequently became one of the cornerstones of postprocessual archaeology. It is central to how postprocessual-inspired research projects answer the fundamental question of how it is possible to reconstruct the complexity of past people’s actions from material culture (Barrett 1987:469; Hodder 1995:14; Johnsen and Olsen 1992:419). Contextual archaeology can therefore be defined as the attempt to “interpret the evidence primarily in terms of its internal relations rather than in terms of outside knowledge” (Hodder 1990:21; see also Hodder 1991:13, 15; Johnsen and Olsen 1992:426). Contextual archaeology calls for a “sensitivity to the particular data” (Hodder 1991:122) in the form of a methodology that carefully works in an exploratory manner from the data towards interpretation while exercising critical self-awareness to avoid imposing meaning. Ideally, individual archaeological objects and observations are understood by juxtaposing them with as many other objects and observations—from the same cultural context—as possible, in a ‘thick description’ that creates a framework of reference wherein meaning can be understood (Hodder 1995:13, 144; Hodder et al. 2008:34). Through the recognised patterns in material culture, archaeology can reconstruct past daily practices and routines which express the underlying socioeconomic concepts in which archaeology is interested (Hodder 1991:128).
This book will integrate a contextual interpretative approach in two ways. Hodder (1991:143, 1995:13) defined context as “the totality of the relevant environment”. This sets a research project employing a contextual approach the task of deciding which context is relevant. For example, the choice of temporal and geographic boundaries isalready an interpretation based on a particular reading of archaeological data, and one with far-reaching consequences since it pre-determines what data is included in the research project (Hodder 1995:141, 1999a:48, 85; Shanks and Tilley 1992:xix). In accordance with this, I will spend some time (in Chapter 3) on defining the chronological and geographic borders of the context that will exclusively serve as the reference framework for the remainder of the work. As a result, this book will employ only prehistoric central Anatolia as a reference framework while discussing its analysis results (Chapters 8–12). It will not employ analogies or consider data beyond the context defined in Chapter 3. Düring (2006:52) observed that “[t]he archaeological enterprise is based on analogical reasoning”: even on the most basic level of architectural interpretation, individual items of material culture need to be compared and equated or contrasted with others to find out, for example, that an arrangement of stones was a wall and not a floor (Hodder 1999a:47). The necessity of analogies gives weight to an appropriate choice of ‘context’ as a framework within which cultural conditions are similar enough to be able to transfer meaning from one building or one site to the next and to observe similarities and differences between items of material culture that are then abstracted to infer social function, meaning and use (Hodder 1991:128–134, 1995:12–13, 1999a:48).
This is a direct counter-reaction to the processual urge to conduct archaeological research by applying general models to a particular case study and subsequently relating the case back to universal laws of human behaviour (Barrett 1987:470; Hodder 1991:122). The notion that past human behaviour does not follow general laws is at the heart of postprocessual study. Instead, all human behaviour is inherently conditioned by the specific cultural circumstances that surround it, all material culture is conditioned by its cultural context, and “the [archaeological] record contains meaning specific to the historical conditions under which it was constructed” (Barrett 1987:469; also Hodder 1995:26; Shanks and Tilley 1992:15). Archaeology can use this to its own advantage: By researching the meaning of material culture specific to the cultural context in which it was created, it is possible to reach a much deeper understanding of this past cultural context rather than the more superficial understanding that is predetermined if one wants to see all human cultures
Second, the strategy originally formulated by Hodder (1991:125, 128, 143–145, 1999a:51; Johnsen and Olsen 1992:425) for contextual archaeology is to acquire an intimate knowledge of the data. Following this requirement for contextual archaeology, Chapters 3–6 explore in some detail the context defined in Chapter 3 – both components of this context, the prehistoric conditions and the archaeological research landscape. Chapters 3–6 discuss the geography of central Anatolia, the dating of sites and layers, the data available for architecture research and important aspects of the research history. Chapter 7 describes how a sensitivity of context was integrated into the methods of analysis that Chapters 8–11 are based on and what challenges were encountered. 6
3 Time and Place Like other fields, archeology is cursed with terms so vague and ambiguous that they tend to obscure more than they clarify. (Flannery 1972a:400) This chapter delineates the geographical and chronological scope of the book, defines key geographic and chronological terms and touches on issues and debates relating to chronology and geography within central Anatolian archaeology that are relevant to this research project. Chapter 2 has outlined that this book will employ a contextual approach, i.e. that its analysis will draw only on archaeological evidence from the particular cultural context being researched and will avoid crosscultural comparisons. It is therefore of central relevance to define, as best as possible, meaningful chronological and geographic boundaries of the research context. The starting point of this book was my work at the site of Çatalhöyük West which therefore serves as locus around which a meaningful geographical and temporal framework had to be defined. The geographic and chronological boundaries of cultural units during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in central Anatolia are at present incompletely understood; for this reason, debates on prehistoric geography and chronology in central Anatolia are evaluated here to determine, as best as currently possible, a reliable temporal and spatial framework of reference. This book has a focus on temporal (observing developments over time) not geographical (establishing differences in architecture and social organisation between regions) comparisons; chronology is therefore discussed more extensively.
that the chosen research scope constitutes a unit treated as such by past and present archaeological research. This book researches the Konya plain, Cappadocia, and the Lake District, three adjacent regions in southerncentral Turkey. For reasons of convenience, the term ‘central Anatolia’ will be used throughout the book to refer collectively to the Konya plain, Cappadocia and the Lake District, although—as is discussed below— this term is often used in the archaeological literature to describe only the Konya plain and Cappadocia, not including the Lake District. ‘Anatolia’ (Turkish: Anadolu) refers to the Asian portion of modern Turkey (Matthews 2011:35; Schachner 1999:1) and is the term most commonly used in archaeology to refer to this region. ‘Asia Minor’ is used by Düring (2011c)— as in this book—to denominate Anatolia minus its easternmost part (east of a line between the modern cities of Trabzon and Iskenderun) on the grounds that the two regions followed different cultural developments prior to the Bronze Age, despite known contacts throughout prehistory (Çevik 2007:134; Düring 2006:13–14, 2011c:5–6; Özdoğan 1999:11; Rosenstock 2009:99; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:Figure 3.1). Most of the Anatolian interior is on a plateau ca. 1000– 1200 m above sea level (asl), and is geographically diverse (Kuzucuoğlu 2019b). Within this diverse geography, there are no clear geographic boundaries separating central Anatolia from adjacent regions, and for the most part no clear prehistoric cultural boundaries either. In the south, the Taurus mountains, up to 3700 m high and with few natural crossings (Düring 2011c:7; Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019a:66), provide a relatively clear border between central Anatolia and the southern coast that is widely accepted among archaeologists (e.g. Düring and Marciniak 2005:169; Gérard and Thissen 2002a:1; Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33). The valley of the Göksu river, one of the most prominent natural routes that connects the Konya plain with the coast and permits relatively easy access from the Mut Basin south of the modern city of Karaman to Silifke at the coast (Bikoulis 2012:35–36; Newhard et al. 2008), indeed does not show signs of significant human presence during the Neolithic and Early to Middle Chalcolithic periods (French 1965b:186; cf. Mellaart 1958b, 1963d:203). A recent survey located only one site with a small number of sherds featuring the Early Chalcolithic painted decoration typical of the Konya plain (Şerifoğlu et al. 2014:75, Figure 8). Clearer evidence for post-Palaeolithic human occupation in the Göksu valley starts only with the Late Chalcolithic
3.1. Place: geographical scope The purpose of this section is first, to define a geographic scope for the research project; and second, to explore some geographic characteristics of the study region (Figure 3.1). The geographic scope of my research context is defined by three factors: known cultural affinities and borders during the Neolithic/Chalcolithic; geographic boundaries and features that probably had an influence on cultural borders during prehistory and can thereby supplement research into prehistoric cultural borders; and borders created by previous archaeological research. This section will show that not only are the lines drawn according to these three factors not congruent, but also there is disagreement within the archaeological literature about many aspects of them. This section will also show that, eventually, the conditions and borders created by previous archaeological research often override the less secure knowledge on prehistoric cultural boundaries. For a research project focused on archaeological epistemology, however, this is not a major problem. Research history is an important component of the context I set out to research, and this section will show 7
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 3.1. Map showing important geographical features discussed in the chapter (created by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
or Early Bronze Age (Elton 2008:243; Şerifoğlu et al. 2016:8, 9; Şerifoğlu et al. 2017:Table 1).
highlands that characterise the eastern part of Anatolia. Similarly, it is difficult to find a clear geographic boundary between the Lake District and highlands to the west unless the presence of lakes is seen as the defining factor of the region (Kazancı and Roberts 2019:325).
By contrast, the northern, eastern and western borders of central Anatolia are unclear within past archaeological research, partly due to an absence of clear geographic boundaries separating the region from the rest of the Anatolian plateau. In the northeast, the CANeW group (the Central Anatolian e-Workshop) has suggested the Kızılırmak river as the boundary of central Anatolia, and in the northwest, it delineates central Anatolia via an arbitrary line drawn between Lake Beyşehir and the Kızılırmak (Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33, Figure 1), while at the same time pointing out that the river would rather have provided a means of transport and a connection to areas in the east and north (Kuzucuoğlu 2002:48). By contrast, Todd’s (1980) seminal survey (and works based on it, such as Allcock 2017; Allcock and Roberts 2014:Figure 1) actually included areas north of the river as part of Cappadocia. Similarly, the TAY project (Türkiye Arkeolojik Yerleşmeleri, Archaeological Settlements of Turkey; TAY 2021) employs the borders of the seven modern administrative units of Turkey (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019b:Figure 1.1) and therefore includes wide areas to the north of the Lake District, Konya plain and Cappadocia into central Anatolia (TAY 2021). In the east, the mountains of Cappadocia blur without clear boundaries into extensive
Between Cappadocia, the Konya plain, and Lake District there are relatively clear geographic boundaries. Although adjacent, the three vary in terrain, climate, vegetation and abiotic resources: The Konya plain today is dry and steppic (Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33–34, 2019a, 2019b:Figures 2.5, 2.6, 2.8). In the Neolithic, the plain was overall much wetter than today, with a major river – the Çarşamba river – and a scatter of smaller river courses and marshes characterising the landscape (Ayala et al. 2017; Baird et al. 2018:E3079, E3081; Charles et al. 2014). The Neolithic Konya plain featured some woodlands, but no dense or extensive forest cover (Asouti and Kabukcu 2014:Figure 10; Kabukcu 2017). By contrast, the Lake District and Cappadocia are and were mountainous, wetter and more wooded than the Konya plain (Allcock 2017:43; DeCupere et al. 2015:5; Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33–34, 2019b:Figures 2.5, 2.6, 2.8; Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019a:94, Figure 4.54; Roberts et al. 2016:356–357). The Lake District features a number of intra-montane lakes, some of them salt lakes (DeCupere et al. 2015:5; Kazancı and Roberts 2019; Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33–34). Cappadocia contains several volcanoes 8
Time and Place (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019a:102–104, Mouralis et al. 2019) and obsidian, ores and minerals that were used by prehistoric peoples (Düring 2011c: Figure 1.2). Although the Konya plain can be relatively clearly delineated from the Lake District on the one hand and Cappadocia on the other based on terrain, all three regions, especially the fragmented mountain landscapes of Cappadocia (Allcock and Roberts 2014:37–38; Özbaşaran 2011:100) and the Lake District, represent within themselves a patchwork of microhabitats, so that it would be incorrect to portray the three regions as geographically distinct blocks.
assemblages in Cappadocia and the Konya plain during the Early Neolithic, and after 6500 BC also had a significant presence in the Lake District (6.3.1). In the Middle Chalcolithic, the Lake District and Konya plain may both have been inhabited primarily or exclusively by mobile peoples, while socially stratified settlements emerged in Cappadocia (6.4.1). By the Early Bronze Age, all three regions had cultural affiliations with a wider region within Asia Minor (6.6.1). In attempting to define a research scope for this book, it made sense to focus on the time period between 6500 and 5500 BC, i.e. the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods, which are the topic of this research project (3.2.2). My decision to include the Lake District in my research together with the Konya plain and Cappadocia is based on two considerations: First, the cultural contacts outlined above that existed between 6500–5500 BC. Second, the decision is a product of the history of previous archaeological research. Based on the fact that the greater part of the Lake District was neolithised around the same time as western and northwestern Anatolia (around 6500 BC) and that much cultural exchange existed between western and central Anatolia in the following centuries (6.3.1), it could be argued that western Anatolia should have been included within the scope of this book; or that the Lake District should have been excluded in order to focus only on the Konya plain and Cappadocia, which can reasonably been seen as a unit given their shared transition into the Neolithic around 8500 BC. However, in terms of research history, the fault line is not between the Lake District and the Konya plain plus Cappadocia, but between these three regions and the regions to the west and northwest. There has always been a close research connection between the Lake District and Konya plain, and later also Cappadocia. The first Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in Anatolia north of the Taurus mountains to be recognised and researched as such – first through surveys in the early 1950s and from 1957 onwards by excavation – were in the southern parts of the Konya plain and the Lake District (Chapter 4). At the very beginning in the 1950s and early 1960s, it was especially the domineering research persona of James Mellaart that linked the two areas. Mellaart directed the excavations at Hacılar in the Lake District (1957–1960) and Çatalhöyük in the Konya plain (1961–1965) and his publications draw many comparisons between the two sites, stating for example that “without Çatal Hüyük the correct interpretation of Hacılar would have been virtually impossible” (Mellaart 1970c:7). From the very start, therefore, research references were made forth and back between the Lake District and Konya plain. Until the start of Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic research at sites in northwestern Turkey and Cappadocia in the early 1980s (Table 4.1), the Lake District and Konya plain remained the only regions in Anatolia north of the Tauruses with excavated sites from this period. In the absence of any other excavated sites within a wide radius, the six Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites excavated in the Konya plain and Lake District in the 1950s through 1970s were the main reference framework for laying the
Despite the relatively clear geographic boundaries, there were no clear-cut cultural borders between the three regions throughout prehistory, or within archaeological research. In many standard publications discussing the Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic over the last 20 years, Cappadocia and the Konya plain are presented as somewhat of a unit (‘central/Central Anatolia’) that can be discussed together as one region, but separately from the Lake District (e.g. Düring 2011c; Gérard and Thissen 2002a:1; Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33; Özbasaran 2011: Figure 5.2; Sagona 2009:112–113; Schoop 2005a:18–19, 2011b:153). The reason for this is most probably, although not clearly stated in these publications, that the Konya plain and Cappadocia were neolithised together at around 8500 BC while the remainder of Asia Minor including most of the Lake District remained inhabited by huntergatherers (6.2.1). The Beyşehir/ Seydişehir region at the eastern fringe of the Lake District was neolithised together with the Konya plain and Cappadocia (Süberde, from 7600 BC; Thissen 2002a:324). This region is therefore by some archaeologists included in the ‘Konya plain’ although these sites are located near lakes (Düring 2011c:49; Duru 1999:186). During the millennia that followed (the Early Neolithic, 8500–6500 BC), there was a clear cultural boundary between the farming communities in Cappadocia, the Konya plain, and the eastern fringe of the Lake District on the one hand, and the hunter-gather groups in most of the Lake District and the remainder of Asia Minor on the other. At the same time, there were probably cultural differences between the Konya plain and Cappadocia during the Early Neolithic related to social organisation and its expression in architecture (6.2.3). After the Early Neolithic, from 6500 BC onwards, cultural affiliations within Asia Minor fluctuated. Farming life in the Lake District and areas to the west and north of it began around 6500 BC, and it is probable that people, animals and ideas originating from the Konya plain and maybe also Cappadocia were involved in this transition (6.3.1). After 6500 BC, the three regions studied here were part of a cultural exchange zone that also included the coastal areas of western and northwest Turkey (6.3.1). Between ca. 6000–5500 BC, the Lake District and Konya plain shared a painted pottery tradition that was exclusive to these two regions, not shared by Cappadocia or by sites in western and northwest Turkey (6.3.1, 6.3.3). All three regions were connected by the use of Cappadocian obsidian, which already dominated the chipped stone 9
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia groundwork for Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic archaeology in the Anatolian interior – with some references to Mersin (e.g. Mellaart 1965a:155, 1967:24–25; French 1967:Chart 2), a major Neolithic/Chalcolithic site located on the southeastern fringe of Asia Minor south of the Tauruses. Comparisons between these sites were relevant for the establishment of the first pottery chronologies (e.g. Mellaart 1965a:155, 1970c:121–124; French 1967:Chart 2; Duru 1994c:103) as well as the architectural and social reconstructions (e.g. Mellaart 1967:23–25, 181, 201; 1970c:7, 10, 38–39; Duru 1994c:100–101) that will partly be scrutinised in this book. When Neolithic research started in Cappadocia, the Konya plain again became an important reference point; first for the interpretation of survey material (Todd 1980:109–110, 122–124) and from the late 1980s onwards for the discussion of excavation data, especially since the upper levels of Aşıklı Höyük seemed so similar in architecture to Çatalhöyük (Duru 2002; Esin 1996:40; Esin et al. 1991:129, 134; Özbaşaran 2011:103). Comparisons between the three regions are therefore written into the DNA of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic research in central Anatolia, and they need to be included together within a research project that focuses on archaeological epistemology.
is among the most debated issues in central Anatolian prehistory. Two chronology-related subjects had to be reviewed for this book. First, it was necessary to define the start and end date of a time period that, as reliably as can currently be determined, represents a meaningful unit within the cultural development throughout central Anatolian prehistory (3.2.2). In preparation for this, the conflicting periodisation systems that subdivide Anatolian prehistory are reviewed in the first part of this section (3.2.1). Next, how to date individual sites and occupation levels that fall within the temporal scope as defined in 3.2.2. Site chronologies are extensively discussed in Chapter 5, but section 3.2.3 discusses some general issues and challenges related to the dating of sites and levels. This section 3.2 relies on chronology debates summarised in the newest relevant literature (Düring 2011c; Duru 2008, 2012; Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002; Sagona and Zimansky 2009; Schoop 2011b; Thissen 2002a, 2010; Yakar 2011a), and additional site-specific readings. 3.2.1. Periodisation Archaeology in central Anatolia uses a version of the fourstage model that is used across Southwest Asia: Stone Age, Copper-Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age. This stage model was originally developed as a shorthand chronological system for European prehistory in the very early years of archaeological research, but successively became associated with cultural-evolutionary content (Düring 2011c:128; Schoop 2005a:14–15). That is problematic for a number of reasons; among others, specifically for the context researched here, the traditional period boundaries established by archaeology are incongruent with the current knowledge of major turning points in the cultural sequence in prehistoric Anatolia (Düring 2011c:127; Yakar 2011a:58). This is not surprising, since period boundaries were established decades ago, when considerably less was known about prehistory (Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002:67) and archaeological research was conducted under different epistemological premises. As an example, the division of the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in Anatolia was originally defined based not on the appearance of copper use, but painted pottery (Rosenstock et al. 2016:6; Schoop 2011b:151), making for a confusing period name (see Rosenstock et al. 2016:1–7 for a review of the intellectual history of the Chalcolithic). Despite the change in pottery, there was no substantial socioeconomic change between the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic that might justify a subdivision into two periods, as will be explored below (3.2.2). As a result of these issues, this book will employ denominations such as ‘Early Chalcolithic’ without inferring any cultural connotation, but use them as shorthand terms to refer to ‘the time period between 6000 and 5500 BC’.
To this day, there is abundant interconnection between research and researchers working on the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic in the Lake District, Konya plain and Cappadocia, while there is limited connection with Neolithic/Chalcolithic research in other parts in Asia Minor. This probably also has a lot to do with the distribution of excavated sites across Asia Minor. A look at the map of excavated sites dating to between 6500– 5500 BC (Düring 2011c:Figure 5.1) shows that the central Anatolian sites form an elongated cluster along a section of the southern fringe of the Anatolian plateau, north of the Taurus mountains. The clusters of excavated contemporary sites located at the western and northwestern coasts, as well as in southeast Anatolia, are separated by wide underresearched areas. The availability of excavated sites is, of course, necessary for the research of architecture. Due to the research history of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic archaeology, which has neglected certain areas of Anatolia, the research sample for my book therefore naturally limits itself to central Anatolia as defined here. The review of geographic conditions and prehistoric cultural boundaries in this section has shown, though, that it should not be assumed that sites and communities were necessarily similar even within each of the three regions of central Anatolia. For this reason, each archaeological site is here treated as an individual case study without assuming similarities to nearby sites in the same region. 3.2. Time
Currently, conflicting periodisation schemes exist within central Anatolian prehistoric archaeology (Figure 3.2). In the recent literature, the CANeW group has suggested two slightly different periodisation schemes for central Anatolia (Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002:Tables 1, 2).
All models are wrong, some models are useful. (Box 1979:202) Chronology, meaning the sequence, start, and duration of cultural stages and the dating of individual sites and layers, 10
11 1 2 3 4 5
atthews (Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002:Table 1) for central Anatolia M Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002:Table 2 for central Anatolia Duru 2008:7–8, 23, 69, 122, 145 for the Lake District Sagona and Zimansky 2009 for all Anatolia Yakar 2011a:Table 4.1, Table 4.2 for all Anatolia; the dates for the Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic and the Middle to Late Chalcolithic transition are not indicated by Yakar
6 Schoop 2011b:153, 157, 161 for the central Anatolian Chalcolithic 7 Düring 2011c:Table 5.1 for central Anatolia 8 Baird 2012a:Table 23.1 for all Anatolia
Time and Place
Figure 3.2. The periodisation of (central) Anatolian prehistory discussed in the literature. Key to the columns:
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Sagona and Zimansky (2009) use a system reminiscent of the CANeW central Anatolian scheme for all of Anatolia. Similarly, Baird’s (2012a:Table 23.1) chronology for the Anatolian plateau – in this case comprising most of Asia Minor (Baird 2012a:431) – is essentially based on central Anatolian evidence. Yakar (2011a:Tables 4.1, 4.2) also attempts to establish a system for all of Anatolia, which explains his rather vague absolute dating of periods. Interestingly, works by Schoop (2005a) and Thissen (2002a, 2010) dedicated specifically to sorting out central Anatolian chronology do not present any periodisation systems, instead working with site-specific sequences— although Schoop (2011b) later defined phase boundaries for central Anatolia. Düring’s (2011c:Table 5.1) system for central Anatolia best reflects the most current view on the cultural development of central Anatolian prehistory as outlined in Chapter 6 and will therefore be adopted here (Table 3.1) with one adjustment: Aceramic Neolithic and Early Ceramic Neolithic are subsumed as ‘Early Neolithic’ because, despite the introduction of pottery, no major cultural change has been identified around 7000 BC.
necessarily mirroring a stage of cultural development, it was here decided to call 6500–6000 BC the ‘Late Neolithic’ in all three regions, with the Lake District shifting directly from the Epipalaeolithic to the Late Neolithic. This book will also employ the chronological acronyms listed in Table 3.1, e.g. LN and EC for the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. 3.2.2. Defining the temporal scope The starting point of this book was the site of Çatalhöyük West, where excavated areas have recently been dated to between 6100 and 5500 BC (Orton et al. 2018) with most of this sequence falling into the Early Chalcolithic (6000–5500 BC). When research on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic began in the Anatolian interior, 6000 BC was seen as an important chronological boundary with the onset of painted pottery. It was Mellaart who, when first publishing the results of his early surveys (Mellaart 1954) and later the first results from the Hacılar excavations (Mellaart 1958a), introduced the definition of the start of the Chalcolithic as being congruent with the appearance of painted pottery into central Anatolian archaeology, adopting this model from Mersin (Mellaart 1975:110– 111). However, the current state of archaeological research in prehistoric central Anatolia—summarised in this section with more information presented in Chapter 6— has shown that the period between 6500 and 5500 BC, the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, should be seen as a unit of cultural development – a period with socio-cultural traits substantially different from the preceding Early Neolithic and the following Middle Chalcolithic, and without significant cultural breaks during the millennium in between.
Düring’s (2011c:Table 5.1) periodisation for ‘central Anatolia’ refers to the Konya plain and Cappadocia, but the Lake District can relatively easily be integrated by adjusting Duru’s (2008) Lake District periodisation. Adjustments to Duru’s scheme are necessary since evidence for the introduction of Neolithic lifeways in the Lake District around 8000 BC is ambiguous and until proven otherwise, 6500 BC should be seen as the baseline for the start of farming in the region (6.3.1). Assuming 6500 BC as the start of the Neolithic in the Lake District changes the Duru periodisation to one that closely resembles that of Düring for the Konya plain and Cappadocia in terms of phase boundaries, fits the cultural developments in the Lake District outlined in Chapter 6, and can therefore be adopted here. Developing a periodisation that refers to all three regions also necessitates an adjustment of terms: For understandable reasons, Duru (2008) refers to the earliest farming villages in the Lake District as ‘Early Neolithic’, which makes the Lake District Early Neolithic contemporary to the Late Neolithic in the Konya plain and Cappadocia. To make things simpler, and since period names are used in this book only as a shorthand to refer to a timeframe in calendrical dates without the period name
The awareness that 6000 BC was not a major point of change is not exactly new (Düring 2006:17; Mellaart 1975:111; Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002:71). The Early Chalcolithic, “a somewhat obscure period” (Sagona and Zimansky 2009:124), has therefore since its definition often been discussed in conjunction with the preceding Neolithic because similar socio-economic structures were observed (e.g. Çilingiroğlu 2022; Düring 2011b:796; Mellaart 1975:111; Schoop 2011b:166). But more recently it has become obvious that a real cultural turning point occurred in Anatolia around 6500 BC, making the last 500 years of the Neolithic, here called the Late Neolithic, different from the Early Neolithic. At around 6500 BC, the socioeconomic organisation of village communities in the Konya plain and, to a lesser degree, in Cappadocia underwent significant changes (6.3.3). In a possibly related development, around 6500 BC Neolithic lifeways also began spreading to western and northwestern Turkey, after not having moved past central Anatolia for 2000 years (6.3.1). The centuries following 6500 BC are therefore characterised by a reformation of the socioeconomic structures of village communities across the study region. Accordingly, in his textbook on The Prehistory of Asia Minor, Düring (2011c) treats the time from 6500–5500 BC, i.e. the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, as one
Table 3.1. Periodisation used in this book Period Epipalaeolithic
Duration 20,000 BC until the beginning of farming
Early Neolithic (EN)
8500–6500 BC
Late Neolithic (LN)
6500–6000 BC
Early Chalcolithic (EC)
6000–5500 BC
Middle Chalcolithic (MC)
5500–4000 BC
Late Chalcolithic (LC)
4000–3000 BC
Early Bronze Age (EBA)
3000–2000 BC
12
Time and Place 3.2.3. Site chronologies
cultural unit, “a period of profound transformations in the Prehistory of Asia Minor with ramifications far beyond the peninsula” (Düring 2011c:122).
Relative chronology. This heading means, as ever, pots—a veritable minefield. (French 2010:168)
Following 6500 BC, no major cultural break can be observed in the three regions until around 5500 BC: The current state of research indicates that all settlements in central Anatolia that existed during the Early Chalcolithic are abandoned in the centuries leading up to 5500 BC, indicating important socio-economic changes (Figure 3.3). No sites whatsoever dating to the 1500 years of the Middle Chalcolithic (5500–4000 BC, 6.4) have been confirmed in the Lake District (Vandam 2015), and the only traces of human presence found in the Konya plain during this time period probably belong to nomadic groups (Düring 2011b:801–802). In Cappadocia, two settlements are established, or reoccupied, around 5200 BC, but there is still a clear gap of several centuries around 5500 BC from which no settlements are known (see chronology of Köşk Höyük, 5.7.1; Allcock and Roberts 2014:Table 2). I thus see a good basis of evidence for the interpretation that important cultural changes occurred around 5500 BC, and adopt this as the boundary for the scope of my research, but alternative opinions exist in the literature. Rosenstock (2014:Figure 10) shows that MC site distribution is similar to that of the LN/ EC, which might contradict the hypothesis of significant socio-economic changes. Contrary to Düring (2011c), the other contemporary textbook on prehistoric Anatolian archaeology by Sagona and Zimansky (2009:124) groups the EC with the MC, seeing them united by their “obscure” status in current research and their status as a period “between the two ‘revolutions’ – agricultural and urban –” and thus “important as the seedbed for aspects of complexity that led to major socio-political changes in the late fourth millennium BC”. Similarly, Yakar (2011a:59) sees the EC continuing until 5000 BC. And yet differently, Baird (2012a:Table 23.1) posits 5400 BC as the border between Early and Middle Chalcolithic, but does not explain why. The 5500 BC change is therefore much less well understood than the 6500 BC change, and might have been more gradual.
Many Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia are not securely dated. This is an issue for research projects such as this that are focused on changes in socioeconomic conditions over time. Errors in the dating of sites or occupational layers present the real danger – for this and other research projects – of working within a faulty comparative framework. For this reason, I conducted in Chapter 5 a systematic review of available chronological information in order to determine, as best as currently possible, the occupation span of sites located in central Anatolia that have occupation layers dating to the time period between 6500 and 5500 BC. These site chronologies (Figure 3.3) will be used in Chapter 6 when reviewing available knowledge on Anatolian prehistory and in Chapters 8–11 when scrutinising epistemology and architectural interpretations. The site chronologies are discussed in Chapter 5, but here I would like to point out some general issues that are relevant to understanding the state of dating in the research area and that further demonstrate why I deemed it necessary to conducted a thorough review of existing chronological data (radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates, pottery, stratigraphy). All data used for my chronological reviews is published, but fragmented between many different sources that took some time to collect. If obtaining a comprehensive overview of central Anatolian Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic chronology is a time-consuming task that necessitates consulting a range of sources in different languages, there is a danger that it will be avoided, resulting in research based on incorrect chronological premises, as in Arbuckle et al. (2014), Clare et al. (2008), and Selover (2015:Figure 0.2). The main reason for the poor chronological resolution of the central Anatolian Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic is a general scarcity of radiocarbon dates: outside of Çatalhöyük, there are only 60 radiocarbon dates and 7 dendrochronological and wiggle-match dates published from all sites and the entire millennium covered by this book (Chapter 5). Some sites were excavated before radiocarbon dating had the undisputed status that it has today, resulting in excavators choosing to obtain only a handful of radiocarbon dates, for example with Mellaart (1970c:94) stating that “The main requirements for such a chronology are not C-14 dates, but archaeological facts, comparisons with neighbouring cultures (not with those hundreds of miles away!) and, if they can be found, imports”. Until the present day, many Turkish-led teams continue to rely mainly on relative dating (pottery typology and stratigraphy) and only produce a handful of radiocarbon dates. Such a scarcity of absolute dates seriously impairs research aiming to study socioeconomic change in detail, which ideally would use chronological resolution that dates every building and building phase to within a decade. That this is theoretically possible for European and Southwest
To sum up, this book researches the time period from 6500–5500 BC, which represents a period of ongoing socioeconomic change between two major cultural turning points, one around 6500 BC and another around 5500 BC. In total, 13 sites in central Anatolia have excavated layers of occupation dating to between 6500 and 5500 BC (Chapter 5). The socioeconomic interpretations based on their architecture will be the subject of this book: Hacılar, Erbaba, Kuruçay Höyük, Höyücek, Bademağacı, and Gökhöyük Baǧları in the Lake District; Çatalhöyük East and Çatalhöyük West (the two are counted here as one site), Pınarbaşı B, and Canhasan I on the Konya plain; and Köşk Höyük, Tepecik-Çiftlik, Musular, and Gelveri in Cappadocia. More sites are known from surveys (Allcock and Robert 2014; Baird 2005; Vandam 2015) but, since this book researches architecture, unexcavated sites lie outside its scope. 13
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
14 Figure 3.3. Occupation spans of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia. Darker grey: based on radiocarbon evidence. Lighter grey: not based on radiocarbon evidence.
Time and Place Asian prehistory is demonstrated, for example, by recent radiocarbon dating programs headed by Alex Bayliss at Çatalhöyük (Bayliss et al. 2015; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015) and other sites (Draşovean et al. 2017; Tasic et al. 2015). These use Bayesian modelling on a consistent series of dates from well-chosen contexts at strategic points in the stratigraphic sequence and are often able to date events such as house construction or abandonment securely within a period of 10 to 50 years (Bayliss et al. 2014:58– 60). The existing dating framework at sites studied here other than Çatalhöyük is, however, considerably less thorough. Unfortunately, this leads to a situation similar to that so well described and criticised by Bayliss et al. (2007:2–3) for British prehistory, where a lack of precise dating allows studies of cultural change to work only with very broad brushstrokes. Dating insecurities often lead to time spans of a few centuries losing their meaning, with events or sites that are separated by 200–300 years being treated as contemporary and sometimes as having a causal relationship. Compressing time in this manner negates the way in which prehistoric people must have experienced their lifeways and changes thereof. The aim of improving chronological resolution in archaeology is therefore “to move […] to a sense of successive events, and then to how people experienced the flow of time and saw themselves in time, both looking back to the past and forward to the future” (Bayliss et al. 2007:2).
chronologies were changed by taking newer information into account, it generally led to sequences becoming shorter than suggested by the excavators. For example, Hacılar was probably occupied for less than 700 years rather than spanning a total of 2000 years as suggested by Mellaart (1970c:94); while Höyücek represents 500 years or less of prehistoric life rather than the 1300 years estimated by Duru and Umurtak (2005:226–228). For studies of cultural change, this reappraisal of site chronologies means two things: observed changes might have happened faster than previously thought; and developments at different sites that were previously thought to be contemporary might not have been, and vice versa.
Another significant issue, apart from the low resolution of dating, is that the dating of levels and sites, relying on relative dating and low-quality radiocarbon dates, can sometimes err by centuries or even millennia. The many technical and methodological challenges of radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating in general, and in prehistoric central Anatolia in particular, have been described by Thissen (2002b, 2010), Kuniholm and Newton (2002) and Cessford (2005). One highly relevant issue is the until recently wide-spread use of charcoal for dating, which is a problematic dating material in the centre of Anatolia, where especially large pieces of wood, such as those used in building construction, were often reused for a considerable period of time, meaning that the wood can be significantly older than the context in which it is found (‘old wood effect’; Thissen 2002a:334). The general scarcity of radiocarbon dates has, however, led to a reluctance to discard ambiguous dates from the research process. There is also sometimes an overreliance on relative dating tools, for example Duru (1989, 2012:22– 23) works from the assumption that red-painted plaster floors in the Lake District must be roughly contemporary. The many issues around the dating of sites and occupation levels in LN/EC central Anatolia motivated me to review chronological evidence in some detail (Chapter 5) in order to combine all available evidence into site chronologies that are as reliable as they can presently be. My chronological review in Chapter 5 takes seriously the most recent critiques and suggested changes to existing dating and thus in parts results in site chronologies that vary considerably from those suggested by the excavators. Where site 15
4 A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia Archaeology is a cumulative enterprise. (Düring 2011c:xiii) This chapter introduces key developments in the history of research on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods in Asia Minor, with special attention given to central Anatolia. Its particular purpose is to identify the deeper roots of the preconditions that impact this book’s research, such as research biases or the nature of the research literature that this book will analyse. Combining portrayals of the history of Anatolian archaeological research by Düring (2011c:21–30), Özdoğan (1995, 1996, 1999), Matthews (2011), and Gérard and Thissen (2002b), the archaeological exploration of Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia can broadly be described as so far having proceeded in five episodes. This section will first discuss each of these phases (4.1–4.5) and also characterise the literature landscape that is available for my analysis (4.5). The final part of this chapter (4.6) reflects specifically on existing architectural research about Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia.
some notable early projects recognising a Neolithic phase at Byblos (Lebanon, from 1926: Dunand 1937) and Jericho (Jordan, 1930–1936: Garstang and Garstang 1940; and 1952–1958: Kenyon 1957). Within Turkey, pre-Bronze Age levels were only investigated by chance and on a small scale during excavations focussed on later periods (Lloyd 1956:26–27, 54). Even such accidental knowledge of early Turkish prehistory remained limited to the southeastern fringe below the Taurus mountains (Matthews 2011:46–47), with all three pre-Bronze age sites excavated before the 1950s located there: The site of Sakçagözü/Coba Höyük (excavated 1908–1911; Garstang 1937) is located on the Northern Mesopotamian plain near the Syrian border, Mersin-Yumuktepe (excavated 1936– 1939, 1946–1947; Garstang 1943, 1953) on the southeast coast of Turkey, and Gözlükule nearby (excavated 1934– 1938 and 1947–1949; Goldman 1956). Meanwhile, until the 1950s the dominant research opinion, purported by the leading scholars of the time, was that (secure) archaeological evidence for settled life north of the Taurus mountains did not start before the end of the 4th millennium, in the (Late) Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. In this reconstruction, Anatolia beyond the southeastern fringe was devoid of early farming communities until nearly 3000 BC and played no role in the early development of settled life. There had, in fact, been some publications in the early 20th century ascribing Neolithic dates to material from the Anatolian interior. A Neolithic date for these finds was, however, either dismissed by leading scholars or explained as the result of occasional expeditions into the Anatolian interior by people living in Northern Mesopotamia south of the Tauruses (Düring 2011c:25; Özdoğan 1995:46–48; also see Schoop’s 2005a:75–76, 2011b:150–151 comments on Özdoǧan’s text). For example, the influential early Anatolian archaeologist Bittel, in one of the earliest textbook-like synopses of Anatolian prehistory (Bittel 1934:10, 15) and further publications, discounted a number of claims by other scholars of having identified Neolithic objects from the Anatolian plateau. These objects were figurines or stone artefacts found poorly stratified in small sondages, sometimes mixed into younger layers; at the surface of sites; or on the antiques market. Bittel’s arguments for doubting the Neolithic dating of these objects were their insecure context and/or parallels with Bronze or Iron Age archaeological material, allowing for a post-Neolithic dating of these objects (Bittel 1934:10, 13, 15, 1939:98–99; similarly Götze 1933:21–24). These
4.1. Ignorance (pre-1960) Until the 1950s, it remained unknown that the Anatolian interior had Neolithic and Early and Middle Chalcolithic occupations. Initial archaeological interest prior to the First World War focussed on classical and Hittite sites that were seen as part of the beginnings of European civilisation (Düring 2011c:21–23; Gorny 2002:1; Matthews 2011:38– 43; Mellink 1966:111–115; Özdoğan 1995:46–47, 1998:115; Yakar 1997:63–64). While Bronze Age research started relatively early with Schliemann’s large-scale excavations at Troy (1870–1890), these excavations did not spark special interest in Anatolian prehistory because they were instead seen as elucidating the Greek Bronze Age and the origins of European civilisation (Düring 2011c:22). Following the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923, there was an increased interest in investigating what was perceived to be the beginnings of Turkish or Anatolian civilisation, starting with the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, and many projects in the 1920s and 1930s investigated sites from these periods (Düring 2011c:24; also see Matthews 2011:46–47; Özdoğan 1998:116–117). There were no explicit attempts to uncover the earlier Anatolian prehistory, and when the first Neolithic sites were excavated in Southwest Asia, it happened elsewhere. The first Southwest Asian Neolithic sites that were excavated on a larger scale in the early 20th century were all located in Northern Mesopotamia and the Levant, most of them in areas now located within the modern borders of Lebanon, Jordan and Israel – with 17
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia incidental finds of Neolithic and Chalcolithic material across Anatolia could not then securely be dated for lack of comparative sequenced material from excavations, and in the absence of unequivocal proof, Bittel and others chose to assign the objects to much later periods (Özdoğan 1995:47–48; Schoop 2011b:151, 213); or at least to describe their Neolithic dating as insecure (e.g. Bittel 1949–1950:138–139; for the discussion around these early finds also see Düring 2011c:26; Özdoǧan 1995:47, 49–50, 1996:188, 1999:9–10; Schoop 2005a:67, Figure 2.13; Todd 1976:2). Schoop (2005a:75) pointed out that Bittel never stated in his publication that he thought the existence of Pre-Bronze Age settled cultures in the Anatolian interior was impossible in principle. However, Bittel’s constant dismissal of potential Neolithic/pre-3000 BC archaeological material from the Anatolian interior worked to cement the doctrine that there was no Neolithic phase – in the sense of a settled, agricultural society – to be found in Anatolia north of the Tauruses. Instead, he portrayed the whole of Anatolia as Palaeolithic until the first half of the 4th millennium BC, when the settlements of Mersin-Yumuktepe and Sakçagözü/Coba Höyük south of the Tauruses were established (Bittel 1945:8–11, Figure 52; also Bittel 1950; Götze 1993:20–24, 199). In the 4th millennium, according to Bittel, southeastern Anatolia became a dynamic region that produced important cultural innovations such as the near-urban Halaf culture (Bittel 1945:13–14), but Anatolia north of the Tauruses saw no larger or permanent settlements before the end of the 4th millennium. Instead, he argued that a nomadic population lived on the Anatolian plateau and settled peoples from south of the Tauruses only occasionally went on expeditions to the north of the mountain range (Bittel 1945:11–12, 15, 16). At the same time, Bittel cautioned that this pattern might reflect the state of research rather than prehistoric realities: “However one could object by saying that deep excavations in the centre and the west [of Anatolia] by chance were only conducted at those places that were chosen for human occupation relatively late, while in the same area, maybe even directly adjacent, much older remains can be expected” (Bittel 1945:11, translated by me). Despite such statements, Bittel continued to reject the existence of pre-4th millennium settled life and of Neolithic occupation in the Anatolian plateau until at least the 1950s (Bittel 1949–50, 1950). In 1952–1954, Bittel himself excavated one of the first Neolithic sites in Anatolia north of the Tauruses, Fikirtepe near Istanbul. This site is now dated to the Late Neolithic, as first suggested by Mellaart and French (French 1967:Figure 2; Mellaart 1959:62, 1960:Figure 2), but Bittel originally assigned it to the 4th millennium (Bittel 1960, 1969/1970:16) and remained sceptical of Mellaart and French’s suggestions to date the site to the 6th millennium until the late 1960s (Bittel 1969/1970:16– 18; on the research history of Fikirtepe also see Özdogan 1995:47, 1983; Schoop 2005a:213, 218). Bittel’s work had considerable influence especially among archaeologists in the German language sphere—and much of the early literature on Anatolian prehistory was in German—most of whom accepted Bittel’s late 4th millennium baseline for
settled life in the Anatolian interior (e.g. Bossert 1942:16, 33). Schoop (2005a:75–76, 2011b:150–151) has pointed out that archaeologists with diffusionist principles did in fact, contrary to Bittel, reconstruct a theoretical Neolithic phase on the Anatolian plateau because it was necessary for their diffusionist theories on Eastern Mediterranean prehistory. However, at the most the works cited by Schoop only hint in passing at a possible central/ western Anatolian Neolithic (Milojčić 1950/1951:74; Schachermeyr 1949–1950:45; Van der Osten 1937:405– 407, 411–412, 416, Map XIV; see also Schachermeyr 1953) – there is no detailed discussion of evidence in favour of a central Anatolian Neolithic or contra Bittel to be found in any of them. Outside of the circle of archaeologists focused on Anatolia, the influential Gordon Childe also advocated the opinion that the Anatolian mainland showed no Neolithic occupation until well into the 1950s, making however a cautionary remark similar to Bittel: “Nothing approaching the precocious Neolithic of Kurdistan and Palestine [Northern Mesopotamia and the Levant] nor yet mesolithic [sic] remains have been found on the [Anatolian] plateau so far, but though unrepresented in the tells, they may still come to light on other sites” (Childe 1957:36; similarly Childe 1951). Just as Bittel, though, after this statement Childe went on to reconstruct greater prehistoric developments with the omission of Anatolia, for example suggesting maritime routes by which culture and people were transferred from the Near East to Europe and the Aegean region during the Neolithic and later prehistoric periods, bypassing most of Anatolia (e.g. Childe 1957:36, 213, 230, 244, 276; see also Özdogan 1995:49; 1997:4–5). When Childe first started writing his influential monographs (e.g. Childe 1925, 1929, 1934), little was known about pre-classical Anatolia. Once his opinions had formed, Childe also did not later integrate Anatolia into his pervasive storylines about the beginnings of ‘civilisation’ despite more secure evidence for an Anatolian Neolithic emerging from the early 1950s onwards (see below). His writings on this issue that were published during the 1950s still make only passing references to the Anatolian interior, which is not considered by Childe to be of relevance to the most important developments in Southwest Asian prehistory, such as the advent of farming or urbanisation, and therefore for the beginnings of European ‘civilisation’ (e.g. Childe 1950, 1956, 1957, 1958). Childe therefore likely played an important role in keeping Anatolia out of the predominant archaeological discourse around early settled life. Once cemented in textbooks, the conviction of 3000 BC or at the earliest 3500 BC as the baseline for settled life on the Anatolian plateau was so strong that the first substantial evidence to the contrary, which started to emerge in the early 1950s, was mostly ignored (Düring 2011c:26), by Childe and others. As late as 1956, Seton Lloyd, then director of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (BIAA), wrote in his textbook Early Anatolia that “the greater part of modern Turkey … shows no 18
A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia sign whatever of habitation during the Neolithic period” and “the scene of the Neolithic revolution seems in fact to have been an area limited to the north by the range of Taurus [sic] and the fringes of the Syrian plain” (Lloyd 1956:53). Lloyd refers to this cultural boundary as the “Neolithic ‘barrier’”, congruent with the barrier of the high Taurus mountain ranges that separate the Anatolian centre from the southeastern part of Turkey, and refers to it several times throughout the book (Lloyd 1956:54, 59, 61, 65, 227). Lloyd (1956:53–54) postulated that Neolithic populations deliberately did not spread beyond the Taurus range because of the harsh climate and cold winters of the Anatolian interior. Accordingly, he interpreted known sites on the Anatolian plateau with typologically pre-Late Chalcolithic material as the remains of sporadic expeditions made by people from south of the Tauruses, who crossed the mountains and travelled hundreds of kilometres into uninhabited territory to obtain salt and obsidian (Düring 2011c:26; Lloyd 1956:53–54, 59; Özdögan 1995:49): “Stone implements conforming to Neolithic types have been found only in the immediate vicinity of the Salt Lake on the central plateau [Tuz Gölü northeast of Konya, Figure 3.1], and these are considered to have been brought there by traders in search of salt” (Lloyd 1956:53). In Lloyd’s reconstruction, Anatolia beyond the southeastern fringe became settled by immigrants from the west, the European-facing side of Anatolia, during the Late Chalcolithic, i.e. the late 4th millennium (Lloyd 1956:59, 61). The Anatolian plateau thus did not partake in the early development of the Chalcolithic period, the cultural achievements of which further east Lloyd (1956:54–58) describes in enthusiastic detail, concluding: “Though all the while, in the nearer foreground, Anatolia still remained a terra incognita, of whose existence the Chalcolithic people seem only to have become aware during the very last years of their existence” (Lloyd 1956:58).
indeed overturned (Mellaart 1978:7, 9–10; Özdoğan 1995:50). Following their surveys, Mellaart and French excavated the central Anatolian sites they deemed most promising based on surface finds: Hacılar, Çatalhöyük, and Canhasan (Table 4.1). The site of Çatalhöyük especially quickly received a lot of attention from archaeologists and the public alike (Balter 2005:22; Özbaşaran and Duru 2019:3). When the first radiocarbon dates from Hacılar, Canhasan, and Çatalhöyük became known in the early 1960s, the beginning of settled life in central Anatolia was pushed back to before 6000 BC (French 1967a:174–175; Mellaart 1961b:74–75, 1964:116, 119), before calibration made these sites even older. Jacques Bordaz from New York University/ University of Pennsylvania followed with excavations at the Neolithic sites of Süberde and Erbaba between 1964 and 1977 (Bordaz 1969a, 1969b; Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982). Meanwhile, Solecki’s survey in the Lake District in 1963 (Solecki 1964), and Todd’s survey in Cappadocia in 1964–1966 discovered many more pre-Bronze Age sites (Todd 1976, 1980, 1998; also see Allcock and Roberts 2014:34–35; Gérard and Thissen 2002a:1). Specifically, Todd’s survey put Cappadocia on the map for Neolithic research (Özbaşaran and Duru 2019:3), when he discovered, among others, the important Early Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük (Todd 1966). Radiocarbon samples from a section cut by a river (Todd 1968, 1980:110) showed that Aşıklı Höyük was even older than Çatalhöyük. As a result of this fieldwork, in the 1960s central Anatolia quickly changed from a backwater with regard to research on prehistory to a region of major interest in the investigation of early settled life, even though it still took another few years or even decades to fully integrate the Anatolian plateau into the broader storylines of Southwest Asian and European prehistory (Özdoğan 1995:50–51, 54, 1999:10). Nevertheless, Anatolian archaeologists may have felt gratified when Mellink wrote in 1966 that “Mesopotamian and Palestinian prehistorians, visiting Anatolia, are surprised and awed by the reversal of the archaeological current. (...) [A]t present the best light on the ‘neolithic’ stage of Near Eastern settlements comes from Anatolia” (Mellink 1966:118). Concordantly, the region studied in this book has a special status: the above-mentioned sites that were the first to establish the existence of a Neolithic in the Anatolian interior are all located in central Anatolia. Soon after the pioneering fieldwork in central Anatolia, investigation of Neolithic sites also began in western Turkey. The first excavations at Fikirtepe (1952–1954, 1962), Pendik (1961), and Yarımburgaz (1959, 1963– 1965) in the Istanbul region had predated their recognition as Neolithic sites, but work was renewed at Pendik (1981, 1992) and Yarımburgaz (1986) with the specific intention of researching the Neolithic (Düring 2011c:180; Özdoğan 1999, 2013; Schoop 2005a:197, 199, 208, 213; TAY 2021). In the Marmara region, Neolithic/Chalcolithic excavations started in 1987 with Ilıpınar, followed by Menteşe in 1995. In Turkish Thrace, Mehmet Özdoğan excavated at Toptepe in 1989, Hoca Çeşme in 1990–1993 and Aşağı Pınar since 1993 (Özdoğan 2013). The first
4.2. Pioneering field work (1950s–1960s) In clinging to his interpretation, among others Lloyd ignored evidence found by his own colleagues at the BIAA. In 1951–1952 (Mellaart 1954), and again in 1958 (French 1970:139; Mellaart 1961a:159), a group of young BIAA archaeologists, including James Mellaart and David French, surveyed the Konya and Karaman plains and the Lake District. The group spent a considerable amount of time and energy walking on foot and discovered a multitude of Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites (Düring 2011c:26–27; Gérard and Thissen 2002a:1). Özdoğan (1999:10; similarly Özdoğan 1995:43, 51; Özbaşaran and Duru 2019:3), credits this group of young archaeologists, and James Mellaart specifically, with the “courageous initiative” of having “‘dared’ to ascribe a ‘Neolithic’ date to some Anatolian cultures […], contrary to the opinions of the eminent authorities on Anatolian archaeology”, thus initiating Neolithic research north of the Tauruses. But it was not until the first Neolithic sites were excavated, and their antiquity verified through the newly developed radiocarbon dating method, that the old dogmas were 19
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 4.1. Excavations of Neolithic to Early Bronze Age sites in central Anatolia. Information from Belli 2002; Düring 2011c; TAY 2021 as well as site reports Site Lake District
Konya plain
Cappadocia
Director(s)
Duration
Beycesultan
Seton Lloyd and James Mellaart; Eşref Abay
1954–1959, 2007-current
Hacılar
James Mellaart
1957–1960
Kuruçay
Refik Duru
1978–1988
Hacılar perimeter
Refik Duru
1985–1986
Höyücek
Refik Duru
1989–1992
Bademağacı
Refik Duru and Gülsün Umurtak
1993–2010
Yassıhöyük
Refik Duru and Gülsün Umurtak
1997
Hacılar Büyük Höyük
Gülsün Umurtak and Refik Duru
2011-current
Çatalhöyük
James Mellaart; Ian Hodder; Çiler Çilingiroǧlu; Ali Umut Türkçan
1961–1965, 1993-current
Canhasan I
David French
1961–1967
Süberde
Jacques Bordaz
1964–1965
Canhasan III
David French; Adnan Baysal
1969–1970, 2021-current
Erbaba
Jacques Bordaz
1969, 1971, 1974, 1977
Pınarbaşı
Douglas Baird
1994–1995, 2003–2005
Gökhöyük Baǧları
Enver Akgün
2002–2005
Boncuklu Höyük
Douglas Baird and Andrew Fairbairn
2006-current
Köşk Höyük
Uğur Silistreli
1982
Pınarbaşı-Bor
Uğur Silistreli; Aliye Öztan
1981–1992, 1996–2008
Aşıklı Höyük
Ufuk Esin; Nur Balkan-Atlı; Mihriban Özbaşaran and Güneş Duru
1989–2003, 2010-current
Gelveri
Ufuk Esin; Sevil Gülçur
1990, 2007
Musular
Mihriban Özbaşaran
1996–2004
Güvercinkayası
Nur Balkan-Atlı and others
1997–2001
Kaletepe-Kömürcü
Sevil Gülçur
1996–2017
Tepecik
Erhan Bıcakçı
2000-current
Balıklı
Mihriban Özbaşaran, Güneş Duru and Nigel GoringMorris
2018-current
Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic site in Aegean Turkey to be excavated was Ulucak in 1995. Today, western Turkey features a strong Neolithic research landscape with several ongoing excavation projects (overviews: Özdoğan and Başgelen 1999, 2007; Özdoğan et al. 2012b, 2013). To this day, maps of excavated Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites (e.g. Düring 2011c:Figure 5.1) reflect the pattern established in previous decades, with central, western and southeastern Anatolia being centres for Neolithic research but large gaps still remaining, especially in north-central and north-eastern Anatolia (Düring 2008a, 2011c:3, 28– 29; Özdoğan 1999:11).
Euphrates river in southeast Anatolia, which spiked a flurry of rescue excavation in the 1970s and 1980s and drew attention away from central Anatolia—for example in the case of David French, who ended the Canhasan excavations earlier than planned in order to excavate sites in the Keban Dam area (French 1998:vi; Mitchell 2017:iv). Meanwhile, during the 1960s and 1970s, many publications emerged that served to consolidate the knowledge gained from the first Neolithic excavations in central Anatolia and to make them more widely known beyond the circle of archaeologists focused on Anatolian prehistory. Starting in 1955 (Mellink 1955) and for nearly 40 years until 1993 (Mellink 1993), Mellink published yearly summaries of new archaeological finds and findings from Anatolia in the American Journal of Archaeology (the series was continued until 1997 by Gates: Gates 1997; also see Yildirim and Gates 2007). Mellink’s efforts made it possible for a wider audience to read about Anatolian archaeology. Mellink was also among the first to enthusiastically greet and proclaim the importance of the results from the first Neolithic excavations in central Anatolia (Mellink 1959:73, 78–79, 1960:57, 1966:118). During the later 1960s and especially
4.3. Consolidation, reflection, publication (1970s) With much data resulting from the excavations at Hacılar, Çatalhöyük, Canhasan, Süberde, and Erbaba, the first feverish phase of field activity was followed by a phase of reflection, interpretation and consolidation. The 1970s saw reduced field activity, with excavations only at Erbaba. Gérard and Thissen (2002a:1) attribute this to the construction of the Keban and Atatürk Dams on the 20
A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia in the 1970s, James Mellaart published monographs on his excavations at Hacılar and Çatalhöyük (Mellaart 1967, 1970c), as well as a series of monographs (Mellaart 1965b, 1975, 1978), overview articles (Mellaart 1961a, 1972, 1979) and encyclopaedia entries (Mellaart 1970a, 1970b) that contextualised these and other sites and discussed broader developments in Anatolian prehistory. Mellaart’s avalanche of publications—which made himself and the sites of Hacılar and Çatalhöyük important points of reference for subsequent research—were joined by monographs on the Anatolian Neolithic by Alkım (1969) and Todd (1976, 1980), as well as discussions of central Anatolian sites in monographs on prehistory in the Eastern Mediterranean region by Singh (1976:65–110), Redman (1978) and Esin (1979). These publications, as well as other forms of academic exchange at conferences and in classrooms, led to knowledge about the Neolithic of central Anatolia becoming anchored in common archaeological discourse, university archaeology curricula and the public perception.
Tepecik and Aşıklı Höyük as well as a new Early Neolithic site, Balıklı. Apart from excavations at settlement sites, surveys and excavations were carried out at Cappadocian sites related to Epipalaeolithic to Chalcolithic obsidian production by Turkish-French teams since 1993 (e.g. Balkan-Atlı et al. 1999; Binder et al. 2011). The 1990s saw a continuance of Turkish-directed work, and a re-appearance of international teams especially on the Konya plain. Ian Hodder re-opened Çatalhöyük and began a large-scale, 25-year excavation project (1993–2018) that reaffirmed this site as a prominent point of discussion in archaeological journals and university curricula. In the wake of the Çatalhöyük Research Project, teams directed by Douglas Baird carried out an intensive survey of the Konya plain (Baird 2002, 2005) and subsequently started excavation projects at two of the newly discovered sites, Pınarbaşı (Baird et al. 2013; Baird et al. 2011) as well as Boncuklu Höyük (Baird et al. 2012), the latter of which is still progressing as a long-term research project. Because it has amassed large amounts of data on a wide range of aspects of prehistoric life, Çatalhöyük remains an important point of reference in many discussions on the prehistory of central Anatolia. Ian Hodder’s Çatalhöyük Research Project (ÇRP) has also set new methodological standards in Neolithic archaeology in central Anatolia and beyond by investing an enormous amount of resources (time, people, expertise, and funds) to excavate large areas and perform every analysis imaginable and previously unimaginable on the excavated remains (for some of the more unusual analyses, see e.g. Jenkins 2012; Ledger et al. 2019). The publication of the project is not finished, but has already reached a volume that can hardly be consumed in its entirety. The Çatalhöyük Research Project has thus effectively demonstrated just how much information about Neolithic life can be extracted from an excavation with the application of substantial means. This had lasting effects on the Neolithic research of the region, with for example the current excavations at Boncuklu Höyük and Aşıklı Höyük implementing similar methodologies: large international teams, long-term work and a methodology that collects a portfolio of different analyses that can be cross-referenced to answer a variety of research questions (see a recent overview of new results from the Aşıklı project, Özbaşaran et al. 2019).
4.4. Re-intensification and broadening of field work (since the 1980s) In the late 1970s and especially in the 1980s, new excavations were initiated at Neolithic sites in central Anatolia that continued to become long-term and largescale research projects (Table 4.1). This second wave of field work projects was initiated by Turkish teams (Gérard and Thissen 2002a:1), whereas the first had been initiated by archaeologists from the UK and USA. Many of those active in central Anatolian prehistoric archaeology in the 1980s and since had been taught by Halet Çambel, who became professor in Prehistory at Istanbul University in 1960 (Özdoğan 2014:10). Çambel co-operated with European and US scholars in the excavation of Neolithic sites in southeast Turkey from 1963 to 1988 (Braidwood and Braidwood 1998), where many students from Istanbul University were trained (Özdoğan 1995:41), making this university a driving force in the exploration of Anatolian prehistory (Belli 2002; Düring 2011c:27). Refik Duru from Istanbul University re-started Neolithic and Chalcolithic research in the Lake District, directing— and later co-directing with Gülsün Umurtak—a series of long-term excavation projects beginning in 1978 (Kuruçay, Höyücek, Bademağacı; Duru and Umurtak 2019b:157). Duru and Umurtak’s efforts have made the Burdur/ Bucak area in the Lake District the microregion currently with the densest coverage of excavated Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Asia Minor (Düring 2011c:160). In 2011, they started excavations at Hacılar Büyük Höyük, a large mound neighbouring Hacılar that is expected to feature Early Chalcolithic layers underneath the so far excavated Bronze Age occupation (most recently: Umurtak and Duru 2019; Umurtak 2020). Since 1981, and intensified in the 1990s, archaeologists from the Istanbul and Ankara Universities initiated the first Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic excavations in Cappadocia, at Aşıklı Höyük, Musular, Köşk Höyük, Gelveri-Güzelyurt and, more recently, Tepecik-Çiftlik. Currently, excavations are continuing at
4.5. Renewed reflection (2000s–2010s), the current state of research and a reflection on the research literature landscape The literature landscape on Neolithic and Chalcolithic Anatolia can broadly be categorised into three levels of generality. The first level is represented by site-specific work. Since the pioneering fieldwork in the 1950s, there has been a tradition in central Anatolian archaeology to publish annual field reports that facilitate the quick communication of the most relevant results and that represent a great resource for gleaning updates on ongoing fieldwork. The regular, mostly annual, publication of field reports is a particular feature of Anatolian archaeology, as 21
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia pointed out by Matthews: “Few countries can match this level of activity and output in their routine archaeological practice” (Matthews 2011:38). In addition, there is a tradition of publishing final monographs on excavated sites either after the completion of field research (e.g. Duru 1994c; Duru and Umurtak 2005, 2019) or throughout (e.g. Hodder 1996c, 2000b, 2005a, 2005c, 2005d, 2007a, 2013c, 2013e, 2014a, 2021b; Özbaşaran et al. 2019). More recently, projects have increasingly started to also publish journal articles on specific aspects of their research.
The third category is represented by textbooks or publications with a similar overview perspective. Following the first wave of textbooks published in the 1970s–1980s (4.3), Düring (2011c:2) perceived a second wave of reflection on the results and interpretations of fieldwork on the prehistory of Asia Minor. This phase started in the mid-2000s and manifested itself in four synthesising monographs on the prehistory of Turkey (Düring 2011c; Duru 2008; Sagona and Zimansky 2009; Yakar 2011b); an edited encyclopedia-like volume spanning most of Anatolian prehistory and history BC (Steadman and McMahon 2011); and most recently a synthesis of Early Bronze Age archaeology (Bachhuber 2015). Prehistoric central Anatolia is also featured in Potts’ 2012 Companion to the Archaeology in the Ancient Near East (e.g. Baird 2012). Importantly, these volumes now provide updated syntheses on the greater storylines of Anatolian prehistory that had until recently only been accessible through the now outdated textbooks from the 1970s–1980s (Düring 2011c:2), while in the absence of newer textbooks, updated research results remained fragmented between numerous papers and reports and thus not easily accessible to a wider audience: “This book was written because of the continuing dearth of general, accessible, and up-to-date surveys on ancient Turkey before the Classical period. While there are a number of excellent period- and site-specific works, students and teachers have faced the persistent difficulty of reading and synthesizing an enormous and often bewildering amount of literature before they can formulate a general narrative on the principal periods and areas of innovation and culture” (Sagona and Zimansky 2009:ix; similarly Düring 2011c:2).
The second level is comprised of works with a more synthetic character, that however do not quite have such strongly synthesising characteristics and broad overviews as textbooks. These began to emerge in central Anatolian Neolithic archaeology in the 1990s: books that either collect reports from different sites within the same volume; or discuss a particular archaeological material, bringing together evidence from different sites. In the first group is Mehmet Özdoğan’s Neolithic in Turkey series (Özdoğan and Başgelen 1999, 2007; Özdoğan et al. 2011a, 2011b, 2012a, 2012b, 2013, 2014), which provides a repeatedly updated collection of site-specific articles within one volume. In the introduction to the first Neolithic in Turkey volume, Özdoğan explains that the motivation for the publication for Neolithic in Turkey was his perception in the 1990s that it was time to start collecting data in a format more accessible and comprehensive than annual site reports, but not yet time to produce elaborate interpretations: “In our view, the available evidence of [the] Anatolian Neolithic is not yet adequate to manipulate complex theoretical assessments. In the present status of Neolithic research, we are still yet at a stage where the picture has just begun to emerge” (Özdoğan 1999:11). Another resource that facilitates access to site-specific information is TAY (Türkiye Arkeolojik Yerleşmeleri, Archaeological Settlements of Turkey), an independent project started in 1993 by Turkish archaeologists that since 1998 has maintained a website presenting a continuously updated catalogue of sites from the Palaeolithic to the Byzantine era (TAY 2021). Monographs published in the 1990s by Yakar (1991, 1994) and Joukowsky (1996) are also essentially site catalogues with only limited attempts at synthesis (Düring 2011c:2). Most recently, Steadman and McMahon (2015, 2017, 2019) have been publishing biannual volumes collecting updates from ongoing field projects in Anatolia. Publications that fall into the second group—book-length volumes concentrated on a specific archaeological material that summarise and sort evidence from different central Anatolian Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites—also started emerging since the 1990s, such as Balkan-Atlı’s (1994) overview of Early Neolithic chipped stone, Schoop’s (2005a) on Chalcolithic pottery, and Cutting’s (2005b) and Düring’s (2006) works on architecture. The Central Anatolian Neolithic e-Workshop (CANeW, 2000–2004; Gérard and Thissen 2002b) can be counted as another attempt at synthesising information from different Neolithic sites in Anatolia, since the CANeW group for example tried to develop a common periodisation scheme (Özbaşaran and Buitenhuis 2002).
The number of ongoing excavation projects at Neolithic or Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia has somewhat thinned in recent years (Table 4.1). At the moment, there is no excavation of a Neolithic or Early Chalcolithic site ongoing in the Lake District, although the Early Bronze Age is being investigated at Hacılar Büyük Höyük (Umurtak 2020). In the Konya plain, Çatalhöyük is currently in a transition phase of directorship and only smaller excavations have been carried out since 2018 (5.2). Excavations at a new Neolithic site in Cappadocia, Balıklı, started in 2018 (Goring-Morris et al. 2019) and in 2021, excavations were renewed at Canhasan III (Karaman Gündem 2021). This currently leaves Boncuklu Höyük on the Konya plain, and Aşıklı Höyük and Tepecik in Cappadocia as the only large-scale Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic excavation projects in the region. However, the last few years have seen a resurgence of larger-scale, intensive survey projects that deliver new information on the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. Since 2010, Ralf Vandam has directed—and more recently co-directed with Patrick Willett—prehistory-focused surveys in the Burdur plain near Hacılar and Kuruçay (Vandam 2015, 2019), and in the highlands of the Lake District (Vandam et al. 2017a; Vandam, Willett et al. 2019). In 2017, two new survey projects started in the Konya plain. One, directed by Şerifoğlu, is concentrated on the southern Konya plain 22
A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia (Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019a, 2019b). The other project, called KRASP (Konya Regional Archaeological Survey Project), is focused mostly on the western part of the plain and has, albeit being concentrated on the Bronze and Iron Age, been discovering new Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites (Massa et al. 2019). These survey projects have not only uncovered previously unknown Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites, but in particular they provide information on settlement patterns and landscape, thus complementing information from excavation projects.
for advanced analyses of socioeconomic conditions, necessarily takes several decades. At the same time, however, this means that working with legacy data is unavoidable in comparative architecture research. While in other areas of archaeological enquiry, researchers weigh the benefits of working with legacy data against its issues (e.g. Allcock and Roberts 2014:34; Allison 2008:10–11; Atici et al. 2013:664, 673; Witcher 2008), for architecture analysis in a prehistoric Anatolian context there is simply no choice. It is therefore important to view legacy data not as a problem, but simply as an innate feature of doing comparative architecture research in prehistoric Anatolia.
4.6. Dealing with legacy: existing research on Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture in central Anatolia
What makes architecture data from Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia legacy data – and possibly particularly challenging legacy data? First, for many researchers who have published analyses of Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolian architecture over the last few years, the data represents “other people’s data”, since they themselves did not excavate (all of) it. Second, reresearchers most often do not deal with the material directly, but with archaeological documentation about architecture which has its own set of biases (see e.g. Chadwick 2003; Edgeworth 2012; Hodder 1999a:85–104; Lucas 2001a on biases created by archaeological excavation and documentation; also 12.3). In the context of legacy data, architecture represents a unique archaeological material in that it is never possible to completely re-analyse it in the same way as, for example, a pottery expert could re-analyse assemblages kept in museums (as done by e.g. Schoop 2005a:11; but artefact assemblages are also always preinterpreted, Atici et al. 2013). Due to the layered nature of Anatolian höyük sites, much of the architecture discussed in this book was removed after recording in order to reach lower levels; even if preserved, once exposed to the elements, earth walls, wall plaster (Lingle 2014; Lingle et al. 2015; Matero 2000:75, 84–85) and even stone walls erode quickly. Trenches are often backfilled at the close of excavation (e.g. Hacılar: Mellaart 1961b:39; Çatalhöyük West: Biehl and Rogasch 2013:94), and where this has not been carried out, remaining architecture erodes within a few years (see e.g. Barański 2015; Matthews and Farid 1996 for reports on re-opening 1960s trenches at Çatalhöyük; Duru 2008:ix who states that the Lake District sites excavated by him were “left to the elements [and] unfortunately have vanished and no longer exist today”). In short, it is impossible to re-examine architecture in the same way as the initial excavators were able to.
This final section of the chapter deals more specifically with previous research on architecture in Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia. It discusses two points that are relevant for the following chapters. It begins by discussing the architectural record of the study region as legacy data and pointing out some of the main issues that accompany this (4.6.1). The second part of this section (4.6.2) introduces four bodies of work that are relevant for having previously systematically studied architecture in Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia and will therefore often be referenced from here on. 4.6.1. The architectural record as legacy data Legacy data is a term originating in computer science and used to refer to data from an outdated computer system (Allison 2008). In archaeology, legacy data refers to data created using outdated methods of fieldwork and recording (Ellis 2008; Ellis et al. 2008; Witcher 2008), or simply “other people’s data”, acknowledging that every researcher’s strategy differs from that of others (Atici et al. 2013:664; also Smith 2008). The challenge for the reresearcher is to account for biases and pre-interpretations introduced by the manner in which the data were originally generated; to deal with inconsistencies, ambiguities and conflicting information in the dataset (Allison et al. 2008; Atici et al. 2013; Ellis et al. 2008; Láng 2013:6; Smith 2008:31–32); and to grapple with the fact that legacy data might not always be suitable for new research objectives (Allison 2008:10). When attempting a synthetic or comparative study with legacy data, one further faces heterogeneous datasets created “at different times, by different people, with different research objectives”, which multiplies issues (Allcock and Roberts 2014:36; for other case studies see Ellis 2008; Láng 2013; Witcher 2008).
Third, studies comparing architecture from different sites deal with a very heterogeneous body of data since the architectural datasets at the different LN/EC sites in central Anatolia are of very different natures. The sites studied here have been excavated by teams with different research aims, theoretical backgrounds, nationalities and resources over a period of more than 60 years since 1957. During this time, excavation and documentation methods have changed significantly. Even within the same excavation project, the skill of recognising contexts and the methods of excavating and recording them constantly change
In the following, I will discuss the circumstance that research projects which compare architectural data from several sites in order to reconstruct overall socioeconomic patterns for the central Anatolian Neolithic/EC necessarily always work with mostly legacy data and the challenges that come with them. This is foremost a product of the fact that excavating substantial architectural data sets from a range of sites and thereby a data basis suitable 23
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia and improve over the course of a few years as the team becomes more familiar with the site, as experienced for example at Çatalhöyük (Berggren and Nilsson 2014:57) and Canhasan (French 1998:8–13), so that recordings from the first year of excavation might not be directly comparable to that from the last year. Moreover, at several of the LN/EC sites excavated in central Anatolia, datasets were created with pre-modern excavation methods (see French 1998:8–16 for a retrospective critique of 1960s excavation methods; and Cutting’s and Düring’s books for discussions of how fieldwork techniques employed at central Anatolian sites influenced the excavation results, e.g. Cutting 2005b:42, 69; Düring 2006:87, 92, 107, 158, 249). However, as Düring (2006:12) pointed out, while legacy data might often lack the precision or resolution required by current research, “the excavations of the 1960s provide us with a very different kind of evidence related to a much more extensive way of digging that can no longer be practiced ethically in modern archaeology” and thus can genuinely contribute data about settlement organisation that cannot easily be regenerated.
et al. 2014). This book will also show that publications from Çatalhöyük contain more extensive socioeconomic interpretations of architecture than the more descriptive publications typical of most other sites. And not least, teams have used very different methods of dating sites, and presenting the chronological development of sites (Chapter 5). Together, these issues have created a research landscape that is not conducive to comparative research, because it presents researchers with an array of sometimes contradictory chronologies, architectural reconstructions and their social interpretation. 4.6.2. Previous comparative works on Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture There are four bodies of work that systematically analysed and interpreted Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture in central Anatolia. Three of these (by Schachner, Cutting, Düring) were PhD projects that were published as books and, in the case of Cutting and Düring, also articles; while the remaining one, the work of Steadman, was not a PhD thesis and was published in articles only. Schachner’s (1999) book incorporated a wide comparative framework that encompasses central, northern and southeastern Anatolia between the beginning of the Neolithic and the early 2nd millennium BC—including, but not focused on a discussion of Neolithic/EC central Anatolian architecture. His research aimed to identify larger chronological trends and regional differences in architectural expression using a typology of building types. Steadman (2000b:175, 2004:528) selected more extensively excavated sites and occupation levels from the Neolithic to the EBA, from different regions in southern, central and eastern Anatolia. Her analysis focussed on reconstructing how increasing social complexity was both expressed in, and brought about by, changes in settlement architecture over time. Cutting (2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2006a, 2006b) selected example buildings from a range of Neolithic and EC sites in central Anatolia to answer a research question about architectural adaptation to climate, but also commented on other issues of social organisation. Düring (2006) provided a detailed study of the inner workings of communities living in a particular settlement type—clustered neighbourhood settlements— at five sites in central Anatolia (Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Çatalhöyük, Canhasan I, Erbaba). Due to this scope, and the fact that EN Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük provided the most material, his thesis has a strong focus on the Early Neolithic. In contrast to Steadman and Cutting, who deliberately picked particular buildings as examples to base their argument on, and to Schachner’s typological approach, Düring’s research framework was designed to be able to incorporate most of the existing architectural evidence from each site. His work therefore achieved a more holistic view of the built environment than the other three. Düring (2006:2, 35–37) created a comprehensive spatial database that recorded the location of constructed features and other immovable architectural features such as wall paintings, hearths or burials, and then observed patterns synchronically (comparing contemporary
Further, differences between the research aims and methods employed at different sites have created fault lines that complicate comparative research, and research of larger social processes throughout prehistory. In particular, the three regions researched here were excavated by different sets of people, and this might impact perceptions of regional differences: The current impression of Lake District prehistory is to a large degree the opus of Refik Duru and Gülsün Umurtak from Istanbul University, while the Konya plain has been dominated by British and international teams, and excavations in Cappadocia have been carried out by several teams from the Istanbul and Ankara Universities (Table 4.1). The theoretical focus of the directors also had a major impact on how sites have been reconstructed. For example, due to David French’s embracing of processualism, the Canhasan excavations were remarkably different in their attention to detail from Mellaart’s at Hacılar and Çatalhöyük, albeit being nearly contemporary (Blaylock 2020:34; Mitchell 2017:iv, 2020:28; Vandeput 2020:48). Again different were the methods used at Erbaba—much more strongly processual as compared to Canhasan— and they proved to not be conducive to understanding the built environment (5.5). More recently, fieldwork at Çatalhöyük, with its unique detail-rich research focus, has been producing a body of data that is of very different quality and quantity than that of other sites, thus complicating comparisons. For example, architecture research at Çatalhöyük includes geoarchaeological (Love 2012; Tung 2013) and experimental (Stevanović 2012a) techniques that have not been used at other LN/ EC sites in central Anatolia—and a greater focus on the house as an object with a life history, which involves dedicated research into its construction (Barański et al. 2015; Love 2012, 2013a; Stevanović 2012a, 2013; Tung 2013), modification (Kay 2020; Matthews 2005a, 2012; Matthews et al. 2013) and abandonment (Cessford and Near 2005; Harrison et al. 2013; Matthews 2005a; Russell 24
A Brief History of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Research in Central Anatolia buildings) and diachronically (following changes over time). Chapters 8–11 will show that Düring’s approach was most successful at generating comprehensive and convincing insight into the social geography of the studied villages.
fact that “the type and quality of the […] information available varied considerably between sites” (Cutting 2005b:19, 21). Cutting further limited the variables she included to those available from all or most sites (Cutting 2005b:20), and as already mentioned relied heavily on the few available better documented sites, levels and buildings to create her narrative. While thus preserving analytical integrity, such an approach by default accepts rather than challenges the status quo and excludes a large amount of the available evidence. Schachner (1999:3) faced similar problems: not all data he required were available from every site due to differences in quality and quantity between excavations and publications. Schachner’s solution was to widen the chronological and geographical scope of his research, and to include more sites in order to be able to distinguish general trends despite gaps in local data availability (Schachner 1999:3). This approach clashes directly with the contextual approach chosen for this book (2.2). In my view, it reduces the reliability of the results and therefore does not constitute a viable solution to the problems of legacy data: equating across large chronological and geographical distances, and filling research gaps at one site by assuming that things must have been similar to how they were at better researched sites, can only produce images of past human behaviour that are general at best, and distorted at worst. Including more data and more sites also typically prevents, within the framework of what a single PhD-sized research project can typically achieve, the researcher from exercising the degree of minute attention to the data that was proven by Düring (2006) to be a successful strategy.
All of these previous comparative studies combined quantitative and qualitative elements. Qualitative elements prevail, with all works analysing primarily textual descriptions of architecture as well as drawings and photos. As ways of recognising patterns in qualitative data, researchers recorded the presence/absence of certain architectural features (Cutting 2005b:20–21; Düring 2006; Steadman 2004:528–545), their location and orientation within buildings or in relation to buildings (Düring 2006:35–36; and to a lesser degree Steadman 2004:528–545), and used space syntax or access analysis to reconstruct people’s movement through architectural space (Cutting 2003, 2005b:133–134; Düring 2006:32, 109, 126; Steadman 2000b:190–192). Düring (2006:109, 126, 238, 257, 279) included space syntax (access analysis), but recorded reservations about the suitability of space syntax analysis for understanding the complex cultural workings of a built environment that can also only ever be partially excavated (Düring 2006:29, 33, 107– 108). Schachner (1999:35–42) constructed a typology of houses according to the shape of their plan (round, rectangular etc.) to map regional and chronological differences in architectural expression. Building plan shape is also analysed by Steadman (2004:Table 2). Cutting and Schachner both explicitly work from the assumption that there are house forms that are typical to, and culturally representative of, a certain site or region or period, and their interpretations rely heavily on such ‘typical’ architecture (Cutting 2005a:123–128, 2005b:162–163; Schachner 1999:83–96). Quantitative elements used routinely include room or building size (floor area) and number of rooms per building (e.g. Cutting 2005b:21; Düring 2006:167–173; Schachner 1999:161; Steadman 2004:Table 2). Although acknowledging that “quantitative analysis may be of limited use when studying prehistoric architecture” (Cutting 2005b:2), Cutting (2005b:19–24) uses quantitative features more extensively than the others, and employs a range of statistical techniques to analyse quantitative data, an approach that Düring (2006:36) explicitly rejects, since “the use of complicated statistical measures that are difficult to understand does not enhance the plausibility of a reconstruction”.
Düring (2006:2) framed his study specifically as an exercise in dealing with legacy data, and demonstrates how, through detailed detective work, legacy data can be translated into new research frameworks. He (and also to a degree Cutting 2005b:68, 77, 80) employed strategies also recommended by recent articles about best practice in archaeological work with legacy data (e.g. Atici et al. 2013; Láng 2013). Düring conducted a very thorough data verification, whereby facts were cross-checked between different data sources (e.g. text, photos and plans), the dataset scanned for internal inconsistencies and contradictions, and architectural data cross-checked with other information about the site, such as artefact assemblages. Data found to be ambiguous were either assigned a lower reliability (Düring 2006:89, 211) or omitted from analysis (Düring 2006:166). Once the dataset was consolidated, it was carefully translated into a new research framework—namely a GIS (Geographical Information System) in order to observe diachronic and synchronic patterns not observed before (Düring 2006:36). As already stated, Düring’s approach was most successful at producing new, but reliable interpretations from the existing legacy data. His work therefore constitutes a main source for this book. Further, I employ the same crosschecking strategy in the sections of Chapter 5 where I offer critiques of parts of the architectural record of LN/ EC central Anatolia.
These four architecture researchers dealt with the challenges produced by legacy data in various ways. Düring (2006:2, 12), Schachner (1999:3) and Cutting (2005b:20) all stated that the use of architectural legacy data was a significant challenge faced by their research. Cutting (2005b:19) states that her methodology was developed “to be suited to the often poorly-preserved and fragmentary architectural material typical of most prehistoric Anatolian sites”. Her data recording form was deliberately designed in an open form to account for the 25
5 Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia Excavation […] is an autobiographic, subjective, socially determined and often fundamentally ambiguous and/or contradictory set of interpretative activities. (Tilley 1989:278) This chapter provides an overview of the existing architectural evidence from Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia. In this chapter, the sites are ordered in the sequence in which their excavation began, from oldest to newest. The site summaries serve three purposes: First, to establish viable working chronologies of LN/EC sites or occupation layers as a basis for the rest of the book. Because existing chronological data from the sites researched here is partly problematic (3.2.3), and for many sites there was no recent synthesis or critique of existing chronological data available, this chapter devotes a significant amount of space to discussing chronological evidence. In these discussions, I rely on the newest available publications that review dating evidence, among which it is important to mention Thissen’s (2010) review of the dating of Lake District sites and Schoop’s 2005 pottery overview. I also, however, report older or conflicting opinions because these have influenced the research history on architectural/ social interpretation. Where radiocarbon dates are available, my chronological review values this absolute dating evidence higher than evidence for relative dating, such as pottery typologies.
I might have overlooked some relevant details from sites whose excavators published to a large degree in Turkish. This chapter will show that while 13 (counting the two mounds at Çatalhöyük as one site) Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites have been excavated in central Anatolia, only a minority of them can significantly contribute to a study of architecture. Excavations at Gökhöyük Baǧları have not yet been published. At Gelveri, Pınarbaşı B and Musular, the exposures were small. At Erbaba, the excavation methodology was not conducive to an understanding of the built environment and the architectural record was not comprehensively published. Excavations at Çatalhöyük West were also relatively small given the size of the site; and so were the excavations at Höyücek if assuming that the site might be larger than reconstructed by the excavators. Architecture at Kuruçay was not well preserved. At Köşk Höyük and Tepecik, substantial areas of the LN/EC sites were or still are being excavated, but are not yet published beyond preliminary reports. The site of Hacılar might be the most problematic of all, because it is a major reference point in archaeological discussions due to the sizeable excavated area, but there are numerous fundamental issues with its dataset. This leaves Çatalhöyük East, Bademağacı and Canhasan as sites with good preservation, sizeable excavation of architecture and comprehensive publications of the results.
Second, to provide an impression of the architectural data, the interpretation of which will be extensively discussed in Chapters 6 and 8–11. This chapter is not an exhaustive coverage of all architectural evidence present at each site, but a summary of the most relevant information on excavation history, preservation, number of occupational layers and buildings, and the nature of buildings and unbuilt space. The range of topics is different for every site because the nature of the architectural record as well as the research done on it is somewhat different at every site. Third, this chapter also highlights gaps and inconsistencies in the architectural data available from each site. It is not the purpose of this book to thoroughly re-analyse architectural data from specific sites (1.1). It is, however, necessary to point out the main inconsistencies in the dataset because these influence the reliability of the interpretations that will be dissected in the remainder of this book. In many cases, inconsistencies, and possible reconstructions that differ from those of the original excavators have already been pointed out by other architecture researchers; those are summarised here. In addition, I pointed out further inconsistencies where they occurred to me and were relevant to the present discussion. As for the remainder of the book, this chapter relies on literature published up until 30 April 2021; literature published past that date is not included. Due to my limited understanding of Turkish,
5.1. Hacılar Hacılar is a relatively small höyük (diameter 140 m, height 5 m; Mellaart 1970c:xii) located south of Lake Burdur in the Lake District. Excavated by James Mellaart between 1957–1960, Hacılar was the first excavation to reveal Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic material in central Anatolia. Due to its relevance for the research history of the region, its rich and extensively excavated archaeological record, and Mellaart’s impactful publications, the site has remained a major reference point in discussions of the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic of central Anatolia. However, seen from an early 21st century research perspective, the data from Hacılar is riddled with methodological problems which must be addressed here in the following. 5.1.1. The chronology of Hacılar Since Hacılar was the first Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic excavation in central Anatolia, the subsequent discussion of the pre-Bronze Age chronology of central Anatolia, 27
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia and the Lake District in particular, was heavily influenced by Mellaart’s reconstruction and dating of the Hacılar sequence. Within the 5 m high mound of Hacılar, Mellaart (1970c:94) distinguished 20 building levels, divided into three main stratigraphical and cultural packages. In Mellaart’s interpretation (Tables 5.1–5.2), Aceramic Neolithic occupation (levels Aceramic VII–I, 6750–5750 BC) was followed by a hiatus. Reoccupation of the site in the Late Neolithic (Levels IX–VI, starting in 5750 BC) began 500 years of stratigraphically uninterrupted and culturally continuous occupation into the Early Chalcolithic (Levels V–II). Locally developed culture then came to an abrupt end when an influx of an outside group occurred in ca. 5250 BC, which started the latest building level, Hacılar I, persisting until ca. 5000 BC when the site was deserted. Occupation shifted several times across the area of the site, creating a stratigraphically complex site where not all levels were found superimposed in all areas, for example with Level VI directly overlying the ‘Aceramic’ (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 37–41).
Mellaart’s reconstruction of the Hacılar chronology was methodologically based on a combination of all three dating tools commonly used in central Anatolia until today: radiocarbon dates, pottery, and stratigraphy. Nine radiocarbon dates and three dendrochronological dates are available from Hacılar (Table 5.3). By modern standards, they are pervaded by methodological problems. At the time, the necessity of calibrating radiocarbon dates was not yet known, and Mellaart using the uncalibrated dates set the entire chronology off by around 1000 years, with the uncalibrated dates being between 800–1100 years younger than the calibrated dates (Table 5.3). Further, all were done on charcoal, and many on architectural wood (Mellaart 1970c:93; Thissen 2010:Table 6). Larger pieces of wood especially, such as beams used in construction, have been shown to have often been reused in prehistoric Anatolia, and can therefore be significantly older than the context they are found in (‘old wood effect’; 3.2.3; Thissen 2002a:334), as Mellaart (1970c:93) already recognised. But the samples from more short-lived charcoal from
Table 5.1. The chronology of Hacılar discussed in the literature Level Level Id Level Ic
Thissen 2002a:332
Mellaart 1970c:94
no hiatus Level IIb Leve IIa
5400–5250 BC
Level III
5450–5400 BC
Level IV
5500–5450 BC
Level V
5600–5550 BC Late Neolithic
occupation attested by radiocarbon dating 6300– 5700 BC
5700–5670 BC
hiatus
6750–5750 BC –
Aceramic Neolithic
end of 8 millennium until 6750 BC
Aceramic I
Aceramic IV Aceramic V
5950–5790 BC Early Chalcolithic hiatus (200 years)
no hiatus
Early Chalcolithic
no hiatus
6100–6000 BC 6110–5950 BC Late Neolithic
between 6000–5800 BC
6450–6100 BC 6350–6110 BC Late Neolithic
between 6500–6000 BC
Late Neolithic
–
–
–
hiatus
not mentioned
not mentioned
not mentioned
5750–5700 BC
Level IX
Aceramic III
Duru 2012:1, 23
5670–5600 BC
Level VIII
Aceramic II
Düring 2011c:Table 5.2
5800–5700 BC 5790–5700 BC? between Early Chalcolithic 5800–5600 BC
5250–5100 BC
Level Ia
Level VII
Thissen 2010:Figure 13, 273
not mentioned Early 5100–5000 BC Chalcolithic
Level Ib
Level VI
Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.9
th
occupation attested by radiocarbon dating 8200– 7550 BC
early Neolithic, around 8000 BC
Aceramic VI Aceramic VII virgin soil
28
Table 5.2. The stratigraphy and cultural history of Hacılar as described by Mellaart, and stratigraphic revisions suggested by other researchers Level Level Id Level Ic Level Ib Level Ia
Mellaart 1970c
Schachner 1999: 139, Figure 71
survivors of the Ib conflagration occupying ruins and not mentioned constructing insubstantial new architecture: Id represents alterations andrepairs of Ic (Mellaart 1970c:86)
new construction of a small fortified village at the centre of the mound (Mellaart 1970c:25)
The level IIa plan probably represents two different phases, pf which the eastern part is older and was part of one of the older Levels V-III
Level III
new construction of a small village shifted further north and east of the Level IV area (Mellaart 1970c:24)
not mentioned
Level IV
new construction of a small village shifted north of the Level VI area (Mellaart 1970c:23–24)
Level V
shortlived village of the survivors of the Level VI conflagration (Mellaart 1970c:23, 94)
Level VI
a large village destroyed by fire; VI and VII are two floors within one building level (Mellaart 1961b:40, 1970c:9–11)
Aceramic
virgin soil
a single stratigraphic unit including modifications of the built environment
a large courtyard with seven floor levels, surrounded by buildings of which only little was excavated (Mellaart 1970c:3–7)
not mentioned
a single stratigraphic unit (V-III are subphases of II) that follows Level VI directly
a separate phase to IIa
“probably represents two distinct occupation phases, of which the eastern is the older”
not mentioned
a single stratigraphic unit including modifications of the built environment
a small village with ephemeral architecture, IX and VIII represent “two floors of one building-level” (Mellaart 1961b:40, 1970c:8–9) hiatus
Levels Icd follow Level II
Düring 2011c:170
not mentioned
not mentioned
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
29
Level IIa
Level IX
Rosenstock 2010a:28–29
Levels Iab stratigraphically below/ chronologically before Level II
IIB represents the rebuilding of IIA after a fire destroyed the eastern part of the village; IIB also destroyed by fire (Mellaart 1970c:31, 75)
Level VIII
not mentioned
new construction of a large fortified village, which involved the excavation and destruction of many of the buried older remains; Ib represents small modifications within the Ia architecture (Mellaart 1970c:75–76); destroyed by fire (Mellaart 1970c:86)
Level IIb
Level VII
Thissen 2010:271–272
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.3. Radiocarbon dates and dendrochronological dates from Hacılar. Information from Mellaart 1970c:93; Thissen 2002a:318, 2010:Table 6 Level Level Ia
Sample number
Sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (1σ, 68%) given by Thissen 2010:Table 6
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
P-315
charred wood from a roof beam
6926±95
5960–5720
5989–5654 (95.1%)
P-315a
from same sample as P-315
7047±221
6210–5710
6392–5612 (94.2%)
Level IIa
P-316
charred wood from a roof beam
7170±134
6220–5910
6364–5751 (92.5%)
Level VI
BM-48
charred wood from a post from construction outside building P.1
7550±180
6600–6230
6827–6023 (95.0%)
P-313
charcoal from hearth ashes
7150±98
6210–5900
6231–5831 (94.9%)
P-313a
from same sample as P-313
7350±85
6350–6080
6406–6059 (95.4%)
AA-41602 from same beam as BM-48 (dendrochronological sample)
7468±51
6410–6250
6426–6235 (95.4%)
AA-41603 from same beam as BM-48 (dendrochronological sample)
7452±51
6390–6250
6424–6230 (95.4%)
AA-41604 from same beam as BM-48 (dendrochronological sample)
7398±63
6380–6220
6399–6086 (95.4%)
Level VII
BM-125
charred wood from a post
7770±180
7010–6440
7078–6242 (95.0%)
Level IX
P-314
charcoal from hearth throwout on floor
7340±94
6350–6070
6398–6082 (95.4%)
charcoal from hearth throwout on floor
8700±180
–
8283–7470 (95.3%)
Aceramic V BM-127
hearths are also problematic, as due to the premodern facilities at the time, larger amounts of material were necessary, so that in some cases several pieces of charcoal were combined into one sample (details see below).
levels (BM-127) and dates to between ca. 8200–7450 BC (Table 5.3). Mellaart used the uncalibrated date in the construction of his chronology, which dates Aceramic V to 7000 BC (Mellaart 1970c:94). In the last decades, the early dating of the ‘Aceramic’ layers has been disproven: the radiocarbon date is unreliable, the levels are likely not without pottery and the structures and finds are generally similar to Late Neolithic levels at Hacılar and other sites in the Lake District. In addition, I will discuss stratigraphic evidence for an integration of the ‘Aceramic’ levels with Levels IX–VII.
Within the rough timeline provided by the radiocarbon dates (Mellaart 1961b:74, 1970c:93), Mellaart used relative dating tools to determine the duration of individual levels. With only Mersin and later Canhasan and Çatalhöyük available to compare the pottery sequence, Mellaart’s reconstruction was based mainly on considerations of how fast pottery styles developed, and how well-constructed the architecture of a building level was, which Mellaart took as indicative of the length of occupation (e.g. Mellaart 1970c:10, 23). Mellaart’s reconstruction of stratigraphy and pottery development have recently come under scrutiny. Although issues thereof became apparent earlier (e.g. Duru 1989), only in recent years have Mellaart’s interpretations of the dating of Hacılar been systematically challenged (Reingruber 2008:420–426; Rosenstock 2010a; Thissen 2010).
The reliability of the single radiocarbon date (BM-127) from Aceramic V is very questionable (Brami and Zanotti 2015:109; Düring 2011c:125; Schoop 2005a:179) not only because of the old wood effect, but also because descriptions of the sample clearly show that the sample was a combination of several pieces of charcoal collected from different fire spots (‘hearths’) from the courtyard floor of Aceramic V (Rosenstock 2019:107; Schoop 2002:433, 2005a:179): Mellaart described it as “charcoal samples collected on the courtyard floor” (Mellaart 1970c:6, underlining added; also Barker and Mackey 1963:107) or “charcoal from hearths in courtyard” (Mellaart 1970c:93, underlining added). Combining several pieces of charcoal into one sample was necessary because the lab facilities and procedures at the time required larger amounts of sample material, but makes for very unreliable dating by
The ‘Aceramic’ levels The lowermost layers were termed Aceramic by Mellaart because he did not find pottery within those layers (Mellaart 1970c:6). A single radiocarbon date with a wide margin of error is available from the Aceramic 30
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia modern standards. Although Thissen (2002a:334, similarly Brami 2015:325; Schoop 2005a:179) stated that the existence of this early date cannot simply be ignored, he does just that in his important 2010 paper on the Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic chronology of the Lake District, where he does not mention this date or integrate the ‘Aceramic’ levels into his site chronology (Thissen 2010).
is advisable to also have a critical look at the stratigraphy of the Aceramic/–Level IX–VII connection—especially given that the speedy excavation of the ‘Aceramic’ might have prevented a reliable recognition of stratigraphic connections (see also 5.1.2). Mellaart (1970c:8) reconstructed a long hiatus between the ‘Aceramic’ and the Late Neolithic settlement, and that the Late Neolithic “newcomers” founded their settlement for the most part on virgin soil and only partially on eroded Aceramic remains. There is thus only minimal physical/stratigraphical overlap between these two stratigraphic packages: The ‘Aceramic’ levels and Levels IX–VII essentially form two small mounds next to each other at roughly at the same absolute height above sea level, and both were covered by the large Level VI village (Mellaart 1970c:8, Figure 41). The overlap between the two units is shown in two section drawings (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 38–39). Looking at these section drawings indicates another possible interpretation of the evidence: that ‘Aceramic’ and Level IX–VII could be a stratigraphic unit, i.e. the same occupational level. The first section drawing (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 39) shows Aceramic and Levels IX–VII in the form of successive, thin sediment layers partly truncated by a Level VI wall. The dashed lines in the drawing as well as the fact that the layer succession on one side of the Level VI wall does not match up with that on the other side give reason for doubt of the reconstruction of stratigraphy in this area. The second drawing (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 38) shows that in excavation Area E, the Aceramic levels were on the same height as Levels IX–VII. In this drawing, Aceramic levels VI and I (labelled 6 and 1 in the drawing) are shown abutting a stone wall that must belong to Level VIII (compare the drawing with description of Level VIII remains by Mellaart 1970c:10). It can be assumed that Mellaart envisaged that the Level VIII wall was cut into the Aceramic mound (as he interpreted for Level VI as well, Mellaart 1970c:3), but the (admittedly schematic) drawing shows Aceramic layers abutting the Level VIII wall without any indication of the gap between wall and sediment layers that should be expected if a cut was made before the wall was built. If alternatively reconstructing such that ‘Aceramic’ VI and I abut the Level VIII wall, this would mean that they postdate the Level VIII wall. If that is true, it means that the entire lower part of the stratigraphic sequence of Hacılar is in need of revision since the Level IX–VII and ‘Aceramic’ levels could be contemporary (see also Reingruber’s 2008:423–425 discussion of Mellaart’s section drawings which indicate further inconsistencies in pre-VI levels). Leaving that as a suggestion for future work, I will here conclude that stratigraphic evidence tentatively suggests that the ‘Aceramic’ might be contemporary with Levels IX–VII.
Further, the aceramic status of these levels is also doubted. Schoop (2005a:178–179) points out that Mellaart did not only not find pottery within the levels in question, but recovered hardly any artefacts in general (“Small finds were disappointingly few”, Mellaart 1970c:6). Schoop (2002:432) implies that the haste with which the only five days of excavation (Mellaart 1970c:6) at ‘Aceramic’ Hacılar were conducted might have impaired the rigour of finds recovery, and the lack of pottery might rather be a product of the excavation style. Duru (2012:3) suggests that the limited size of the ‘Aceramic’ exposure makes it impossible to state with certainty that no pottery could be found in these occupation layers. Finally, one could suggest that even if early Hacılar was aceramic, this could signify a cultural choice rather than an old age. A further, however ambiguous line of evidence against the aceramic state of the early levels at Hacılar comes from a series of sondages around the perimeter of the mound performed by Duru in 1985 and 1986 in an effort to locate the cemetery of Hacılar (Duru 1987a, 1987b, 1989, 2008:12, 24–25, 53, 2010, 2012:1–3). He found red-coloured floors with ceramic sherds trampled into them between 1.2 m and 2 m below the site’s surface. Because the only red-coloured floors found by Mellaart (1970c:4) at Hacılar were in the ‘Aceramic’ levels, Duru argues that his floors must date to the same period. Since the red-coloured floors uncovered by Duru’s team were clearly not aceramic, he argued that Mellaart’s ‘Aceramic’ levels were also not aceramic (e.g. Duru 1989, 2012:1– 3). However, these floors are not stratigraphically linked with any Mellaart levels and are therefore only of limited use in dating the sequence excavated by Mellaart (Baird 2012a:443, 2019b:77). Without reliable radiocarbon dates, and without pottery, comparison of the few recovered stone artefacts and architecture of the ‘Aceramic’ levels to later levels at Hacılar and to other sites present the only remaining tools for dating. The architecture and fire installations do not vary significantly from LN/EC levels at the site (Reingruber 2008:422), and the few stone artefacts recovered from the ‘Aceramic’ levels also do not vary significantly from Late Neolithic layers of Lake District sites (Schoop 2002:433, 2005a:179). Further, the number of finds was equally low in Levels IX–VIII (Reingruber 2008:423). There is therefore no reason to believe, based on the available material evidence, that ‘Aceramic’ Hacılar was much older than the LN levels of Hacılar.
To conclude, while the ‘Aceramic’ levels have not produced any secure datable evidence at all, based on the available evidence it seems most reasonable to interpret them as chronologically closely connected to Levels IX–VII. I have mentioned that the stratigraphic evidence and the dating of artefacts tentatively indicates that the ‘Aceramic’ could be contemporary with Levels IX–VII.
In light of recent critique of Mellaart’s reconstruction of the upper part of the Hacılar stratigraphy (see below), it 31
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Even if keeping with the more conservative interpretation that the ‘Aceramic’ does indeed predate Levels IX–VII, there is abundant evidence that makes it unlikely that the ‘Aceramic’ levels were vastly different or significantly earlier than the LN levels of Hacılar or other sites in the region. Further, the timespan represented by the Aceramic levels might be rather short. They probably represent modifications of each other (see 5.1.2) and therefore a chronologically tight bundle instead of the up to 500 years suggested by Mellaart (1970c:6). Mellaart (1970c:6) himself remarked that the architectural remains do “not create the impression of a long and extended period of occupation”, although he then goes on to interpret that more substantial occupation might have existed outside the excavated area and lasted “from a few centuries to a millennium”. That, however, is pure speculation. In conclusion, apart from the single and highly problematic radiocarbon date BM-127, there is no evidence to suggest that the Hacılar Aceramic (significantly) predates the 6500 BC mark that saw the introduction of farming at other sites in the Lake District and western Anatolia according to a broad base of evidence (6.3.1). Thissen’s model sees the start of Level IX at 6350 BC. If assuming that the ‘Aceramic’ levels are older, the beginning of Hacılar could date to somewhere between 6500–6350 BC or maybe slightly before 6500 BC.
reliable sample: since it is described as “Charcoal from a hearth” (Ralph and Stuckenrath 1962:145; also Mellart 1970c:93), there are no indications that this sample was a combination of different charcoal fragments possibly from different contexts. However, P-313+313a was derived from building E.2 (Mellaart 1970c:18), which does not form part of the main building cluster in Level VI. This radiocarbon date is therefore not a direct dating of the main Level VI building cluster, and there is even some reason for doubt that the various parts of Level IV really belong together stratigraphically (5.1.3). Despite these issues, available dating suggestions for Hacılar have generally relied on the six dates from Levels IX–I. There is agreement that the entirety of Hacılar’s Levels IX–I dates to the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. However, there have been various suggestions as to the dating and duration of the individual levels within this timeframe. Statistical modelling of the six available dates by Thissen (2010:271, Figure 13) resulted in an overall shorter sequence, as well as different durations of individual levels compared to Mellaart’s original suggestion. Düring and Schoop differ from Thissen in their dating of individual levels within the IX–I sequence (Table 5.1). Since Thissen’s (2010) suggestion is the most comprehensive, based on a systematic review of available dating evidence, it will be adopted here. Thissen’s model was in part informed by a revised stratigraphy he developed for Levels IX–I and there have been additional suggestions as to stratigraphic revisions (Table 5.2). In the following, I discuss these and develop a suggested chronology of the site (Table 5.4) based on stratigraphy as well as the statistically modelled radiocarbon evidence by Thissen (2010).
Levels IX–I In contrast to the ‘Aceramic’ levels, Levels IX–I have a more consistent series of absolute dates. There are eight 14 C dates and three dendrochronological dates available from these levels (Table 5.3). However, in two cases, two 14 C samples each were done on the same sample (P-313 and P-313a; P-315 and P-315a). Thissen (2002a:318, 2010:Figure 4) combined each of these double samples into one date, therefore resulting in only six radiocarbon dates. The three dendrochronological dates were done on the same wooden beam, which is why Thissen combines them into a single date as well (Thissen 2010:271–272, Figure 4, Table 6). There are therefore really only seven absolute dates available in total from Levels IX–I, not many given the duration and stratigraphic complexity of the site. In addition, there are quality issues with nearly all of the samples: Thissen (2002a:34) points out that except for P-313+P-313a and P-314, all other samples are done on architectural wood and might therefore be subject to the old wood effect. In his 2002 chapter, he described B-48 and P-315 as “definitely” old wood and excluded them from his chronological model (Thissen 2002a:318); however, in his 2010 paper, they were included in the model (Thissen 2010:Figure 4). Of the two dates not done on architectural wood, P-314 should also be seen as unreliable. The description “Charcoal fragments from a rubbish deposit” (Ralph and Stuckenrath 1962:145) indicates that the sample was combined from several pieces of charcoal and the context description “rubbish deposit” makes it possible that we could be dealing with fragments found spread out over a larger area, similar to B-127 from Aceramic. This leaves P-313+313a as possibly the most
In recent years, several researchers have critiqued different parts of the Hacılar stratigraphy presented by Mellaart and offered alternative reconstructions (Table 5.2). So far, different researchers have attacked different individual parts of the sequence. Their critiques attest to the fact that a systematic revision of the entire Hacılar stratigraphy is urgently necessary; this has not yet been done, however. Since revisions of stratigraphy are relevant to both chronology and architecture, they will be discussed here as well as in 5.1.2–5.1.6. I decided to structure the stratigraphy critique by providing here a short summary of commentary by other researchers and 5.1.2–5.1.6 providing more detailed discussions to which I add my own observations. The following three issues have been indicated by previous research: that some of the building levels identified by Mellaart could in fact be only subphases of each other; the ambiguous stratigraphic relation between what Mellaart defined as ‘Level I’ and ‘Level II’; and between the ‘Aceramic’ and the Late Neolithic levels. Revising stratigraphy: merging levels IX–VI and V–II While Mellaart (1970c) reconstructed a very eventful stratigraphic and cultural history at Hacılar, shown by many stratigraphic breaks and shifts (Table 5.2), Thissen 32
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia two different occupational phases, which is based on observations of very different architectural styles in the western vs. the eastern part of the site and a lack of convincing stratigraphic connections between these two halves of the settlement. These suggestions, conflicting with Thissen’s proposal that Levels V–II represent essentially one building level, can be taken as proof that the highly ambiguous stratigraphic evidence from Hacılar is open to very different reconstructions—especially if one focuses only on certain segments of the sequence— and warrants a holistic review. In 5.1.4 and 5.1.5, I present evidence that demonstrates that Levels V–II might not represent the same construction level contra Thissen. However, because I rely on Thissen’s dating model for Hacılar which is based on his notion of Levels V–II as a unit, my chronology (Table 5.4) also groups these levels together.
Table 5.4. The chronology of Hacılar used in this book Level Level Id Level Ic Level Ib Level Ia
Level IIb Level IIa
Date Early Chalcolithic 5800–5700 BC Levels Ic-d reused the Level Iab structures Early Chalcolithic 5950–5800 BC Level Ib represents modifications of Level Ia Late Neolithic 6100–5950 BC
Level III Level IV Level V Level VI Level VII Level VIII Level IX Level Aceramic I Level Aceramic II Level Aceramic III Level Aceramic IV Level Aceramic V
Late Neolithic 6350–6100 BC Levels IX-VI represent a single level with modifications
Revising stratigraphy: the Level II–I connection In Mellaart’s (1970c:37, 75, Figure 41) reconstruction, the people who built the Level I settlement excavated and removed a substantial amount of the pre-Level I remains at Hacılar before building a new settlement. The newcomers chose the mound of Hacılar as settlement location but “were not content to build their houses on top of the burnt ruins” of Level II, which would not have provided a secure foundation “for the sort of architecture they were used to, which was far more massive than anything ever previously seen at Hacılar” (Mellaart 1970c:75). To create such a foundation, the builders of Hacılar I cut deep into the existing mound to remove cultural material around the mound fringes and create a platform to build upon, after which the mound would have been shaped like a hat, with a raised area in the centre. In locations impacted by this levelling operation, deposits were removed up to a depth of 2 m, completely destroying Levels II–IV, and leaving only patches of Level V occupation (Mellaart 1970c:75, Figure 15, 37). Most of the Level II occupation, however, lay at the centre of the mound and was therefore not impacted by the “level I cut” (Figure 5.3). The Level I newcomers then erected a “fortress” on the levelled mound edge, leaving out the raised middle part.
Late Neolithic after 6500, before 6350 BC Aceramic VII-I represent a single level with modifications
Level Aceramic VI Level Aceramic VII Virgin soil
(2010) suggests reconstructing the Level IX–I sequence as essentially only three subsequent villages (represented by Levels IX–VI, V–II, I) with sublevels representing internal alterations. Reingruber’s (2008:429) work supports this reconstruction by pointing out that in several places, Level II remains overlay Level VI remains directly. Further, Reingruber (2008:425) provides a detailed assessment of stratigraphic connections between Levels IX–VII and VI which strongly supports their identification of all as one. This notion is supported by the pottery development, where a major shift occurs between Levels VI and V (Schoop 2005a:190). Further, radiocarbon dates (Thissen 2010) and Schoop’s (2005a:Figure 13) pottery evaluation show that Levels V–II represent a chronologically tight bundle that only lasted one century. Levels IX–VI lasted only 150 years as well in Thissen’s (2010) model. In both cases, the timeframe of 100–150 years seems a reasonable bracket for the usage of the same built environment with alterations, rather than the substantial renewal indicated by a separation into different building levels. I agree with reconstructing Levels IX–VI together as one occupational level with modifications and when discussing architecture below (5.1.2–5.1.6), I will point out further evidence in favour of this reconstruction.
This reconstruction has convincingly been challenged by Rosenstock (2010a:27–29), who demonstrated that the evidence presented by Mellaart for the existence of the ‘level I cut’ does not hold up under closer scrutiny, and that his excavation style as well as Byzantine and modern destruction of the prehistoric mound might have destroyed important stratigraphical connections between Levels II and I. She suggests instead that the stratigraphy of the upper levels of Hacılar is to be reconstructed as Level IVLevel Iab-Level II (of which V–III are subphases; here she follows Thissen) -Level Icd. This reconstruction is, however, heavily based on comparisons of the relative height of architecture remains asl, which is a problematic stratigraphic tool at Southwest Asian mound sites that frequently saw horizontal shifts of occupation, such as at Tell Sabi Abyad (Plicht et al. 2011), or Hacılar itself in
There are proposals by Düring (2011c:170) and Schachner (1999:139, Figure 71) that Level IIa does in fact represent 33
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Mellaart’s reconstruction. The substantive overhaul of the upper part of the stratigraphic sequence by Rosenstock— with the re-ordering of Levels I and II meaning a more substantial upheaval than the level merging suggested by Thissen—should for the moment be seen as tentative.
of Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in the Lake District and will therefore be relevant later in this chapter. First, the stratigraphy and chronology of Hacılar has major issues, a problem that transfers to other sites in the Lake District because Hacılar has remained an important point of reference for establishing the chronology of other sites in the region (see 5.6.1, 5.8.1, 5.10.1). Second, Thissen’s 2002 and 2010 reviews of radiocarbon dates from Lake District sites are the best source for researchers like myself who place more trust in radiocarbon dates than other dating evidence. Third, mine and previous researchers’ reviews of the Hacılar dating evidence has shown that the sequence of Hacılar occupies much less time and starts later than reconstructed by its excavator. This will be the case with several of the other Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in the Lake District as well, especially those excavated several decades ago, which according to newer reviews are often less old and less long-lived than assumed by the original excavators. And finally, there is no reliable evidence that occupation at Hacılar started (significantly) before 6500 BC. I will argue the same for Bademağacı (5.10.1), the second site in the Lake District where the beginning of farming life had originally been dated to pre-6500 BC. The dating of the start of these two sites, or Neolithic sites in the Lake District more generally, has major implications for the reconstruction of the timelines and mechanisms of the spread of farming beyond the Konya plain in the 7th millennium (6.3.1). Unfortunately— despite the only possible proof for a pre-6500 BC start of farming life in the Lake District being two radiocarbon samples from Hacılar and Bademağacı that are both from unreliable materials (charcoal, and in the case of Hacılar a combination of several charcoal fragments) and contexts—like a genie, this notion is out of the bottle and can be found in recent publications about the spread of farming such as Arbuckle et al. (2014). It appears that the fundamental critique of Mellaart’s dating of Hacılar has not yet been placed prominently enough to be noticed in the totality of the research community.
Accepting Rosenstock’s (2010a) refusal of the ‘level I cut’, another possible reconstruction would be to reconstruct Levels I and II together as one level—after all, these two levels are located next to each other without Level Ia-b actually overlaying Level II anywhere (Mellaart 1070c:Figures 37–39). Mellaart himself (1970c:Figure 28) actually provides a visualisation of this scenario by combining the Level II and I plans into one image that shows that possible stratigraphic connections between the two excavation areas were investigated in only a very small area, supporting Rosenstock’s observation that the relationship between the two units could have been misinterpreted by Mellaart. Mellaart’s argument that the architectural styles of Levels II and I were completely different (Mellaart 1970c:75, 145) becomes invalid if his architectural reconstructions are challenged, as will be done in 5.1.2–5.1.6. The few available radiocarbon dates from Levels I and II (Table 5.3) have such large error margins that essentially all three scenarios are possible: Level II being older than Level I; both being the same level; or Level I being older than Level II. In light of such inconsistent evidence, this book will remain conservative and assume that Level I did in fact represent a new building phase following Level II. Since no radiocarbon dates are available from its uppermost sublevels, the end of Level I, and thus of Hacılar, is not certain. A duration of 250 years for Level I as tentatively suggested by Thissen (2010:Figure 13) seems like a lot if taking into account that Level I represents modifications of the same built environments, just as Levels IX–VI and Levels V–II, reconstructed by Thissen as having lasted only 150 and 100 years respectively. Thissen’s model is however the best available option at present. Summary
5.1.2. The architecture of Aceramic Hacılar
In sum, a revision of stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates can date the entire Hacılar sequence to between 6500–5700 BC (Table 5.4, Figure 3.3). Suggestions of major flaws in the stratigraphy reconstructed by Mellaart (1970c), for example that Level I might partially predate Level II (Rosenstock 2010a), demonstrate the necessity of a systematic and thorough revision of the site’s stratigraphy. Available radiocarbon dates and stratigraphy data can be used to suggest that Hacılar was occupied for a much shorter amount of time than the 2000 years suggested by Mellaart (1970c:94). Further, the stratigraphic depth of Hacılar was probably overestimated by Mellaart, and the 20 different building levels recognised by him in total probably only represent four or five different subsequent villages: ‘Aceramic’ VII–I (possibly contemporary with Levels IX–VI), Levels IX–VI, V–III, II and I.
In my discussion of the Hacılar chronology (5.1.1), I have stated that the stratigraphic depth of Hacılar was probably overestimated by Mellaart, and that the 20 different building levels in total recognised by Mellaart might partly be contemporary rather than subsequent. A lack of certainty as to which buildings within the Hacılar sequence were contemporary represents a major problem for architecture analysis. In the following, I will discuss each of the major stratigraphic packages reconstructed in 5.1.1 separately: ‘Aceramic’ VII–I (which might be contemporary with Levels IX–VI, but is discussed here separately in 5.1.2), Levels IX–VI (5.1.3), V–III (5.1.4), II (5.1.5) and I (5.1.6). The Aceramic village was investigated over an area of 150 m2 (Mellaart 1970c:3; note that Reingruber 2008:421 states 100 m2) during only five days at the end of the last excavation season (Mellaart 1970c:6). It had partially
Here I would like to draw attention to several points that are of general relevance when discussing the chronology 34
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia been destroyed by the building activities of upper levels (Mellaart 1970c:3). Facing limited time, Mellaart made the decision to focus excavations on the unbuilt area, where virgin soil could be reached faster, instead of investigating the adjacent buildings: “The entire courtyard was excavated down to virgin soil, but lack of time prevented us from carrying the adjacent rooms and chambers down to this level” (Mellaart 1970c:3). The decision to not adequately investigate stratigraphic relations between the unroofed space and the fragmentarily preserved/excavated buildings at the edges, combined with the rather poor preservation of remains that were never preserved higher than 25 cm per level (Mellaart 1970c:3), combined with the speed of excavation, cast doubt on the reliability of the stratigraphy recognised by Mellaart. Specifically, the decision to treat the courtyard excavation, where seven subsequent floor levels were identified (Aceramic I–V, Mellaart 1970c:3), as independent from that of surrounding structures makes it seem doubtful whether the buildings were in fact correctly assigned to a specific courtyard floor level. Mellaart himself (1970c:4–5) reconstructed that “the courtyard walls of Aceramic V were still in use” during the use of the courtyard floor of Aceramic III, thereby showing that his construction phases do not equate to use phases. The seven Aceramic levels might therefore represent modifications within a continuously used built environment, as also postulated for later levels of Hacılar (5.1.1). And finally, I have argued above (5.1.1) that the entire stratigraphy of the lower levels of Hacılar might have been wrongly reconstructed by Mellaart and that the ‘Aceramic’ levels might be contemporary to Levels IX–VII. The stratigraphic ambiguities attached to the ‘Aceramic’ levels do not allow any definite statement about their architecture, but a summary of the evidence shall be given nevertheless.
Mellaart’s (1970c:3) description of the Aceramic levels as a “courtyard [with] adjacent rooms” shows that he expected a number of buildings to exist outside of the unroofed area. Mellaart (1970c:6) himself believed that he had excavated only the edge of the Aceramic village, which might not be representative of the main part of this settlement. But the ‘Aceramic’ excavation area measured about 150 m2 (Mellaart 1970c:3), so the scarcity of buildings might represent the actual archaeological record characteristic of this part of the stratigraphic sequence. 5.1.3. The architecture of Hacılar Level VI with Levels IX–VII Of Levels IX–VII, only fragments of built structures were uncovered (Mellaart 1970c:9, Figures 2–6). The area where Levels IX–VII were excavated was small (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 2–6) and this might be the reason why so little architecture was uncovered (cf. Mellaart 1970c:9). By contrast, of Level VI, several large buildings and several courtyard areas were at least partially excavated (Figure 5.1). The village was burned completely and therefore very well preserved with walls up to 2 m high (Mellaart 1970c:10, 17). Development of the settlement Above (5.1.1) I summarised suggestions made by previous researchers (Reingruber 2008:428–429; Thissen 2010) that Levels IX–VI probably only represent one occupational level, best represented by the Level VI plan, of which Levels IX–VII represent subphases. Here, I list some additional evidence in favour of this reconstruction. First, the speed typical of Mellaart’s excavation was probably not conducive to a detailed observation of stratigraphic intricacies. The speed with which Mellaart excavated at Çatalhöyük is well documented (Balter 2005:26; Hodder 2016:3), as is the consequential neglect of seemingly small stratigraphic details that are however important indicators of construction phases (Baránski 2014, 2016; Baránski et al. 2015). The excavation of Hacılar generally, and Level VI specifically, was also done at high speed. After only small architectural fragments of Level VI had been excavated in 1957 and 1958 (Mellaart 1958a, 1959), the majority of the Level VI settlement, located in Trenches P, Q, R, and B, was excavated in ca. 25 days during the last excavation season in 1960: The entire season lasted ca. 30 workdays between 1 August to 7 September 1960 (Mellaart 1961b:39) with an unknown number of days off, of which five workdays were dedicated to ‘Aceramic’ Hacılar (Mellaart 1970c:6). Apart from investigation of the fourteen different roofed spaces excavated from Level VI (see below, Buildings), the ca. 25 days available for the work on Level VI must have also included investigation of its courtyards, the removal of at least nine burials, as well as investigation of smaller parts of the less well-preserved Levels III–V and VII–IX (Mellaart 1961b:39–40). Further, the season was conducted under suboptimal circumstances due to “a number of difficulties such as shortage of staff, workmen and time” (Mellaart 1961b:39). All of this
The two lowermost levels, Aceramic VI and VII “showed no architectural features except traces of decayed lime plaster on VII” (Mellaart 1970c:4). Level V consisted of one partially excavated mudbrick building and a number of installations in the unroofed ‘courtyard’: ovens, hearth and bins of which one contained “the silica skeletons of numerous food plants or weeds” (Mellaart 1970c:5, Figure 4, Plate IIIb). Aceramic IV consisted of a courtyard with a number of ovens, hearths and postholes that could indicate light roofing buildings; and two thick parallel walls with unknown function (Mellaart 1970c:5, Figure 3). Level III “lacked significant features” such as hearths, ovens or bins, but featured a courtyard floor prepared with pebbles and mud plaster, on which “splintered animal bones” were found (Mellaart 1970c:4–5). In both Levels VII and III, human skulls were found in the courtyard area (Mellaart 1970c:6). Judging from the plan, the uppermost two ‘Aceramic’ Levels II–I appear different, lacking courtyard features and instead showing fragments of floors and walls that might represent several rooms or houses (Mellaart 1961b:71, 1970c:4, Figure 2). Aceramic II and I in particular were disturbed by the foundations of the following Levels IX–VI (Mellaart 1970c:4). 35
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
36 Figure 5.1. Hacılar VI: plan of excavated structures. The slight irregularities in the middle are due to the original plan having been printed on two pages (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 7)1. reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 1
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia casts doubt on the accuracy of Mellaart’s observation of architectural details and formation processes.
circumstance Mellaart (1970c:3, 8) explained by stating that the builders of Level VI dug into the pre-existing layers to lay the foundations for Level VI. However, Thissen’s alternative interpretation is also possible and shows yet again that Mellaart might have misinterpreted stratigraphic connections in the lower part of the Hacılar sequence (‘Aceramic’ plus Levels IX–VI).
Second, Level VII is described by Mellaart (1970c:9) as really a subphase of VI, presented by an earlier (lower) floor level between the Level VI walls: He stated that “The impression obtained is that level VII essentially presents us with an earlier form of level VI” (Mellaart 1970c:9) and “there is no break between these two phases, which should really be called VIA and VIB, a terminology not adopted here to prevent confusion” (Melaart 1970c:11). Third, Mellaart’s version of the Level VI village (Figure 5.1) really represents a palimpsest of constructional subphases. Mellaart himself reconstructed that some Level VI buildings (Q.3, Q.6, Q.7, Mellaart 1970c:19) were constructed later than others, without however citing conclusive evidence other than their differing natures. Building P.2 is described as featuring a phase of repair following an episode of fire damage (Mellaart 1970c:11 assigned these two subphases to Levels VII and VI). Further, height differences between floor levels of neighbouring buildings or courtyards noted by Mellaart in his Level VI plan (notice the remarks ‘up’ in Figure 5.1), for example the floor level difference of ca. 70 cm between Q.2 and neighbouring Q.4 (Mellaart 1970c:20), could indicate temporal differences between the construction of different buildings or buildings parts. Mellaart himself therefore interpreted Levels VII and VI as modifications within a continuously used built environment, and acknowledged that Level VI comprised several construction episodes. That makes the separation of Levels VII and VI seem arbitrary.
All of this evidence makes it likely that Levels IX–VI (possibly including the ‘Aceramic’) represent an organically developing village, but an attempt to reconstruct the relative timing of the individual modifications to the built environment—and provide greater certainty about which buildings and unroofed areas in Levels IX–VI were really contemporary—would require an in-depth reanalysis of the evidence published by Mellaart. For this reason, the Level VI village is discussed here as a unit, ignoring the temporal depth probably present within the plan. Finally, I would like to point out the existence of fragments of Level VI in trenches without direct stratigraphic relationship to the main part of Level VI that was excavated in the interconnected Trenches P, Q, R and B. Further Level VI building fragments were found in Trenches E and F as well as floors without walls in Trench K (Mellaart 1970c:10, Figures 1, 7, 15) and “below room 12 of the Hacılar I fortress” (Mellaart 1970c:10), i.e. in Trench A (Figure 5.5). The location of the Level VI remains in Trenches E, F, K and A is shown in Mellaart (1970c:Figure 8), but they are excluded from the detailed plan showing the main part of the village (Figure 5.1). There was no stratigraphic connection to the main Level VI building cluster in P, Q, R and B so that the supposed Level VI remains in Trenches E, F, K and A were probably dated through their position in the local stratigraphy (i.e. under remains attributed to levels V–I) and their pottery, as is stated in the case of the Trench K and A Level VI remains (Mellaart 1970c:10). In light of the absence of direct stratigraphic connections and of overall doubts as to the accuracy of Mellaart’s stratigraphies, it appears at least possible that the supposed Level VI buildings in Trenches E, F, K and A were not really contemporary to—and part of—the same built environment as those in P, Q, R and B. Since a majority of the archaeological discussion of Level VI architecture is focused on the main area (Trenches P, Q, R and B), this is not, however, a major issue.
Fourth, Levels VIII and IX also do not provide strong evidence of having been substantial construction phases predating Level VI. A preliminary report states that “levels VIII and IX were two floors of one buildinglevel” (Mellaart 1961b:40). While this is not repeated in the final publication (Mellaart 1970c), it indicates that for a period Mellaart considered Levels IX and VIII as essentially the same. Levels IX and VIII only featured one and two wall fragments each as well as floor levels in the deep sounding E (Mellaart 1970c:9–10). Photos (Mellaart 1970c:Plates VIb, VIIa) show that the one wall from Level IX was located in the middle of the Level VI village and only slightly lower than the level of the surrounding Level VI walls. Therefore, it well could have been part of the Level VII–VI built environment. The two Level VIII walls were located in Trench E (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 6) at a certain distance from Trenches P, Q, R and B where most of Levels VI, VII, as well as Level IX were excavated (see below). Their relationship to the Level VII–VI remains in Trench E is, however, not documented, so it is not possible to re-assess to what degree Level VIII constitutes a clearly separate building level. Thissen (2010:271) reinterprets section drawings provided by Mellaart and concludes that some building walls attributed to Level VI in fact date to Level IX, with walls having been renewed in Level VI: Two section drawings (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 38, 39) show sediment layers attributed to Levels IX–VII and indeed the ‘Aceramic’ abutting Level VI walls, a
Settlement size, layout and a possible defensive aspect Mellaart (1970c:10, 22) estimated that the excavated Level IV was a large village of which he excavated only parts. The excavated main part of Level VI (in Trenches P, Q, R and B) consists of two building clusters, each featuring 4–5 buildings. Of the area in between the two building clusters, little was excavated (Figure 5.1). From the fact that no building remains were found in this central part of the excavation area, Mellaart (1970c:10–11) reconstructs the existence of a large central courtyard. He attempted a reconstruction of the layout of the whole Level VI village (Figure 5.2; Mellaart 1970c:Figures 8–9) that integrated 37
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.2. Hacılar VI: two slightly different reconstructions of the settlement layout by Mellaart (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 9)2. reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 2
38
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia the assumption that there must have been a defensive aspect to the architecture. Mellaart (1970c:10) hypothesised that since Hacılar II and I as well as the older site of Çatalhöyük had defence walls or defence systems, Hacılar VI could not have been defenceless (similarly Umurtak 2011:4). He first suggested there might have been an enclosure wall that did not preserve: “If the settlement was originally fortified, which we consider likely, the walls would have fallen a prey to the later construction of the fortress” (Mellaart 1961b:45), but he does not repeat this in later publications (e.g. Mellaart 1965b:113, 1970c). Instead, in the 1970 monograph Mellaart presents a reconstruction (“logical development of the plan”, 1970c:10) of the Level VI village as featuring a nearly uninterrupted row of buildings, approximately forming a rectangle, with only a few gate-like gaps that allowed entrance into the village (Figure 5.2). This outer row of buildings surrounded a courtyard, in the middle of which another building cluster is located. This layout limited and controlled access into the village and therefore had a defensive aspect. In this reconstruction, the two building clusters, separated by an apparently unroofed area, excavated in Trenches P, Q, R, and B each form part of the outer defensive ring (buildings P.1–4) and the inner building cluster (buildings Q.1–7) respectively (Figure 5.2; Mellaart 1970c:10, 21–22). This reconstruction is, in Mellaart’s view, supported by a comparison with Çatalhöyük: “the odds are that Hacılar VI also had some sort of defence, probably, as at Çatal Hüyük, in the form of blank doorless outer walls in the houses on the periphery of the site” (Mellaart 1970c:10; see also Clare et al. 2008:75).
outer, defensive building row (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 8), a circumstance Mellaart addressed by stating “These finds were too insignificant to be taken as proof that the Hacılar VI settlement did extend so far east, and unfortunately its overall size cannot be established” (Mellaart 1970c:10). The possible existence of Level VI remains in Trenches K and A, as well as Mellaart’s own admission that the extent of the Level VI settlement cannot be known, weakens the reconstruction outlined above. Leaving aside Mellaart’s reconstructions and looking only at the excavated buildings, the excavated part of the Level VI settlement can be characterised as consisting of two groups of buildings. In both building groups, individual buildings are densely clustered and even partly share walls. Whether the space in between these two building clusters really represented a large open courtyard as suggested by Mellaart is unclear. Not only is this area incompletely excavated, but also photos (Mellaart 1970c:Plates VIb, VIIa) show that a wall attributed to Level IX is located in this area. If Levels IX–VI are re-interpreted as essentially the same built environment (see above), this wall could represent the existence of a building located in the supposed courtyard area. Buildings Fourteen roofed spaces were identified by Mellaart in Trenches P and Q and interpreted as forming ten buildings (Mellaart 1970c:17–20, Figures 7–8). Buildings P.1–4 consisted of one room each, built from mudbrick walls. Of P.4, only a very small part was excavated, and P.3 was also not completely uncovered. In Trench Q, the picture becomes a bit more complex. Here, Mellaart reconstructs six buildings, three of which also consist of mudbrick walls (Q.2, Q.4 and the two-roomed Q.5). Mellaart (1970c:18) mentions that some buildings had stone foundations under the mudbrick walls, and such a foundation can be seen in a photo of Q.5 (Mellaart 1970c:Plate XVIIb). Attached to the north wall of Q.4 were two rooms built from thin post-and-mud walls (Q.1). In Mellaart’s reconstruction, the eastern room of Q.1 functioned together with Q.4 as a building, whereas the western room belonged to neighbouring building Q.3 (Mellaart 1970c:19). Rooms/ buildings Q.3, Q.6 and Q.7 were characterised by different building materials, having been built with thin post-andmud walls similar to those otherwise used for partition walls in building interiors. Of Q.6 and Q.7, only small areas of each were excavated. In addition to the buildings in P and Q, fragments of three further building (E.1, E.2 and F) were uncovered in Trenches E and F. Finally, the captions of two plates presenting images of pottery (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 54, 57) mention a Structure Q.8 that is not mentioned in either the descriptions or the plans of Level VI presented in the preliminary report (Mellaart 1961b) or final monograph (Mellaart 1970c). It is possible that ‘Q.8’ was an error in the labelling of pottery or that this term was used for a short time during excavation for a space later renamed.
Several observations cast doubt on the reconstruction of the Level VI village layout put forward by Melllart. Only a small part of the reconstructed village was actually excavated, the rest remains conjecture (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 8–9). This is especially true for the reconstructions of the gates, which in Mellaart’s view could have been closed with wooden doors (Mellaart 1970c:11, Figures 9–11): in fact, none of these suggested gate areas were excavated. Further, there are internal contradictions in the information given by Mellaart about Level VI. Mellaart’s interpretation that buildings P.1–4 form the edge of the settlement appears to have been based on the fact that no Level VI buildings were identified by him in the areas excavated west of P.1–4 (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 8). However he himself also reconstructed that the ‘level I cut’ (see 5.1.1) ran exactly alongside this building cluster (Figure 5.1). Staying within Mellart’s own logic and disregarding for the moment that the ‘level I cut’ might be incorrect (5.1.1), in Mellaart’s interpretation, the ‘level I cut’ went deep enough to destroy some of Level VI (Mellaart 1970c:75, Figures 37–38), so that the lack of Level VI buildings west of P.1–4 could be due to this cut. Therefore, Mellaart could not have been sure that P.1–4 really represented the edge of the village and therefore also not that they were part of an outer defensive ring of buildings. Further, the floors with pottery found in Trenches K and A and attributed by Mellart to Level VI would have been located outside the
39
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Mellaart does not discuss his reasons for the identification of certain construction units as buildings, and it is important to note that alternative interpretations of what rooms or spaces functioned together as buildings are possible (e.g. see division of buildings suggested by Cutting 2005b:Figure 8.6; Schachner 1999:Figure 71). Ambiguity as to which spaces constitute buildings in particular concerns spaces surrounded by thin walls that are a regular feature of Hacılar VI: as mentioned, three of these spaces, Q.3, Q.6 and Q.7, are categorised as houses by Mellaart, but they have much in common with three other thin-walled structures that Mellaart designated as “out-of-door kitchens” (Mellaart 1970c:15) belonging to buildings: Q.1 as well as two areas north of P.1 and north of Q.2 respectively (details see below, Unroofed spaces). Differences between ‘houses’ Q.3, Q.6 and Q.7 and the ‘outdoor kitchens’ are slight, each category featuring thin clay walls or sticks-and-clay walls, and containing a similar array of installations. Mellaart does not explicitly discuss why Q.3, Q.6 and Q.7 are interpreted as houses rather than as ‘outdoor kitchens’. It is possible that a main reason for designating Q.3, Q.6 and Q.7 as individual houses was the presence of an oven-hearth installation found in each of them. However, Q.1 also features a hearth, but was categorised as an ‘outdoor kitchen’ belonging partly to Q.4 and partly to Q.3 (compare Mellaart 1970c:19 with Mellaart 1970c:Figure 7). In the case of Q.1, this interpretation is presumably based on the location of doorways: the western room of Q.1 is connected by a doorway with Q.3 and the eastern room with Q.4; no doorway exists between the two rooms in Q.1. Among the thin-walled ‘houses’, Q.3 also raises a number of questions: The complex architectural stratigraphy that is apparent from the Q.3 description (Mellaart 1970c:19), with floor level differences and an array of thin walls found in this building (Figure 5.1), makes it possible that this building or space represents a palimpsest of slightly different building levels (see above for unresolved sublevels in Level VI). Further, no wall was found between Q.3 and Q.7, only posts from which Mellaart (1970c:19) reconstructs a “south wall made of reeds and matting”, so that the separation into two houses seems questionable (see also Cutting 2005b:Figure 8.6; Schachner 1999:Figure 71, who seem to view Q.3 and Q.7 as functioning together as a building).
and platforms (Mellaart 1970c:14, 15). Niches in the walls of some buildings, sometimes with subdivision, called “wall-cupboards” by Mellaart (1970c:14), were mostly found empty, although one contained figurines and other clay objects. Mellaart concludes that the function of these installations remains unclear (Mellaart 1961b:43, 1970c:14–15, Plates XIVb, XVa). In most buildings, a small area was screened off with thin walls constructed from sticks and mud (Figure 5.1; Mellaart 1970c:Plate XIIa), and these compartments are reconstructed by Mellaart as storage spaces, if not necessarily food storage spaces: “Most of the possessions of the inhabitants, farming implements, tools, weapons and articles of personal adornment, were found in the screened-off part of the house” (Mellaart 1970c:14, Plate XII). Large plastered bins are described as “grain bins” (Mellaart 1970c:15) and this reconstruction is supported by the fact that charred grain and pulses were actually found in some of them: “Great deposits of wheat were found in each house, either stored in bins or lying in heaps on the floor (probably in sacks)” (Mellaart 1961b:45, also 1970c:8, Plates XVb, XVI; see also Umurtak 2007:5). By contrast, smaller bins/ boxes were not interpreted as storage installations, but as “Fire boxes for glowing embers” (Mellaart 1970c:14), though without specifying evidence for this interpretation. In addition, “grain was found in quantity spilled on the floor, probably out of sacks (houses Q.5 and P.1, 2, 3)” (Mellaart 1970c:15), possibly attesting to storage in organic containers. While some doubt remains about the correct reconstruction of the function of these installations, their apparently domestic nature must have been the reason why Mellaart (1970c:21; also Cutting 2005b:97, 129; Steadman 2000b:179) reconstructs all Level VI buildings as houses, i.e. dwellings. Second storeys and building infill formation processes Mellaart (1970c:16) reconstructed the Level VI houses with upper storeys “built of wood, lath and plaster” (also Cutting 2005b:97; Eslick 1988:18; Schachner 1999:138; Steadman 2000b:184). It is not clearly stated whether Mellaart expected all buildings to feature second storeys, but P.1, Q.2, Q.3 and Q.5 are explicitly mentioned (Mellaart 1970c:16). There are two lines of evidence for these second storeys: the many postholes found in buildings which are interpreted as supports for an upper storey (Mellaart 1970c:16), and building infill recognised by Mellaart (1970c:16–17) as upper storeys collapsed in situ during the fire that destroyed Level VI. Neither of these two categories of evidence provides clear evidence for upper storeys, though. The postholes noted by the excavators are not unequivocal evidence for an upper storey for several reasons: none of the supposed postholes inside buildings appear to actually have contained remains of posts—at least that is neither mentioned in textual descriptions nor shown in photos. Only one of the rows of postholes located outside of P.1 seems to have contained an actual post, from which dendrochronological and radiocarbon samples were taken (Mellaart 1970c:93). The function of the holes inside buildings as postholes could
In sum, Mellaart’s division of spaces into buildings appears to have been based on a combination of the location of doors and hearths. The thin-walled structures of Level VI represent an interesting type of space that are difficult to ascribe a category of either proper buildings or external spaces with some light construction elements. Lack of certainty as to which spaces constitute separate buildings also inhibits comparisons between buildings, for example Mellaart’s (1970c:11) statement, “No two houses are exactly alike”, or Eslick’s (1988:Table 2) or Cutting’s (2005b:Figure 8.7) comparison of room sizes. Apart from combined oven-hearth installations (Mellart 1970c:14, Plates VIII, IXa), other installations observed in buildings including the thin-walled spaces are benches 40
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia therefore be a misinterpretation. Even if (some of) the holes were postholes, these posts could have supported the roof, not necessarily an upper storey. Similarly, the stairs outside P.1, and a second possible staircase outside Q.5 that Mellaart (1961b:43, 1970c:17) saw leading from the courtyard onto a balcony and then the upper storey might instead have provided access to the rooftop (Düring 2011c:164).
their interior, e.g. when Mellaart (1970c:21) discusses a possible function of Q.3 and Q.5 as “production centre[s] for the manufacture of such religious objects” (figurines and stone vessels) based on the figurines found in the buildings. Düring (2011c:165) further pointed out the possibility that contrary to Mellaart’s (1970c:10) interpretation of an accidental fire, buildings at Hacılar VI could have been intentionally ritually burned as part of abandonment rituals. Examples of planned house abandonment in the central Anatolian Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic documented at Çatalhöyük have shown that planned abandonment often incorporated intentional changes to the mobile items in the house (mobile items that were normally part of the house, such as foods, were often removed while other items that were not normally present were intentionally placed) so that artefact distribution after abandonment does not portray the buildings’ use phase (Matthews 2005a; Russell et al. 2009; Russell et al. 2014). This, too, could mean that mobile elements in Level VI buildings are not representative of their character while still in use.
As for the supposed collapse from upper storeys found inside the buildings, the lack of details published about this collapse invites doubt about the strength of the evidence. The instances of upper storey collapse inside Level VI buildings are described by Mellaart as follows: “in house P.1 part of an upper floor, with hearth of the usual raised type, pottery and objects had collapsed into the room just behind the doorway, covering the collection of pottery and stone bowls that lay in situ on the lower floor. In house Q.5, the upper floor had collapsed into the room discharging deposits of carbonised grain and legumes and numerous statuettes, many of unbaked clay. In other rooms pottery occurred in two superimposed levels, the lower in situ on the floor, the higher having collapsed with the upper storey” (Mellaart 1970c:17, also 1961b:43). This description mentions only mobile objects and a hearth, but no evidence of wall, ceiling or roof collapse from an upper storey. In absence of a clear indication of collapsed architectural material from such upper storeys, there is no convincing evidence for the existence of upper storeys at Hacılar VI.
Unroofed or lightly roofed spaces Mellaart reconstructed two different types of external spaces at Hacılar IV: a “large central courtyard” area (Mellaart 1970c:10) and several household-owned “outof-door kitchen” areas (Mellaart 1970c:15). Only a very limited area of the ‘courtyard’ was excavated (Figure 5.1) and it is only briefly described in the publications. It is mentioned that “for rubbish disposal, pits were dug in open spaces and courtyards, and it is only in these that animal bones were found” (Mellaart 1970c:15). Further, a feature interpreted as a well was also found in an apparent courtyard area (Mellaart 1970c:11).
Düring offers an alternative explanation for the presence of the above-described arte- and ecofacts in the infill of Level VI buildings by suggesting that they present collapse from a roof activity area, not a proper upper storey with walls and ceiling (Düring 2011c:164). I would suggest a yet different interpretation by pointing out that these objects in the Level VI building infill need not be collapse at all, but could instead be secondary deposits representing refuse deposition. Such deposits were identified in the building infill at Çatalhöyük West, where recent excavations have documented buildings with complex multi-phased postabandonment infilling histories whereby most deposits represent middening (Anvari 2022; Biehl et al. 2012b:91– 96). Re-interpreting the Hacılar VI building infills as the result of many separate episodes of deposition would also explain the layering observed by Mellaart (“In other rooms pottery occurred in two superimposed levels”, Mellaart 1970c:17) as well as the presence of three burials found in the infill of Q.6 and Q.2 (Mellaart 1970c:88). Mellaart himself interpreted that these burials were deposited after the destruction of Level VI (Mellaart 1970c:20, 88), not part of the ‘collapse’. Burials were also found in the infill of a building at Çatalhöyük West, where they are interpreted as part of a gradual infill process of the building (Anvari 2022; Byrnes and Anvari 2022; Biehl et al. 2012b:91–96).
The second type of external areas comprised light constructions attached to the outer walls of buildings, consisting of thin walls (thin clay walls and/or walls made from thin posts plastered with mud) and a light roof (Mellaart 1970c:15–16, Plates XVII–XXI). One of these thin-walled spaces, attached to the east wall of P.1, is portrayed in a reconstruction drawing (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 10) as a construction that looks like a stable or storage space for hay/fodder, however without explanation of this interpretation. The three other cases: Q.1, an area attached to the north wall of P.2 and a third attached to the north wall of Q.2, contained bins, hearths, ovens, grinding equipment, benches, and platforms. Mellaart (1970c:15– 16; and Steadman 2000b:179) reconstructs these three examples as privately owned ‘outdoor kitchens’ belonging to the house and household to which they are attached. As discussed above (Buildings), these ‘outdoor kitchens’ are in fact very similar to several other structures classified by Mellaart as ‘houses’ (Q.3, Q.6, Q.7). The ambiguity of the categorisation of the thin-walled spaces as houses or not houses is noteworthy as they might have constituted a type of building not otherwise commonly attested at Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia: spaces that maybe had a hybrid nature between being
Doubts as to the formation processes of the Level VI building infill also means that caution should be employed when interpretating buildings based on artefacts found in 41
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ because of their thin walls and either thin or possibly none-existing roofs, but are marked as important activity areas by the installations found in them.
Second, there have been two separate suggestions that the Level II plan (Figure 5.3) might represent a composite of stratigraphically and chronologically different building units. Schachner (1999:139, Figure 71) stated that the eastern part of Level II did in fact belong with one of the older Levels V–III, rather than with Level II. Similarly, Düring (2011c:170) suggests that Mellaart’s ‘Level IIa’ is a composite of two stratigraphically and chronologically different parts, of which the western part is younger than the eastern part. Düring seems to suggest that ‘Level II’ represented three different phases, of which IIa/eastern quarter is the oldest, succeeded by IIa/western quarter, and finally IIb (see below for a description of Levels IIa and IIb by Mellaart). And third, based on Rosenstock’s (2010a) rejection of the ‘level I cut’, I have tentatively suggested that Levels II and I might be contemporary (5.1.1).
5.1.4. The architecture of Hacılar Levels V–III Following the substantial Level VI village, Levels V–III revealed only limited built remains (Mellaart 1970c:23–25, Figures 16–18). Level V is represented by “courtyard floors, pottery, small objects and so forth, [but] what is missing is any trace of architecture at least within the excavated areas” (Mellaart 1970c:23). Level IV consisted of “thick rubbish deposits” (Mellaart 1970c:23) as well as one building and two seemingly unroofed areas (‘courtyards’) with installations (Mellaart 1970c:24, Figure 16). Level III featured “courtyard floors” and poorly preserved, as well as only partly excavated, mudbrick buildings (Mellaart 1970c:24, Figures 17–18). In Mellaart’s (1970c:23–24) reconstruction, the scarcity of Level V–III remains can be explained by the fact that occupation shifted away from the area previously occupied by Level VI: the main parts of the V–III settlements were located outside the central excavation area (represented by Trenches Q, A, B, P, etc., see Mellaart 1970c:Figure 15) and therefore either were not excavated or had later been destroyed when they “fell a prey [sic] to the large-scale levelling and reshaping of the old mound prior to the construction of the Hacılar I fortress” (Mellaart 1970c:23). Although, as shown in a figure (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 15), Level V–III remains were excavated in relatively sizeable areas located outside of the zone where they might have been impacted by the ‘level I cut’ zone, they are not, in Mellaart’s view, representative of the true character of the Level V–III villages because they would have been located at the edge of these villages. In this scenario, the true nature of the Level V–III villages remains unknown because they were not preserved. This means that in essence, Mellaart determined the existence of substantial built occupation in Levels V–III based on an absence of evidence and on the expectation that these main parts of these villages had not been excavated and/or had been destroyed by the ‘level I cut’. This is highly problematic especially considering Rosenstock’s (2010a) doubts about the existence of the ‘level I cut’. In any case, the scant remains of Levels V–III do not lend themselves to architectural analysis.
This book is not the place to discuss each of these suggestions in detail. But these revisions cast serious doubts on whether ‘Level II’ as represented by Mellaart really represents a stratigraphic unit that can be analysed as one settlement. This in turn calls into question all of Mellaart’s socioeconomic interpretations of Level II. It also complicates researching internal subphasing within Level II and therefore the development over time of the built environment. In Mellaart’s reconstruction (1970c:31, 37, Figures 20, 25), the eastern quarter and part of the centre of the original Level II village (subphase IIa) were destroyed by a fire. In the following phase IIb, the western part of the village continued nearly in its original form (IIa), but the central and eastern parts were substantially restructured following the fire. The overall size and layout of the village persisted in phase IIb, however. In light of the many doubts as to Mellaart’s reconstruction of stratigraphy in the upper levels of Hacılar (see above), I will refrain here from discussing possible changes and developments of the settlement over time, and instead in the following only discuss the Level IIa plan (Figure 5.3) as one possible version of the village. Describing and critiquing Level II (IIa) as reconstructed by Mellaart allows me to address other shortcomings in his reconstruction. Settlement size and layout Of Level IIa, Mellaart excavated well-preserved architecture in a large, roughly rectangular area in which buildings stand relatively close to each other, and are subdivided into groups by intervening open spaces (Figure 5.3; Mellaart 1970c:25). Mellaart divided the village into three socially and functionally different areas, an interpretation that should be questioned and will be further discussed below (Building functions and socioeconomic interpretations). Mellaart believed the excavated part of Level II represented the entirety of the village: “Hacılar II offers a unique example of a completely excavated site of the second half of the sixth millennium BC” (Mellaart 1970c:25). He appears to have based this notion on three pieces of evidence. First, Mellaart recognised an enclosure wall around Hacılar II, which must have confirmed his impression that he had reached the extents of the village
5.1.5. The architecture of Hacılar Level II Stratigraphy: doubts, revisions and possible subphases As already discussed in 5.1.1, there have been three different and somewhat conflicting suggestions as to revisions of the Level II plan presented by Mellaart (1970c:Figures 20, 25) and the associated reconstructions of the village (1970c:Figures 21–22, 26–27). Thissen (2010:272; based on his unpublished thesis, Thissen 2000) suggested interpreting the scant Level V–III remains as part of the Level II village, citing evidence for stratigraphic connections between Levels V–II. Reingruber (2008:429) and Rosenstock (2010a:29) agree with this suggestion. 42
reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, L Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 3
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
43 Figure 5.3. Hacılar IIa: plan of excavated structures. The slight irregularities in the middle are due to the original plan having been printed on two pages (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 20)3.
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.4. Hacılar IIa: isometric reconstruction of the settlement by Mellaart (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 21)4.
(Figures 5.4, 11.1; Mellaart 1970c:25). I will below demonstrate that the existence of this enclosure wall is questionable, rendering this first argument for a completely excavated Level II void. Second, Mellaart recognised a symmetry and logic to the layout of the Level II village, specifically the location of gates and public (specialpurpose) buildings, and explicitly cites this symmetry as an argument for why the village probably did not extend past the excavated areas (Mellaart 1970c:34). Once many elements of his Level II reconstruction including the enclosure wall, gates, and special-purpose buildings are challenged (as discussed here in the following), this argument also becomes partly invalid.
of Hacılar II” occupation (Mellaart 1970c:25) which therefore appears to be limited to Trenches Q, N, and P (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 1, 15). However, finds assigned to Level II are listed in the monograph for excavation areas outside the supposed borders of the Level II village: The book lists Level II pottery from Trench C (Mellaart 1970c:48, Figure 90) and a Level II stone bowl fragment from Trench F (Mellaart 1970c:152). Trenches C and F are well outside the area where the Level II village was located (compare Mellaart 1970c:Figure 20 with 1970c:Figure 15) and in above citation explicitly listed as not containing Hacılar II material. And in fact, a preliminary report does describe a Level II building in Trench C: “the small room found in house C II, with its numerous clay bins and storage vessels stacked to the brim with carbonised wheat, barley, vetch and lentils” (Mellaart 1958a:133). This building, not shown on any plans, must later have been re-assigned to another level, although that is not discussed anywhere in the Hacılar publications. Discrepancies within the 1970 book between Mellaart’s notion of the Level II borders and the
And third and most importantly, Mellaart cites the fact that “soundings in areas F, N, C, H, and K, so the south, west, north and east have yielded no further traces reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 4
44
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia stratigraphical/ typological attribution of pottery from areas seemingly outside the village to Level II are also for the most part not explained, although the pottery chapter mentions “a few strays from area C outside the settlement” (Mellaart 1970c:39) as an explanation for the presence of Level II pottery in Trench C. My observations not only provide further fuel to doubts as to the correctness of Mellaart’s reconstructed stratigraphy in the upper part of the Hacılar sequence but also demonstrate the possibility that Level II remains may have existed to the east, northeast, and southeast of the reconstructed limits of the Level II village. Also noteworthy in this context is the circumstance that—as will be discussed again below (Enclosure wall)—in the north, west, and southwestern areas, the supposed limits of the Hacılar II settlement are nearly congruent with the excavation limits; over long stretches, not even the outer edge of the reconstructed perimeter wall was included in the excavations (Figure 5.3). Mellaart would therefore not have been in a strong position to know whether Level II continued to the north, west, or south of the excavated area.
An enclosure wall? Mellaart reconstructed the Hacılar II settlement with an enclosure wall, described as follows: “It [the Hacılar II settlement] was surrounded by a 1.5–3 m thick mudbrick wall without stone foundations, guarding the site against any sudden attack. This wall was provided with small towers on stone foundations (Mellaart 1970c:Plate XXVIIIb) and salients at the corners”, as well as gates (Mellaart 1970c:25). The Hacılar II enclosure wall and its defensive nature have been accepted by several other researchers (Clare et al. 2008:75; Eslick 1988:22; Umurtak 2011:4). However, this wall is a conjectural reconstruction of precarious evidence. First, over about half the length of the supposed enclosure wall, no direct evidence of this wall or any built remains were found: along the eastern, southeastern and part of the northern edges of Level II (Figure 5.3). Mellaart explains this for the eastern part with the Level I cut that removed the eastern enclosure wall, but left rubble: “the considerable mass of burnt Hacılar II bricks found alongside the line of the level I cutting can only be interpreted as being the remains of an enclosure wall, and they are completely different from the sort of debris left behind by the remains of domestic kitchens made of posts, wattle and daub, and these extended further east. The evidence seemed conclusive to the excavators” (Mellaart 1970c:34). This argument is problematic not only because of the already outlined doubts as to whether there really was a ‘level I cut’ (Rosenstock 2010a), but also because of the conjectural statement that the excavators were able to tell from the nature of the mudbrick rubble what type of construction it originally represented. Mellaart (1970c:28, also 1960:97) claims to have seen the southeast corner of the Hacılar II enclosure wall in the section of the trench in which Room 6 of Level I was excavated (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 28). But since this wall fragment cannot have had a direct stratigraphic connection with any other Level II remains, there is no certainty of its being part of the Level II enclosure wall. The fact that the enclosure wall could not be attested along most of the southern edge of the village is explained by erosion (“denudation”, Mellaart 1970c:25). The enclosure wall was further not attested north of the northern court (excavated in 1957 within the sondage Trench A), explained by Mellaart as having many disturbances: “Here modern disturbances (stone robbing) as well as earlier (Hellenistic) ones had left only masses of burnt bricks, all that remained of the former enclosure wall” (Mellaart 1960:97). Although not impossible, it seems like a great coincidence that the reconstructed destruction events (‘level I cut’, erosion, Hellenistic and modern pitting) halted nearly exactly at the border of the Level II village, destroying the enclosure wall but leaving the main settlement to be well preserved.
It is therefore possible that Level II was larger than the excavated area. A number of previous studies also concluded that the excavated part of Hacılar II did not represent the entirety of the village (“The full extent of the settlement was never established” Cutting 2005b:96), and made different suggestions as to how the rest of the settlement might have looked. After re-evaluating the evidence of subphasing and an enclosure wall in Level II, Düring prefers a reconstruction of Hacılar as a collection of neighbourhoods, including yet unexcavated ones: “The level 2A/B remains have been interpreted by Mellaart as representing the complete Hacılar settlement. However, it [is] equally possible that there were multiple contemporary walled compounds, and the level 2B plan represents two such compounds” (Düring 2011c:171, similarly 2011a:73). Umurtak’s (2011:7) re-evaluation of the Hacılar II evidence suggests that the excavated, walled area of Level II “could have been a nucleus centre where the more privileged people lived[.] It can be assumed that the people involved in farming, animal rearing and pottery making would have lived outside of this defence wall in an area around 300–400 m in diameter”. And in fact, Mellaart himself seems to have reconsidered the size of Hacılar II after the publication of the 1970 book: “The full extent of the settlement was never established. Mellaart estimated that around 150 people at most would have lived in the small enclosed settlement […] However, Mellaart has since discussed the possibility that Hacılar may at times have been a much larger centre: the enclosed settlement of Level 2A/B had all the appearances of being some kind of fortress that may well have been associated with a much larger group of people as he never investigated beyond the immediate tell area” (Cutting 2005b:96). This newer reconstruction, which is similar to Umurtak’s, appears to be based on a personal communication by Mellaart (“Professor Mellaart provided further insights into the excavations”, Cutting 2005b:95).
Second, the segments of the supposed enclosure wall that were excavated are also not unequivocal evidence for an enclosure wall. A closer look at the plan (Figure 5.3) reveals that the entire width of this wall was actually only uncovered for a length of just over 20 m in the northwest corner of the trench, as well as two shorter (ca. 6 m and 45
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia ca. 4 m) segments along the eastern and southern trench borders. In neither of these three areas did the trenches extend very far beyond this wall, so that it cannot be known what was on the other side. This makes it at least possible that the wall might actually have belonged to buildings or courtyards, with the village continuing on the other side of the supposed enclosure wall. This is especially true for the wall segments along the western and northeastern trench border where the inner edge of the supposed enclosure wall was uncovered, but not the outer edge. In the west, what was reconstructed as enclosure wall was also heavily damaged, making its identification as an enclosure wall even less secure: “on the western side of the settlement the wall was badly denuded, having fallen outwards during the destruction of the settlement” (Mellaart 1970c:25, also 1960:97).
feature thin walls, bins and cooking installations. In the “warren” (Mellaart 1970c:28) of the eastern quarter, the interpretation of what rooms functioned together as buildings seems particularly difficult. Mellaart himself noted that in the eastern quarter “more often than not the actual association of any one enclosure [area enclosed by mudbrick or screen walls] with its neighbour is controversial” (Mellaart 1970c:35). It should be noted that Schachner (1999:138, Figure 71) arrived at a different building count, but neither Schachner nor Cutting (2005b:98–101, Figure 8.6) provide a systematic rediscussion of building identification at Hacılar II. Lack of clarity as to the identification of buildings prevents their comparison, but a few general points can be made. A hearth and/or oven were found in nearly every building (Figure 5.3; Mellaart 1970c:28–26). Most buildings also featured bins that are generally interpreted as grain storage installations (Mellaart 1970c:29, 30). Other installations found in buildings were benches and platforms (Mellaart 1970c:28). In building P.1+3, three subfloor burials together containing five individuals were found (Mellaart 1970c:35, 88–89), and there were also human remains in building infill, which are discussed in the next section.
Even if accepting the presence of an enclosure wall at Hacılar II, this wall need not necessarily have been a defensive wall, nor even a wall demarcating the limits of the settlement. For example, Düring (2011a:73, 2011c:171) accepts the Hacılar II enclosure wall, but sees it as the boundary of a walled neighbourhood within a larger settlement. And even if the enclosure wall is accepted in principle, Mellaart’s reconstruction of a wall system with several towers and specially constructed gate buildings, of which one is described as “monumental” (Mellaart 1970c:25), seems a particularly grand reading of the preserved wall fragments. Particularly, a description of the buttresses abutting the outer edge of the wall along its northern part as “towers” (Mellaart 1970c:25) is exaggerated. The reconstruction of “salients at the corners” (Mellaart 1970c:25) cannot be verified at all, because none of the four corners of the walled enclosure was preserved/ excavated (Figure 5.3).
Second storeys and building infill formation processes Mellaart (also Cutting 2005b:130) reconstructs five of the Level II buildings located in the western part of the settlement – Q.2+3+4, Q.5+6+7, N.3+6, N.4+5 and N.1+7 (Figure 11.1; Mellaart 1960:97) – with upper storeys because they had thick walls and “an upper storey is evident from the superimposed deposits of pottery and remains of mudbrick walling, the one in situ on the floor, the other 3–4 feet higher up, and again covered by mudbrick” (Mellaart 1970c:28–29, 1960:97). Although Mellaart does not directly mention the posts and small internal buttresses identified by his team in most buildings (Mellaart 1970c:28) as further evidence for second storeys, they might have strengthened his conviction that some Level II buildings had an upper storey. Düring (2011c:171) accepts the argument of a collapse layer and sees additional evidence for the existence of upper storeys in Hacılar II in the fact that some ground level rooms were quite small and might not represent living quarters.
Buildings Hacılar II was destroyed by fire (Mellaart 1965b:117, 1970c:30, 37, 75 reconstructs two different fire events after IIa and after IIb), preserving it well. Hacılar II buildings were made either from mudbrick or from wattleand-daub (Mellaart 1970c:31, 34). Reconstructing which rooms together formed buildings is not an uncomplicated matter. Mellaart does not clearly state which rooms formed buildings in his interpretation, nor does he discuss his reasons for distinguishing individual buildings. From the plan and reconstruction drawings (Figures 5.3, 5.4, 11.1), available discussions of individual buildings (Mellaart 1970c:28–36) and the statement that Level IIa consisted of “seven buildings in the western quarter, four in the eastern as well as another seven courtyards with domestic fixtures” (Mellaart 1970c:37) it can be reconstructed that Mellaart separated Hacılar II into 15 buildings: the 11 buildings mentioned by him in the eastern and western quarter as well as four buildings in the central area (buildings R, A.1, A.2, B). It remains unclear why some of the areas in the eastern part of the settlement are reconstructed as houses with roofs, and others as unroofed courtyards although they resemble each other. Both types of spaces
Similar to Level VI, I find the argument of collapse in Level II buildings questionable. Given the general level of mistrust in Mellaart’s stratigraphical control over the Hacılar II settlements (see above), it should be questioned to what degree his speedy excavation was suited to understanding what would have been stratigraphically complex deposits inside the buildings. After the central part of Level II (the ‘potters’ workshops’, see below) was excavated in the 1957 sounding (Mellaart 1958a:Figure 30), most of Hacılar II was excavated in the 1959 season which lasted ca. 25 work days ( 8 August to 9 September 1959 with an unknown number of days off, Mellaart 1960:83). Since the 1959 season also included further work on the Level I architecture and a small sounding 46
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia to levels below Level II (Mellaart 1960:83–84), it is unclear whether all 25 work days were available for work on Hacılar II. Further, the 1959 season would also have included the investigation of the “west court” in Level II (Mellaart 1960:Figure 3). But even if assuming 25 days were available for the investigation of Hacılar II buildings, only a little more than one workday was available on average for each of the 22 rooms (including also room sections) that were entirely or partly excavated in 1959 (For the 1959 excavation area see Mellaart 1960:Figure 3. The number of Level II rooms in Trenches O and N is based on Mellaart´s own count of 17, Mellaart 1960:Figure 3, 1970c:Figure 20. In Trench P, I counted P.1+3 as one room and included spaces that Mellaart reconstructed as unroofed [Figure 11.1] into the room count, arriving at a count of five rooms/ courtyards excavated of Level II in Trench P in 1959).
are made clear from two statements: “much of [the pottery from Level II a] is derived from deposits in houses and courtyards sealed by a disastrous fire that destroyed the eastern half of the settlement (areas P, O, R, and B, figs.78–83). The western half of the village escaped the fire and in these areas (N and Q) there are no hermetically sealed deposits of Hacılar IIA pots, but only sherds in courtyards or beyond the walls (area N) or covered by the later IIB floor of the buildings of area Q (figs.85–9)” (Mellaart 1970c:115) as well as, “the main deposits from the IIA shrine [Q.2–4] are illustrated in figs. 85–9, but, since all the material was dumped and hence not in situ, the position of the pots could not be located on a plan. By contrast, the pottery from house B.IIA, the shrine P.IIA.1,3 and the adjacent domestic enclosures P.IIA.2 (and 2a) and P.IIA.4 could be plotted in position (pp. 51 and 52)” (Mellaart 1970c:38). Not only was there therefore no in situ collapse from Level IIa in the Q/N buildings, but also the IIa infill of most of the buildings in area N was not excavated: Mellaart’s statement that “The north-western quarter was, with the exception of the granary [N.8] and the west court, not excavated below the IIb floor level” (Mellaart 1970c:38) can only refer to Trench N. It thus turns out that the three buildings in N with reconstructed second storeys (N.3+6, N.4+5 and N.1+7) were not actually excavated down to the oldest (IIa) floor level, but instead excavation stopped at the level determined by Mellaart as the Level IIb floor. This means that the infill of these buildings was never fully investigated, casting at least some doubt on the degree to which Mellaart was able to fully reconstruct the formation processes of the infill.
There are issues with the infill evidence in all of the cases reconstructed by Mellaart as buildings with second storeys (Q.2+3+4, Q.5+6+7, N.3+6, N.4+5 and N.1+7). Here it should be remarked that the publications do not actually state in which buildings such collapsed upper storeys were found (except N.4+5, whose collapse layer is shown in a section drawing, see below). It is therefore unclear whether Mellaart had identified collapse layers in all of the above named five buildings. Independent from this, however, I will show here that in all five cases there is reason to doubt the existence of an in situ collapse layer. There is overall very limited information on the building infill in Mellaarts publications. The existing information is, for the most part, not actually contained in the chapter of the 1970 monograph that describes Level II architecture, but rather from a section drawing that will be discussed below and is from the part of the book where Mellaart discusses the distribution of Level II–I pottery, which is the most informative section regarding the formation processes of the building infill (Mellaart 1970c:38–56; see also Redman 1972:947–948 commenting favourably on this section). It is an interesting feature of the book that nearly all of Mellaart’s few comments on building infill formation processes come from either this book section on pottery distribution or the pottery chapter (Mellaart 1970c:99–142). Apparently Mellaart did not see this information as part of the architectural story, and also did not see the contradictions between infill formation processes discussed in the pottery sections and some of his architecture reconstructions. The existing information on the Level II building infill will be discussed here in some detail because it is relevant not only to the question of second storeys, but also to socioeconomic interpretations of the Level II village.
Returning to the issues regarding second storeys: If there were no collapse deposits from phase IIa in the Q/N buildings, this means that an interpretation that some buildings of N and Q were two-storied must be based on evidence from the IIb infill. This represents a collation of evidence from Levels IIa and IIb, whereby Mellaart used evidence from IIb infill as evidence for IIa second storeys. This is not, however, problematic if following Mellaart’s interpretation that the buildings in N and Q persisted in their original form from Level IIa into IIb (see above). However, from the published information, there is no strong evidence of in situ collapse layers in level IIb of the Q/N buidings. The infill of phase IIb of building Q.2+3+4 is not described in detail, but in a figure (Mellaart 1970c:54) shows only four in situ vessels from IIb in Q.2+3+4 (the figures on pages 51–56 of the 1970 book show the distribution of painted vessels only and therefore are not a complete representation of pottery material found in building infill, but they do represent the only concrete information available on the number and location of complete or nearly complete vessels in infill). A second building, Q.5+6+7, is not discussed in the section about pottery distribution and a figure (Mellaart 1970c:54) shows only one in situ vessel of phase IIb in this building, which raises doubts as to the stratigraphical integrity of its infill. If the phase IIb infill of Q.2+3+4 and possibly also Q.5+6+7 did not
Much of the Level II building infill was portrayed by Mellaart as collapse, i.e. primary deposits that represent material from the building itself (including mobile objects), that formed during the destruction of the building and for the most part remained undisturbed. An exception to this is, in Mellaart’s interpretation, the Level IIa infill in the buildings in Trenches Q and N. These interpretations 47
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia contain significant amounts of in situ pottery material, it cannot have featured in situ collapse layers of the nature describe by Mellaart (see above), of which pottery was an important feature.
socioeconomic subdivision. In his reconstruction, the eastern quarter (located in Trench P) “perhaps […] should be regarded as being the quarter of the poorer section of the population” (Mellaart 1970c:34) and the western quarter (in Trenches N and Q) featured “the richer houses” (Mellaart 1970c:115). Reasons for this interpretation appear to have included constructional differences between the two parts of the village, with the eastern village featuring many thin wattle-and-daub walls and forming a “warren” (Mellaart 1970c:35) of densely clustered rooms, whereas the western quarter had more clearly separated buildings with thick mudbrick walls. The existence of more richly decorated pottery in the western quarter also supported this interpretation (Mellaart 1970c:115). The building cluster in the centre (Trenches A and B) is described as comprising “potters’ workshops” (Mellaart 1970c:30), not residences. This interpretation is based on the lack of certain installations in these buildings—platforms, storage bins, ovens—and the presence of items associated by Mellaart with pottery production, as well as large amounts of well-preserved (“unused”, Mellaart 1970c:30) pottery vessels (Mellaart 1970c:30–31). Mellaart further identified special purpose buildings: N.8 was interpreted not as a residence, but as a “granary” because of its bins and “the widespread scatter of grain found on its floor” (Mellaart 1970c:29). N.4 is described as a guardroom (Mellaart 1970c:29) functioning in combination with the adjacent gate. Buildings P.1+3 and Q.2+3+4 are interpreted as shrines. In the case of the latter, (Mellaart 1970c:29–30) this interpretation is in large part based on artefacts found in the interior, such as figurines, a seal, stone bowls, beads, and “a vast amount of finely painted pottery” (Mellaart 1970c:30). It remains unclear whether Mellaart envisaged Q.2+3+4 as having served as a residence together with its religious function. P.1+3 is described as “the main village shrine and the seat of the local authority, responsible for the welfare, both religious and economic of the small society of Hacılar II” (Mellaart 1970c:36). Reasons mentioned by Mellaart for the identification of P.1+3 as a combined shrine/elite residence include its size, the presence of many posts and subfloor burials, and several items found in the interior (1970c:35–36, 39). In sum, Mellaart portrays Hacılar II as a settlement characterised by socioeconomic differences, featuring several special-purpose (partly “public”, 1970c:34, 36) buildings and a defensive enclosure wall. Another socioeconomic interpretation of the Hacılar II evidence that needs to be mentioned to complete the picture is the interpretation of hostile attacks as the reason for a destruction of the IIa and/or IIb settlements based on skeletons found in building infill (Clare et al. 2008:Figure 5; Mellaart 1970c:36–37).
As for the supposed two-storied buildings in Trench N: a schematic section drawing which shows the “pottery and debris of upper floors” found inside N.4+5 (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 39) demonstrates that this deposit was located at the height of the preserved tops of Level II walls, exactly at the interface of Level II with the denuded, unstratified topsoil. The supposed upper storey collapse at least in N.4 and N.5 was therefore not a deposit covered and sealed by other Level II deposits, but one that would have been vulnerable to post-depositional processes. Mellaart himself listed a number of post-depositional damages to the Level II remains: erosion (“denudation”), the construction of Hacılar I, and illegal excavations (Mellaart 1970c:25). These post-depositional processes, which might have altered the supposed collapse deposits in N.4+5 (and possibly other buildings) again cast doubt on the security with which they could be identified as in situ collapse. Its position at the interface with topsoil even makes it possible that (some of) the Level II ‘upper storey debris’ stratigraphically belonged elsewhere, to Level I or maybe some different stratigraphical level. For example, the same section drawing (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 39) shows that in the courtyard just on the other side of the N.5 wall, Level I directly overlays Level II debris, and here the interface of both is actually lower than inside the rooms, with Level I sediment abutting Level II walls. In yet another two-storied building in N, N.3+6, no in situ painted vessels were found (Mellaart 1970c:53). In summation, a number of observations work against the interpretation of finds-rich layers in the Hacılar II building infills as collapse from upper storeys. In principle, this does not however mean that the buildings cannot have been two-storied. Mellaart’s argument that the walls were probably thick enough to carry a second storey is valid, but it means that there is only indirect evidence for second storeys, and no direct evidence of a (collapsed) upper storey was actually found. The observations made here on building infill also have relevance beyond the issue of second storeys. A sample of only five buildings were discussed here, but my observations at the very least demonstrate that one cannot uncritically accept a default interpretation of (all or most of) the Hacılar II building infills as primary collapse deposits. My doubt as to their primary nature is also influenced by my own experience with excavating secondary (midden) infills at Çatalhöyük West, which in their richness of finds parallel descriptions of the Hacılar II building infills (Anvari 2022; Biehl et al. 2012b:91–96; also see above, Level VI discussion).
Other researchers have partly agreed and disagreed with Mellaart’s interpretations of individual buildings. Steadman (2000b:184) and Cutting (2005b:132) have supported the interpretation of a richer western and a poorer eastern quarter. Eslick (1988:20–21) and Schachner (1999:48, 139) prefer an interpretation of the two Hacılar II shrines as being primarily residences with a
Building functions and socioeconomic interpretations of the Hacılar II architecture Within the relatively small settlement of Hacılar II, Mellaart reconstructed a high degree of functional and 48
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia possible religious side function, citing the presence in the ‘shrines’ of the same domestic furniture as is present in the other houses. Steadman (2000b:184) seems to describe all buildings in Trench P as houses, including P.1+3 (i.e. not a shrine), and interprets Q.2+3+4 as the residence of an elite household rather than a shrine, an interpretation shared by Cutting (2005b:130–131). Umurtak (2011:4) seems to accept Q.2+3+4 as a shrine, but not P.1+3, arguing that it is unlikely that a small settlement needed two cult buildings and that P.1+3 did not resemble the Höyücek shrine. Schachner (1999:48) accepts the potters’ workshops and granary, as do Cutting (2005b:101, 130), Eslick (1988:19–20), and Steadman (2000b:184). Düring (2011c:171) also supported a reconstruction of N.8 as a communal storage building. This means that despite some small suggested adjustments, most researchers have not overall contradicted Mellaart’s picture of Hacılar II as a settlement with a defensive wall, socioeconomic-religious elite and special-purpose buildings.
comparatively empty (e.g. centre of the west court; north court; south court) might be due to incomplete excavation: parts of the large south, west and north courts remained unexcavated (Figure 5.3), and whether excavations always reached the (or a) actual courtyard floor is also not certain (for example, no floor is mentioned for the north court). 5.1.6. The architecture of Hacılar Level I Levels Ic-d Level I featured four sublevels in Mellaart’s reconstruction. Mellaart (1970c:86–87) interpreted that the ‘fortress’ (Level Ia-b) was victim to an attack that burnt it completely at the end of Level Ib, resulting in the deaths of some of the residents and inducing most of the others to leave the place. Following this event, the remaining survivors, drastically reduced in numbers, built a few non-substantial buildings described as “unimpressive”, “poverty-stricken” (Mellaart 1970c:86) and “miserable hovels” (Mellaart 1970c:87), and also used unroofed areas as courtyards (Level Ic). Level Ic was partially constructed over the not severely burned block B of Levels Ia-b, which was levelled for that purpose, but mostly in the former courtyard area; i.e. over the Level II remains (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 36). This scenario is Mellaart’s interpretation of finding the stone foundations of otherwise not preserved thin walls over block B of the ‘fortress’ and in Trenches C, H, N and Q (Mellaart 1958a:139–131, 1959:56–58, 1970c:Figure 36, 40). The interior of the Level Ic buildings was also not well preserved, for example no hearth was found in a building. Some buildings had repairs and modifications (Level Id), but the survivors did not continue to live at Hacılar for long, and the mound was eventually abandoned (Mellaart 1970c:86–87).
A holistic review and critique of Mellaart’s socioeconomic interpretations of the Hacılar II architectural evidence is not possible within the scope of this book. I would only like to emphasize two factors that should lower confidence in Mellaart’s depiction of Hacılar II. First, as Chapters 8–11 will show, some of the epistemological notions that are at the base of Mellaart’s reading of the architectural evidence do not hold up to scrutiny. Second, there are issues with the evidence itself, notably the causes of the stratigraphic doubts outlined at the beginning of this section, in which cases several previous researchers have suggested that the various parts of Hacılar II might not actually be contemporary. The overall doubts about Mellart’s stratigraphic control over Hacılar II and the already mentioned speed of the excavation also create doubt as to what degree Mellaart’s team would have been confidently able to correctly identify delicate features such as postholes. Further, if not accepting a default interpretation of Hacılar II building infills as collapse from the building itself, this also casts doubt on all socioeconomic interpretations of the village and individual buildings because they are, to a high degree, based on items found in their infill. These many little imprecisions in the documentation and analysis of the architectural record should caution anybody from taking Mellaart’s picture of Hacılar II at face value.
When reconstructing Level Ic-d in this manner, Mellaart took the scanty state of the Level Ic-d architectural remains to be an accurate presentation of buildings during this occupation period, although he himself had pointed out the substantial post-depositional destruction done to Level Ic-d which left the buildings “in a deplorable state of preservation, for not only was the upper part of the mound badly denuded, but these stone foundations have been a quarry for building material since Hellenistic times. As a result, the surface of the mound was pockmarked with holes and the robber trenches were filled with Hacılar I, Hellenistic, and modern pottery and other rubbish” (Mellaart 1970c:86). The “miserable” state of the Ic-d remains might, then, not actually be indicative of the condition of its prehistoric builders and residents, and more of post-Chalcolithic site destruction processes. Here, the discussion in the following will concentrate on Levels Ia-b since the Ic-d remains are too badly preserved for analysis.
Unroofed areas Mellaart’s excavation strategy did not include a dedicated investigation of unroofed spaces, so there is limited evidence about their use. The courtyards in the eastern and central part of the excavated area contained many cooking and storage installations; slightly less are found in the western part, but here as well two ovens (outside N.8), a grain bin (in Q.1) and a pebble floor (west of Q.4) were attested (Figure 5.3; Mellaart 1970c:29). Mellaart reconstructs a use of courtyard areas for animal penning because of the “battered mud floors” (Mellaart 1970c:28, 31). The impression that some of the courtyard areas shown in the reconstruction drawing (Figure 11.1) are
Settlement size and layout of Levels Ia-b and their identification as a ‘fortress’ Most of Level I was excavated in a large trench (Trench E) in the southeastern part of the site. Mellaart excavated a 49
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia dense cluster of 19 rooms and four separate courtyard areas; the excavated rooms form two room clusters (blocks A and B) separated by one of the courtyards (Figure 5.5; Mellaart 1970c:77). Based on the fact that he found fragments of rooms or walls also attributed to Level I in other trenches at a distance from the main excavation area of Level I in Trench E, Mellaart (Figure 5.6; Mellaart 1970c:77, 80–82) reconstructed the Level I settlement as consisting of a ringshaped chain of building blocks similar to blocks A and B. In the centre was a large courtyard of 100 m diameter that “was apparently devoid of buildings and could have been used for sheltering animals and peasants from the surrounding countryside in case of danger” (Mellaart 1970c:77). The existence of this courtyard is based on a lack of walls attributed Levels Ia-b in this central area. As discussed above (5.1.1), Mellaart reconstructed that the people who built Level I had removed deposits from older levels and levelled the ground prior to the construction of the ring-shaped building arrangement. Because this levelling operation did not extend to the central area, the floor level of this internal courtyard would have been higher than the floor level of the buildings and directly accessible from the upper storeys of the buildings (Mellaart 1970c:75, 77, 80). Mellaart himself admits the ring-shape of Hacılar I to be a “highly conjectural reconstruction” (Mellaart 1970c:82, italics in the original), which however does not prevent him from basing the entire story of this village around its fortress-nature.
formed the ring-shape, some are pure conjecture and others are based on badly preserved walls found in Trenches C, H, P, or N that were also attributed to Level I (Figure 5.6; Mellaart 1970c:77, 80–81). However, these had no direct stratigraphic connection to the main part of Level I in Trench E and there is therefore no clear evidence that they belonged to the same occupational level. It is furthermore doubtful that blocks A and B actually constituted the outer edge of the settlement: similar to the Hacılar II enclosure wall, Mellaart actually only exposed the outer edge of the south wall(s) of blocks A/B in two short stretches of about 10 m each, and there the trench borders only reached ca. 1 m beyond the wall’s edge (Figure 5.5; Rosenstock 2010a:24). It is therefore not at all clear what was on the other side of this wall and there is no evidence that the settlement ended here. While Mellaart himself wrote that other buildings of Level I might have existed around the ‘fortress’ (Mellaart 1970c:77, see above), reconstructing buildings that immediately abutted the fortress seems to at least partly contradict its defensive nature, which relies on the high gapless wall the ‘fortress’ would have presented outward. Second, of the supposed thick free-standing wall that closed the unroofed spaces (courtyard) 17+23, and thereby the settlement, to the outside (Figure 5.5; Mellaart 1970c:Figures 30, 35), Mellaart excavated only a short segment (Figure 5.5). And finally, the gates: Mellaart (1970c:77–80) thought that he had excavated two of the narrow gates that allowed entrance into the Level I fortress (Figure 5.6). However, of both (room 9, rooms 17+23) not enough is excavated to be sure that they represent passageways between the buildings (Figure 5.5), as Mellaart himself admitted in the case of space 17+23 (Mellaart 1970c:80). His uncertainty as to this passage might also explain discrepancies between the various plans and reconstruction drawings of Level I (Mellaart 1970c:Figures 29, 33, 34 on the one hand and Mellaart 1970c:Figures 28, 30, 35 on the other) as to whether there really was a passage into the fortress through rooms 17+23 or whether this area was closed off to the outside.
Mellaart (1970c:77) reconstructed the ring-shape of Hacılar I as having a very clear defensive nature (“The settlement was heavily fortified”, Mellaart 1970c:82), which is why he refers to the village as a whole as a ‘fortress’. Although the individual rooms were interpreted by Mellaart as having had residential function (see below, Buildings), he reconstructs a defensive nature in the ring-shaped layout which was paired with short free-standing wall fragments that closed the gaps between building blocks in order to form a completely enclosed settlement perimeter with only narrow passages leading into the village (Figure 5.6; Mellaart 1970c:77). In addition, each building cluster was also defensible due to the dense clustering of the individual rooms which meant that they could only be entered through roofs; and by the thickness of their walls which featured stone foundations (Mellaart 1960:96, 1970c:77). In sum, “this was not a village of individual houses sheltering behind a defensive wall, but probably a fortress of a ruler who had command of considerable human resources” (Mellaart 1970c:77). And around this ring-shaped fortress might have been additional settlement space: “As no excavations were carried out beyond the walls of the fortress it is still impossible to say whether this complex stood by itself, as we believe, or formed the citadel and nucleus of a more extensive township” (Mellaart 1970c:77).
A majority of other architecture researchers (Düring 2011c:172; Eslick 1988:23; Rosenstock 2010a:24) therefore see no evidence for a defensive nature of Hacılar I. Rosenstock (2010a:25) has offered the alternative view that Hacılar I could, instead of a monolithic fortress, be reconstructed as a cluster of individual buildings. The below postulated possibility that not all rooms or buildings were built at the same time reinforces an interpretation of a building cluster. Schachner (1999:139–140) has also interpreted Hacılar I as an agglutinating village made up of individual houses, as seemingly have Cutting (2005b:102– 103) and Düring (2011c:172), but without stating any reasons for their opinion.
The ring-shape of the settlement as a hole, the freestanding wall segments, and the ‘gates’ do not hold up to a closer review of the record. First, the ring-shape should be questioned: Of the additional buildings that supposedly
Development of the settlement Mellaart (1970c:75–77) envisaged that the entire settlement (‘fortress’) was built in one concerted effort (Level Ia) and 50
reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara.
5
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
51 Figure 5.5. Hacılar I: plan of excavated structures. The gap in the middle is due to the original plan having been printed on two pages (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 29)5.
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.6. Hacılar I: reconstruction of the settlement layout by Mellaart (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 35)6.
later was only repaired or slightly restructured a few times (Level Ib) and then also destroyed in one hostile event: “nowhere have we been able to distinguish between parts that were built earlier and others that were built later […]. As far as one can see the whole fortress was laid out and constructed in a single building operation and this is fully supported by the extensive levelling operations undertaken on the lower slopes of the mound preparatory to the actual building process” (Mellaart 1960:94). There is, however, evidence that not all buildings were constructed at the same time.
onto uneven ground, these floor level differences might also indicate that some buildings were built later than others. A hypothesis that the rooms were built contemporaneously onto uneven ground also contradicts Mellaart (1970c:75, 77) statement that after the levelling event that preceded the construction of Level I, the ground was so level that “over a length of 70 m the variation is a mere 15cm”. Rosenstock (2010a:26) even suggested that the two blocks A and B in Hacılar I might not be contemporary since there is no direct stratigraphic connection between them (no connection through a wall) and because they are oriented slightly differently, making the Hacılar Ia plan as published a composite of two construction phases. As an additional argument in favour of this, the cross-section (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 32) also shows that the floor levels of block B were higher than those of block A.
First, the schematic sections through Level I provided by Mellaart (1970c:Figures 32, 38) show that the floor levels varied between neighbouring structures. In the most extreme case—between rooms 11 and 12—this measured more than 80 cm (floor level differences in Level I are also described by Mellaart 1959:56, 1970c:80). Although in theory the buildings could have been built at the same time
The strongest piece of evidence for a contemporary, concerted construction of the entire Level I village is the fact that Mellaart, with very few exceptions, did not observe any gaps between the walls of neighbouring rooms (Figure 5.5); accordingly, all walls would be one single construction. Rosenstock (2010a:26) has, however,
reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 6
52
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia pointed out that most walls are so thick that they might easily represent two parallel walls, belonging to two independently built structures. Looking at the construction techniques of the walls, there is an additional argument for Rosenstock’s hypothesis: Mellaart described that the walls were mostly built with rows of parallel bricks, and only rarely in a header-and-stretcher technique: “The long, narrow mudbricks, measuring 63 × 30 × 12 cm (pl. × L 1 vb), were sometimes bonded, but more often than not laid as stretchers (pl. × L va). Bonding was not a necessity, for the walls were on average 2 m thick, and sometimes more [up to 4 m, 1970c:77]” (Mellaart 1970c:75). Being made from parallel bricks, the supposedly single walls could each represent two parallel walls. Maybe the very narrow gaps between such walls remained undetected in an excavation that moved so quickly. After a very small part of it was excavated in the 1957 sondage (Mellaart 1958a), Level I was excavated during the 1958 and 1959 seasons (Mellart 1959, 1960). Each of these seasons lasted around 25 workdays (no exact dates were given for the 1958 season: “middle of August till the middle of September”, Mellaart 1959:51, but since the later seasons lasted around 25 workdays, this can also be assumed here; 1959: 10.8.– 11.9.1959 with an unknown number of days off, Mellaart 1960:83). In 1959, excavation did not focus on Level I alone but also on Level II (5.1.5). But even if assuming that ca. 50 days were spent on the excavation of Level I, on average only two days would have been available for each of the 25 spaces (rooms and courtyards) that existed in Level I in Mellaart’s numbering (Figure 5.5). In addition to being fast, the excavation also did not use shade, which severely handicaps the recognition of details in mudbrick architecture (Rosenstock 2010a:27).
20 of which only a fragment was excavated. Rooms vary widely in size and layout, from square to long and narrow, with varying numbers of buttresses or posts. Some rooms have entrances on the ground floor and others not (Mellaart 1970c:76). Mellaart seemed to envisage each block at Hacılar I, or the entire village, functioning not as a collection of discrete household residences, but through a kind of communal usage mode: “this was not a village of individual houses sheltering behind a defensive wall, but probably a fortress of a ruler who had command of considerable human resources” (Mellaart 1970c:77, also cited above) and “Alternatively the whole of block A may have been conceived as a multi-roomed building, the residence of the ‘ruler’ of Hacılar I” (Mellaart 1970c:85). In this scenario, the building blocks overall had a residential function and consisted of living rooms as well as smaller spaces reconstructed by Mellaart as corridors, “guard rooms”, or storage rooms (Mellaart 1970c:80). Although Mellaart’s reasons for assigning room functions are not explained, it appears to have been mostly the size of rooms, with small and narrow rooms being called corridors, store rooms, or guard rooms even though some contained hearths (e.g. room 12, Mellaart 1970c:80). If instead one wanted to interpret Hacılar I as a cluster of individual residential buildings, then it becomes a challenge to try and reconstruct which rooms functioned together as building units. Some rooms are connected by door openings, and might have functioned together (see Schachner 1999:Figure 72, who reconstructs all rooms connected by doors as functioning together; similarly Cutting 2005b:102). Some rooms seem too small and narrow to have been individual buildings, but three such rooms (16, 18, 22) do not seem to be connected to any others; and in two other cases, two such small and narrow rooms (3+12, 10+14) are connected by doors, but still the combined internal space remains limited. The distribution of hearths does also not bring clarity: Rooms 1+2 and 3+12 are connected, but each have a hearth, amounting to two hearths in what could be a single residence. By contrast, some large rooms have no hearth (19, 20, 25, 24 in Figure 5.5). The possible existence of second storeys (below) complicates a distinction of building units even further. A lack of certainty about the identification of buildings prevents the comparison of buildings amongst each other. Apart from hearths, other installations found in Level I buildings were platforms (Mellaart 1970c:76, 83). Room 6 featured the subfloor burials of five individuals in hocker position without burial goods (Mellaart 1970c:89, also see Mellaart 1970c:Figure 37 which is incorrectly labelled ‘Room 5’, but must show Room 6). They were located at different places under Room 6, and one was a double burial (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 44).
In conclusion, not all rooms/ buildings in Level I were likely built at the same time, and there might therefore have been a more organic growth of the settlement than was indicated by Mellaart’s reconstruction. Apart from this there were also smaller changes to individual buildings. Mellaart (1959:54) attributed them all to the same renewal phase (Ib): “Certain repairs and alteration were made in phase IB […] The alterations were fairly simple: buttresses were strengthened or enlarged, walls doubled, porticos enclosed, and higher floor levels were laid” (Mellaart 1970c:76). Instead of attributing all these modifications to one phase, it would also be possible to conclude that individual buildings were modified at different times. This strengthens the impression of a continuously changing built environment in Level I. Buildings The Level I buildings consisted of limestone foundations with mudbrick walls. Floors and walls were covered in clay plaster (Mellaart 1970c:75). The plan (Figure 5.5) lists 25 rooms, which includes 6 spaces designated as courtyards (see above), leaving 19 apparently roofed rooms. In addition, the pottery inventory (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 111) reports a vessel from a Room 26, which is not shown in the plan but might be the narrow room north of Room
Building infill formation processes Mellaart interpreted all or most building infill in Level I as collapse, including collapse from upper storeys (Mellaart 53
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 1975:118): “During the conflagration the upper floor collapsed into the lower rooms forming a black greasy ashy deposit, often as much as 2 m thick, filled with pottery, objects, charred wood and the grisly remains of the burnt skeletons, especially children, who had been trapped in the burning furnace” (Mellaart 1970c:76). In several statements he also portrayed the Level I remains including building infills as not substantially disturbed after deposition, for example talking of “the sealed deposits of the burnt fortress” (Mellaart 1970c:86). To Mellaart, therefore, the building infill including artefacts is representative of the use of the buildings before the fire and although items in the room interiors became somewhat jumbled during the collapse process, it is possible to use the artefacts in building infill to reconstruct the appearance and function of each room: “The pottery of Hacılar I found in the fortress of level IA and IB derives with only a very few exceptions from the fallen upper storey. As it was therefore not found in situ, no pottery plan could be established. However, most of it fell into the basement rooms from the corresponding upper apartments” (Mellaart 1970c:39). Taking the artefact distribution present at the time of excavation as representative of the use of rooms prior to abandonment, Mellaart concluded for example that “block A was better provided with pottery than block B at the time of the destruction at the end of phase IB” (Mellaart 1970c:40), or took the scarcity of artefacts on the floors of the lower storeys to mean that “when the destruction came it was the upper storeys that saw the full activities of daily life” (Mellaart 1970c:83).
in place, destroyed in the midst of use by a sudden hostile attack. First, few finds or at least few pots were found on the floors. Mellaart explicitly mentions that most pottery was not found in situ, but within the building infill (Mellaart 1970c:39, cited above). This is supported by a photo caption which reads “Room I, with the only pot found in situ in the fortress” (Mellaart 1970c:Plate Lb), showing a crushed, but complete pot (this pot is also shown in Figure 5.5). Second, there were a number of rooms in block A that did not contain any pottery and sometimes no other finds either: “The complex 10–16 was empty of pottery and all other finds [except for room 12, see below]” (Mellaart 1970c:40, also 80). Block B had less pottery overall than block A, but all rooms in block B did feature pottery (Mellaart 1970c:40, 83). And finally, the pottery found in rooms 1–9 and 12 of block A (the other rooms in block A were void of finds, see above) is described as, “most of that was fragmentary in the extreme” (Mellaart 1970c:40). In sum, part of block A was void of finds, and the rooms in block A that did contain pottery contained mostly very fragmentary pottery. In both blocks, the overwhelming majority of the rather large amounts of pottery (Mellaart 1970c:132) was not found on the floors but in the infill. This is not a convincing indication of buildings that collapsed while in full use, but instead, of secondary fill. Also, the speed with which the Level I excavations were conducted (see above) very likely means that the building infill was shovelled out rather quickly, not carefully investigated for subtle hints of formation processes such as layering observable within the infill. Without being able to do a systematic review of the building infill information here, I would therefore caution—as I have done for Level VI and II—the acceptance of the Level I infills as primary in nature by default. Not accepting the Hacılar I building infill as collapse casts doubt, first, on the interpretation of a sudden hostile attack that destroyed and thus preserved Level Ia-b; second, on whether building function can be interpreted based on mobile items found in infill; and third, on Mellaart’s assertion that the collapse proves the existence of upper storeys (see below). The unknown number of individuals found in building infill would then not be victims surprised by the hostile attack on Hacılar I (Mellaart 1970c:76) but burials in building infill (Byrnes and Anvari 2022).
I suggest that the Hacılar I building infills should not by default be seen as a representation of the rooms prior to abandonment because, first, there appears to have been significant post-depositional disturbance in some cases; and second, the identification of building infill as collapse should be questioned. As to the state of preservation: Mellaart himself mentions a number of post-depositional disturbances to Level I, which is not surprising, because “The fortress at Hacılar lies directly beneath the surface” (Mellaart 1959:52). While many parts of Level Ia were well preserved with some walls standing 2 m high (Mellaart 1959:52, 1970c:76), Mellaart describes the Level I remains found in Trenches N, C, and H as quite disturbed (Mellaart 1970c:77, 81). In parts of block B, Level Ia walls were not very high (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 32, Plates XLVII– XLVIII), a circumstance explained by Mellaart with the interpretation that block B was levelled before Ic was built (Mellaart 1970c:86). Further, there were pits, such as a “robber’s hole in room 6” (Mellaart 1970c:Figure 249). The observations indicate that the Level I deposits were not as “sealed” (Mellaart 1970c:86) as Mellaart otherwise portrays them.
Second storeys Mellaart (1970c:76, 83, Figure 31) reconstructed upper storeys for the entire Level I village, and many other architecture researchers agree with this reconstruction (Cutting 2005b:101; Düring 2011c:172; Eslick 1988:22; Schachner 1999:139). One of Mellaart’s reasons for reconstructing second storeys was the discovery of collapse inside of the excavated rooms, but I have above discussed that the building infills were likely not collapse. There is, however, indirect evidence for second storeys: Mellaart (1970c:76) argued that many rooms are too small to be used as living spaces, instead probably functioning as storage rooms for an upper storey. This argument is
The Hacılar publications offer only glimpses of evidence about the Level I building infills, and most of it comes, again, from the section discussing pottery distribution (Mellaart 1970c:39–74). Some pieces of information provided by Mellaart contradict his interpretation that Level I was preserved with the original inventories still 54
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia maybe flawed given that several rooms at ground level could have functioned together as a building. However, the thickness of the walls, the existence of buttresses and possibly also of posts in the larger rooms (Figure 5.5; Mellaart 1970c:76) indicates that the buildings could have supported an upper storey.
East Mound form one site, the West Mound is discussed here in a different section (5.3) because it has a different research history. The larger and higher East Mound (13.5 ha, 21 m height; Farid 2014:91; Hodder 2021a:1) was subject to extensive excavations from 1961–1965 (Mellaart 1967) and from 1993–2017 by the Çatalhöyük Research Project directed by Ian Hodder. After the Neolithic/ Chalcolithic occupation, both mounds at Çatalhöyük were used intermittently as burial grounds during the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods (Moore and Jackson 2014; Moore and Gamble 2022), but there was no major occupation that disturbed the Neolithic or Chalcolithic sequences (Farid 2014:92). Mellaart’s excavations focused on an area in the southwest that was later integrated and extended in the ‘South Area’ excavations of the Hodder project. The Çatalhöyük Research Project opened trenches at several areas on the mound. ‘South’ and ‘North’ (sometimes also referred to as 4040 because it was started as a trench of 40 m × 40 m) are large exposures, and part of the South area is also a deep trench. Smaller areas have been excavated by independently funded projects: the BACH area (Berkely Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük, Tringham and Stevanović 2012; now part of North), TP and TPC areas (Team Poznań Marciniak 2015a, 2015b) and IST area (Istanbul University, Özbaşaran and Duru 2014) have explored occupational layers within the uppermost meters of the mound. Excavations at Çatalhöyük East are ongoing: from 2018–2019 the excavations were directed by Çiler Çilingiroǧlu and Arkadiusz Marciniak, who continued work in some of the established trenches and opened a new trench, the ‘East area’ (Çilingiroǧlu 2020; Çilingiroǧlu et al. 2019). In 2020, excavations continued under the directorship of Ali Umut Türkcan (Arkeolojik Haber 2020).
Mellaart’s reconstruction of the appearance and functioning of the lower and upper storeys is based on the assumption here criticised that the buildings were preserved in their original use states (albeit collapsed). For example, since “the basements were fairly empty except for the contents of the collapsed upper storey” (Mellaart 1975:118, also 1970c:83), Mellaart reconstructs the upper storeys as the main living areas of most buildings (Mellaart 1970c:83). Mellaart’s reconstruction of the nature of the upper storeys (Mellaart 1970c:76, 83–84) is based on his assumption that the materials found in the basements represented the collapsed upper storeys. Based on the mixture of charred wood, ash and pottery, he reconstructed them to be made from wooden walls with a mud cover. Other details, such as columns and verandas, are admittedly conjectural and based on Mellaart’s observations of “Anatolian village architecture” (Mellaart 1970c:84) of the 1950s; they are probably best ignored. Not accepting the building infills as collapse, upper storeys might also have looked different, for example been made from mudbrick. Mellaart (1970c:80–81, Figure 30) reconstructs staircases for some houses, of however which no direct evidence was found. To conclude, while Level I might have had upper storeys, their appearance remains unclear. Unroofed space Within the area of Level I excavated within Trench E, small areas at the edges of the building clusters as well as one between blocks A and B are interpreted by Mellaart as unroofed (courtyard) spaces (Figure 5.5; Mellaart 1970c:Figures 33, 34). It is not mentioned in the publication how these areas were identified as unroofed, and there is only very cursory information available on what characterised the courtyards. The central (17+23) and eastern (21) courtyards each had an oven, both seemingly attached to walls (Mellaart 1970c:77), which however in the case of courtyard 21 was not actually excavated (Figure 5.5). Courtyard 17+23 further had two nearly parallel rows of postholes that are reconstructed by Mellaart (1970c:Figure 30, 1960:94) as fences, but might also have, for example, been the support for a light roof (also note another fence in space 21 reconstructed in Mellaart 1970c:Figure 30 that is not, however, displayed in Figure 5.5 as postholes). In courtyard 9, some stones leaned against a wall that “prevented cattle or pack animals from damaging the brick walls” (Mellaart 1970c:77) or had some other purpose.
5.2.1. The chronology of Çatalhöyük East Mellaart (1964:119, 1966b:167–168) divided the East Mound sequence, which he dug nearly to virgin soil (Bayliss et al. 2015:2) into 15 levels labelled 0–XIII, with Level VI being subdivided into VIa and VIb. The new project has reworked the stratigraphic distinction of East Mound levels and re-assigned buildings to different levels (Farid 2014; Hodder 2014b:Table 1). The equation of new (Hodder) levels with old (Mellaart) levels (Hodder 2014b:Table 1) is therefore an approximate one (Table 5.5). Especially in the well-researched uppermost levels, Mellaart’s level scheme has been entirely abandoned as incongruent with recent observations (Hodder 2014b:2, 2021a:10–11). By the end of his excavations, Mellaart (1964:116–119, 1965a:135, 155, 1966b:167–168) dated the start of the East Mound occupation to “the earlier seventh, if not [...] eighth millennium B.C.” and to have lasted until 5600 BC. This was based upon a total of 13 uncalibrated radiocarbon dates from Levels X–II (Mellaart 1964:116). It appears that at the time of Mellaart’s site monograph publication, more radiocarbon samples were being processed (published in Stuckenrath and Lawn 1969), and Thissen
5.2. Çatalhöyük East The site of Çatalhöyük is distinguished by two separate mounds (Figure 5.7). Although both the West Mound and 55
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
56 Figure 5.7. Map of the two mounds at Çatalhöyük and excavation areas (reprinted with permission from the Çatalhöyük Research Project from: Hodder 2013d:Figure 1.1, created by Camilla Mazzucato).
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia (2002a:304–305) provides a list of a total of 27 dates from the Mellaart project, which however were not available when Mellaart wrote his discussion of East Mound dating (Mellaart 1967:49–53). Thirteen radiocarbon dates were a considerable number at the time, but these dates are riddled with methodological problems by today’s standards (Bayliss et al. 2015:4; Cessford 2005:66–68). Mellaart (1964:117; 1967:50–51) cross-checked the level durations indicated by the radiocarbon dates by comparing them with the number of plaster layers on house walls, which he assumed to have been replastered once per year. Once the necessity of calibrating radiocarbon dates had become known, Mellaart adjusted his dating of the site’s occupation to ca. 7100–6300 BC (Mellaart 1978:13) and through this estimation was interestingly close to what has now been established through more coherent and extensive radiocarbon dating (Table 5.5).
far published, and many more in preparation (Bayliss et al. 2014, 2015; Cessford 2005; Hodder 2014b:Table 1; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015). The large number of radiocarbon dates means that the duration of the site as a whole as well as of individual levels and even individual buildings (e.g. Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015) is much better documented than at other sites discussed in this chapter. The dating of the overall occupation span of the mound, as well as of individual levels, by the Hodder project (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2) is unlikely to shift further, even if the dating of individual buildings and their phases is still in progress. Based on excavated and radiocarbon dated levels, the occupation span of the East Mound was 7100–5950 BC (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2), even if older deposits might exist. The earlier part of the Çatalhöyük East sequence therefore dates to the Early Neolithic. Late Neolithic occupation has been excavated on a large scale in the North area—where nearly all excavated buildings postdate 6500 BC—the TP area, IST, and in the South area starting with Level N (Bayliss et al. 2014:Table 3.2; Hodder 2014b:Table 1).
As part of the Hodder project, an extensive program of radiocarbon dating is still underway with 144 dates so
Table 5.5. The chronology of Çatalhöyük East discussed in the literature
Mellaart Levels
0
Mellaart 1964: 119, 1967:52
5720–5600 BC
Mellaart 1978:13
6300 BC
I II
5750–5720 BC
III
5790–5750 BC
IV
5830–5790 BC
Hodder South Hodder North Levels (Hodder Levels (Hodder 2014b:Table 1, 2014b:Table 1, 2021a:Table 1.2) 2021a:Table 1.2) no occupation
6300–5930 BC
Final
South T, parts of TP and TPC, GDN
North J
6500–6300 BC
Late
South S, parts of TP and TPC
North J
South R
North I
South Q
North H 6700–6500 BC
Middle
7100–6700 BC
Early
virgin soil
virgin soil
5880–5830 BC
South P
North H
VIa
5950–5880 BC
South O
North G
VIb
6050/6070–5950 BC
South N
North G
VII
6200–6050/6070 BC
South M
North F
VIII
6280–6200 BC
South L
unexcavated
IX
6380–6280 BC
South K
X
6500–6380 BC
South J
XI
South I
XII
South H
XIII
South G estimated start of occupation: 7100 BC
Temporal grouping by Çatalhöyük Research Project (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2)
parts of TP and TPC
V
unexcavated estimated start of occupation: early 7th/late 8th millennium
Çatalhöyük Research Project dating (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2)
virgin soil
57
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 5.2.2. The architecture of Çatalhöyük East
area that disturbed the remains of a fragmented house (Mellaart 1965a:136–137). Under the umbrella of the Hodder project, three teams have excavated on the West Mound between 1998 and 2013. The Mellaart trench at the summit of the mound was re-opened and widened by a British-led team in 1998, 2000–2001 and 2003 (Trench 1). In this trench, the new team discovered traces of at least one mudbrick building not recognised in 1961 (Gibson et al. 2000): “According to Mellaart (1965, 135) there were no structures in Trench I, but we discovered walls preserved at different levels in the section and base of the trench, suggesting they had been truncated by the original excavators, who had failed to recognize them” (Last 1998b). Extending Trench 1, next to the old Mellaart trench, they uncovered dense architectural features that they interpreted as parts of one very large building (B.25), which could not be completely uncovered (Gibson and Last 2003a, 2003b:63). In their first season in 1998, this team also excavated a small sounding next to Mellaart’s Trench 2, and two further soundings (Trenches 3–4) at the edges of the mound, all of which did not yield clear architecture and were discontinued after the first season (Last 1998b).
Çatalhöyük is the best researched Late Neolithic site in central Anatolia. This includes for architecture, represented by densely clustered, mostly very well-preserved mudbrick buildings with some unroofed areas interspersed between buildings which for the most part were filled with midden. At Çatalhöyük East, at least 34 buildings are excavated from the Late Neolithic levels (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:Figure 3) in addition to individual rooms not assigned to buildings, as well as several outdoor spaces. At least 200 chapters, reports and articles discuss Late Neolithic architecture at the site (nearly 100 publications that discuss and interpret Çatalhöyük East architecture are listed in Table 7.1, and in addition there are numerous more descriptive chapters and reports), also including research methods not commonly used at other sites in the study region such as detailed studies of building materials (e.g. Love 2013a; Tung 2013), micromorphology of architectural surfaces (e.g. Matthews 2005a; Matthews et al. 2013) and detailed research on unroofed settlement space (e.g. Issavi et al. 2020). Here I will not attempt to give a summary of architecture research as I have done for other sites in this chapter. Chapter 4 already mentioned that the sheer scale of data and research debate available from Çatalhöyük East is overwhelming to the individual researcher who seeks to gain a holistic overview of the built environment. While it might seem odd to skip a summary of the best-researched site here, this is offset by the fact that large parts of Chapters 6 and 8–11 recount evidence from Çatalhöyük East as it is relevant to the research questions of this book. This dominance of Çatalhöyük East in the research landscape of Neolithic Anatolia will be discussed in Chapter 12.
In 2006, four new trenches were opened on the West Mound (Biehl et al. 2006). Trench 8 was positioned at the very western fringe of the mound by a team from Trakya Üniversitesi at Edirne under the direction of Burçin Erdoğu and excavated an area of ca. 10 m × 15 m to a depth of ca. 1.8 m over five seasons between 2006 and 2012. In this trench, two buildings were investigated more or less completely (B.78 and B.94) and sondages cut through their floors to expose parts of two older buildings underneath (Sp.363 under B.78, Sp.481 under B.94; Erdoğu 2009c, 2012).
5.3. Çatalhöyük West
A project directed by Peter Biehl and Eva Rosenstock (University at Buffalo, Freie Universität Berlin) opened Trenches 5, 6 and 7 on the very eastern fringe of the West Mound. Trench 7 was a sondage positioned on the slope of a large modern canal dug into the edge of the mound where virgin soil was reached in 2008, providing an impression of the depth and nature of cultural layers in this part of the mound (Biehl and Rosenstock 2008). Trenches 5 and 6 were intended to expose and investigate architecture on a larger scale (10 m × 10 m each). After the initial season in 2006, work in Trench 6 was discontinued upon removal of the topsoil, as it turned out that the expected prehistoric levels were overlaid and disturbed by a deep stratigraphy of post-Chalcolithic graves, rendering the exposure of the prehistoric deposits more time-consuming that anticipated. Work then focused on Trench 5 (ultimately 14 m × 14 m), which was excavated until 2013. In Trench 5, a cluster of buildings was excavated down to a depth of up to 3.2 m below the preserved wall tops. The outlines of five buildings (B.98, B.105, B.106, B.107, and B.126) were fully defined, but in most buildings, the infill was not completely excavated. Four additional buildings or rooms were partly excavated (B.125, B.127, Sp.447, and Sp.446).
The second mound at Çatalhöyük (> 5 ha, Farid 2014:91) was excavated in much more limited capacity than the well-known Çatalhöyük East. Between 1961 and 2013, eight different trenches were excavated across the mound, but with the exception of the deep Trench 7, these trenches investigated mostly the uppermost building layer. Existing information on the chronology and architecture of the West Mound is therefore focused on the uppermost level of deposits. In all trenches with the exception of Trench 8 (Erdoğu 2007:136), prehistoric remains were disturbed by the Roman to Islamic cemetery that existed on the mound in historic times (Biehl and Rosenstock 2009:475; Gibson and Last 2000, 2001; Last 1998b; Moore and Gamble 2022). Overview of excavation projects and areas Upon starting work at Çatalhöyük in 1961, Mellaart’s team spent a very short season excavating a trench (Trench 1, 20 m × 5 m × 2.15 m) at the summit of the West Mound, where a seemingly unroofed area was excavated. In addition, the team dug a sounding (Trench 2, 10 m × 8 m) on the southern slope of the mound, finding what Mellaart interpreted as an open area, and a midden/pit 58
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia 5.3.1. The chronology of Çatalhöyük West
5.3.2. The architecture of Çatalhöyük West
The dating history of the Çatalhöyük West Mound is more thoroughly recounted elsewhere (Orton et al. 2018; Rosenstock et al. 2022), therefore only a summary is provided here. The dating discussion around the Çatalhöyük West Mound relied on pottery typology (e.g. Mellaart 1965a:13, Mellaart 1978:23; French 1967:Chart 2; Schoop 2005a:129–131, Figure 3.12) until the first radiocarbon dates were published in 2002, derived from a coring (Göktürk et al. 2002). A recent comprehensive model of the dating of the West Mound (Orton et al. 2018), based on all 40 available radiocarbon dates (Table 5.7), as well as cores that documented the depth of deposits, has determined that the West Mound was probably occupied at least ca. 6000–5600 BC (Orton et al. 2018:631, Figure 8). The beginning of the sequence is only documented by a small handful of dates from the bottom of Trench 7, so that the beginning of the West Mound’s occupation is not yet well documented and potentially subject to revision. With West Mound occupation starting at the latest by 6000 BC (Figure 3.3), but possibly earlier, this means that the East and West Mounds were occupied simultaneously for a period of at least 50, possibly as much as 200 years (Table 5.6; Orton et al. 2018:633, 635; Rosenstock et al. 2019).
As indicated in the introduction to this section, West Mound architecture is mostly documented in Trenches 1, 5, and 8—with Trenches 2–4 and 6–7 only featuring fragments of prehistoric architecture. With five extensively and four partly excavated buildings, Trench 5 is the place where West Mound architecture has been most fully investigated. A comprehensive publication of the results from Trenches 5–7 is currently under preparation (Biehl et al. 2022) and includes an extensive account of the architecture (Anvari 2022). For this reason, only a summary—also including results from the other trenches—is given below. Settlement layout and unroofed space Due to the failing of prospection techniques, the settlement layout of the West Mound can only be appraised from the limited excavated areas. Although surface scraping—a technique whereby the uppermost ca. 10 cm of soil are removed to uncover the tops of prehistoric walls—had worked well on the East Mound, using this method on the West Mound (three squares of 10 × 10 m) in 1994 did not reveal well-preserved architecture, likely due to the greater destruction of surface deposits from more extensive agricultural use compared to the East Mound (Gibson et al. 2000; Last 1994, 1998b; Matthews and Hodder 1994; Matthews 1996:99). After not yielding good results on the East Mound (Shell 1996; Strutt et al. 2020), geophysical scanning was not even attempted on the West Mound. Most recently, a detailed digital elevation model (DEM) produced by drone survey has shown linear features on the West Mound surface that could be prehistoric walls (Forte et al. 2019:170–172), but this will need to be verified by excavations.
The radiocarbon dates also indicate that the buildings from different trenches are not contemporary despite each representing the uppermost preserved building layer. Buildings excavated in Trench 5 were used in a time span between 5900 and 5800 BC (Orton et al. 2018:Figure 5). B.25 in Trench 1 could have started a little earlier (dates from the building are between 6000–5800 BC; Orton et al. 2018:Figure 4). The architecture excavated in both trenches therefore dates to a relatively narrow window of time between 6000 and 5800 BC. No radiocarbon dates are available from Trench 8, the third West Mound trench that revealed architecture.
Trenches 5 and 8, where several buildings each were excavated, show that Çatalhöyük West had a densely
Table 5.6. The chronology of Çatalhöyük West discussed in the literature Mellaart 1965a:135– 136, 155
Mellaart 1978:23
French (1967:Chart 2)
Thissen 2002a:324
Schoop 2005a: Figure 3.12
Cessford 2005:77, 95, Figure 4.10
Orton et al. 2018:631, Figure 8
available radiocarbon dates from a core plot between 6000 and 5500 BC
around 5600 BC
surface pottery post-4900 BC end of West Mound occupation
4900 BC
5650 BC
4600 BC
5600 BC
5500 BC
start of West Mound occupation
5600 BC
6300 BC
4800 BC
6000 BC
5700 BC
no hiatus
no hiatus
hiatus of 600 years
hiatus of 100–200 years
hiatus of 500 years
brief hiatus or no hiatus
overlap
5600 BC
6300 BC
5600 BC
6200 BC or 6100 BC
6200 BC
6200 BC
from Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015: 5950 BC
end of East Mound
59
between 6100–6000 BC
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.7. Radiocarbon dates from Çatalhöyük West Excavation area and sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (95.4%, 2σ) given by Orton et al. 2018: Suppl2, Suppl3
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
6940±80
5896–5735
5986–5707 (93.0%)
7040±40
5983–5896
6015–5833 (95.4%)
7065±40
6020–5849
6021–5787 (90.3%)
OxA-11751
7070±45
6026–5846
6028–5841 (95.4%)
OxA-11754
6945±39
5967–5734
5911–5732 (92.4%)
OxA-11755
7049±39
6008–5846
6014–5841 (95.4%)
OxA-11756
6937±38
5901–5729
5899–5728 (93.7%)
OxA-11757
7103±39
6053–5901
6062–5896 (95.4%)
OxA-11758
7028±37
6001–5838
5993–5827 (93.6%)
OxA-11759
7028±39
6002–5815
5994–5802 (95.4%)
OxA-11773
6915±34
5878–5728
5850–5723 (87.9%)
OxA-11774
6969±36
5878–5728
5917–5746 (86.7%)
OxA-12089
6990±40
5984–5771
5926–5755 (77.3%)
OxA-11760
6904±39
5879–5719
5887–5717 (95.4%)
OxA-11761
6730±40
5718–5564
5720–5614 (82.7%)
OxA-11762
6662±38
5644–5517
5656–5518 (91.5%)
OxA-11763
6626±36
5625–5492
5624–5482 (95.4%)
OxA-11764
6707±38
5707–5557
5716–5556 (95.4%)
6950±36
5967–5738
5908–5736 (92.3%)
OxA-27663
6918±38
5886–5726
5889–5723 (95.4%)
OxA-27664
6941±37
5963–5732
5900–5730 (93.4%)
OxA-27665
6966±37
5975–5747
5917–5744 (87.5%)
OxA-27666
6992±36
5983–5781
5927–5769 (76.2%)
OxA-27667
7059±37
6014–5850
6017–5879 (90.2%)
OxA-27744
6986±36
5982–5767
5924–5756 (79.5%)
OxA-29613
6912±36
5877–5726
5851–5721 (87.6%)
OxA-29614
6944±36
5963–5734
5906–5731 (93.0%)
OxA-29615
7007±36
5987–5805
5985–5793 (95.4%)
7160±40
6092–5927
6079–5981 (90.5%)
6960±40
5892–5784
5915–5739 (88.8%)
Poz-24050
6990±40
5975–5816
5926–5755 (77.3%)
Poz-24051
5910±80
4900–4695
4994–4591 (94.7%)
6630±40
5617–5537
5625–5482 (95.4%)
6782±34
5726–5632
5726–5629 (95.4%)
6877±32
5843–5679
5841–5709 (92.1%)
7205±36
6207–6004
6059–5989 (84.6%)
7043±36
6002–5846
6008–5841 (95.4%)
OxA-27670
7074±36
6020–5888
6023–5883 (93.3%)
OxA-27671
7013±40
5991–5797
5989–5790 (95.4%)
OxA-27672
7247±36
6216–6033
6221–6028 (95.4%)
Sample number
Core (Cessford 2005:Table 4.13; Göktürk et al. 2002)
PL-980524A
Trench 1 (Higham et al. 2007, Orton et al. 2018:Suppl3)
OxA-11750
Trench 2 (Higham et al. 2007, Orton et al. 2018:Suppl3)
Trench 5 (Orton et al. 2018:Suppl3)
Trench 7 (Biehl et al. 2012a:Table 1, Orton et al. 2018:Suppl2, Suppl3)
Sample material charcoal
AA-27981
OxA-27662
Poz-24048 Poz-24049
charred seeds
articulated bones
disarticulated bones
Poz-24052 SUERC-59349
articulated bones
SUERC-59350 OxA-27668 OxA-27669
disarticulated bones
clustered layout. In both Trench 1 and Trench 8, small parts of unroofed midden spaces near buildings were identified, attesting that the dense building cluster characteristic of the West Mound was occasionally interrupted by middens. A very small corner of a probable external, ashy midden was uncovered next to B.25 (Figure 5.8). In Trench 8, in a
narrow area excavated west of B.78, were midden deposits characterised by finely layered deposits of ash, charcoal, high quantities of animal bones, obsidian and pottery; and pits that were cut into these layers and then also filled with refuse (Erdoğu 2007:138). South of Building B.78 and B.94, there was another unroofed space interpreted by the 60
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
Figure 5.8. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures in Trench 1 (reprinted with permission from the Çatalhöyük Research Project from: Gibson et al. 2003b:Figure 41).
excavators as a midden. It was cursorily excavated in the 2009 and 2010 seasons, and contained “an oval oven and a deposit containing lots of burnt construction materials with EC II pottery as well as objects such a stone vessel with a carved crayfish figure, a spondylus bracelet and two vessels with painted human figures […]. Several phases of ashy midden deposition have been identified” (Erdoğu 2010:51). Other finds from the area were a stone bowl and animal bones. Next to the oven was a short and low wall feature (Erdoğu 2009c:51). No unbuilt spaces were documented in Trench 5. However, given that Trench 5 buildings were intermittently abandoned and used for middening (see below), individual buildings could have functioned like unroofed areas at times.
2012:104) and B.98 in Trench 5 a bench and several shallow basins. B.25 in Trench 1 presents a very different picture (Figure 5.8): it comprises a main room, Sp.194, surrounded by several very small spaces (according to the excavators’ interpretation, B.25, includes all spaces except Sp.218). The main room featured a hearth or oven, and bins were found in a side room (Gibson and Last 2003a, 2003b; Last and Gibson 2022). Given that B.25 contains so many individual wall features (Figure 5.8) and that many of the rooms feature several subsequent floor levels horizontally separated by infill (Last and Gibson 2022), there may be some doubt as to whether the different elements of ‘B.25’ really constitute one building, though determining this requires more in-depth analysis. The lack of entryways to the buildings on ground level in Trenches 5 and 8 and many of the spaces in Trench 1, as well as the tight clustering of the buildings or rooms, means that they must have been entered from the roof via ladders, as was the case on the East Mound.
Buildings All West Mound buildings were constructed with earth. Trench 5 and Trench 8 feature buildings with similar layouts (Figures 5.9, 5.10): buildings are rectangular, either roughly square or with an elongated layout. All buildings featured internal buttresses that strongly compartmentalise the internal space (Anvari 2022; Anvari et al. 2017; Erdoǧu 2012, 2022). Internal installations were scarce in the Trench 5 and Trench 8 buildings: B.78 and B.94 in Trench 8 featured benches (Figure 5.10; Erdoğu 2008:107,
In some buildings, smaller modifications throughout their use period were documented, such as replastering of walls and floors (B.78, Erdoğu 2008:105) or the addition of small wall features that blocked or constricted doorways (B.105, B.106 in Trench 5, Figure 5.9; B.94 in Trench 8, Figure 5.10). As already mentioned, several spaces in 61
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.9. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures in Trench 5 (reprinted with permission from the Çatalhöyük Research Project from: Biehl and Rosenstock 2013:Figure 5.1, created by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
Trench 1 featured different floor levels, in some cases associated with changes in installations as well (Last and Gibson 2022). For the buildings in Trench 5, especially the thoroughly investigated B.98, B.105, B.106 and B.107 and B.126, we documented eventful building biographies whereby buildings were intermittently abandoned and used for middening and then reoccupied. Two burials of neonates were excavated from the midden-infill of B.105, the only prehistoric burials documented on the West Mound (Byrnes and Anvari 2022).
citing a range of archaeological and ethnographic evidence that associate the colour read with violence and protection. The Trench 8 excavators interpret B.78 as a ritual building (Erdoğu and Ulubey 2011; Erdoğu 2022). Since there is no evidence to support this other than the red colour of the upper storey especially, this interpretation cannot be seen as secure: since this is the only preserved upper storey so far documented on the West Mound, it is not possible to say whether it was different from the upper storeys of the other excavated buildings, which were not preserved (see below).
All buildings are conceptualised by the excavators as houses (Trench 1: Gibson and Last 2003a:13) with the exception of B.78 in Trench 8. Erdoğu (2009a:139–142, 2009b:137–138, Erdoğu and Ulubey 2011) has suggested that the red paint on the floors of both storeys as well as the upper storey walls in B.78 represent ritual elaboration,
Second storeys? The buildings on the West Mound were probably twostoried, as indicated by both direct and indirect evidence. Direct evidence for an upper storey was found in B.78 in 62
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
Figure 5.10. Çatalhöyük West: plan of excavated structures Trench 8 (reprinted with permission from the Çatalhöyük Research Project from: Erdoğu 2012:Figure 6.2).
Trench 8, where part of an upper storey was found, with its ceiling/floor collapsed into the ground floor. The upper storey of B.78 did not have buttresses, and therefore a more open floor plan as compared to the ground floor (Erdoğu 2008, 2009a:139, 2009c, 2022). There is further indirect evidence for upper storeys in the Trench 5 and 8 buildings: The excavated parts are heavily compartmentalised by buttresses, which restrict the internal spaces. They also lack fire installations, presumably an important feature in houses. The thick walls and buttresses could easily have supported an upper storey. While this is only indirect evidence for an upper storey, the preserved Trench 5 and 8 buildings should probably be reconstructed as the ground floors, having mostly storage function while the missing upper storeys were used as living areas (Biehl et al. 2012a:55, Düring 2011c:134). Although B.25 had a different layout, the excavators interpret this building as two-storied also because the many small spaces that
formed part of it could not otherwise have been entered from Sp.194 (Gibson and Last 2003b:63). 5.4. Canhasan I Canhasan is located close to the modern town of Karaman on the Konya plain, about 75 km southeast of Çatalhöyük on the other side of the ancient volcano Karadağ. The site is situated on the bank of a former river (Düring 2006:260). Two of the three mounds at Canhasan were excavated by David French from the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara between 1961 and 1969. Canhasan I (excavated 1961–1967) is the largest of them and was not damaged by agriculture before the excavation in the 1960s; it therefore was the main focus of excavation (French 1998:1). Canhasan III, an Early Neolithic site, was excavated subsequently, while Canhasan II, of EBA date, was never excavated. On the ca. 9 ha mound of Canhasan I (Düring 63
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 2006:260), French’s team excavated an area (of 1080 m², Düring 2006:260; or 650 m2, French 1998:27; or 1175 m², Schoop 2005a:110) at the centre of the mound.
French’s chronology scheme very closely (Table 5.8). In the 2010 monograph, French offered a review of the evidence, taking into account comments made by other researchers. Importantly, he also provided additional information on the context of the radiocarbon and wigglematch samples from Layer 2 (French 2010:168–169).
The Canhasan I excavations have been comprehensively published in a series of annual reports and three final monographs on architecture and stratigraphy (French 1998), pottery (French 2005) and small finds (French 2010). French’s excavation style has been described as more thorough and rigorous than many others of the time, and his style of reporting described as clear, also openly addressing issues that were difficult or unclear during excavation (Blaylock 2020:34; Düring 2006:261; Mitchell 2017:iv, 2020:28; Steadman 2000b; Vandeput 2020:48; Wright 2002). He also provides the rare case of a description and discussion of the excavation methodology (French 1998:8–14). Some researchers have found French’s presentation of the architecture, especially his plans, too schematic (i.e. not providing an accurate visual impression of the state that the features were found in) and not rich enough in detail (Steadman 2002b:76; Wright 2002:609). Also, as a rule French was rather careful with any reconstructions of social life at the site (French 1998:v; Steadman 2002b:76; also documented through the content analysis in Chapters 8–11), so that the existing social interpretations of architecture at Canhasan I are provided mostly by others.
Layers 7–3 Until recently, no radiocarbon dates were available from the lower levels and their dating relied on pottery (Table 5.9). French (1967:176, 1998:67–69, 2010:169) dated Layers 7–4 as Late Neolithic and Layer 3 as Early Chalcolithic. A Late Neolithic date for Layer 5 was confirmed by three new radiocarbon dates published by Fairbairn et al. (2020:Table 1, 350–351). The dated materials were burnt grain found in primary position in storage bins, i.e. short-lived samples from a secure context. Fairbairn et al.’s (2020:352–353, Figure 7) modelling of the radiocarbon dates from Layers 5 and 2 dates Layer 5 to between ca. 6080–5840 BC. Based on the thickness and complexity of deposits under Layer 5 as well as lithic and pottery evidence, Fairbairn et al. estimate the start of occupation at Canhasan I around 6200 BC (Fairbairn et al. 2020:354–355). It must be taken into account that all Layer 5 samples were from one single building (Fairbairn et al. 2020:351). The authors themselves estimate that Layer 5 might in fact have had a longer duration than those evidenced by the available radiocarbon dates (Fairbairn et al. 2020:353). Since the possible durations for Layers 5 and 2 indicated by Fairbairn et al.’s (2020) radiocarbon modelling overlap, but stratigraphically there are two more layers (Layers 4–3) between them, it indeed seems likely that the available radiocarbon dates from Level 5 are not fully representative of its duration. At present, it therefore appears best to date Levels 7–3 together to between the estimated 6200 BC start of the site and the start of the better-dated Level 2 in probably ca. 5950 BC (see below), without attempting to date any of these layers individually (Table 5.10, Figure 3.3).
5.4.1. The chronology of Canhasan I Excavations reached 10.5 m deep, halting at the water table, with French estimating another 1 m of unexcavated cultural layers above virgin soil (French 1998:20). Nine building levels (Layers 1–7) were defined within the excavated sequence of Canhasan I (French 1998:69). French (1998:67) assumed that the unexcavated lowest deposits represented a series of occupations from the Early Neolithic, but there is of course no evidence for that. Layers 7–6 were only reached in a very small test trench and Layers 5–3 were also not investigated in detail. Finally, ephemeral traces of later periods were found, dating from the Iron Age to Byzantine period (French 1998:69).
Layer 2
In the penultimate preliminary report of the Canhasan I excavation, French (1967:Chart 2) offers an absolute chronology of Canhasan based on uncalibrated (and hence too young) radiocarbon dates from Layer 2 as well as pottery evidence (French 1967:Chart 1; see also French 1966:121 for a chronology prior to the 14C results). In the 1998 monograph on architecture, French refrained from any mention of absolute dates and assigned levels only to a period (French 1998:67–69). To avoid confusion (French 1998:19), the attribution of layers to certain periods as published in 1998 (and for the most part also published in French 2010:169) remained the same as in 1967, and is thus at odds with the (calibrated) radiocarbon dates, e.g. with the ‘Middle Chalcolithic’ dating to between 6000– 5500 BC (Table 5.8) and thus to the Early Chalcolithic as defined by most central Anatolian archaeologists (3.2.1). Similarly, Schoop (2005a:110–115, App.1) follows
Nine radiocarbon dates on charcoal and four wiggle-match dates are available from Layer 2 (Table 5.9). Wigglematching is a combination of dendrochronological with radiocarbon dating (French 2010:169; Galimberti et al. 2004; Kuniholm and Newton 2002). Fairbairn et al. (2020:346–347, 353) suggest that the wiggle-match dates should be ignored or treated with caution because they are up to 1000 years later than the other, purely radiocarbon dates (Table 5.9). While I agree with this, the assumption might be based on a misreading of the very little information available on the nature of the dated material: According to French, the four wiggle-match dates were done on two pieces of charcoal “from fallen, burnt debris (principally mud-brick; some patterned wall-plaster) in the NW room (Trench R24c) of Structure 10” (French 2010:169). Fairbairn et al. (2020:352–353) read the designation “tree 1/ 2” (Thissen 2002a:303; also French 64
Table 5.8. The chronology of Canhasan I discussed in the literature French 1966:113, 115, 1967:175
Absolute dates (uncalibrated) from French 1967:Chart 2
Surface finds Layer 1
French 1998:67– 69
Thissen 2000, 2002a:324, 326–327
Schoop 2005a:Table 3.4, Figure 3.12, Appendix 1
French 2010:169
Düring 2011c:139–140, 245
Fairbairn et al. 2020:353–355
Iron Age to Byzantine ca. 4000 BC
Late Chalcolithic
Middle Chalcolithic, 5300–5100 BC
Late Chalcolithic
Late Chalcolithic: either 5250– 5100 BC or 4th millennium
Middle Chalcolithic
not mentioned
hiatus
hiatus
hiatus
hiatus
hiatus
hiatus
hiatus
not mentioned
Layer 2a
Middle Chalcolithic
5000–4400 BC
Middle Chalcolithic
(Layers 7–2 together are dated 6000–5600 BC)
5500-ca.5250 BC
Middle Chalcolithic
Early Chalcolithic
end: 5760–5455 cal BC
Layer 2b
transitional Early-Middle Chalcolithic
transitional Early-Middle Chalcolithic
5730–5660 BC
5750–5000 BC
Early Chalcolithic 5300–5100 BC
Layer 3
–
Early Chalcolithic
6000–5750? BC
Early Chalcolithic 6000–5600 BC
Layer 4
Upper Neolithic
(Layers 7–2 together are dated 6000–5600 BC)
pre-6000 BC
Neolithic
5400–5000 BC
Late Neolithic
Layer 5
start: 5950–5635 cal BC
Late Neolithic, 2nd half of the 7th millennium
end 59955840 BC start 6080–5915 cal BC
Layer 6 Layer 7 unexcavated
Early Neolithic
start of occupation maybe around 6200 BC
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
65
Late Chalcolithic
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.9. Radiocarbon dates and wiggle-match dates from Canhasan I. Information from Fairbairn et al. 2020:Table 1, Table S2, Table S4; Thissen 2002a:303
Level
Sample number
Sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (95.4%, 2σ) given by Fairbairn et al. 2020:Table S2, Table S4
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
6980±79
6005–5725
6010–5723 (95.4%)
Layer 2a
P-789 (might be 2b)
Layer 2b
BM-151
6880±150
6046–5531
6030–5528 (94.8%)
BM-153
7190±150
6382–5773
6383–5772 (95.4%)
P-790
6830±78
5894–5575
5890–5618 (93.9%)
P-791
6755±80
5807–5521
5801–5521 (94.4%)
P-792
6670±76
5708–5485
5713–5479 (95.4%)
P-793
6254±78
5461–5001
5375–5001 (95.3%)
P-794
7033±89
6056–5736
6060–5737 (95.4%)
P-795
6832±78
5895–5575
5890–5619 (94.1%)
AA-41168 (wiggle-match)
7279±56
(1σ) 6220–6070
6236–6026 (95.4%)
AA-41169 (wiggle-match)
7145±45
(1σ) 6055–5985
6081–5971 (83.2%)
AA-41170 (wiggle-match)
7853±36
(1σ) 6750–6630
6825–6594 (95.4%)
AA-41171 (wiggle-match)
7695±33
(1σ) 6590–6470
6598–6458 (95.4%)
Layer 5
charcoal
Wk43418
charred pea
7053±20
6000–5890
5991–5886 (94.1%)
Wk43419
charred grain and charred pea
7095±20
6020–5910
6023–5912 (95.4%)
Wk43249
charred pea
7070±23
6010–5900
6012–5894 (95.4%)
2010:169) attached to the samples to mean that they are from timbers, i.e. large pieces of wood—presumably used as building material—which are more likely to be recycled over a long time period and therefore not date congruently with their finds contexts (old wood effect). However, there is actually nothing in French’s description that indicates that the samples are from substantial pieces of wood.
the building infill is not collapse from the building itself, but post-dates the building by an unknown amount of time (5.4.2). This means that dates from the infill can give only a terminus ante quem for Structure 3. And not least, there might be quality issues with the dates themselves since dates done on charcoal could always be subject to the old wood effect (3.2.3). One date in particular, P-793, should be dismissed. It is considerably younger than the other dates from Structure 3. Thissen (2002a:303, 326) suggested it might be intrusive from a later deposit, e.g. Layer 1; French (2010:169) commented that there was no evidence to suggest this. Instead, the error in P-793 might be caused by the fact that this sample was too small to deliver a reliable determination (Stuckenrath and Ralph 1965:193). Because of this, Fairbairn et al. (2020:350– 351) did not include P-793 in their model.
Eight of the nine radiocarbon samples from Layer 2 were done on charcoal found in the infill of Structure 3 belonging to Layer 2B (French 2010:169; Stuckenrath and Ralph 1965:169; also see Fairbairn et al. 2020:346, Table S2). Although eight dates might seem an adequate evidence base for dating Layer 2B, there are several issues. First, if ignoring the wiggle-match samples from Structure 10, the only radiocarbon-dated building in Level 2 is Structure 3. In other words: the 14C dates do not actually date Layer 2 as a whole, they date the infill of one particular building— and there is clear evidence that not all buildings were contemporary (5.4.2). Second, there is only an indirect stratigraphic connection between the dated samples and Structure 3. Fairbairn et al. (2020:346) describe the Structure 3 samples as being from “the collapse of a burnt roof”, but this is again a slightly incorrect interpretation of French’s description of the context and their misreading suggests a much clearer in situ situation than was actually the case. French generally interpreted building infill as the collapse of the building itself, potentially an upper storey. However, it would be most prudent to assume that
There is one further date, P-789, whose attribution to either Layer 2A or 2B has been unclear in the literature. P-789 was first published as belonging to Layer 2A (French 1967:Chart 2; Stuckenrath and Ralph 1965:193) but in 2010, French wrote that “The sample P-789 should be assigned to Layer 2B, not layer 2A” (French 2010:169). The reason for this is not explained, but might be due to a re-assignation, sometime between 1967 and 2010, of deposits between the sublevels of Layer 2. The type of context P-789 was found in is unclear. French’s statement (2010:169) that “All the samples submitted to the BM and Pennsylvania laboratories were collected 66
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia from Structure 3, BM-153 and 151 from the East Room (in 1961) and P-790–795 from the West Room (in 1962)” seems to imply that P-789 might have been from Structure 3, but its position in Structure 3 is not indicated. The description of P-789 context published by Stuckenrath and Ralph (1965:193) is “Charcoal from re-occupation level overlying Early Chalcolithic houses”. This seems to indicate that P-789 was not actually found in a building, but a deposit located outside of buildings; a deposit that apparently could not be securely attributed to a sublevel of Layer 2. Although Layer 2A should be younger than 2B, P-789 is older than several of the 2B dates (Fairbairn et al. 2020:246; Thissen 2002:327). Since a review of the stratigraphic evidence shows that Layers 2B and 2A probably represent modifications within a continuously used built environment rather than two distinct levels (5.4.2), determining to which level P-789 belonged might not be so important and it could be included with the other eight samples from Layer 2, although it seems preferable not to use P-789 because of its unclear context.
Table 5.10. The chronology of Canhasan I used in this book Level Layer 1
Date Middle Chalcolithic hiatus
Layer 2
sometime between 5950–5455 BC
Layer 3
between 6200–5950 BC
Layer 4 Layer 5 Layer 6 Layer 7 unexcavated
start of occupation around 6200 BC
In 2010, French (2010:168–169) offered a re-discussion of the Layer 1 dating and offers two different possibilities. The one that seems to be preferred by him is Thissen’s suggestion of dating Layer 1 to 5250–5100 BC (note that Thissen 2002a:324 actually indicated 5300–5100 BC), i.e. to the Middle Chalcolithic as defined in this book, although French still referred to it as Late Chalcolithic. His other suggestion that “The orthodox(?) dating of the Konya Plain Late Chalcolithic would place Canhasan Layer 1 in the Fourth Millennium” (French 2010:169) appears to be an attempt to combine his ‘Late Chalcolithic’ label with the periodisation schemes used by most other researchers, which place the Late Chalcolithic in the 4th millennium (3.2.1). All these suggestions are essentially unsatisfactory since it cannot be assumed that Canhasan needed to share pottery traditions from the Aegean, Mersin or even Cappadocia. A better way to date the Layer 1 pottery would be to identify Konya plain-specific MC or LC wares at the site, but since Canhasan is the only excavated site from either the MC or the LC (see 6.4, 6.5), there is no local comparative pottery from stratified contexts available from these time periods. Since Schoop (2005a:140–141, 148, 2011b:165) discusses at length the difficulties of relating the Canhasan pottery sequence to that of Mersin, the best option currently seems to be following Düring’s and Thissen’s suggestion of a Middle Chalcolithic date of Canhasan Layer 1 (Table 5.10).
Fairbairn et al. (2020:Figure 7) decided to use P-789 in their model and to provide a dating for a combined Layer 2, not the sublayers 2B and 2A. Their model dates Layer 2 to between 5950–5455 BC (Fairbairn et al. 2020:353, Figure 7). It is likely that Layer 2 did not actually last the entire 500 years within this time span, however. But in any case, Layer 2 dates firmly to the Early Chalcolithic as defined in this book (6000–5500 BC). French (1967:175) had originally dated Layer 2A to the Middle Chalcolithic and 2B as ‘transitional’ between Early and Middle Chalcolithic. In 2010, he continued to date 2A to the Middle Chalcolithic but designated 2B as Early Chalcolithic (French 2010:169). The attributions were based on comparisons of pottery to other sites that had been excavated by the late 1960s (French 1967:175) and can now safely be ignored. Layer 1 The dating of Canhasan I Layer 1 is based on pottery. Layer 1 featured red and black burnished wares similar to wares that were dated Late Chalcolithic by Mellaart (1963d:199) during his surveys of the Konya plain based on similarities with Mersin pottery, and accordingly also by French (1963:37, 1998:69, 2005:15) at Canhasan. Newer research has redated Layer 1 to the Middle Chalcolithic. Thissen (2000:91–95 cited in Düring 2011c:245; Thissen 2002a:324) uses ceramic parallels with the Aegean region to date Layer 1 to 5300–5100 BC, i.e. the beginning of the Middle Chalcolithic, whereas Düring (2011c:245) argues that the ceramic wares are so different from Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası that the three sites cannot be contemporary and Canhasan I Layer 1 must post-date the Cappadocian sites, e.g. post-date 4800 BC, and is thus late Middle Chalcolithic. Schoop (2005a:140–141, 148, Table 3.4, 2011b:165), however, questions an MC dating of Layer 1 because of missing parallels with the contemporary Mersin-Yumuktepe assemblage and instead sides with French in dating Layer 1 to the Late Chalcolithic.
5.4.2. The architecture of Canhasan I Layer 2 Overview of levels and architecture Of the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic levels, Layers 7–6 were only reached in a very small test trench of 2 m × 3 m (Düring 2011c:140). No more than one wall each was uncovered from these two levels (French 1998:20–22). Of Layers 5–3, parts of densely clustered built structures were excavated in smaller areas of between 4 m × 4 m and 10 m × 10 m, but no complete buildings were uncovered (French 1998:22–26). Layer 2 yielded the most architectural evidence (Figure 5.11). It was uncovered in a relatively large area (between 748 m² and 840 m², Düring 2006:261, 271; or 650 m², French 1998:27) and it was very well 67
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia preserved with walls often preserved to heights of 3 m or more (Düring 2006:Table 8.3; French 1998:27, Plates 5.2, 7.1). Their good preservation was probably due to the fact that many Layer 2B buildings were burnt (French 1998:27, Düring 2006:272). A relatively clear break in construction activity, marked by deposits without built remains, that in many areas separate Layer 2 buildings from the Middle or Late Chalcolithic Layer 1 (French 1998:50, 65, 67, Figures 36, 49). Layer 1 was directly under the mound surface and was uncovered on a large scale, but had partially been destroyed by modern pits of which some also reached Layer 2 (e.g. French 1998:Figures 27, 28, 34). The following discussion will focus on Layer 2, since only fragments of Layers 7–3 were excavated. I will follow the convention used by Düring for referring to individual buildings; he shortened French’s terminology (e.g. “Layer 2B Structure 10”, French 1998:68) to ‘structure / building 2B.2, 2A.5’ (e.g. Düring 2006:264, 265).
Reasons given by French (1998:42, 46–47) for separating the built remains into two different levels are differences in construction techniques: some 2A structures have smaller mudbricks than 2B structures, 2A walls are less regular and there are some differences in the way bricks are assembled in walls. He however also stressed elements of continuity among the architecture of Layers 2B and 2A (French 1998:42, 46). However, the subdivision of Layer 2 into 2A and 2B really had its origins in pottery styles, with the two layers featuring what French from the start of excavations considered to be different pottery styles or stages, 2A representing a more developed form of 2B pottery (French 1962:32, 34; also Düring 2006:262). This perception of a clear difference in pottery between 2B and 2A was also maintained by French after review of the evidence during preparation of the final monographs (French 1998:69, 2005, 2010:169), mentioning in particular the “two-colour patterned pottery” of Layer 2A as a main difference (French 2005:vi, also French 2010:168; Schoop 2005a:113–115, 127–131 generally agrees with French’s reconstruction of pottery development at Canhasan I, but bases this opinion only on the preliminary reports available at the time of writing). During the first seasons, deposits containing 2A pottery were found partly inside 2B structures but mostly in deposits overlaying 2B structures (French 1962:29–30, 1963:30, 1998:19, 43). The team did not actually identify buildings belonging to the 2A pottery until the two last excavation seasons in 1966 and 1967, when French reassigned four buildings to 2A that had originally been assigned to 2B (Düring 2006:262, 2011c:141; French 1966:115, 1967:169, 1998:27, 42–43, 46). The reasons for re-assigning these buildings to Layer 2A were not discussed extensively, but besides stratigraphic considerations, a main reason appears to have been that the buildings contained only or mainly 2A pottery (e.g. in the case of 2A.2 and 2A.5, French 1967:169, 1998:46, 48).
Development of the settlement French (1998) separated Layer 2 into two main subphases 2B and 2A. In contrast to the very well preserved Level 2B, the built remains of Layer 2A were, for the most part, very poorly preserved and difficult to decipher (Figure 5.11; Düring 2006:273; French 1963:30, 1965:89–90, 1998:43), likely owing to being sometimes found directly under the mound surface (French 1998:Figures 35.1, 35.2) and/or having been subject to erosion during the centuries of settlement interruption between Layers 2 and 1 (5.4.1). “Scattered patches of Layer 2A occupation occurred in almost all of the squares (excavated in 1961 and 1962)” (French 1998:43) and at the end of the excavations, 2A consisted of six partly excavated buildings as well as many deposits not connected to buildings. French (1998:50, 65, Figure 23) described 2A as an occupation post-dating 2B. In his reconstruction (French 1998:42–43, 46, 50, 65; Düring 2006:262–263), Layer 2A buildings were erected onto or next to 2B buildings (‘insertion’), sometimes following the layout of the 2B walls very closely. In some cases, 2B buildings were partly or entirely removed (‘terracing’) prior to the erection of 2A building. ‘Terracing’ removed either the upper parts of 2B building walls, for example in the case of 2B.1, 2B.4 and 2B.10 (French 1998:31, 42, 46); or entire buildings, e.g. French (1998:42, 46, 49) reconstructed that in the northwest of the excavation area, where no Layer 2B buildings were identified (French 1998:Figure 11), Layer 2B had been completely removed before the construction of Layer 2A. Since no remains of these older buildings were found, French posited that they were completely removed, resulting in no direct evidence for this reconstruction, which appears to have been entirely based on the fact that buildings containing what French categorised as Layer 2A pottery were found next to and on the same level as buildings with Layer 2B pottery (see below). The structures assigned to 2A are at the edges of the excavated area while the central area did not contain any 2A buildings and is therefore reconstructed by French (1998:50, 65, Figure 23) as having been an open, unroofed area within the 2A settlement.
Düring (2006:262–264, 2011c:141–142, 146) suggested a different reconstruction of the settlement development by portraying Canhasan as an organically growing village, within which individual buildings were built, modified and abandoned on individual timelines. In the light of evidence of walls from Layer 4–2 having been built directly onto walls from the preceding layer (Düring 2006:271; French 1998:65, 66, Figures 41, 42, 43), this organic development was probably a characteristic of Canhasan I in general but most evidence is available from Layer 2. In Düring’s reconstruction, with which I agree, the built remains from Layer 2A represent modifications within a continuously used and adjusted built environment. Whether some Layer 2 buildings really contained pottery different from other buildings (‘2A, 2B’) cannot be decided here; but in my view, stratigraphic evidence supersedes pottery evidence. The fact that some buildings and deposits contained different pottery is not sufficient for distinguishing a new occupational phase if stratigraphic evidence in fact does not support such a clear division. There are a number of arguments, based on stratigraphic evidence, for reconstructing Layer 2 as a continuously and organically changing built environment. 68
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
Figure 5.11. Canhasan I: plan of excavated structures in Layers 2A and 2B (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 8.2)7.
First, French himself had difficulties clearly defining the nature of the transition between 2B and 2A, as pointed out by Düring (2006:263, 2011c:142). According to French (1998:65), a clear understanding of the nature of the transition is hindered by the fact that the formation
processes of ‘insertion’ and ‘terracing’ were only recognised after most of the excavation of Layer 2 had been completed. At one point, the transition between 2B and 2A is described by French (1998:65) as “not abrupt”, i.e. gradual. Although there is no real discussion of the nature of this gradual change, French (1998:67) indicates that in the early stages of Layer 2A, ‘insertion’ meant in essence a continuation of Layer 2B buildings and only in the later stages were there more substantial changes to the settlement configuration. However, his interpretation
reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 7
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.12. Canhasan I: Harris Matrix of buildings in Layer 2 (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 8.1)8.
that all of Level 2B was destroyed in one fire event, thus prompting the re-building in 2A (French 1998:38, 68, 69), does in fact indicate a concerted end to the Layer 2B village and is thus at least partly in contradiction to the ‘gradual’ transition. French’s difficulties of defining the 2A-2B transition indicate that alternative interpretations are possible.
Düring (2006:263–264) saw evidence for a sequence of construction events in the fact that some buildings took irregular form in order to fit near pre-existing neighbouring buildings, and provided a Harris matrix summarising the development of the village over Layers 3 and 2 (Figure 5.12). Also, buildings of 2B had different floor heights, varying up to 80 cm between neighbouring buildings. Buildings 2B.3 and 2B.10, which are in fact relatively close together, separated only by 2B.2, have a difference in floor levels of 2.1 or 2.2 m (Düring 2006:278; French 1998:27). From the difference in floor levels, Düring (2006:278) reconstructs a terrace-like settlement layout with roofs on different levels. The most likely explanation for these different floor heights in 2B is that Canhasan 7–2 was an organically developing village (i.e. organically growing upwards), and that the less well-researched Layers 7–3 had already created a mound with relief and terraces before Layer 2B was built. This was actually indicated by French himself who attributes the difference in the 2B floor levels to the configuration of underlying Layer 3 (French 1998:27). And the 2B buildings were also not abandoned at the same time: French (1998:32, 2010:169) himself reconstructs that Structure 2 was abandoned and filled in because it had become instable and was compromising the stability of nearby Structure 10, thereby essentially stating that Structure 10 was still in use when Structure 2 was abandoned.
Second, section drawings reveal that the majority of 2A buildings, located in the northwest of the excavation area, not only did not actually overlay 2B structures (see above about the supposed ‘terracing’ here) but also had floor levels similar to the adjacent 2B buildings. The only 2A building not located in this northwest area—2A.5, which was located in the southeast of the trench (Figure 5.11)— very clearly overlaid 2B.10 (French 1998:Figure 45). This is not the case in the northwest of the trench, however: the floor levels/wall bases of 2A.1 are nearly identical to those of adjacent 2B.7 (French 1998:Figures 35.1, 37, 44, 50.1). 2A.3 is located adjacent to 2B.3 with a 1.1 m difference in floor levels (French 1998:Figure 35.2; also see Düring 2006:Table 8.3 for a list of 2B buildings that were excavated to floor level). This height difference is however well within the range of floor level differences observed within Level 2B. Third, the buildings assigned to Layer 2A were not actually all built at the same time, and neither were the Layer 2B buildings. For 2A, French himself reconstructed two (French 1998:69, 2010:168–169) or three (Düring 2006:Table 8.1; French 1998:50) sublevels. There is clear evidence for two sublevels of 2A, since 2A.6 is not stratigraphically connected to any other building, and on a different alignment, and might have been built over the destroyed western part of 2A.2 (French 1998:47, 49–50, Figures 23, 24; also Düring 2006:273, Figure 8.1). For 2B,
And fourth, individual buildings in 2B and 2A also underwent modifications over their use-lives, which demonstrate changes to their internal configuration: the addition of walls or buttresses were identified in 2B.7 (French 1998:37) and 2B.10 (French 1998:42). Building 2A.6 underwent a number of wall modifications that French (1998:49) summarizes into three phases. In sum, the evidence is in favour of Düring’s interpretation of Layer 2 as an organically growing village, meaning that some buildings assigned to 2B would have co-existed with 2A and that the Layer 2 buildings were each built, modified and abandoned according to individual timelines. The open
reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 8
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Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia (unroofed) area deposits that represent much of Layer 2A might in fact represent a later activity horizon, post-dating the construction activities in Layer 2, but pertaining to built structures, Layer 2 represents one occupation phase. The differences, identified by French, in construction styles between Layers 2B and 2A are relatively slight and might represent idiosyncrasies of individual buildings rather than a general change across the entire settlement. It is noteworthy that both Schachner’s (1999:Figure 51) and Steadman’s (2000b:Figure 7) plans of Canhasan 2B also integrate the 2A buildings, presenting both 2B and 2A as one occupational layer. This seems to show that Schachner and Steadman, similar to Düring, saw both layers as essentially the same built environment—without, however, discussing this point in their publications.
entire 9 ha of the visible mound; this, however, must remain speculatory because only a section of the central area of the mound was excavated (French 1998:Figure 5). In this central area, Canhasan Layer 2 was a densely clustered settlement (Düring 2006:265, 2011c:141), and its roofscape is reconstructed as a busy activity, storage, socialising, and transport area (Düring 2006:278; French 1998:68, Figures 59, 60), even though no actual roofs—and therefore no direct evidence of roofscape activities—were found (Düring 2006:278). Düring (2006:278) reconstructs this roofscape as having featured height differences (terraces) between roofs based on the differences in floor levels among the 2B buildings. If following French’s reconstruction of a division of Layer 2 into 2B and 2A, then there was a large open area in the centre of the 2A village (see above). A total of 16 burials were found in deposits interpreted as unroofed areas of Layer 2A (French 1967:169, 1968:45–46, 1998:49, 2010:167). However, if following suggestions that 2B and 2A might not be clearly separated occupational levels (see above), then the complex, and only partly understood, stratigraphy of Layer 2 makes it impossible to speculate about possible unroofed spaces. The entire excavated area is comprised of Layer 2 buildings. However, in this organically developing settlement, it is possible that some plots lay vacant for a period of time and served as unroofed areas. In absence of a finer stratigraphic/ radiocarbon sequence that shows which buildings were really contemporary, this however cannot be verified. Both French (2010:167) and Düring (2006:265, 278) expected that unroofed spaces existed somewhere in the Layer 2 settlement outside of the excavated area.
In fact, it could be argued that French’s interpretations of the stratigraphic evidence from Layer 2 often do actually point in a similar direction as Düring’s reconstruction— except that the perceived need to force the evidence into clear levels muddled the situation. For example, upon first discovering 2A.2 (then called “House 8”), French (1963:34) interpreted that “This house was built at the same time as the other houses of layer 2B, but unlike Houses 3, 4, and 5, it continued to be occupied after the other houses had been destroyed”; and such a reconstruction might be much closer to the actual settlement development than the later clear separation into two levels. Also, for 2B.7, French (1967:172, 1998:37) actually speculates that a later inserted wall might belong to Layer 2A because it had stone foundations. This shows the difficulty of separating the two layers and means that French therefore essentially postulated a continued use or re-use of 2B.7 in Layer 2A. The further formation processes observed by French’s team (‘insertion’, ‘terracing’, building plots becoming vacant) do, in fact, represent exactly the major components of the complex settlement development now evidenced extensively at Çatalhöyük with modern excavation techniques. For example, French defines ‘insertion’ as “the near-exact, horizontal mimicry of an earlier structural plan by a structure of the immediately succeeding level” (French 1998:65; however, his definition of ‘insertion’ appears to vary somewhat between different parts of the 1998 book). In essence, this description of ‘insertion’ sounds like the practice of building continuity also present at, for example, Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük (Düring 2005, 2009). This was actually observed by French himself, who during a visit to Çatalhöyük in 1990 recognised parallels between the Canhasan ‘insertion’ and building succession at Çatalhöyük (French 1998:46). Düring (2006:263, 2011c:142) already pointed out that the practice of ‘insertion’ is in fact evidence in favour of a continued use of buildings assigned to 2B concurrently with new (2A) buildings.
Buildings The mudbrick buildings of Layer 2B can be characterised as having idiosyncratic sizes and layouts (Düring 2006:274–275, Figure 8.4; French 2010:167) within a shared standard of rectangular buildings with internal buttresses. Of 2B.8, 2B.9, only one wall or corner each were uncovered, and the eastern part of 2B.10 was not well preserved, leaving seven more or less complete buildings (Structures 2B.1–7 in Figure 5.11; French 1998:Figure 12). Identifying buildings at Canhasan 2B is relatively straightforward (Cutting 2005b:80; Düring 2006:274). All rooms connected by doors are fairly unanimously understood as buildings (Cutting 2005b:Figure 7.4; Düring 2006:Figure 8.2; French 1998:Figure 11; Schachner 1999:Figure 51). A few disagreements do exist: French (1998:27–42, Figure 11) identified ten mudbrick buildings in Layer 2B. But Düring (Figure 5.11; Düring 2006:271) interprets the poorly preserved rooms that had been assigned to the eastern part of 2B.10 by French (1998:Figures 11, 20) as a separate building, 2B.11. There is some justification for this reconstruction: there is no doorway between 2B.10 and 2B.11, and the building materials are so different (French 1998:38–42) that these might indeed be either different buildings, or parts of one building that were built at different times. Of 2A, six buildings were partially excavated, but none are
Settlement layout French (1998:68) stated that it is not possible to estimate the size of the Layer 2 village. Düring (2006:278) seems to reconstruct the Layer 2 village to have covered the 71
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia well preserved, even the walls often being present only in fragments (French 1998:42–49, Figure 23). Schachner (1999:Figure 51) provides yet a different building count by combining 2B and 2A buildings into one plan, arriving at a count of 13 buildings, plus two further unnumbered buildings. All buildings are interpreted as residences by French (1998), Düring (2006:277–278), Steadman (2000b:186–188) and Cutting (2005b:80). Installations found in buildings were benches and bins (French 1998). Two burials were found in buildings, an infant burial in a wall and an adult on a house floor (Byrnes and Anvari 2022; French 1968:46, 2010:75, 167). As already mentioned, Level 2B was burnt, which lead to its excellent preservation. Based on evidence that each building was affected differently by fire, and that one building showed traces of intentional abandonment, Düring (2006:272– 273) raises the possibility that some or all of the buildings might have been intentionally set on fire.
storeys. Actually, many of these stabilizing constructional features are already attested in the less well researched Layer 3, so that both Düring (2006:267, 269, 2011c:141) and French (1998:66, 67) reconstruct buildings having begun being built with upper storeys from Layer 3 onwards. Third, Düring (2006:268–269) argued that the 2B buildings seem to be lacking important features that are characteristic of living spaces at other sites: ovens/hearths, and well-maintained wall plaster. None of the 2B buildings contained either a hearth or an oven (Düring 2006:276; French 1962:31). Both French and Düring reconstruct the excavated part of the buildings as storage spaces, French (1962:31) citing the already mentioned grain deposits and Düring (2006:267–269, 276) adding that the limited size and compartmentalised layout of these spaces indicates that they were not used as living areas. As a consequence, most researchers interpret the excavated, lower parts of the buildings as storage spaces belonging to an upper storey that contained the features necessary for a living area (Cutting 2005b:80; Düring 2006:276; French 1998:66). Since no upper storey was actually found, however (see below, Building infill formation), this reconstruction of the upper living floor is conjecture (Düring 2006:279).
Second storeys French (1998:27–31, 66, Figure 12) reconstructs most of the excavated Layer 2B buildings with partial upper storeys, and the existence of upper storeys at Canhasan 2 is generally accepted in the literature (Cutting 2005b:80; Düring 2006:267, 2011c:144; Schachner 1999:120; Steadman 2000b:186–189). Due to the excellent preservation of Layer 2B, there is actually direct evidence for an upper storey in some buildings, particularly in 2B.10. There are three main lines of evidence for upper storeys at Canhasan 2B (see Düring 2006:267–270, 277 for a longer discussion): First, the walls of 2B.10 become narrower 2–2.7 m above the floor, forming a ledge upon which, in French’s reconstruction, the upper floor rested. The ledge had impressions of wooden beams and branches interpreted to be the ceiling of the ground floor, and from 20 cm above the ledge upwards, the walls of the upper storey were plastered in white (Düring 2006:268; French 1998:38–40, 2010:159). French recognised a potentially similar ledge in 2B.1 (French 1998:31). However, the walls of 2B.3 and 2B.5 were preserved up to heights (3 m, 2.93 m) where one would expect to find remains of the upper floor, but none were found (Düring 2006:268). It is possible that these two buildings either did not have second storeys or that the ceiling construction differed from that in 2B.10, i.e. without the conspicuous ledges and beam inserts.
Finally, French (also Düring 2006:267, 269–270, 272) saw additional evidence for upper storeys in the supposed collapse found in several buildings. In fact, his reconstruction of what parts of which buildings carried upper storeys (French 1998:Figure 12) was largely based on such supposed collapse (details and references see below, Building infill formation). I will, however, argue below that the building infills are better not interpreted as collapse, so that this argument can be dismissed. In conclusion, many, but possibly not all 2B buildings had upper storeys. While Düring’s arguments about the lack of internal features and the carrying capacity of the walls and buttresses are true for all 2B buildings, direct evidence for an upper storey was only found in 2B.10 and possibly 2B.1. French reconstructed upper storeys only in building parts where he perceived direct evidence such as ledges, posts or collapse; as a consequence, in his reconstruction upper storeys covered only portions of the ground floors (French 1998:42, 68, Figures 12, 59, 60). Düring (2006:270, 275) suggested that the upper storeys covered the entire ground floor. In either case, it should be remembered when researching the Layer 2 architecture that a substantial part of possibly each building is not preserved (Düring 2006:274).
Second, Düring (2006:267–269, 271–272) sees additional proof for second storeys at Canhasan 2B in changes in mudbrick types and construction techniques over the different levels at the site, arguing that walls became more stable and that 2B buildings were able to carry upper storeys due to the use of header-and-stretcher bricklaying, mould-made bricks, posts and buttresses. He further points out that the walls and buttresses of the 2B buildings are disproportionately thick when compared to the interior space they surrounded. French (1998:27, 33–34) also saw wooden posts in 2B.2 and 2B.3 as having supported second
The limited evidence on the 2A buildings leaves it unclear whether they, too, had second storeys. Düring (2006:270) reconstructs 2A buildings with upper storeys because they share many of the characteristics used by him as arguments for second storeys in 2B. French (1998:47), however, posits that the hearth found in 2A.3 might mean that the building only had one storey. By association, this
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Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia could also be true for the other 2A building which featured a hearth on the ground floor, 2A.2 (French 1998:47). In the case of 2A.3, the hearth might, however, belong to a later re-occupation, not the building floor (Düring 2006:270). In conclusion, in both Layers 2B and 2A, many but not all buildings might have had upper storeys.
a building (French 2010:105–106, 122). Accordingly, the clear majority of non-floor deposits found inside, under and between Layer 2 structures must have been graded into categories 3–6 (the classification of Layer 2 deposits into Grades 3–6 is mentioned in some cases, e.g French 2005:22–23, 2010:3, 5–6, 42–44, 58–60, 76, 79–81, 91–93, 98), none of which French saw as in direct stratigraphic, chronological, or conceptual relation to built structures (French 2005:8–9). This means that French categorised most of the building infill, as well as deposits outside of buildings, as not in situ, i.e. secondary (redeposited). In some cases, there are indications as to the nature of the formation processes that led to these secondary infills. In the case of building 2B.7, French himself interpreted that the infill was formed through middening: “After the house fell into ruin the inside filled up with rubbish and debris” (French 1966:118, 1998:68). Also, his interpretation that many Layer 2B buildings had later been filled with 2A material (see above) can be read as evidence that French himself recognised secondary deposits in the upper parts of many buildings. In the case of 2B.6, he referred to the upper (‘2A’) infill as “rubbish” (French 1998:36, also see 68), echoing the interpretation of the 2B.7 infill. The upper part 2B.2 had been deliberately filled with stacked mudbricks (Düring 2006:272; French 1998:31–32). In addition to classifying most building infill deposits as not in situ, French (1998:9–10, 2005:2–7) himself was of the opinion that the stratigraphy of sediment deposits at Canhasan was not always accurately recognised or excavated, citing excavation methods and in particular an overreliance on workmen as reasons. All these factors together make him rather despondent as to how much information can be gained from studying the non-primary (Grade 3–6) deposits and their finds (French 2005:2–7; Schoop 2010). Unfortunately, his very belief that most of the deposits found inside and outside the Layer 2 buildings were not in situ seems to have led him to offer very little description and discussion of these deposits, so that they cannot be comprehensively restudied.
Building infill formation processes With Canhasan Layer 2B buildings often preserved to great heights, they each contained several cubic meters of infill. Understanding the formation processes that led to this infill is an issue of importance since this influences the interpretational potential of the artefacts and deposits found inside buildings, e.g. as evidence for upper storeys (see above); for dating buildings according to pottery or radiocarbon samples from their infill; and for reconstructing activities that took place in the building. French himself offered some opinions on the building infill, which however leave questions that are not resolved in his publications. The text of the 1998 book on architecture contains next to no information on the building infills; instead, some discussion of the infills is offered in the 2005 volume on pottery. French (2005:8–10, see summary of the grading system by Schoop 2010) divided artefacts into six categories of reliability according to the context they came from. Although this is a system of grading artefacts, not deposits, the grading system can be used to gain an overall impression of how French categorised deposits on a spectrum ranging from a secure primary deposit to varying degrees of secondary (re)deposition. What French called in situ (e.g. French 2005:8) will here be termed primary: deposits and artefacts left and then found by archaeologists at— more or less, e.g. in the case of building collapse—the place of their original use. French considered as in situ (Grade 1) only whole pots found in deposits located on floors, but he includes in this the pottery clusters found in building infill that were interpreted as inventory from the floor of the collapsed upper story (French 2005:8). In the latter cases, concentrations of building materials, pottery, and plaster fragments found inside buildings at heights between 1–2 m above the floor were interpreted by French as evidence of collapsed upper storeys (2B.2: French 1998:27; 2B.3: French 1998:27, 33–34, 2010:159; 2B.4: French 1998:35; 2B.5: French 1998:36, 2005:Plate 1b; 2B.6: French 1998:36).
French’s reconstruction leaves important questions about the formation of building infill in Layer 2 unanswered. For example, the categorisation of particular ‘floor’ deposits as primary is questionable. Just because a deposit is on the floor, this does not make it a primary deposit. Unfortunately, since there are no descriptions of the floor deposits interpreted by French as in situ, they cannot be re-analysed to verify that they were primary. There were, however, overall few deposits located on 2B floor that were attributed to Grade 1 by French (2005:18). More problematic are therefore the supposed collapse layers from upper storeys. French does not outline exactly how he pictured the formation processes that led to nonprimary deposits (Grade 3–6) of sometimes more than 2 m in thickness accumulating in buildings which were then covered by primary deposits (Grade 1) having collapsed from an upper storey. It seems to have been mainly the presence of whole pottery vessels, including those “crushed and broken in situ” (French 2005:8), that made
Grade 2 is attributed by French to burials and deposits related to, but not located inside buildings: foundation or ‘votive’ deposits and “pits dug from a floor or surface associated with a structure and sealed during the lifetime of the structure” (French 2005:8). Grade 2 deposits, however, seem to not really have been present in Layer 2 buildings: There is no Grade 2 pottery from Level 2 (French 2005:18, 23). A small number of figurines and clay objects from Level 2 were assigned Grade 2 (French 2010:3–4, 42), but only one of these objects is attributed to
73
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia French confident in the primary nature of these deposits: “Stratigraphically whole vessels in situ are the soundest (the most reliable) and the most useful (the most relevant) for chronological or for social and economic interpretations on the ground that there can be no doubt on the location and, therefore, on the association of this ceramic material with layer and structure” (French 2005:8). However, in many cases these deposits did not even contain whole pots: “In the tumble of mud-brick and floor/roofing debris excavated inside the walls both of Structure 10 and of other structures were recovered the broken remnants of pots which had undoubtedly been sitting on the floor of the upper storey. During the course of the destructive fire the upper storeys, ceilings and roofs collapsed and the pottery (and other objects) which had been located on the floor of the upper storey became scattered in broken heaps on the fallen debris. In several cases these fragments could be assembled into complete or near-complete pots. It is difficult to claim that the pots, as found, exactly meet the definitions of Grade since, strictly speaking, they were neither whole nor in situ. Nevertheless, all such pots have been isolated as a separate ground within Grade 1” (French 2005:18).
of 1,100 m2 was excavated only to a shallow depth of 30–40 cm where the tops of walls were defined. This horizontal exposure was combined with deeper excavations in smaller trenches, partly located within the large exposure areas and partly dispersed across the site. The location and extent of these smaller trenches was chosen less based on a desire to expose entire buildings or clarify stratigraphic relations in detail, than it was in aspiration of exposing representative percentages of all stratigraphical layers, in a processualist-inspired ‘sampling’ of the site’s stratigraphy and material culture (Bordaz 1969a:60; Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:86– 87, 89). The excavators identified three cultural layers at the site (Bordaz 1969a:60). Düring (2006:249–250) doubts the reliability of the stratigraphic division into three levels, established in small test trenches that do not do justice to the complex formation processes of prehistoric mound sites, and suggests that in reality the site’s stratigraphy was more complex. Further, Bordaz’s (1969a:60) description of the sequence shows that the three levels were distinguished based on differences between soils, not based on architectural stratigraphy; therefore, they do not necessarily represent changes in the settlement’s built environment. Of Levels II and III, only small disjoined areas in separate parts of the mound totalling 70 m2 at most were uncovered (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:89). For Level I, opened across an area of 1,100 m2 in total (Figure 5.13), the excavation strategy was also not ideal for documenting architecture since many rooms were only partly exposed in plan and very few rooms were excavated to floor level (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1976:39, 1982:89–90; Düring 2006:249, 252). The lack of exploration of the room interiors leaves the architectural documentation of most rooms incomplete (Cutting 2005b:90).
Drawing on these cited text passages, the supposed collapse layers seem to have been merely rich in artefacts (mainly pottery) and building debris, located at a height where French expected collapse from an upper storey to have been located; but otherwise carried no clear evidence of being primary deposits. In light of this evidence, as well as French’s own conviction that most infill deposits were secondary, and his statement that the infill stratigraphy was overall not well understood during the excavation, my suggestion is to default to an interpretation of the entirety of the Canhasan 2 building infills as secondary deposits, with the possible exception of individual deposits that, upon future further scrutiny, could be proven to be primary. Secondary infill means that the buildings were filled with materials not related to their original use; materials that had originally been used elsewhere and then were deposited in buildings. This means that the infill of buildings cannot, for example, be used to reconstruct either the existence or the appearance of second storeys.
The results of the excavations were published in several preliminary and specialist reports, with the 1982 paper functioning as something of a summary—but without a final, detailed presentation of materials and observations in a monograph or other format. The project was focused on reconstructing Neolithic economies and environments (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:85), which is reflected in the reports that contain only abbreviated descriptions of the Erbaba architecture, thus seriously inhibiting attempts to analyse the architectural legacy data (Düring 2006:252). The reports also contain very few images of architecture. No plans have been published for Levels II and III (Cutting 2005b:87, 89), and the published plan of Level I (Figure 5.13; Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:Plate 33) is rather schematic. Düring (2006:248) found that the lack of detailed reporting of the Erbaba architecture (as well as some other groups of material culture, for example the pottery was not comprehensively published, Schoop 2005a:128) together with the fragmenting excavation methodology, “has been detrimental to our understanding of the site” and has meant that despite the sizable exposure, the site can contribute little to a study of society through architecture (also stated by Schachner 1999:48, who does not analyse this site).
5.5. Erbaba Erbaba is situated on a natural hill at the edge of Lake Beyşehir. The size of the settlement mound is 4 m in height and 80 m in diameter. Erbaba was excavated in four seasons between 1969 and 1977 by a team directed by Jacques Bordaz from the University of Pennsylvania. All remains date to the Neolithic. The absence of postNeolithic layers allowed for large undisturbed areas to be opened, totalling over 1,100 m2 or 22% of the mound’s surface and removing an estimated >6% of the mound’s volume (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:86, 89; Düring 2006:248). Erbaba was researched with a different methodology than that characteristic of most other projects in the area, which seek to investigate entire building units where possible. Much of the area 74
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
Figure 5.13. Erbaba: plan of excavated structures in Level I (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 7.1)9.
5.5.1. The chronology of Erbaba
by Bordaz are outdated and no recently updated analysis is available: Schoop was prevented from including Erbaba in his discussions because the pottery from the site was never published comprehensively (Schoop 2005a:128). Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz (1982:88) reported that “the correlation of Erbaba Layer III with Early Neolithic Çatal Hüyük levels Vlll–0 and Erbaba Layers II and I with Late Neolithic Hacılar levels IX–VI was established by extensive ceramic parallels”. When compared against the updated Çatalhöyük and Hacılar sequences, however, this statement is not helpful because it is too general. For
The discussion around the dating of Erbaba (Table 5.11) is mainly based on radiocarbon dates. Pottery typology is only of limited use in dating Erbaba because parallels observed reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 9
75
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.11. The chronology of Erbaba discussed in the literature Level Level I
Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:88
Thissen 2002a:324
5800–5400 BC
6400–6000 BC
Level II
Arbuckle 2008:347 6400–6000 BC
Düring 2011c:136 6700–6400 BC
not mentioned
Level III
6600–6400 BC
6700–6400 BC
Ceramic parallels according to Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:88 Hacılar IX-VI [= 6300– 6100 BC] Çatalhöyük VIII-0 [= 6700–6000 BC]
virgin soil
Table 5.12. Radiocarbon dates from Erbaba. Information from Arbuckle 2008:Table 1; Thissen 2002a:307 Level
Sample number
Sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date given by Arbuckle 2008:Table 1
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
from Level I
AA66741
bone
7677±86
6535±70
6691–6382 (95.4%)
from Level II-I
GX-2543
charcoal
7550±570
6546±614
7955–5468 (95.0%)
Level III
AA66738
bone
7275±42
6146±53
6231–6057 (95.4%)
7504±85
6354±80
6507–6216 (92.5%)
7530±430
6499±471
6386–4452 (95.4%)
6925±550
5831±548
7087–4712 (94.8%)
7730±120
6618±134
6864–6385 (88.2%)
AA66739 GX-2545 GX-2544 I-5151
charcoal
5.5.2. The architecture of Erbaba Level I
example, the Mellaart Levels VIII-0 at Çatalhöyük are now known to span 700 years—and the end of Hacılar IX–VI predates Çatalhöyük Level 0, another detail that is difficult to correlate with Bordaz’s statement.
Discussions of the architecture of Erbaba, both by the excavators as well as by subsequent restudies (Cutting 2005b; Düring 2006; Steadman 2004) have focused nearly exclusively on the better excavated Level I (Figure 5.13). Erbaba buildings were constructed from stone and in some cases preserved to heights of around 1.5 m (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:89–90; Düring 2006:252). The rooms of Level I form a relatively dense cluster interrupted by spaces that were probably unroofed judging from their size and configuration. The lack of doors at ground level indicates entrance to the buildings was via the roof level (Düring 2006:251–252, Figure 7.3). One of the flat roofs was found collapsed into a burned building (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1976:40; Düring 2006:253).
Four radiocarbon dates from Erbaba were published by Bordaz (Table 5.12). Before the necessity of calibration became known, Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz (1982:88) used the BP dates (minus 1950 years) to arrive at a dating of 5800–5400 BC for the Erbaba sequence. After calibration, this can be adjusted to 6700–6400 BC (Düring 2011c:136) or 6600–6400 BC (Thissen 2002a:324). However, Thissen (2002a:326; similarly Bordaz 1973:187; Düring 2006:250) deems only one date (I-5151) from Level III to be reliable, since the others have very large error margins of around 1000 years. All samples were on charcoal and their precise context not recorded (Thissen 2002a:307), which represent further cause for caution. Arbuckle (2008:Table 1) published three new radiocarbon dates from bone samples (labelled ‘AA’ in Table 5.12). Bone is a shorterlived material, but it is unclear to what extent the samples came from well-stratified contexts (Arbuckle 2008 only indicates levels). Some doubt as to their stratigraphic attribution exists in that the Level I sample published by Arbuckle is older than the two Level III samples. It therefore is not possible to date individual levels based on the available radiocarbon dates, although they provide for the overall occupation span of the site: Using only the dates on bones, the occupation of Erbaba could date to somewhere between ca. 6700–6050 BC (Figure 3.3). Adding the older I-5151 sample that is deemed to be fairly reliable by Thissen extends this to ca. 6800–6100 BC. Most of Erbaba would thus date to the Late Neolithic.
A major point of discussion, and one that is difficult to resolve based on the published evidence, has been the identification of buildings at Erbaba Level 1. This is due first to the difficulty of distinguishing roofed from unroofed spaces, with different researchers reaching different reconstructions (compare Düring 2006:Figure 7.3 with Steadman 2004:Figure 5 and Cutting 2005b:Figure 8.2). And second, there are also different opinions as to what (roofed) rooms forms buildings together, not least due to the fact that many rooms are not connected to any others through doors, while several appear much too small to have functioned as an individual dwelling (they are probable storage rooms, Düring 2006:253). Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz (1982:87) distinguished 36 rooms belonging to “approximately 11 different complexes”, but how and based on what principles they divided rooms 76
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia 5.6.1. The chronology of Kuruçay
into buildings remains unclear (Düring 2006:254–255). Based on the fact that they form free-standing units separate from other rooms, Düring (2006:254–255) and Cutting (2005b:89–90) both tentatively distinguish two groups of three rooms each in Area G as buildings, but concluded that it is not possible to identify building units among the remaining 21 (Cutting 2005b:90) or 33 (Düring 2006:Figure 7.3) rooms. Although the architectural stratigraphy is poorly researched at the site, there is some evidence for modification and rebuilding events: Several modifications to buildings were noted including the addition of walls or doors and renewal of floors (Bordaz 1969:60; Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:89; Düring 2006:252–253). This means that the configuration of individual rooms, as well as the attribution of rooms to buildings, might have changed over time.
Refik Duru’s team exposed a deep stratigraphy from the Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age, distinguishing 15 building levels. Levels dating to the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (Levels 13–7) were separated by a long hiatus from the later LC and EBA occupations, whose dating is not scrutinised here (Table 5.13). Level 13 Although the period designations chosen by Duru (1994c:96) seem to imply an early start and long duration of Levels 13–7 (labelled Early Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic), the absolute dates given by him (Duru 1994c:92, 2008:15) are between 6200 and 5000 BC. This includes Level 13, the dating of which has changed in Duru’s publications over the years. Level 13, excavated in a small sondage and around 1 m thick, did not contain architecture, but 150 pottery sherds and other finds (Duru 1994c:99, 2008:14, 55). In the 1994 monograph, Duru (1994c:114–115) reports the single radiocarbon date that puts Level 13 to between 6200 and 6000 BC (Table 5–14), but then suggests an alternative date of 7100–6900 BC based on parallels with ‘Aceramic’ Hacılar, dated by Mellaart (1970c:93) to ca. 7000–6750 BC based on an uncalibrated radiocarbon date. Later, Duru must have decided to ignore the Hacılar parallel and date Level 13 close to Level 12, as already suggested in 1994 (Duru 1994c:114, “Level 13 as representing an early subphase of Level 12”): in his 2007 (Duru 2007:337) and 2012 (Duru 2012:24, 26) articles, Duru dates Level 13 to around 6500 BC. He later seems to have again revised the Level 13 dating to be younger, dating Levels 13 and 12 between 6200 and 5900 BC (Duru 2008:15). In this context it is relevant to remark that Duru’s 2012 chapter in Neolithic in Turkey (Duru 2012) is in large parts an English translation of his 2007 Neolithic Turkey chapter (Duru 2007). It presents the same opinion on the dating of Kuruçay and Höyücek as in 2007. The 2008 book will therefore be counted here as Duru’s more recent opinion on the dating of Kuruçay and Höyücek.
The distribution of installations is also relevant to the discussion around the identification of buildings. As summarised above, only a few Erbaba Level I buildings were excavated to floor level. Those rooms that were excavated to the floor level did not feature any installations, although an oven and some benches had been identified in Level II and III (Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982:90; Cutting 2005b:89–90; Düring 2006:252, 255). The lack of internal features was interpreted by Düring (2006:253–255, 259; similarly Cutting 2005b:89– 90) as evidence for an upper storey that was the main living floor. He hypothesises that Erbaba Level I houses had two storeys, and only the cellars were preserved and excavated, citing “the absence of floor features, the poor quality of floors noted by the excavators […] and the absence of wall plaster” as evidence (Düring 2006:254). If this is correct, the main living areas of the buildings are not known. Alternatively, Steadman (2004:535– 537) reconstructs Erbaba—apparently without second storeys—to have been partly made up of dwellings that did not feature internal installations and whose residents used installations either located in unroofed areas or other buildings. It must be noted, however, that this reconstruction is based on faulty evidence since it correlates the Level I plan with installations belonging to Level II or III. In sum, the excavated evidence gives only a very fragmentary image of the built environment of Erbaba.
Thissen (2002a:334) excludes the Level 13 radiocarbon date because it does not come from a secure context, but instead from an erosion deposit. In the absence of a reliable radiocarbon date, the dating of Level 13 must rely on pottery. Düring’s (2011c:226, Table 5.2) pottery typology places Kuruçay 13 sometime between 6500 and 6000 BC. Since Düring (2011c:162) himself states that his scheme of Lake District pottery phases is “simple”, i.e. generalising, and also because it is at times at odds with the radiocarbon dates, it will be ignored here in the following. Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) dates the Kuruçay 13 pottery to between 6200–6100 BC, which we will follow here as the most precise and reliable available date that is also fairly congruent with Duru’s (2008:15) latest dating of Level 13. However, Schoop’s (2005a:Figure 4.9) pottery chronology for the Lake District should also be approached with care since it is mainly based on the cross-referencing of
5.6. Kuruçay Kuruçay Höyük was excavated in annual seasons from 1978–1988 by Refik Duru. The site is located close to Lake Burdur on a hill overlooking the floodplain, and 10 km from Hacılar. Its size is 90 m × 60 m, with 8 m height (Duru 2008:14). Excavations covered a large area (3500 m2) and reached virgin soil in nearly the entire excavation area (Duru 1994c:95). About half of the höyük was excavated to virgin soil (Duru 1994c:Levha 7.1, 2008:Figures 17–18). Many details about the Kuruçay architecture were published only in Turkish and it is therefore possible that relevant information might have eluded my limited Turkish reading skills. 77
Period after Duru 1994c:96,99 1996c:111–112, 2008:13, 2012:5 Level 1
Early Bronze Age II
Level 2
Early Bronze Age I-II
Absolute dates after Duru 1994c:92, 115
Thissen 2002a:332 not mentioned
Schoop 2005a:Figures 4.9, 4.10 not mentioned
Duru 2007:351–355 (same as Duru 2012:24–24) not mentioned
Absolute dates after Duru 2008:15
Thissen 2010:Figure 13
ca. 2500–2200 BC
not mentioned
Düring 2011c:226, Table 5.2 not mentioned
hiatus Level 3 Level 3A
3400-ca. 3000 BC
Late Chalcolithic
Late Chalcolithic
Level 4 Level 5 Level 6
14C dates between 3640–3140 BC
Level 6A long hiatus
78
Level 7
Early Chalcolithic
5300/5200 BC5100/5000 BC
long hiatus
long hiatus
6000–5850 BC
ended just after 6000 BC
Level 8 Level 9 6200–5800
Level 10
long hiatus 5990–5900 BC?
between 5800 BC5600 BC
possibly also between 6110–5990 BC
between 6000 BC5800 BC
6110–5990 BC
short hiatus upper Level 11 (üst) 1994: Late Neolithic 5850/5800 BC lower Level 11 (alt)
2008: between Early and Late Neolithic
6000 BC
upper Level 12 (üst) Early Neolithic II
6000 BC
lower Level 12 (alt)
6200 BC
Level 13
virgin soil
Late Neolithic; ending 14C dates between at the beginning of the 6010–5800 BC 6th millennium
1994: hiatus 2008: no hiatus
hiatus
Early Neolithic I
around 7000 BC
14C dates between 6230–5920 BC hiatus? No EN II occupation at Kuruçay mentioned ca. 6200–6100 BC
end of EN I period, middle of the 7th millennium
between 6500 BC6000 BC
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Table 5.13. The chronology of Kuruçay discussed in the literature
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia sequences that are in themselves all problematic; and a lot of it evolves around the Hacılar sequence which is the most problematic of all.
still used the uncalibrated Hacılar dates, but also because Duru apparently changed his mind on parallels between Hacılar and Kuruçay. For example, Duru (1994c:114–115) assumes that Kuruçay was abandoned before Hacılar I was established. In 2008, Duru (2008:15) seems to suggest that Kuruçay 7 and Hacılar I existed at the same time, since both were destroyed in the same war/fire event immediately after 6000 BC. It is indeed possible that the Level 7 sample is older than its context given that it was done on charcoal while the Level 11–13 samples were done on animal bone, a far more secure dating material (Thissen 2010:Table 6). The Level 7 sample could represent the old-wood-effect and should maybe be discounted (Reingruber 2008:447; Thissen 2010:274). However, Thissen apparently did use the Level 7 radiocarbon date to establish his dating of the Kuruçay sequence, which places Level 7 between 5990– 5900 BC (Thissen 2010:Figure 13).
Levels 12–8 Two factors complicate the dating of Levels 12–8. First, it remains unclear whether or not there was a hiatus between Levels 13 and 12. Such a hiatus was suggested by Duru (1994c:96, 2007, 2012:24, 26) initially, and taken over by Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9), albeit in shorter form. But this suggested hiatus might be mainly based on the now refuted early date of Level 13, and in 2008 (Duru 2008:13), Duru does not mention a hiatus anymore. Second, the timeframe covered by Levels 12–8 might have been exaggerated by Duru. Thissen (2010:273) observed that Levels 12–8 might in fact represent modifications within the same built environment (see also 6.3.2). Third, despite the existence of two radiocarbon dates from Levels 12–11, Duru (2007:355, 2012:25) tries to date the Kuruçay levels based on parallels with the Hacılar sequence, which is also anything but clear (5.1.1). If we ignore the Hacılar parallels, assume no hiatus between Levels 13 and 12, take Levels 12–8 as a stratigraphically and chronologically tight bundle, and work with the two available radiocarbon dates (Table 5.14), the dating suggested by Thissen (2010:Figure 13) of Levels 12–8 between 6110 and 5990 BC seems the most reliable.
To summarise, if completely ignoring attempts to reconstruct the chronology of Kuruçay based on parallels with Hacılar, the dating of Kuruçay Levels 13–7 is relatively unproblematic. All newer research, based on the few available radiocarbon dates and pottery chronology, agrees that Levels 13–7 can be dated to a relatively narrow window of time between ca. 6200 and 5800 or 5600 BC (Table 5.15, Figure 3.3). There are however, differences between scholars, and I decided to accept the dating of Levels 12–7 by Thissen (2010:Figure 13) and dating of Level 13 by Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) as the most reliable suggestions. All of Kuruçay 13–7 might thus date to a narrow 300-year window between 6200 and 5900 BC (Table 5.15). This is substantially shorter than the time spans originally suggested by Duru who envisaged the early levels of Kuruçay as long-lasting settlements (Table 5.13), for example in 1994 reconstructing Levels 13–7 as having lasted around 2000 years (Duru 1994c:115), and in 2007 reconstructing Levels 13–11 as together spanning 500–600 years (Duru 2007:351–355; translated version: Duru 2012:24–26).
Level 7 There are two radiocarbon dates from Level 7, of which one is clearly too young and must be intrusive (Table 5.14); it will not be further discussed here. The second sample dates Level 7 to around 6100 BC and is regarded by Duru (1994c:114) as “unreasonably high” i.e. old, and a probable intrusion from a lower level. He thus suggests disregarding it and does indeed not report it in his 2008 (Duru 2008:15) list of radiocarbon dates from Kuruçay. The reason for Duru rejecting the Level 7 radiocarbon date as unreasonable seems to have been that this date did not fit with parallels in material culture observed by him between the Kuruçay and Hacılar sequences. Duru (1994c:114–115, 2008:12, 15) then tries to date Kuruçay 7 based on parallels of architecture and pottery with Hacılar, which is not only problematic because Hacılar is poorly dated and because for the 1994 chronology, Duru
5.6.2. The architecture of Kuruçay Overview of stratigraphy and formation processes As already mentioned, the lowest level, Kuruçay 13, comprises a layer of 1 m in thickness without architectural remains (Duru 2008:14), possibly representing finds
Table 5.14. Radiocarbon dates from Kuruçay. Information from Duru 2012:7; Thissen 2010:Table 6 Level Level 7
Sample number none [Hacettepe lab]
Sample material charcoal
none [Hacettepe lab]
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (1σ, 68%) given by Thissen 2010:Table 6
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
7214±38
6200–6010
6101–5992 (74.8%)
5110±70
–
4049–3710 (95.4%)
Level 11
HD-12917 / 12830
7140±35
6020–5830
6070–5979 (86.1%)
Level 12
HD-12916 / 12674
7045±95
6050–5990
6071–5732 (95.4%)
Level 13
HD-12915 / 12673
7310±70
6240–6080
6268–6026 (87.1%)
bone
79
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia across the entire site (also indicated by Duru 1994c:99– 100). For example some Level 6 walls overlaid Level 10 nearly directly (Duru 1994c:Levha 20) or the two subphases of Level 11 were found nearly at the same height (Duru 1994c:Levha 16). Thissen observed that some excavation techniques at Kuruçay were not ideal for dealing with the complex stratigraphy of the site, which was rendered all the more difficult by the fragmentary preservation of the architecture: “There is a general absence of systematic profile sections (but cf. Duru 1994c:Pls. 8.1; 17.1), and stone foundations from higher levels remain [sic] standing during the dig (e.g., Duru 1994c:Pl. 20.1), prohibiting a clear overview” (Thissen 2010:273, italics in original). The latter statement refers to the practice at Kuruçay of working on different stratigraphic levels at the same time, with several different phases being exposed on pedestals within the trench (e.g. Duru 1994c:Levhalar 17, 20, 21, 23.1). Such an excavation style would have complicated the recognition of stratigraphical connections. All this taken together makes it likely that the level distinction by Duru masks an, in reality, much more organic and complex development of the site. The subphasing recognised in Levels 12 and 11 (see below) as well as modifications to the Level 7 walls described by Duru as repairs (Duru 1983:42, 1994c:100) could represent glimpses into this organic development of the built environment. Thissen (2010:273) reached a similar conclusion and suggested that Levels 12–8 might in fact represent modifications within the same built environment. In the following, built remains are however still described within the levels attributed by Duru.
Table 5.15. The chronology of Kuruçay used in this book Level
Date
Level 1
Early Bronze Age II
Level 2
Early Bronze Age I-II hiatus
Level 3
Late Chalcolithic
Level 3A Level 4 Level 5 Level 6 Level 6A long hiatus Level 7 Level 8 Level 9
Late Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic 6200–5900 BC
Level 10 upper Level 11 (üst) lower Level 11 (alt) upper Level 12 (üst) lower Level 12 (alt) Level 13 virgin soil
washed in from a settlement located outside of the excavation area (Duru 1994c:99, 1999:175, 2012:5) or a period of wattle-and-daub architecture (Umurtak 2007:1). The first preserved architectural remains start in Level 12. Unfortunately, architectural remains of all Levels 12–7 are not well preserved, in most cases not representing more than the lowermost parts of walls. These are made of stone and Duru reconstructs them as the foundations for mudbrick walls; the upper, mudbrick parts of the walls were however only preserved in Level 7 (Duru 1994c:100). In Levels 10–8, only fragments of walls were uncovered, leaving Levels 12–11 and 7 as the only Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic levels with coherent architectural remains (Figures 5.14–5.16). The poor state of preservation typical of Neolithic/Chalcolithic Kuruçay unfortunately prevents in-depth architectural analysis (Düring 2011c:171), and attests to different formation processes as compared to most other sites studied here, which are often much better preserved. Duru (1994c:99, 2012:5–6) believes that flooding of the creek next to the site washed away parts of the Level 11 and 12 settlements. The rather exposed location of the village on top of a natural hill, along the flank of a hilly range, might indeed have led to more erosion than at other sites. It is also likely that different humanmade formation processes were at work, for example Duru (2012:5) also believes that construction activities often destroyed existing remains of older buildings.
Built remains level-by-level Level 12 (Figure 5.14) was subdivided into Level 12 alt (lower Level 12) and Level 12 üst (upper Level 12). In Level 12 alt, two buildings were attested. Duru reconstructs the internal phasing of Level 12 as House 1 being the oldest construction, followed by the much smaller House 2, and finally in Level 12 üst by House 3 (Duru 1994c:99, Levhalar 10–14). House 2 had a semi-circular hearth and a second fire installation (Cutting 2005b:105; Duru 1994c:10, 100, Levhalar 10, 12.2; Steadman 2000b:177). An excavation photo (Duru 1994c:Levha 11.2; and see also Levha 10) seems to show a fragment of another installation in House 1 (cf. Duru 1994c:10; Steadman 2004:529). About 40 grinding tools were found on the floor level in House 1 (Umurtak 2007:5), and the floor level of House 2 also featured many grinding tools (Duru 1994c:99, Levhalar 10–12). In addition to the three buildings, Level 12 also featured an 8 m long wall of unknown function that appears to belong to Level 12 üst (Duru 1994c:10, 99). Level 11 (Figure 5.15) was subdivided into Level 11 alt (lower Level 11) with only a few remains of wall foundations, and Level 11 üst (upper Level 11). Level 11 üst featured a free-standing wall of ca. 17 m length with two rounded protrusions interpreted as towers. Fragments of a second wall, running parallel, were also preserved, as well as possible fragments of a second wall
The poor preservation of architecture made for a very compacted stratigraphy as attested by excavation photos; these photos also show that not all levels were present 80
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia segment with tower, perpendicular to the first. Between the possibly parallel walls seems to be a narrow entrance that was interpreted by the excavators as a gate since its configuration would have facilitated controlling access: a ‘tower’ on either site, and two protruding wall segments that made the entrance a long, narrow passage (Duru 1994c:99, Levha 15; Umurtak 2011:6). This wall system is interpreted by Duru (1994c:100) as “a surprisingly advanced free-standing fortification system” that enclosed the Level 11 settlement, an interpretation that has been accepted and repeated widely in the literature (Clare et al. 2008:76, Figure 5; Duru 1996b:52, 1999:175, 2008:43; Eslick 1988:24; Steadman 2000b:185; Umurtak 2011:6). There are, however, a number of factors that cast doubt on this reconstruction. First, the remainder of the enclosure wall was not found and neither was the settlement that was supposedly protected by the wall; apart from the ‘fortification’ wall itself, only two wall fragments from Level 11 üst were uncovered (Duru 1994c:Levha 15). The generally bad preservation and compressed stratigraphy of the site might indicate that the remainder of Level 11 üst was simply not preserved. Duru (1994c:99) has suggested that “raging floodwater” might have eroded much of the Level 11 village, but the fact remains that the enclosure is incomplete in the archaeological record (Düring 2011a:73). Second, Düring (2011a:72–73, 2011c:171) has pointed out that the ‘towers’ “have an entrance on both their exterior and interior, which would make them ill- suited for defensive purposes” (Düring 2011c:171). He also pointed out that the Kuruçay 11 ‘towers’ were similar in layout to House 2 from Level 12; and suggests that the Kuruçay 11 ‘towers’ were rather work areas, and that the wall segments might instead have enclosed a neighbourhood within the village, not the entire settlement. This alternative interpretation
Figure 5.14. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 12 (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 77).
Figure 5.15. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 11 (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 81).
81
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia There has been some discussion around the possible reconstruction of the Level 7 houses as two-storied. Duru (1994c:100) reconstructs all buildings from Levels 12–7 as single-storied. This opinion is shared by Cutting (2005b:105), who cites a personal communication by Umurtak that states, “it was thought unlikely that any of the buildings had an upper storey as the amount of internal debris within the houses was small and there were not visible supports (such as postholes) for a second storey”. These arguments can be discounted by pointing out the buttresses, which could have been supports for an upper storey; and by pointing out the possibility of formation processes that prevented a preservation of the collapse from an upper storey, such as intentional dismantling or post-depositional removal of the collapse. Schachner (1999:158, but note that this is based on a misreading of Eslick 1988), and more recently also Duru (2008:46, 47) himself, see possible second storeys at Kuruçay 7, arguing that the lack of doors or internal furnishing indicates the existence of an upper living floor. Steadman (2000b:185, 188, 190) reconstructs the roofs as activity areas resembling a second story: “Given the evidence of the substantial walls, internal buttresses, lack of furnishings, and the occurrence of portable hearths and pot stands, it seems quite possible, if not likely, that the residents in Level 7 were indeed using their rooftops as activity areas, though they may not have built enclosures generating a ‘second story’” (Steadman 2000b:185). However, given the overall still poor preservation of the buildings in Kuruçay 7, the lack of internal furnishing is not a strong argument for upper storeys. Neither is the lack of groundlevel entrances, which would merely prove entrance from the roof, not necessarily a second storey. The appearance of buttresses in Level 7 is the only argument in favour of a reconstruction of two-storied buildings. The evidence is thus not sufficient so solve the question of whether or not the Level 7 buildings had upper storeys.
Figure 5.16. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 7 (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 89).
of the Level 11 built environment is possible, but it is as difficult to verify in the fragmented record available as the defensive interpretation is. Duru (1994c:99) reconstructs a short hiatus between Levels 11 and 10, and also a slight shift in settlement location to the south. Of Levels 10 and 9, only wall fragments were found, “scant and in a state of confusion”, possibly forming one or two buildings in Level 9 (Duru 1994c:100, Levha 19) of which one seems to have contained a grinding stone and undefined installation (Duru 1994c:Levha 21.1). The wall fragments preserved from Level 8 are reconstructed by Duru as five buildings, separated by unroofed areas of different sizes (Duru 1994c:100, Levha 22). A possible stone platform was found within one of these unroofed spaces (Duru 1994c:13, Levha 22), but its use or relation to the buildings is not clear.
To sum up, Kuruçay Levels 12 and 10–7 featured more or less poorly preserved residential architecture. Built remains in Level 11 üst are interpretated as a fortification system by most researchers, although Düring (2011a:72– 73, 2011c:171) has suggested an interpretation as residential architecture. Each building consisted of a single room, with the possible exception of the Level 7 buildings, which might have had second storeys. Duru locates the entrances on ground level, but that cannot be seen as certain because in many cases it was not actually possible to recognise the location of entrances (Duru 1994c:100). In Levels 12 and 7—the only two Neolithic/Chalcolithic levels where several buildings are preserved—buildings stand close together but are separated by unroofed spaces of various sizes. There are no indications as to how the unroofed space within the settlement was used. Only some buildings from Levels 12 and 7 contained installations or mobile objects. Seven burials were found in the Neolithic to Chalcolithic levels (Byrnes and Anvari 2022; Duru 1994c:101). Of those seven burials, the distribution map (Duru 1994c:Levha 33.1) assigns four to the Late Neolithic (i.e. Level 11, see Duru’s dating of levels in Table 5.13)
This leaves Level 7 (Figure 5.16) with the best-preserved architecture of the Neolithic-Early Chalcolithic sequence at Kuruçay, which might be due in part to its having been burnt. Seven differently sized buildings were at least partially excavated, some still with remains of mudbrick walls on top of stone foundations (some walls appear to have been preserved up to heights of 1–1.2 m, Duru 1994c:Levhalar 25–26, 28; 2008:Figures 91–92). Each building consisted of one rectangular room with between two and four small buttresses (Duru 1994c:100, Levhalar 24, 25). Duru (1994c:100) recognised a “preconceived building scheme” in Level 7. One building appears to have contained a horseshoe shaped stone installation and grinding tools (probably House 6; Duru 1994c:Levha 26). Grinding stones were also found in other buildings (Duru 1983:21). 82
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia and three to the Early Chalcolithic (i.e. Levels 10–7). One was found inside a Level 11 ‘tower’ and the others were apparently located outside of buildings.
(2005a:133–134) dated Köşk Höyük Layers III–II to the Early Chalcolithic based on pottery analogies with Çatalhöyük West, Canhasan 2B-A and Mersin XXIII– XXIV. Thissen (2002a:324, 327) hypothesised that preLevel I occupation must have included the time period 6000–5600 BC because of similarities in material culture to Canhasan 2B–2A. It is not clear from the publication what pre-Level I levels Thissen was referring to, but it could be that his statement on dating referred mostly to Levels III– II, since not much had been published on Levels V–IV by that point. Düring (2011c:151–154) agrees that material culture supports an Early Chalcolithic date of Levels V–II. Merging this with the one radiocarbon date known to be from Level III, which actually indicates a possible date of Level III and Level II post-5600 BC, Levels III–II can be approximately dated to around 5500 BC.
5.7. Köşk Höyük Köşk Höyük is situated on a hilltop that rises 15 m above the surrounding plain. The site has seen long-term excavations by the University of Ankara. The first excavation seasons from 1983 to 1989 were directed by Uğur Silistreli, and after a hiatus, excavations were continued in the years 1995–1996 and 2000–2009 under the direction of Aliye Öztan (Öztan 2010:84). Within the 4.5–6 m of cultural deposits above bedrock, the excavators identified five prehistoric building levels (Öztan 2007:224, 2012:32) and dated Levels V–II to the Neolithic and Level I to the Early Chalcolithic based on pottery typology and radiocarbon dates. The area around the prehistoric site was then again used much later during the Late Iron, Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval periods (Öztan 2012:32).
Schoop was not able to discuss Levels V–IV which were not excavated at the time, and Düring’s (2011c:151) overview had only limited information available about these levels which were exposed on a much smaller scale than Levels III–I (Öztan 2012:32). Öztan’s (2012:45) date of 6300 BC as the start of Köşk Höyük occupation might suggest that radiocarbon dates were taken from Levels 5–4 and dated to around 6300 BC, but this remains a guess until the actual dates are published. Until then, it might be more prudent to also date these levels to the Early Chalcolithic (post-6000 BC) based on Düring’s assessment of the material culture. The limited Level V–IV evidence that Düring (2011c:151–154) was able to discuss seems to fit an Early Chalcolithic date. Also, with Level III dated to between 5600–5380 BC based on a radiocarbon sample, Levels V and IV must have lasted several centuries each to span the period since 6300 BC. However, Öztan (2012:32) herself states that “throughout the time span of the Neolithic occupation, there was a marked consistency in architectural features”, maybe making a shorter duration of the Level V–II sequence more likely. Levels V–IV therefore probably date somewhere in between 6000 and 5500 BC, and Levels III–II around 5500 BC (Table 5.17).
5.7.1. The chronology of Köşk Höyük Levels V–II Levels V–II are dated to the Late Neolithic by Öztan (2010:84, 2012:32). However, Öztan’s periodisation is not the same as the one used in this book. She states that “Building Levels II–V of Köşk Höyük date to 5600–6300 cal. BC [sic] according to the C14 analysis results” (Öztan 2012:45). The latter part of the Level V–II sequence would therefore already be Early Chalcolithic according to my periodisation. A major issue for discussing the chronology of Köşk Höyük is that none of the project’s publications has so far provided a list of individual radiocarbon dates from Levels V–II. The publications only give a summary of the radiocarbon evidence, as in the above cited statement by Öztan. There is only one radiocarbon date which is provided with a level context (Level III) in the publications (Table 5.16). This sample dates Level III to between 5600– 5380 BC (Düring 2011c:151; Öztan 2003:76). This date contradicts the timeframe for Levels V–II stated by Öztan, since it means that Levels III and therefore also Level II probably post-date 5600 BC. Arbuckle’s (2012a:303) dating of the end of the Köşk Höyük V–II sequence to 5400 BC might therefore be more appropriate.
Level I Level I is dated as Early Chalcolithic by Öztan (2012:32). No clear calendric dates are given by Öztan, but her remark that “The settlement was completely deserted shortly after a full-scale fire around 5000 BC” (Öztan 2012:32) gives a date for the end of this period. Since Öztan has Level II ending in 5600 BC, Level I must date to between 5600 and 5000 BC in her interpretation (also see Öztan 2010:84, dating Level I to “end of 6th mill. – beg. of 5th mill.”). This puts Köşk Höyük Level I clearly within the earlier part of the Middle Chalcolithic as defined in this book. The designation of Level I as Early Chalcolithic by Öztan seems to rely on sherds that are similar to Canhasan 2B pottery (Öztan 2003:72). This dating of Level I as Early Chalcolithic is contested by a number of other scholars. Düring (2011c:151) points out that the diagnostic Early Chalcolithic sherds from Level I are few in number and suggests they might be intrusive from earlier deposits.
In the absence of clearer radiocarbon results, pottery evidence can provide an approximate dating of Levels V– II. Öztan’s dating seems to be partially based on material culture (lithics, pottery, architecture) comparisons. However, the publications (Öztan 2007, 2010, 2012) are not entirely clear about which Köşk Höyük material was interpreted as contemporary with what other site and level; but Tepecik, Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar, Kuruçay and Höyücek are mentioned (Öztan 2007:225, 299, 230, 2012:34, 39, 41, 45). Most discussions of Köşk Höyük chronology by other researchers, however, agree that the material culture from Levels III–II fits an Early Chalcolithic date more than a Neolithic date. Schoop 83
Silistreli 1989a:61, 1991b:99 Level I
84 Level II Level III
Level IV Level V virgin soil
Thissen 2002a:324, 327
Schoop 2005a:116, 133–134, 146
Öztan 2007:224, 234
Öztan 2010:84
Düring 2011c:151, 242–243
Arbuckle 2012a:303
Öztan 2012:32, 45
Radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates
Early Chalcolithic 5200–4800 BC Middle Chalcolithic (5000–4800 BC)
Early Chalcolithic Early Chalcolithic Middle th Chalcolithic [5600–5000 BC] (end of 6 millennium 5200–4800 BC beginning of 5th millennium)
Middle Chalcolithic 5300–4700 BC
Early Chalcolithic nine [5600–5000 BC] dendrochronological dates from the same wooden beam between 5200–4800 BC (Thissen 2002a:308)
hiatus not mentioned
hiatus not mentioned
hiatus
hiatus not mentioned
hiatus
hiatus
Early Chalcolithic 6000–5600 BC Early Ceramic Neolithic Chalcolithic late Early (around 5400 BC) 6400–5600 BC Neolithic not yet excavated
not mentioned
not mentioned
hiatus not mentioned
no hiatus mentioned
Late Neolithic (end of 7th millennium-6th millennium)
Early Chalcolithic Final Neolithic Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic
undated undated
6200–5400 BC
6300–5600 BC
radiocarbon dates from Level V-II date between 6300–5600 BC (Öztan 2012:45) one radiocarbon date from Level III, 5600–5380 ± 38 BC (Öztan 2003:76; also Düring 2011c:151)
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Table 5.16. The chronology of Köşk Höyük discussed in the literature; radiocarbon and dendrochronological dates from Köşk Höyük
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia He therefore dates Level I to the Middle Chalcolithic. Schoop (2005a:133) suggests these sherds might be imported from the Konya plain and additionally points out (Schoop 2005a:117, 133) that there seems to be confusion as to whether the discussed sherds really come from Layer I, as stated by Öztan (2003:72), or from Layers III–II as indicated by the excavation director at the time they were excavated, Silistreli (1990:93).
secure dating of Levels V–II awaits a full publication of a list of all available radiocarbon dates. 5.7.2. The architecture of Köşk Höyük The architecture of Köşk Höyük V–II is not systematically published. No monograph on the site is yet available and the preliminary reports only give glimpses of the available evidence from Levels V–II, although the Middle Chalcolithic Level I is somewhat better published (e.g. Öztan and Faydalı 2004). Architectural analysis of Levels V–II is hindered by the lack of comprehensive plans as well as systematic and detailed building-by-building descriptions. The preliminary reports (e.g. Öztan 2002; Öztan and Açıkgöz 2011) discuss individual buildings and contain an appreciable number of excavation photos with details of buildings. However, these are fragmentary impressions that do not amount to comprehensive information about the built environment at the site. Overview articles on the site by Öztan (2003, 2007, 2010, 2012) summarise architectural evidence without specifying which buildings or sometimes even which levels are referred to. Plans published in annual reports show parts of Levels V–II, but not a final plan of all structures excavated for each level: Özkan et al. (2002:Plan 1) and Özbek (2009b:Figure 2) show parts of Levels III–I; Öztan et al. (2005:Çizim 3) shows parts of Level V–VI as stated in the report (Öztan et al. 2005:107). Silistreli (1986a:Plan 2, 1990:Plan 1, 1991a:Resim 1) seems to show Level II, or maybe Levels III and II together. Detailed plans are available for one individual building each from Level III and II (Öztan 2007:Figures 4–5, 2012:Figures 5–6). The only plan showing an entire Early Chalcolithic building level was published by Arbuckle (Figure 5.17; Arbuckle 2012a:Figure 2a). Its caption “EC” leaves which of Levels V–II this plan shows unclear, but communication with the author clarified that this plan shows Level III (personal communication Ben Arbuckle). In sum, however, it is not possible to gain a comprehensive picture of the Köşk Höyük Level V–II architecture based on the currently published information. Even such basic information as, for example, how many buildings were uncovered in each level is lacking. Based on the published material, a very general description of some Level V–II architectural characteristics is possible.
Absolute dating evidence available for Level I confirms a date in the Middle Chalcolithic, but a later part of the Middle Chalcolithic than that suggested by Öztan (between 5600 and 5000 BC). A set of nine wiggle-matched dates (see 5.4.1 for an explanation of wiggle-matching) is available from a single wooden beam in Level I, Room 1. These dates span 5200–4800 BC (Thissen 2002a:327), and are statistically most likely to date to ca. 4900 BC (Kuniholm and Newton 2002:276). This dating of Level I to the earlier half of the Middle Chalcolithic is accepted by Thissen (2002a:324, 327), Arbuckle (2012a:33), as well as Düring (2011b:803, 2011c:151) and Schoop (2005a:134, 2011b:Figure 7.1) who find additional evidence in similarities of Level I pottery and architecture to nearby Güvercinkayası (5200–4800 BC; Düring 2011c:151). A date of Köşk Höyük Level I around 4900 BC makes a hiatus between Levels II and I likely. Schoop (2005a:116) mentions the possibility of a hiatus between Layers II and I, given that Layer II was destroyed by fire (Silistreli 1985a:32). Öztan (2002:56, 2003:71) instead states it was Level I, not Level II, that was destroyed by fire, and that a hiatus is unlikely because no accumulation of sterile sediment was observed between Levels II and I, an argument that Schoop (2005a:116) refutes. Arbuckle (2012a:33), a member of the Köşk Höyük team, also believes in a hiatus and states, “The MC occupation of Köşk Höyük (level I; 5300−4700 BC) represents a significant cultural break from the earlier levels. Following a brief hiatus after the abandonment of the EC occupation, the MC settlement was laid out according to a new plan with linear banks of houses lining several wide, stone-paved streets”. To summarise, in this book it shall be assumed that Köşk Höyük Levels V–II were occupied during the Early Chalcolithic, and Level I during the Middle Chalcolithic after a hiatus following the end of the Level II settlement (Table 5.17, Figure 3.3). However,
Overview of levels and development of the settlement Levels V and IV have been investigated in small exposures, but Levels III and II were exposed over large areas (Düring 2011c:151; Öztan 2012:32–33) that Öztan (2012:45) determines as comprising the majority of the existing built remains from those two levels. The preservation of Levels V–II is described as variable. Some buildings were preserved well with walls standing up to 1.5 m high (e.g. Öztan 2012:33, Figure 7; Öztan et al. 2006:Resimler 8, 13); but Level II was disturbed by foundations of Level I, and Levels V–IV are described as also being very disturbed by later architecture (Öztan 2010:88, 2012:32–35). This leaves Level III (Figure 5.17) as the best-preserved level, with walls more than 1 m high and many mobile items
Table 5.17. The chronology of Köşk Höyük used in this book Level Level I
Date Middle Chalcolithic around 5200–4700 BC hiatus
Level II Level III Level IV Level V
Early Chalcolithic around 5500 BC Early Chalcolithic between 6000 and 5500 BC
virgin soil
85
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.17. Köşk Höyük: plan of excavated structures in Level III (reprinted with permission from Elsevier from: Arbuckle 2012a:Figure 2a)10.
found inside the building interiors (Öztan 2012:33–34, Figures 4, 7, 10).
of another level (e.g. Öztan et al. 2010:255 with an example from Levels III–II). Some architectural remains could not be securely assigned to a level (Öztan and Açıkgöz 2011:138 with an example of Levels IV–III). Also, Levels V–II each had “at least two renewal phases” (Öztan 2012:32), meaning that each building level had additional sublevels that further complicated the architectural stratigraphy. The published photos that show buildings from two or three different levels support the impression that Levels V–II represented a very compressed and nested stratigraphy in which remains from different levels are found close to each other, sometimes with barely any height differences, and it is sometimes impossible to visually separate different levels (see e.g. Öztan 2012:Figures 4, 9, 12; Öztan and Açıkgöz 2011:Resim 8; Öztan et al. 2007:Resim 8; Öztan et al. 2009:Resim 4). The stratigraphy of the site seems to have been additionally complicated by the existence of terraces: The excavators reconstructed that the earliest settlers at Köşk Höyük artificially levelled the surface of the hill in order to create three terraces on which to build, whereby the central terrace is the highest (Öztan 2012:32).
Both Silistreli (1985b:199) and Öztan (2003:73, 2012:35) mention that Levels V–II were similar to each other in terms of architecture and other aspects of material culture (also Arbuckle in Öztan et al. 2008:125). No hiatus or other major stratigraphical breaks are reported. Although based on the available evidence it is not possible to make a definitive statement about stratigraphy, from the available evidence it appears that Levels V–II had a very complex stratigraphy that is maybe better described as an organically growing village rather than a development in clearly separated occupational levels. Also, some remarks from annual reports indicate that the stratigraphy of Levels V–II was often rather compressed, with remains of one level sometimes found next to, rather than under, remains reprinted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31, B. Arbuckle, Animals and inequality in Chalcolithic central Anatolia, 302– 313 (2012) with permission from Elsevier. 10
86
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia And finally, individual buildings were frequently changed through the addition or removal of walls and relocation of doorways (see below, Buildings), adding to the impression of a constantly evolving built environment. In conclusion, it might be best to describe Köşk Höyük V–II as an organically growing village in which no major stratigraphic breaks or changes to the built environment over time are observed.
and some houses had orange or white paint over the clay plaster (Öztan 2012:32–33). When looking at the published Level III plan (Figure 5.17), it is not possible to easily identify individual buildings. In some cases, a group of three or four rather large rooms are connected by doors; for other rooms, no door openings on ground level were found. It is possible that rooms connected by doors functioned together as buildings, but how rooms without doors were related to each other is more difficult to determine. The excavators seem to have identified and numbered individual buildings from Levels V–III (e.g. Öztan and Açıkgöz 2011:141), but the available plans do not show which rooms were interpreted as forming one building. Öztan (2003:73, 2012:33, 34) describes buildings as having different layouts and between 2–4 rooms whose floors were not always on the same level. Öztan (2012:33; also Düring 2011c:151) describes that in Levels IV–II, buildings were modified frequently as walls were removed or added to buildings, new rooms were appended, and doorways were changed as well. This means that building layouts would have changed over time.
Settlement size, settlement layout and unroofed space Although the total size of the site seems to be 4 ha (Düring 2011c:150), Öztan (2012:31) gives the size of the Levels V–I settlement as 100 m × 90 m (0.9 ha). It therefore seems to have been a rather small settlement. The area around the prehistoric site was then used much later during the Late Iron, Hellenistic, Roman, and Medieval periods, and again in the early 20th century (Öztan 2010, 2012:32), and late architecture and burials overlay or cut into the prehistoric buildings (Öztan et al. 2005:Çizimler 1–3). The available plans and descriptions of the Level V– II settlement layout give the impression of a dense arrangement of buildings, with irregularly distributed and shaped open spaces in between, that are described as alleys and squares (Figure 5.17; Arbuckle 2012a:303; Düring 2011c:151; Öztan 2003:73, 2010:88, 2012:33). There is evidence for use of unroofed areas for production activities and refuse disposal. Öztan (2012:33) mentions hearths, ovens, and storage bins found outside of houses in Levels IV–II. In Level IV, a cluster of beads was found in an unroofed space between buildings, and is described by Öztan (2012:34–35, Figures 14–15) as an outdoor bead workshop. The same area also had ashy deposits and refuse pits, attesting its use for refuse disposal. Arbuckle (2012a:306–308, also Öztan 2012:44) describes animal bones being found in Levels V–II in three different types of contexts: in building infills, in middens next to buildings that contained domestic refuse, and in many large but shallow pits in the northwestern area of the settlement that were filled with ash, charcoal, and the bones of sheep, goats, cattle and wild equids. Arbuckle interprets these features as roasting pits for the regular large-scale consumption of wild and domestic animals. In sum, unroofed space within the village of Köşk Höyük V–II was used for production and cooking activities and refuse disposal. Additionally, some burials were found in unroofed spaces (Anvari and Byrnes 2022; Öztan 2010:256, 2012:33).
Typical installations inside buildings were hearths, clay boxes, benches, and platforms (Öztan 2012:33, Figures 5–8). One Level III building had a feature interpreted as a stone staircase (Öztan 2012:33), but from the photo (Öztan 2007:Figure 7, 2012:Figure 8) it is not clear whether these stones were really in situ and forming a built feature. The smallest among the rooms are interpreted by the excavators as storage spaces (Öztan 2012:33–34). Öztan (2012:33) mentions that the Level III buildings had more internal subdivision and internal installations than earlier buildings. One building in Level IV had an unusual round storage room (Öztan 2012:34). Some buildings also had pits cut into bedrock in which animal bones were found, and which are interpreted as rubbish or storage pits (Öztan 2012:32, 35, Figure 17). One building in Level III had a large and well-preserved wall painting, “strongly similar to the Çatalhöyük paintings”, showing 20 human figures positioned around a horned animal (Öztan 2012:34, Figure 11). Öztan (2012:34, 45; similarly Schachner 1999:47) explicitly states that “Up to present, no building at Köşk Höyük has been excavated that could be defined either as a temple or the residence of an administrator” (Öztan 2012:34). All buildings thus seem to be interpreted by the excavators as residences. Mobile items found especially in the well-preserved Level III (e.g. Öztan 2012:Figure 7; Öztan et al. 2006:Resim 8; Öztan et al. 2009:316) are at least partly interpreted by Öztan (2012:34) as in situ, i.e. found in the place where they had originally been used. Based on the presently published evidence, it is not possible to verify whether these really were primary deposits. In some photos, the infill of buildings consists of jumbles of sediment and broken artefacts (e.g. Öztan 2012:Figure 10; Öztan et al. 2007:Resim 12, 2008:120) that could rather represent collapse or intentional infilling of refuse. Until infill
Buildings The excavators reconstructed that the earliest settlers at Köşk Höyük artificially levelled the surface of the hill in order to create three terraces on which to build houses, whereby the central terrace is the highest. Buildings had thick clay floors that served to level out irregularities in the underlying bedrock (Öztan 2012:32). Most houses were built from local limestone, but Levels V and III had some mudbrick buildings that otherwise resembled the stone buildings in layout. The stone buildings had clay plaster, 87
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia formation processes at the site are better understood, it might be prudent to not consider mobile items found inside buildings as primary deposits.
and walking tracks that limited the areas that could be excavated. Agricultural activities, (illegal) modern construction, and garden-related excavation activities had also disturbed the upper archaeological layers (Duru 2005e:158–159, Plates 5.2, 14.1, 2008:17, 23). Further, in the 19th and early 20th centuries AD, the mound had been used for mudbrick production, with people digging into the prehistoric mound to source sediments and depositing debris from mudbrick production at the mound’s surface and especially the edges. Duru (2005e:160–161) hypothesised that these activities transformed the mound significantly, with the bulky refuse from the mudbrick production extending the mound horizontally; and that the prehistoric site occupied an area much smaller than the now visible mound. A series of trenches along the mound perimeter indeed did not produce prehistoric architecture (Duru 1992a:564, 2005e:159). At the same time, the sediment extraction in the 19th/20th century disturbed the upper prehistoric remains of Höyücek, and it is possible that the thus created pits were later filled in with different sediment, redepositing a large amount of modern and prehistoric material (Duru 2005e:160). The overall poor state of preservation of prehistoric remains at Höyücek, together with the fact that parts of the mound surface were inaccessible to excavation due to modern use, contributed to Duru’s decision to excavate Höyücek for only four seasons (Duru 2019b:159). The site has suffered more destruction by modern activities since the end of the excavations (Duru 2005e:159, Plate 3.2, 2008:17).
A lot of burials were found in Levels IV–II buildings, mostly under benches and walls. Human skulls, some of which had faces modelled from clay and ochre, were also found buried or collected on benches (Düring 2011c:152; Özbek 2009a, 2009b; Öztan 2012:35–37). When this data is published more completely, reporting exact numbers and locations of burials, it would be interesting to map burials and modelled skulls onto the architecture to check for any patterns that could be indicative of social geography. At least in some cases, skulls were found clustering in certain buildings (Öztan 2003:74). Öztan (2012:37) considers the possibility that one building in Level II that contained a particularly large number of modelled skulls might have been of ritual significance for several households. 5.8. Höyücek After the conclusion of work at Kuruçay in 1988, Refik Duru’s team worked at Höyücek for four seasons 1989–1992 before starting another long-term project at Bademağacı in 1993. Höyücek is located in the outskirts of Bucak, a few hundred meters from the highway between Burdur and Antalya. The mound is 120 m in diameter and the height of archaeological deposits is 6 m (Duru 2005e:157) or 7.5 m (Duru 2008:15, 2012:8). Duru’s team dug a large trench of irregular outlines, max. 40 m × 40 m, in the centre of the mound, and a series of small sondages across the rest of the mound surface. Virgin soil was reached in a few small areas (Duru 2005e:158– 159, Plate 2.2, 2008:Figure 22). The excavations were restricted by a series of modern private gardens, buildings,
5.8.1. The chronology of Höyücek At Höyücek, Duru’s team distinguished four occupational phases above virgin soil (Table 5.18), labelled in order from oldest to youngest, and bottom to top, the ‘Early
Table 5.18. The chronology of Höyücek discussed in the literature Duru 2005d:226–228, 2007:342, 2008:16, 2012:12–13
Schoop 2005a: Düring Figure 4.9 2011c:Table 5.2
Thissen 2010:Figure 13
Thissen 2010:275 and caption to Figure 13
Mixed accumulation Early Chalcolithic incl. ‘West Trench (5700–5500 BC) and later (Batı Çukur)’
5850–5750 BC
between 5800–5600 BC
not mentioned
not mentioned
Sanctuary phase
2005: Late Neolithic (5900–5700 BC) 2007/2012: end of the 7th millennium 2008: Late Neolithic (around 6000 BC)
6000–5900 BC
between 6000–5800 BC
6160–6100 BC
61st millennium calBC
hiatus (ca. 100 years)
hiatus (ca. 100 years)
no hiatus mentioned
no hiatus
no hiatus mentioned
Early Neolithic II (6500–6000 BC)
Late Neolithic 6250–6100 BC
between 6500–6000 BC
6210–6160 BC
6140 calBC and 6080 calBC
hiatus (ca. 50 years)
no hiatus
no hiatus mentioned
no hiatus
no hiatus mentioned
Early Neolithic I (7000–6550 BC)
6400–6250 BC
between 6500–6000 BC
6410–6210 BC
not mentioned
Shrine phase
Early Settlements phase virgin soil
88
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia Settlements phase’ (ESP; or Erken Yesleşmeler Dönemi, EYP), ‘Shrine/temple phase’ (ShP; or Tapınak Dönemi, TD), ‘Sanctuary phase’ (SP, or Kutsal Alanlar Dönemi, KAD), and the uppermost ‘Mixed Accumulation’ (MA, or Karışık Birikim, KB).
are reconstructed to represent very different cultures. Neither Thissen (2010:275) nor Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) follow this interpretation; they do not reconstruct a hiatus, but do not specify reasons. Due to a lack of direct evidence for a gap in occupation between ESP and ShP in the sequence itself (e.g. clear erosion levels), I will assume there was none.
The ‘Early Settlements Phase’ (ESP) One radiocarbon date on animal bone is available from ESP (Table 5.19). Generally, bone is a more reliable dating material in central Anatolia than charcoal (see 3.2.3, old wood effect) even though this particular bone does not seem to have been articulated. However, Duru (2005d:226, 2007:342, 2008:15–16, 2012:13) suggests disregarding this date, which falls within the range of the ShP dates although it would be expected to be older. Instead, he dates ESP to 7000–6550 BC (Duru 2005d:226–228) based on the assumption that the accumulation of the up to 4 m of deposition that constitute ESP must have taken around 500 years before the start of ShP (Duru 2008:16) and also based on parallels in material culture with other Lake District sites (Duru 2012:22–23). In a different approach, Thissen (2010:274–275) assumes the radiocarbon date from ESP to be reliable but discards the two ShP dates (HD-14218, HD-14219) that are older than the ESP date. Using the two more trustworthy radiocarbon dates from ESP (Utc-3793) and ShP (HD-14217) and pottery evidence, Thissen (2010:Figure 13) dates ESP to between 6400 and 6200 BC, which also fits the dating suggested by Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) and Düring (2011c:Table 5.2) based on pottery analogies and will thus be accepted here. Duru (2005a:162) and Thissen (2010:Figure 13) further subdivide ESP into subphases, but because of the limited architectural remains, discussing this subdivision is not relevant for this book.
As mentioned above, Thissen deems two of the three radiocarbon dates from ShP (Table 5.19) to be unreliable because they were derived from architectural wood (Thissen 2010:Table 6) and are older than the date from ESP, which was done on bone, a more reliable dating material. Despite eventually using it in the suggested dating of Höyücek (Thissen 2010:Figure 13), Thissen (2010:275) is conflicted about whether to rely on the one radiocarbon date (HD-14217) from ShP that he deemed fairly reliable, as it is later than the ESP date, or whether to suspect that it is too old because it was derived from a wooden post and does not fit the dating for pottery reached by his comparisons with Hacılar and Kuruçay. Thissen also ends up offering two conflicting dating suggestions for Höyücek ShP in his paper. Thissen’s modelling of only the two radiocarbon dates deemed reliable by him (Utc-3793, HD-14217) arrives at a dating of ShP to 6210–6160 BC (Thissen 2010:Figure 13). However, his belief in parallels of Höyücek ShP material with Kuruçay Levels 12–8 and Hacılar V–II including the final stages of Level VI (Thissen 2010:275), i.e. between 6100–6000 BC (Figure 3), is so strong that in the caption to Figure 13, he appears to suggest overriding the 14C evidence in favour of a dating based on pottery parallels: “Höyücek ShP and SP are probably contemporary with final Hacılar VI/V–IIA and Kuruçay 12–10(9–8?) rather than the earlier range as provided by the boundary model” (Thissen 2010:280). He attempts to reconcile both approaches by placing Höyücek ShP at the “tail-end […] of both start and end boundaries for the Shrine Phase – viz. 6140 calBC and 6080 calBC resp.” (Thissen 2010:275). I prefer to rely more strongly on the radiocarbon evidence in this case, and therefore follow the dating of Höyücek ShP between 6200 and 6100 BC. As mentioned above, cross-referencing the different pottery sequences of the LN/EC Lake District sites among each other cannot be a reliable method of dating, because each individual sequence is riddled with problems. Also, different researchers disagree about pottery parallels between Höyücek, Hacılar and Kuruçay. Schoop
The ‘Shrine Phase’ (ShP) The dating of ShP to sometime between 6500 and 6000 BC is refreshingly unanimous between Duru, Schoop, Thissen and Düring (Table 5.18). However, Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) and Thissen (2010:Figure 13) do not agree with Duru (2005d:226–228) on how long this occupational phase lasted, and on whether or not there was a hiatus between ESP and ShP. Duru (2005d:226–228) reconstructed a hiatus of 50 years between ESP and ShP because the material culture of both levels was so different that they
Table 5.19. Radiocarbon dates from Höyücek. Information from Duru 2005d:226–228; Thissen 2010:Table 6
Level Shrine phase
Sample number HD-14217 / 13822
Sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (1σ, 68%) given by Thissen 2010:Table 6
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
7349±38
6260–6100
6262–6077 (87.4%)
7551±46
6460–6390
6474–6341 (83.7%)
7556±45
6460–6390
6476–6341 (85.8%)
7393±38
6360–6220
6391–6214 (83.1%)
charcoal
HD-14218 / 14002 HD-14219 / 14007 Early Settlements phase
Utc-3793
bone
89
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (2005a:180) finds the ShP pottery similar to Hacılar VI– IV while Umurtak (2005a:188) names Kuruçay 12–9 and Hacılar IX, VI and II and Thissen, as already mentioned, sees the closest parallels with Kuruçay Levels 12–8 and Hacılar VI–II (Thissen 2010:275).
located south of the ShP buildings (Duru 2005a:173, Plate 27). Duru gives two reasons for separating the ShP and SP remains into two occupational phases: First, “there does not seem to be any connection between the SP architectural remains and the Sh.P buildings” (Duru 2005a:174), i.e. the SP buildings were detached from the ShP buildings, which all form a tight cluster. Second, “The character and logic of the Sh.P settlement seems to have changed considerably in this new period” (Duru 2005a:174), in fact so considerably that there must have been a hiatus between the two periods (Duru 2005a:174, 2005g:231). This is a steep interpretation based on the very fragmentary SP built remains, and the description of built remains published by Duru (2005a:164–175) does not note any substantial differences between the two phases. It is possible that the slightly different orientation of at least some of the SP walls (Duru 2005a:Plate 27) was one reason for this statement.
Following Thissen’s (2010:Figure 13) dating of ShP means to assume a rather short duration of this occupational level. Duru (2005d:226) saw ShP lasting for 500 years from 6500 until 6000 BC, based on all three radiocarbon dates available from this level. Schoop’s (2005a:Figure 4.9) pottery chronology and Thissen’s (2010:Figure 13) modelling arrive at a duration of 150 years or 50 years respectively. Thissen (2010:275) does not state clearly why he reconstructs the duration of ShP at only 50 years, but he does remark that its pottery is very close to that of SP, and therefore both must be “very close in time”. This might explain why he reconstructs rather short durations for both, and also does not follow Duru (2005d:227) or Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) who see a hiatus between ShP and SP, explained by Duru (2012:10) with the fact that ShP was destroyed. However, Duru (2005d:227) also stresses continuity between ShP and SP, because in both phases Höyücek was a religious centre in their reconstruction. I will here follow Thissen’s reconstruction that no hiatus existed between ShP and SP.
Examining the details of the architecture record indicates many reasons for assuming both phases were the same. At no point did SP walls actually overlay ShP walls. Only a sequence of overlaying plaster floors without walls, attributed to the ‘3rd Sanctuary’ of SP, overlays parts of b.2–4 of ShP (Duru 2005a:173, Plates 27, 29.2). Particularly relevant is an examination of the floor levels. Although the plans (Duru 2005a:Plates 7, 27) indicate the height of features below the mound surface, not above sea level, the numbers can be used to compare in floor levels between different buildings with some caution, since the mound surface did not significantly vary across the excavation area (Duru 2005a:Plates 2, 3.1, 5.2, 2008:17). The best-preserved building of SP, called the ‘1st Sanctuary’, had a floor level at -1.9 m with another floor level beneath that (Duru 2005a:174). The two floors of the ‘1st Sanctuary’ were therefore around the same level as that of b.5 of ShP (-2.0 m, Figure 5.18). Photos confirm that the ‘1st Sanctuary’ and b.5 were nearly on the same level (Duru 2005a:Plates 6.1, 19, 28). Plate 27 indicates a floor level of the second SP buildings (‘2nd Sanctuary’) as -1.3 m, i.e. about 70 cm higher than that of nearby b.5 of ShP (-2.0 m). The already mentioned floor without walls, labelled ‘3rd Sanctuary’, was found at -0.85 m overlaying a 50 cm thick layer of debris over the corner of b.2–4 of ShP (Duru 2005a:175, Plate 27). Not only do the three buildings of SP therefore feature very different floor levels, but also the variation of floor levels between ShP and SP is well within the range that can be expected to have occurred in an organically developing village within the same occupational phase. In fact, ShP includes remains of three buildings that were attributed by Duru to an older subphase of ShP (see below). Of this early subphase, only b.1 was investigated and this building has a floor level around 60 cm lower than the neighbouring b.5 (Figure 5.18). This difference in floor levels is nearly the same as between b.5 and the ‘2nd Sanctuary’ of SP. In light of all this, the Sanctuary phase might therefore simply be part of an organically growing and developing ShP village. The one floor (‘3rd Sanctuary’) that must postdate the abandonment of b.2–4
The ‘Sanctuary Phase’ (SP) No radiocarbon dates are available from SP (Table 5.19). Between Duru himself offering differing dates for SP over the years, and Thissen, Düring and Schoop weighing in on the discussion (Table 5.18), there are now several conflicting opinions about the dating of this occupation level. The major feature in this discussion is the painted pottery that seems to appear at Höyücek with SP (but see below). A majority of scholars (Düring 2011b:Table 5.2; Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.9; Yakar 2011a:Table 4.2) seem to want to date SP later than 6000 BC, the traditional date for the beginning of pottery painting in southcentral Anatolia. Painted pottery did, however, exist in the Lake District well before 6000 BC (6.3.4). This opens the way for dating Höyücek SP to earlier than 6000 BC, as suggested by Thissen, who sees it in close chronological connection with ShP and shows a preference for assigning shorter rather than long durations to individual occupation levels. Because he offers two alternatives for the dating of ShP, and sees SP in close chronological connection with ShP, Thissen also ends up offering two different datings of SP: either 6160–6100 BC (Thissen 2010:Figure 13) or between 6100 and 6000 BC (Thissen 2010:275). The architecture evidence offers yet another alternative: checking the plans and photos published by the excavators, it appears possible, if not likely, that the Sanctuary phase was in fact part of Shrine phase. The architectural remains of SP were found directly north of the ShP buildings: “Almost all the walls of the SP architecture were found in the vacant plots to the north of the Sh.P buildings” (Duru 2005a:173, also see Plate 27) with one single SP wall 90
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
91 Figure 5.18. Höyücek: plan of excavated structures in the Shrine Phase (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 63a).
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia of Shrine phase is insufficient for identifying an entirely new occupational level.
(2005d:226–228), Düring (2011c:Table 5.2) and Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) to sometime between 6000 and 5500 BC, the Early Chalcolithic, because of its painted pottery style. Thissen (2010) does not discuss the dating of this level.
It is possible that the distinction between ShP and SP has never yet been questioned in the literature because of the supposed difference in pottery decoration, with ShP being without painted decoration and SP witnessing the introduction of painted pottery (Düring 2011c:Table 5.2; Thissen 2010:275; Umurtak 2005c:188–189). However, the generally small artefact assemblage of SP seems to have featured only very few painted sherds (Schoop 2005a:169; Umurtak 2005c:184, Plate 83) and a remark from a preliminary report seems to indicate that some painted sherds were found in ShP (Schoop 2005a:169 citing Duru 1995:468; also Schoop 2005a:167, 180). The finds context of the painted sherds from SP is not described in publications reporting on the excavation of this phase (Duru 1992b, 1994b; Duru and Umurtak 2005). If they were found in an unroofed area, that would make their attribution to this level insecure. The infill of the ‘2nd Sanctuary’ contained two pots, but it is not mentioned whether these were painted (Duru 2005a:175). But even if painted sherds or pots were found in the building infill of the ‘2nd Sanctuary’, their attribution to this building or even this phase was probably insecure since the finds context of the artefacts from ‘2nd Sanctuary’ are described as not in situ several times by Duru (2005a), for example “The definite in situ position of the finds could not be clearly determined in any of the three sanctuaries; however, in 1st San. and 3rd San. some figurines and idols were found in a vertical position on the hardened floor, which must have been their original position” (Duru 2005a:176). The insecure finds context of the SP painted sherds means, given the overall high degree of post-depositional disturbance at Höyücek, that they could even be intrusions from the later MA, which featured a lot of painted pottery (Umurtak 2005c:184–185, 190–191). In sum, it remains unclear whether SP had any more painted pottery than ShP. Independent from this question, even if the SP buildings had featured painted sherds in secure context, this would not have been strong enough evidence to divide them into a separate occupational phase from the ShP buildings that were, as described above, neighbouring and nearly on the same level. Based on the architecture evidence, we can therefore assume that SP represents part of ShP, with this level maybe featuring some painted sherds. A tentative dating of a combined ShP+SP to between 6200 and 6000 BC shall be assumed for this book.
In conclusion, based on the undeniably suboptimal dating evidence, the three levels of Höyücek ESP to SP represented a settlement that existed for at most 500 years during the Late Neolithic (Table 5.20). The painted pottery from MA also attests human presence in the Early Chalcolithic (i.e. sometime between 6000–5500 BC), but the nature of the occupation remains unclear due to the very poor preservation of this level. Since it cannot be dated any more precisely, MA is displayed in Figure 3.3 as dating to the entire duration of the EC, but it is not evidenced that it spanned the entire 500 years. 5.8.2. The architecture of the Höyücek Shrine Phase Overview of levels and architecture Of the oldest level, the ‘Early Settlements phase’, a total area of 35 m2 (Duru 2012:8) was excavated in two trenches (Duru 2005a:162) without producing architectural remains other than plaster floors. The excavators reconstruct this as a small settlement consisting of a loose arrangement of wattle-and-daub buildings, however without daub having been found (Duru 2005:163, 2012:8). The second phase, ‘Shrine Phase’ was the only one among the four occupational levels at Höyücek with well-preserved architecture (Figures 5,18, 5,19) and will be described here in more detail. The third phase, ‘Sanctuary phase’ was poorly preserved with only disjointed fragments of five parallel burnt mudbrick walls and floors recoverable; it was unclear whether and how these formed buildings (Duru 1994a:745, 2005a:173–174, Plate 27). On the basis of the high number of artefacts found on the preserved floors of SP, and the fact that the assemblages included a high number of figurines, Duru’s (2005a:174) interpretation is that they “do not represent normal houses”, but a religious centre much like the preceding Shrine Phase (Duru 2005a:173–177). It is likely that this rather daring interpretation of the very fragmentary remains of SP was also influenced by the interpretation of the preceding Shrine phase (ShP) as a temple complex, Table 5.20. The chronology of Höyücek used in this book
The ‘mixed accumulations’ (MA)
Level
The uppermost level, of considerable thickness (between 2.6 m and >6 m in some areas), contained pottery, but the associated architecture has survived only in fragments (Duru 2005a:178–179). The dating of the ‘mixed accumulations’—also labelled ‘batı çukur’ or ‘west trench’ (Düring 2011c:Table 5.2; Duru 2005a:161; Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.9)—is not of primary concern to this book because of the lack of preserved architecture remains in it, but shall be briefly discussed. MA was dated by Duru
Date
‘Mixed accumulation (MA)’
Early Chalcolithic some time between 6000–5500 BC
‘Sanctuary phase (SP)’
Late Neolithic ca. 6160–6100 BC
‘Shrine phase (ShP)’ Late Neolithic ca. 6210–6160 BC ‘Early Settlements phase (ESP)’ virgin soil
92
Late Neolithic ca. 6410–6210 BC
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia as Duru’s (2005a:177, 2005g:231) remarks about a long ritual tradition at the site imply. I postulated above that the Sanctuary phase was in fact part of Shrine phase, and the implications of this for architecture research are discussed below. The uppermost level (‘Mixed Accumulation’) was very disturbed and contained only fragments of architecture (Duru 1992a, 2005a:178–179).
Plate 27) in fact belong to the Shrine phase. If this is correct, then the seemingly unbuilt area north of b.5 would also have contained two, however poorly preserved buildings, represented by walls and plaster floors. All of this casts doubts on Duru’s reconstruction of Höyücek ShP as a very small village, represented by a cluster of buildings surrounded by unroofed activity areas. Rather, he might have excavated part of a village that consisted of more or less densely clustered buildings with intermediate unroofed areas. Because of their poor preservation, the built remains of SP are—although probably part of ShP — not included in the following discussion, because their fragmented state means that they cannot add substantially to the understanding of the ShP built environment.
The architecture of Höyücek has never been subject to a systematic review by researchers external to the excavation team, because the monograph (Duru and Umurtak 2005) was published too recently to be included in Schachner’s (1999), Steadman’s (2000b, 2004) or Cutting’s (2005b) analyses, and the site was outside of the scope of Düring’s work (2006). For this reason, I myself have, more than for the previously discussed sites, pointed out some of the more apparent weaknesses in the reconstructions offered by the excavators. Without at all representing a systematic reanalysis of the architecture evidence, my brief review shows that the architectural remains at Höyücek are open to very different interpretations than those reached by the excavators, and warrant a more thorough reanalysis. The following discussion of the Höyücek Shrine phase first introduces the major characteristics of the excavated buildings and unroofed areas and ends with a discussion of the complex formation processes observable in the built environment. These formation processes, in turn, also influence issues discussed at the beginning of following section, but nevertheless seemed better suited for discussion further ahead.
Buildings The buildings of ShP were constructed with mudbricks. Only one wall, running parallel to the south wall of b.5, was made of stone (Duru 2005a:164). The walls of ShP were preserved up to the height of 2 m in the case of the western wall of b.5 (Duru 2005a:168), which allowed the excavators to record many details of construction methods. Höyücek ShP features a multitude of different construction techniques and material: there is a high degree of variability in wall thickness across the site and even within the same buildings (Umurtak 2000a:687). Different types of earth building techniques are attested (Duru 2005:164–165). Some wooden posts are also reconstructed (Figure 5.19; Duru 2005a:164, 166). Details of the construction methods and materials are mentioned in the following only when they are relevant to the aspects of architecture reconstruction discussed here.
Size of the Shrine phase settlement The Shrine phase at Höyücek, excavated in an area of 45 m × 25 m (Duru 2005a:164) featured a group of rooms (termed buildings 1–5) clustered densely together and surrounded by extensive unroofed space (Figure 5.18). The excavators believed that these buildings represent the entirety of the Höyücek Shrine phase village, stating that “the architectural remains of this settlement period […] all seem to be included in the excavation area” (Duru 2005a:164) and that “it seems that there was no occupation in any other part of the höyük during this period” (Duru 2005e:160). This interpretation was based on the fact that no more buildings were found directly adjacent to buildings 1–5, and that small test trenches around the mound perimeter did not produce any prehistoric architecture (Duru 2005a:160, 171, Plate 2). However, built remains in ShP continued until the very western edge of the trench and there are also wall fragments at the eastern edge of the trench (Duru 2005a:Plates 5.2, 7) which indicate the likelihood of built remains continuing outside of the excavation area. Duru himself (2005a:168) interprets some wall fragments south of b.5 as the remains of buildings that had otherwise been eroded. A relatively large area surrounding the main excavation trench was not sampled through test trenches (Duru 2008:Figure 22) and so it cannot be excluded that more remains of ShP were located there. And finally, I postulated above that the buildings of the Sanctuary phase (Duru 2005a:173–178,
The plan of the Höyücek Shrine phase shows six individual rooms that were reconstructed as four buildings by the excavators (Figure 5.18; Duru 2005a:164). Although the separation of the ShP rooms into buildings is not explained, it appears to be on the basis of door location: the single-roomed b.1 had an entrance on ground level, and such a ground-level entrance is also reconstructed for b.2 without, however, actually having been preserved (Duru 2005a:165). The two rooms of b.5 were probably reconstructed as having formed one building because the smaller room could only be accessed through a door from the larger room, which in turn was connected through a ground-level entrance with the outside. Rooms b.3 and b.4 were reconstructed by the excavators as forming one building, probably because they are connected by a doorway. B.3 featured three entrances from the outside. An entrance in the badly preserved south wall of b.4 is thought possible by Duru (2005a:167) and indicated on the plan (Figure 5.18), although Duru also states that “The only entrance [to b.4] was a door in the western wall”, i.e. from b.3. Due to this contradiction and since only the lowermost few centimetres of the south wall of b.4 were preserved (Duru 2005a:166, Plate 14.2), it appears more prudent not to assume a doorway in the south wall of b.4. The doorway connecting b.3 and b.4 would therefore have been the only entrance to b.4. Also, after many 93
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 5.19. Höyücek: isometric reconstruction of buildings in the Shrine Phase by Duru (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 63b).
installations were added to the southern part of b.4 (see below, Development of buildings and settlement over time), the available internal area in b.4 was so small that it is difficult to imagine this as a functioning residence unless it had a second storey (see below). B.4 also did not have a hearth (Duru 2005a:166–169). These are arguments in favour of reconstructing b.3+4 as one building unit. On the other hand, b.4 does not share walls with b.3, but with building 2. These observations give indications as to the relative timing of the construction of these three rooms (see below, Development of buildings and settlement over time), but do not need to indicate functional relationships: if b.3. and b.4 were not built at the same time, they could still have been one single building after the completion of b.4. If b.2. and b.4 were constructed at the same time, this does not need to mean that they were shared by the same household. Overall, the evidence is in favour of reconstructing b.3+4 as one building unit, as suggested by the excavators.
B.2, b.3, and b.5 each had a fire installation. It is possible that the poorly preserved b.1 and northern part of b.2 had installations that were not preserved. B.2, b.3, and b.4 each have installations described as “clay boxes”, rectangular with thin walls made from upstanding clay panels and in some cases clay panels as lids (Duru 2005a:165–170). Added later (see below), b.4 also had a total of five installations described as “grain bins” (Duru 2005a:167) that were large versions of the clay boxes (Duru 2005a:169). The excavators (Duru 2005a:169–170; also see Umurtak 2007) typologize these clay boxes or bins by size and interpret boxes of medium and large size as storage containers. Some did indeed contain charred grain and various artefacts (Duru 2005a:166, 167, 170; Umurtak 2007:4). Smaller boxes are not clearly assigned a function and some of the boxes in b.2 and the open area west of b.3 are reported as “open-topped tinder boxes, thought to have been used for cooking” (Duru 2005a:169). It is not entirely clear how boxes were identified as having contained 94
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia tinder, but this interpretation could have been inspired by Mellaart’s (similarly unexplained) identification of “Fire boxes for glowing embers” at Hacılar (Mellaart 1970c:14, also Mellaart 1970c:17, 18, 19, 35), a site which is cited by Duru (2005a:172) as a parallel to Höyücek. B.2, b.3 and b.4 further had small niches in the walls that the excavators also conceptualised as storage spaces (Duru 2005a:164, 170). Overall, the functional interpretation of the bins, boxes, and niches should be approached with caution because there is little direct evidence for their use.
living quarters of those with duties in the temple” (Duru 2005a:171). In sum, the three better preserved buildings of ShP (b.3–5) have been interpreted by the excavators as a temple complex (Duru 2005a:171, 2012:10), leaving only b.1 and b.2—as well as possibly the SP buildings—as not immediately part of the temple. This would make Höyücek a small ritual centre used by a larger community that lived nearby (Duru 2005a:171–172; Umurtak 2011:5), probably with only very few permanent residents, all of which would be connected to the temple (Umurtak 2000a:688).
B.4 featured particularly many installations. Apart from its many clay boxes, there was also a small cell in the northwest corner separated from the main room by thin wattle-and-daub walls, accessible through a very narrow entrance (Duru 2005a:166–167). On the outside of this cell, inside the main room, there was a small construction that looked like a miniature staircase with at least five steps, which were however too small for adult feet. The excavators reconstructed that this staircase only reached a height of six steps at 50 cm (Duru 2005a:167, 2005f:Figure 3). However, since it appears to end at approximately the same level as the tops of the surrounding walls (Duru 2005a:Plates 15.2, 17), it cannot be seen as secure that the staircase did not originally continue higher. The excavators interpret the cell and staircase to have had functions in the context of the supposed religious use of b.3+4 (see below; Duru 2005a:171). However, another type of use, for example for the storage or preparation of food or other items, is also possible.
The excavators (Duru 2005a:171) give two reasons for the reconstruction of b.3+4 as a temple. First, “the position of buildings no.3 and 4, which were in good condition” (Duru 2005a:171). It is not entirely clear what is meant by this, but possibly the good state of preservation of the buildings. And second, the artefacts and installations found inside the buildings, which are portrayed as having had ritual functions (Duru 1993c, 2001c:54, 2005a:171). Both arguments are problematic in light of the formation processes discussed below: The difference in formation processes, which left b.3–5 much better preserved than b.1 and b.2, may be—but is not necessarily—a sign for a special significance of b.3–4. And the inventory of the buildings as observed in the archaeological record does not need to reflect their furnishing and use prior to abandonment. The latter has also been pointed out by Düring (2011c:165), who stated, “It is prudent, however, not to accept interpretations of buildings as shrines, proposed for example for buildings 3 and 4 in the ‘temple phase’ at Höyücek, on the basis of concentrations of figurines or other odd finds”. In the absence of any clear evidence for the purely ritual use of b.3+4, while the installations provide clear evidence for a strong focus on the storage and processing of food in the ‘temple’ b.3+4 (Martinoli and Nesbitt 2003:27), it might be more advisable to reconstruct Höyücek ShP as a collection of residences and work areas.
There has not been extensive discussion of the possibility of second storeys at Höyücek ShP. Cutting (2005b:92) cites a personal communication by Umurtak stating that the thick walls and wooden posts identified in b.5 would have made a second storey possible. The staircase in b.4 has not been discussed as evidence for a second storey, probably because of its miniature size. Although there is therefore no clear evidence for second storeys at Höyücek ShP, this possibility should be considered when basing interpretations on the internal furnishing of buildings: if an upper storey existed, then the building would have had more internal space and possibly more installations than were observed in the lower storey.
Unroofed space The buildings of the Shrine phase were surrounded by unroofed spaces (Figure 5.18). If including Sanctuary phase with Shrine phase, the excavated part of the villages appears as a loose cluster of houses with open spaces in between. An oven with adjacent clay box and grinding stone was located east of b.5 over the area previously occupied by b.1 (Duru 2005a:169–170). On approximately the same level as the floor of b.3, the area south and west of b.3 contained ovens, fire spots, several clay boxes, and an assortment of mobile objects including grinding tools. There were also some patches of constructed floor and short wall segments with plastered tops interpreted as work installations (Duru 2005a:166, 169–170, Plates 7, 13). The excavators did not find evidence for any shelter (roof) having been constructed for this work area, but hypothesise the existence of light covers made with organic materials (Duru 2005a:166; Umurtak 2000a:687). The area west of b.3 is described as a “work area” (Duru 2005a:166) and the outdoor installations do indeed suggest an intense use of the unroofed areas for various
Use of buildings Buildings 3–5 are interpreted together by the excavators as a temple complex (Duru 2005a:171). The large room b.3 is reconstructed as the main temple, and b.4 as the inner, “most sacred” room (Duru 2012:10). The southern part of b.4, containing many storage installations, is interpreted as the storage area of the temple for food and non-food items belonging to this ritual centre. Building 5, which contained comparatively few artefacts, is described as the residence of temple attendants. This interpretation of b.5 is however not supported by any evidence as indicated by Duru himself: “there is nothing to indicate its [b.5’s] purpose apart from one marble bowl. In spite of this, it can be considered to be part of the temple complex, perhaps the 95
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia activities. Only one human burial was found at Höyücek, a newborn deposited just east of b.1 in an unroofed area and in unclear stratigraphical position either belonging to the Shrine phase or the subsequent Sanctuary phase (Duru 2005a:180).
There are also contradicting statements about the abandonment of b.5. In this building, contrary to e.g. b.1 and b.3+4, no mobile objects were found on the floor level (Duru 2005a:164–168). The excavators believed that b.5 was “probably emptied before the fire that caused its destruction” (Duru 2005a:171). This, however, contradicts the interpretation that b.5 was caught in an accidental fire: “All the Sh.P buildings were destroyed by fire. It is clear from the large number of in situ objects that buildings were not or could not be emptied or looted at the time of the fire that baked all the kerpiç and left everything tinged with reel (Pl.9–21). It seems right to assume that the fire was accidental and that no attempt was made to remove the objects under the burnt layer because the area originally covered by the buildings was considered sacred” (Duru 2005g:230).
Abandonment processes There is some variability between the buildings as to the formation processes accompanying their abandonment. There are also some logical flaws in the reconstruction of abandonment processes by the excavators, which require discussion. The excavators observed that buildings 1 and 2 were abandoned earlier than the others. The evidence for this was that while b.3–5 were well preserved with walls standing up to 2 m high (Duru 2005a:168), only the lowermost mudbrick layers of b.1 and b.2 were left, and in some cases not even that. Of the northwestern corner of building 2, only the wall plaster remained. Of building 1, the northern and eastern walls could not be found at all. The use of the terminology “were/ was destroyed” (Duru 2005a:164, 165; Turkish: yıkıktır, Duru 2005f:9) leaves it unclear whether the excavators envisaged intentional dismantling of b.1 and b.2 or an erosion and collapse process. An oven found within the area circumscribed by the building 1 walls, but 60 cm above the floor level, was most probably built and used in an outdoor area by the inhabitants of the remaining buildings, e.g. b.5, after the abandonment and destruction of building 1 (Duru 2005a:164–165, 168, 169). The early abandonment of b.1 and b.2 is, however, at odds with another interpretation of Duru’s: He states that “All the Sh.P buildings were destroyed by fire” and interprets this fire as an accident (Duru 2005g:230). However, if b.1 was already destroyed and buried under sediments (onto which the above-mentioned outdoor oven was built) while b.5—probably along with b.3 and b.4—was still in use, as reconstructed by Duru (2005a:164–165, 168), then it cannot have been destroyed in the same fire as b.5. The same is true for b.2, if following Duru’s argument that b.1 and b.2 together belonged to an earlier subphase of ShP (see below). In fact, b.1 and b.2 do not actually appear to have been burnt. In colour photos showing all structures (Duru 2005a:Plates 6.1, 8, 14.1, 19.1, 2008:Figures 62, 64, 66, 69), the mudbrick of b.2 and b.1 looks unburnt, possibly with the exception of the walls that are adjacent to b.4 and b.5 respectively. The apparent contradiction in Duru’s reconstructions can therefore be resolved when observing that b.1 and b.2 were not burnt and therefore not affected by the fire that befell b.3–5. The observation that b.1 and b.2 were not burnt also casts doubt on Duru’s interpretation that b.2 was abandoned earlier than b.3–5. The comparatively poor preservation of b.2 could instead be due to the very fact that it was not burnt. It also seems possible that the unburnt walls of b.2 were simply not as easily recognisable during excavation as the walls of b.3–5 and were partly removed unnoticed by the excavators. The comparatively bad preservation of b.2 might therefore by partly a product of the excavation, not formation processes that occurred during ShP.
The interpretation of an accidental fire (Duru 2005g:230) or possibly a hostile attack (Clare et al. 2008:73, Figure 5) that destroyed buildings while still in use and therefore directly preserved traces of that use, is therefore very likely not true for b.1, b.2 and b.5. These interpretations, however, seem to have been made mostly in reference to b.3+4 anyway, namely the great number of mobile items found on the floor of this building. B.3 featured five marble bowls located near the door to b.4 (Duru 2005a:166). B.4 contained particularly many items deposited on its floor or in installations: “the items placed in Adyton [b.4], in front of the door of the cell and at the foot of the steps, such as the marble bowl, the pottery, the stone chisels, the rhyton in the shape of a boot and the thousands of silex blades [as well as deer antlers, three bottom jawbones of large animals and ten astragalus bones mentioned by Duru 2005a:167] made it impossible to walk around in this section” (Duru 2005a:171). Düring (2011c:165) has suggested that some of the burnt buildings at Neolithic sites in the Lake District could have been intentionally set on fire, and that their finds inventories might be the result of a house closing ritual, not reflecting the state of the buildings during their use. Düring does not explicitly apply this interpretation to Höyücek, but mentions Höyücek within the paragraph. The extensive collection of finds in b.4, which impeded movement in this room according to the excavators, seems to fit Düring’s suggestion. To sum up, b.3+4 and b.5 were burnt, while b.1 and b.2 were not. The fire could have been sudden (accidental or an attack) or premediated and intentionally set by the inhabitants of the village. The possibility of a house closing ritual that involved intentional burning and also possibly the emptying of buildings (as maybe b.5 and most of b.3) or intentional deposition of objects in the house interior (as maybe in b.4 and the part of b.3 closest to b.4), makes it impossible to use the mobile items found in the ShP buildings as evidence for their use prior to abandonment. As already mentioned above, this casts doubt on the interpretation of b.3+4 as a temple. Development of buildings and settlement over time The Shrine phase as represented in the plan (Figure 5.18) combines several, chronologically partially overlapping, 96
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia subphases. There were “faint remains” of an older building phase under buildings 3–4, which was not well preserved or investigated but is thought to have been very similar to the second, later subphase of ShP that is represented in the plan (Duru 2005a:164, 2012:9). As discussed above, Duru (2005a:164–165, 168) reconstructs that b.1 and b.2 were abandoned earlier than the other buildings and that the area of b.1 then became an outdoor area with an oven. The statement “buildings […] no.1 and no.2 seem to be older than the others” (Duru 2005a:164) seems to imply that the excavators think that b.1 and b.2 were also built earlier than the others, although that does not become entirely clear. Despite the temporal differences in the abandonment and possibly the construction of the four buildings, the excavators still reconstruct that all four buildings were at some point used contemporarily (Duru 2005a:164), stating for example that “Building no.5 was probably constructed before the destruction of building no.1” (Duru 2005a:168).
In addition to these developments of the settlement as a whole, individual buildings also experienced modification. B.5 and b.3+4 each underwent several phases of restructuring and/or repair. B.5 was originally built as one large room, but later subdivided into two; and even later, the doorway between the two rooms was closed with bricks. An entrance to the outside located in the north wall was also later closed. The floor in the smaller room of b.5 was renewed several times. The building seems to have had structural issues, with walls slumping and bending, and the excavators recorded that the resulting gaps and cracks were filled in with mudbrick. The repairs and door blockages in b.5 were easily recognisable because different bricks had been used. A number of short wall fragments outside the south wall of b.5 are also interpreted as possible stabilisation measures, and similarly, a wall constructed alongside the northern wall of b.5 (Duru 2005a:167–168). In b.3+4, the excavators reconstructed that the installations located in the southern part of b.4 were added some time after the original construction of the building: it “was originally a single room but was later divided into two with the construction of the platform and the grain storage bins” (Duru 2005a:167). Since their walls are not bonded, and part of their dividing wall is made up of two parallel walls (Figure 5.18; Duru 2005a:167–168), it is also possible that the two rooms b.3 and b.4 were not built at the same time.
Grouping b.1 and b.2 together as “the earlier subphase of Sh.P” (Duru 2005a:164) seems questionable for a number of reasons. It has already been discussed above (Abandonment processes) that their poor state of preservation could be due to the fact that b.1 and b.2 were not burnt and does not necessarily imply that they were abandoned earlier than b.3–5. In the case of b.1, there are however several pieces of evidence that indicate that the construction of b.1 does indeed predate b.5, and that it became abandoned while b.5 was still in use. The floor of b.1 is located 60 cm lower than that of b.5 (Figure 5.18). The oven located over the abandoned b.1, on level with the floor of b.5, positions a second use phase of this plot that is contemporary with b.5. A possible third, but considerably weaker, piece of evidence is a doorway that might have existed in the east wall of b.5: The excavators tentatively reconstruct that a doorway in the east wall of b.5 was opened after b.1 had been destroyed and the area become vacant, although the east wall of b.5 was so poorly preserved (Duru 2005a:168) that the existence of this doorway is very conjectural. If this doorway did indeed exist, it would have been blocked by b.1 and therefore its existence would show that for at least part of the use life of b.5, there was no b.1.
To conclude, within the relatively small area excavated at Höyücek, the excavators distinguished a complex stratigraphy indicating frequent modifications to the built environment, likely in an organic development that might not lend itself to a distinction of ‘phases’. This is further supported by the evidence of modifications to each individual building, which are discussed below. Within this complex stratigraphy, it is not always possible to say which buildings and installations were in use at the same time. Tentatively, it can be suggested based on the evidence outlined above that buildings 2–5 were built and used roughly contemporarily, and building 1 represents an older building that might have been out of use for all or some of the use lives of b.2–5. Possibly, the buildings under b.3 and b.4 were in use at approximately the same time as b.1. The use of this oven later built above the abandoned b.1 and the associated outdoor area could have been contemporary with the use of buildings 3–5 since the oven was found at a similar height as the floors of these buildings. Finally, if the Sanctuary phase buildings were in fact part of the same occupational phase as ShP, then the ‘1st Sanctuary’ might have been roughly contemporary with b.2–5 given their similar floor levels (5.8.1). The ‘2nd’ and ‘3rd Sanctuaries’, with higher floor levels, might represent later subphases.
In the case of b.2, however, there is evidence that it should be grouped not with b.1, but in the same subphase as b.4, and by association, also b.3 and b.5. Based on wall details noted in the plan (Figure 5.18) as well as descriptions by Duru, the eastern walls of b.2 and b.4 as well as the wall dividing them seem to represent one single construction. Duru (2005a:170) writes that “buildings no.1 and 4 were built back-to-back and must both have been used at the same time”, but he must mean b.2 and b.4. And earlier, he describes, “the wall shared by houses no.2 and 4” (Duru 2005a:168). This shared wall indicates that b.2 and b.4 were built at the same time. B.2 further appears to have had a floor level similar to b.3, b.4, and b.5 (Figure 5.18). These observations indicate that b.2 was constructed at the same time as b.4, and possibly also around the same time as b.3 and b.5.
5.9. Gelveri The site of Gelveri-Güzelyurt is located at the eastern edge of Cappadocia, where Tepecik, Köşk Höyük, as well as the Early Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük are located (Esin 1993b:Figure 1). It is located on the slope of a small rocky 97
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia outcrop overlooking the Melendiz river at its exit from the Melendiz Plain. After excavations lasting only three days in 1990 by Ufuk Esin (Esin 1993b), Sevil Gülçur (Gülçur and Kiper 2009; Gülçur et al. 2010) dug the site for one season in 2007, opening four small trenches that all reached virgin soil. The preserved thickness of cultural layers varied between 0.4–2 m above virgin soil (Gülçur and Kiper 2009:285–286).
separated by a hiatus, the first one occupied around 6000 cal B.C., the second between 5000–4500 cal B.C.”. They locate the settlement belonging to the Late Phase uphill, from where it eroded onto the Early Phase remains and was probably completely destroyed. This potential Middle Chalcolithic settlement is thus not of interest here, since all excavated architectural remains from all three excavated building levels seem to be from the Early Chalcolithic. It must however be noted that complex formation processes were at work at Gelveri that might have deposited later material inside and around Early Chalcolithic buildings. This book follows Godon and Özbudak’s suggestion of dating the EC settlement at Gelveri to around 6000 BC (Figure 3.3) since it represents the most up-to-date work on the pottery.
The site has experienced substantial post-Chalcolithic destruction. During the construction of a 19th century church in the middle of the prehistoric site, stones were removed from the prehistoric ruins. More recently, the site has been further destroyed by looting, ploughing with tractors, and the construction of two roads (Esin 1993b:47). The degree of destruction, together with the small exposure during excavation, means that we can only glean an incomplete image of Gelveri’s architecture though the buildings that were excavated were well preserved (Gülçur and Kiper 2009:287). Originally, the site might have been quite substantial; prehistoric remains cover the entire slope down to the stream at its bottom. Understanding the formation processes of the site is complicated not only by the destruction, but also by the fact that the settlements apparently shifted several times, creating a complex stratigraphy further complicated by the slope (Godon and Özbudak 2022; Schoop 2005a:118; TAY 2021). Three building levels were distinguished during excavation, with a possible fourth one remaining unexcavated in one part of the site (TAY 2021).
5.9.2. The architecture of Gelveri Esin (1993b:49) only found diffuse stone arrangements that she interpreted as potential floors or substructures of buildings made with organic materials. The possible existence of wattle-and-daub buildings led Schachner (1999:61) to postulate that this was a seasonally used settlement. During the 2007 excavations, Gülçur’s team excavated relatively well-preserved stone buildings. However, since the trenches were small and scattered across the site (Gülçur and Kiper 2009:Resim 2), only disjointed fragments of stone architecture were documented. These indicate that the site consisted of an assemblage of multi-roomed buildings and unroofed areas featuring pits or postholes (Gülçur and Kiper 2009:287, Çizim 1, Resimler 3–6).
5.9.1. The chronology of Gelveri Since no radiocarbon dates are available, the dating of the site rests entirely on pottery typology. Gülçur (Gülçur and Kiper 2009:289) dated the site to the Middle Chalcolithic based on similarities with Canhasan I Level 2a/b pottery. Esin (1993b:50–52) saw similarities with a chronologically wider array of sites that also included Canhasan I Level 1 (Middle or Late Chalcolithic, see 5.4.1). Schoop (2005a:134) and Düring (2011c:155) confirm this similarity, and point out further similarities with Çatalhöyük West sherds. Since Canhasan I Level 2 is now dated to the Early Chalcolithic (5.4.1), and the Gelveri pottery can also be compared to pottery excavated in Köşk Höyük Levels 4–2 (Düring 2011c:155) and Tepecik (Schoop 2011b:155), Schoop (2005a:Appendix 1) and Düring (2011c:155) date the site to the Early Chalcolithic.
5.10. Bademağacı The site of Bademağacı (210 m × 110 m and height of over 9 m, Duru 2019b:160) is located 20 km to the southeast of Bucak and Höyücek, close to the Taurus foothills and a natural pass through the Taurus mountains (Duru 1999:179, 2019b:Plate 1.2–3). Following work at Höyücek, Refik Duru’s team worked at Bademağacı from 1993 until 2010. An area of 15,000 m2, equating to around 65% of the mound surface, was excavated (Duru 2019b:162) and virgin soil was reached in two places (Duru 2012:13–14, 2019b:162–163). 5.10.1. The chronology of Bademağacı The excavators distinguished 23 levels from the Early Neolithic to the Middle Ages, of which 15 were dated Early Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic (Duru 2019b:164). The dating of these 15 early levels is discussed here. The team labelled them EN I, EN II, LN, and EC with further subdivisions (e.g. EN II 3, Table 5.21). Since Duru himself perceived of Bademağacı as a continuously developing settlement and the levels defined only as a somewhat inaccurate approximation of a more complex formation history (5.10.2), it appears unnecessary (and in many cases impossible) to scrutinise the dating of individual sublevels. Instead, the following discussion will be structured along
Most recently, Godon and Özbudak (2022; also see Özbudak 2012) re-examined the Gelveri assemblage and postulated that the site saw two phases of occupation. The ‘Early Phase’ has pottery similar to Tepecik Level 2 and Köşk Höyük Level 2 (i.e. Early Chalcolithic), but the ‘Late Phase’ is tentatively assigned to the beginning of the 5th millennium (i.e. Middle Chalcolithic) based on similarities with pottery sequences from northern Anatolia. They conclude that “one should assume that Gelveri Early Phase and Gelveri Late Phase were two distinct settlements, 98
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia Table 5.21. The chronology of Bademağacı discussed in the literature
Level Church/ Early Christian
Period after Duru 2007:343, 2008:17–19, 2012:14, 2019b:164, 2019d:247–248 Early Christian period
Absolute dates after Duru 2008:19 not mentioned
Schoop 2005a:182, 190
Thissen 2010:Figure 13
Düring 2011c:126, 162, Table 5.2
Duru 2019d:247–248
not mentioned
not mentioned
not mentioned
not mentioned
5800–5600 BC?
6000–5900 BC
no hiatus mentioned
hiatus
6500–6000 BC
6400–6080 BC
hiatus 6500– 6450 BC
hiatus MBA
Middle Bronze Age hiatus (2019: no hiatus)
EBA
Early Bronze Age hiatus
LC
Late Chalcolithic hiatus
EC
Early Chalcolithic
LN1
Late Neolithic
LN2
Late Neolithic
6000–5800BC
2007/2012: hiatus, 2019: short hiatus ENII1
Early Neolithic
no hiatus mentioned between 6220 BC-6080 BC
6450–6100 BC
6200–6160 BC
ENII2
not mentioned
6250–6200 BC
ENII3
between 6250–6450 BC
6300–6250 BC
ENII3A ENII4
6380–6300 BC
ENII4A ENII4B
ENI5
2007/2012, 2008: no hiatus. 2019: hiatus
not mentioned
no hiatus
no hiatus
not mentioned
Early Neolithic
not mentioned
between 6500– 6300 BC?
6700–6380 BC
doubtful whether 7100–6500 BC pre-6500 BC
ENI6 ENI7 ENI8
between 7000 BC-6700 BC
6800–6700 BC
ENI9
not mentioned
not mentioned
virgin soil
the three larger units defined by the excavators: EN I, EN II and LN/EC.
from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic levels at Bademağacı were done on charcoal (Duru 2019d:247), an unreliable dating material in central Anatolia because wood is frequently older than the context it was found in (3.2.3). Thissen appears to have found most of the dates fairly reliable, although they do not always fit the stratigraphic sequence. Two dates (Hd–22339 and Hd–20910) are treated as outliers in Thissen’s model because they do not fit the stratigraphic sequence (Thissen 2010:Figure 10).
‘Early Neolithic II’ levels Of the pre-EBA levels, the dating of the EN II levels is the least problematic because there is a number of radiocarbon dates available from these layers (Table 5.22). EN II will therefore be discussed here first to provide a reference point for the dating of the EN I and LN-EC levels. Of the 12 radiocarbon dates available from the EN II, five were published only in 2019 (Duru and Umurtak 2019a:245) and were therefore not available for Thissen’s (2010) review of the Bademağacı dating. All radiocarbon dates
There is consensus—supported also by the span of radiocarbon dates from the EN II levels Table 5.22)— that the EN II dates somewhere between 6500–6000 BC, which is the Early Neolithic in Duru’s Lake 99
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 5.22. Radiocarbon dates from Bademağacı. Information from Duru and Umurtak 2019a:244–247; Thissen 2010:Table 6 Sample number
Sample material
ENII1
Hd-21046
charcoal
ENII2
Level
Calibrated date (1σ, 68%) given by Thissen Uncalibrated 2010:Table 6 (for Hd-samples) or calibrated date date given by Duru and Umurtak 2019a:245 (for KN-samples)
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
7307±41
6230–6100
6236–6071 (95.4%)
KN-5908
7395±40
6290±60
6393–6214 (83.5%)
KN-5910
7155±49
6030±30
6090–5967 (83.9%)
Hd-20910
7546±41
6450–6390
6470–6357 (84.4%)
Hd-21058
7459±51
6400–6250
6426–6231 (95.4%)
ENII4- ENII3A
Hd-22339
7553±31
6450–6400
6466–6377 (93.5%)
ENII4
Hd-21015
7481±40
6420–6260
6425–6243 (95.4%)
Hd-21016
7424±37
6370–6240
6397–6626 (95.4%)
KN-5907
7315±55
6170±60
6263–6059 (90.9%)
Hd-22279
7465±27
6400–6260
6411–6243 (95.4%)
KN-5906
7485±50
6350±70
6431–6241 (95.4%)
ENII4B
KN-5909
7590±55
6450±40
6589–6370 (92.2%)
ENI8
Hd-22340
7949±31
7030–6760
7086–6696 (94.5%)
ENII3
ENII4A
District chronology, but the Late Neolithic in this book. Schoop’s (2005a:181, 190, Figure 4.9) comparison of the Bademağacı pottery with other Lake District sites dates Bademağacı EN II to 6450–6100 BC. Düring’s (2011c:Table 5.2) overview of pottery phases in the Lake District also dates the Bademağacı EN II to somewhere between 6500 and 6000 BC. Duru (2019d:248) dates EN II to have lasted 300–350 years from ca. 6400BC to 6080 BC. Thissen’s (2010:Figure 13) radiocarbon modelling of the seven dates available at the time arrives at a narrower window of time, dating the EN II to between 6380 and 6160 BC. One slightly older date from the lowest EN II level has been published in 2019 (KN-5909, Table 5.22), so that estimating a start of EN II around 6400 BC still appears reasonable. In 2019, Duru (2019d:248)—different from earlier reconstructions—suggested a short hiatus in occupation of around 50 years between EN I and EN II based on their different architectures (Table 5.21). Whether or not there was a hiatus between EN I and EN II cannot be confirmed based on the available radiocarbon dates.
scheme for Bademağacı. However, the single radiocarbon sample from the EN I layers, Hd-22340, is fraught with methodological issues, as already pointed out by Düring (2011c:125–126, 162), who doubts the reliability of the EN I/8 sample (also Brami and Zanotti 2015:109; Rosenstock 2019:107). The dating was done on charcoal, an unreliable material due to the possibility that wood was recycled and therefore is older than its finds context (old wood effect, 3.2.3). Available descriptions of the finds context of Hd22340 cast doubt on its stratigraphic association with the EN I/8 floor: “a piece of carbonised wood found next to the plastered floor on Level EN I / 8” (Duru 2012:20; but compare “From the limestone plaster floor of EN I/8”, Duru 2019d:247). And finally, Thissen (2010:276) points out that Hd-22340 happens to fall on “a long wiggle section of the IntCal2009 calibration curve, between 7000–6700 calBC”. Nevertheless, Thissen accepted the validity of Hd-22340, but opted for an altogether narrow time window for the Bademağacı EN I: He suggests placing EN I/8 around 6700 BC, i.e. on the tail end of the available period that is closest to the EN II (Thissen 2010:276). As a result, Thissen’s dating model for Bademağacı (Thissen 2010:Figure 13) assumes an overall longer occupation span for the EN I (more than 300 years) than the EN II (220 years), which in fact features much more substantial occupation evidence. This is similar in Duru’s model (2019d:247–248), where EN I lasts 650 years and EN II only 300–350 years.
‘Early Neolithic I’ levels One major issue of debate on the dating of the Bademağacı sequence is its start. The EN I layers, just over 2 m in height (Duru 2019d:248), consisted of sediment with very limited architectural remains (5.10.2). Duru (2019d:247, 2019e:269) dates the EN I levels to start in ca. 7100 BC based on one radiocarbon sample from EN I/8 (Hd-22340) that is dated between ca. 7000 and 6700 BC (Table 5.22). Duru (2012:22–23, 2019d:248–249, 2019e:255–256) sees additional evidence for this dating of EN I in various parallels in material culture with other Lake District sites that, in Duru’s reconstruction, confirm his chronological
Given the significance of determining the start date of Bademağacı, which together with Hacılar could be the earliest excavated farming site in the Lake District, it is most regrettable that the only available evidence for absolute dating is from a single charcoal sample 100
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia from an unreliable context—very similar, in fact, to the equally precarious proof for pre-6500 BC occupation at Hacılar (see my discussion of this issue, also pertaining to Bademağacı, at the end of 5.1.1). Also similar to Hacılar, the oldest levels at Bademağacı, despite being over 2 m thick (Duru 2019d:248), have yielded only very limited occupation evidence. It does not seem prudent to assign long durations (see above) to such incompletely documented occupation levels, especially not if such an interpretation has important implications for determining the establishment of farming and settled life in the Lake District (e.g. Duru 2019e:269). In the interest of being conservative, it shall be assumed that prior to the welldated occupation starting with the EN II in ca. 6400 BC, the less well dated EN I levels covered only a short span of time that could have started somewhat, but not significantly, before 6500 BC. Bademağacı EN I would thus date to between ca. 6500 BC (or a little earlier) and 6400 BC.
Table 5.23. The chronology of Bademağacı used in this book Level Early Christian
Date Medieval hiatus
MBA 1
Middle Bronze Age
EBA III
Early Bronze Age
EBA II/1 EBA II/2 EBA II/3 EBA I hiatus LC
Late Chalcolithic hiatus
EC LN 1
Late Neolithic / Early Chalcolithic 6160–5900 BC
LN 2 possible hiatus
Such a suggestion can be tentatively substantiated with using material culture, specifically Schoop’s (2005a) review of the Bademağacı pottery. Although there are some issues with this review, specifically that Schoop was only able to access a published subset of the EN I pottery (Schoop 2005a:181) and that the itself very fraught Hacılar sequence serves as the backbone of his Lake District pottery sequence, this represents the most comprehensive review of the Bademağacı pottery sequence by a researcher external to the excavation team. The parallels between the Bademağacı EN and the Hacılar and Höyücek pottery assemblages observed by Schoop (2005a:180–181) resulted in no clear verdict on the EN I pottery. According to Schoop (2005a:181), a change in surface rendering and vessel form that occurred at Hacılar between Levels VIII and VII, both dated to between 6350–6100 BC (5.1.1), occurs at Bademağacı between EN I and EN II. This would suggest that EN I might date as late as post-6350 BC. On the other hand, the Bademağacı EN I pottery has simpler forms than Hacılar XI–VI. Schoop (2005a:Figure 4.9) eventually reconciles this by tentatively putting EN I in a relatively narrow time window between 6500–6400 BC. In this reconstruction, despite some differences between the EN I and EN II pottery styles (Schoop 2005a:171), the EN I does not significantly predate the EN II (Table 5.23, Figure 3.3).
EN II/1 EN II/2
Late Neolithic 6400–6160 BC
EN II/3 EN II/3A EN II/4 EN II/4A EN II/4B EN I/5 EN I/6
Late Neolithic between 6500 and 6400 BC
EN I/7 EN I/8 EN I/9 virgin soil
here. Instead, the LN-EC levels are here tentatively dated to between the end of EN II around 6160 BC until 5900 BC following Schoop’s and Duru’s suggestions (Table 5.23). The scarcity and bad preservation of architectural remains from these levels render a hiatus between ‘EN’ and ‘LN’ levels as suggested by Duru (2012:14, 2019d:248) possible, but not verifiable. After the end of the ‘EC’, the site seems to have experienced a long hiatus (Table 5.23) and the later occupation starting in the Late Chalcolithic is not studied here, therefore a closer examination of the post-EC chronology is not relevant.
‘Late Neolithic’ and ‘Early Chalcolithic’ levels No radiocarbon dates are available from the poorly preserved and investigated LN and EC levels, the dating of which mostly relied on the diagnostic painted pottery. Schoop (2005a:181) tentatively suggests a dating of the LNEC levels contemporary to Kuruçay 12–7, which covers the period between 6000 and 5800 BC in his chronology scheme (Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.9), and 6100–5900 BC in mine (5.6.1). This is in fact nearly congruent with Duru’s dating of LN to ca. 6000–5900 BC. Düring’s (2011c:Table 5.2) pottery comparison arrives at a later date of 5800–5600 BC, but as already stated it is too general to be of much use
5.10.2. The architecture of Bademağacı Overview of levels and architecture and development of the settlement Duru himself stated that the division into levels represents only a simplified rendition of a much more complex formation history present at Bademağacı and other höyük sites: “The task of accurately determining the stratigraphy of a höyük is extremely complex and one that, in almost every large scale höyük excavation, scientific researchers 101
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia find very challenging and frustrating for the following reasons: the surface of the mound would not have been even (all the same Ievel) when the höyük was inhabited and, although it might be expected that the buildings in various places of the settlement would have been destroyed at the same time, for various reasons they were not always destroyed or rebuilt at the same time; in fact individual buildings were sometimes destroyed and rebuilt at different times, meaning that the architectural remains found in different parts of the excavation area do not belong to the same time period. However, in spite of these complications, it is still usually expected - by the readers of the reports as well - that a stratigraphy of the whole höyük, in the form of a single chart/table including the sequence of the architectural levels of all the cultural periods, should be produced by the excavator” (Duru 2019b:163). This statement is remarkable because it puts succinctly an issue present at many, if not all Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic settlement sites in central Anatolia, where a perceived need to define occupational levels is a hindrance, rather than a help, in researching the real, organic, development of the built environment. For the present case of Bademağacı, this statement means that the excavators themselves understood the site as an organically developing built environment, however with some longer gaps in building activities (hiatuses, Table 5.21). Excavations did not investigate all levels equally, and only EBA and EN II levels were well preserved and investigated to a larger degree. In the following, I describe the LN-EC levels from oldest to newest. I will stick to the level designations chosen by the Bademağacı team to avoid confusion, although their labels do not fit the actual date of the layers (5.10.1).
(Duru 2008:Figures 43–50, 2019a:Plates 9, 11–15, 17). Some, but not all buildings were burnt or partly burnt (Figure 5.21; Duru 2019a:169–175, Plates 9–20). The building remains partially overlay each other, leading the excavators to distinguish seven subphases (EN II/4B, 4A, 4, 3A, 3, 2, 1; Duru 2019a:169). Buildings received numbers within overall subphases, e.g. the three phases in EN II/4 (EN II/4B, 4A, 4) share a group of numbers, but then the count begins again with phase EN II/3. Note also that the numbering of some EN II 2–3 buildings appears to have been changed between 2007 and 2008: Some building numbers differ between Duru (2007:Figure 54; republished as Duru 2012:Figure 54) and Duru (2008:Figure 45) as well as Duru (2019a:Plate 10). I have abbreviated the building numbers assigned by the excavators to 4.1, 3.2 etc. (Table 5.24). The uppermost level, EN II/1, had only fragments of architecture that did not form buildings (Duru 2019a:175). EN II/2 and 1 seem to have been partially disturbed by EBA remains (Duru 2004a:544) or because they were close to the surface of the mound (Duru 2002b:581). It remains unclear how buildings belonging to the subphases EN II/2 and 3 were determined to be contemporary. Some neighbouring buildings abut, but within the overall open settlement layout, there are relatively large distances between some buildings (Figure 5.20) so that no direct stratigraphic connections would have existed between most buildings. A precise comparison of floor levels is hindered by the fact that it remains unclear whether levels given in the text and the plan (Figure 5.20) state the depth of features below the mound surface or below a fixed datum. But according to this plan, and supported by photos (Duru 2008:Figure 44, 2019a:Plate 11.1), some buildings attributed to different subphases within EN II/2–3 were found at nearly the same height and buildings belonging to the same subphase could have floor levels differing by as much as 1.2 m, as in the case of the neighbouring buildings 3.6 and 3.7. In light of this, the division of built structures into levels should be viewed with a degree of caution. In fact, Duru himself (see citation above) perceived of Bademağacı as a village within which individual buildings were built, modified and abandoned on their own individual timelines. Difficulties of forcing the EN II building remains into sublevels are therefore not really an issue if EN II is seen as an organically developing settlement. A lack of clarity as to what buildings were really contemporary, however, prevents many aspects of architectural analysis, such as comparing the presence/absence of features between contemporary buildings. However, an overall characterisation of the EN II architecture is possible.
The lowermost levels, labelled EN I/9–5 and 2.4 m thick in total, were excavated in two sondages placed between EN II buildings (Duru 2019a:167, Plates 7.3, 10). Level EN I/9 represents a layer of 0.6–0.7 m thickness without architectural remains. The following EN I/8 had fragments of a well-preserved lime plaster floor, but no walls (Duru 2008:18, Figures 35–37, 2012:14–15, 2019a:168–169, Plate 8.1–2). The deposits of the EN I/7–5 did not contain walls, but some clay fragments, areas of pebble paving, hard surfaces and ash layers that were interpreted as fire spots or house floors (Duru 2008:Figures 36–38, 2019a:169, 178). Two burials were found under EN I/7 floors (Duru 2019c:183). The excavation team reconstructed that the buildings of the EN I consisted of branches, reeds and clay plaster (wattle-and-daub) based on the absence of any traces of walls; however, no postholes or clear daub remains with reed/wood impressions seem to have actually been found (Cutting 2005b:93; Duru 2008:28, 2012:23, 2019a:169, 178–179, 2019e:252–253; Umurtak 2007:1).
Size and layout of the EN II settlement
A total of 21 buildings were excavated from the EN II levels (Figure 5.20), all in the northwest area of the mound (Trench A; Duru 2019a:169–176, Figure 7.2). Some of the EN II buildings in Trench A were well preserved including interior furnishing and mobile equipment, yet none seems to have been preserved higher than ca. 80 cm
It is unclear how far the EN II settlement extended. Referring to EN II/3, Duru (2008:29) states that “houses nos. 2, 3 and 4 are side by side while others stand alone. The dispersion of these houses suggests a minimum of 30 houses were located all over the mound at this time”. This 102
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
103 Figure 5.20. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures in Levels EN II/3 and EN II/2 (reprinted with permission from Zero Books/Ege Yayınları from: Duru and Umurtak 2019a:Plate 10).
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia statement indicates that he expected at least the EN II/3 village to have spread over the entire, or most of the rest of the mound area (also Umurtak cited in Cutting 2005b:94). Since, however, the EN II buildings were only excavated in the northwest area of the site—and not, for example, in the large excavation areas in the southern and central area of the mound (Duru 2019a:Plate 10)—it cannot be seen as certain that the EN II settlements extended past the northwest sector of the mound.
out there, or secondary (midden) contexts. This source also indicates that the excavation strategies employed during investigation of the EN II was not designed to document the formation processes of unroofed areas in detail: “The faunal remains were identified in the field by the first author [DeCupere] during the campaigns of 1998, 1999 and 2005. The material was mainly hand-collected; no sieving was carried out during the excavation of the upper levels but in the deep trenches all sediment from the EN I levels (5 to 9) was screened using a 4 mm mesh. In general, the faunal remains were very well preserved and had a rather dark colour. Almost all show a similar good state of preservation and only a minority of the material has been burnt. Not all stratigraphic levels yielded animal remains, and certainly not in the same quantities. Most of the material was collected from the early Neolithic levels, especially from the EN II period” (DeCupere et al. 2008:371).
Only EN II/3–2 featured more than one or two buildings. The layout of these settlement phases can be characterised as open, with distances of 4–12 m between neighbouring buildings. In some cases, buildings abut or form small clusters, e.g. 3.1–4 or 2.3–4 (Duru 2019a:Plate 10). The distances between buildings meant that significant unroofed spaces existed within the settlement, which featured some installations that designate them as activity areas. Assigned to sublevel EN II/3, four separate groups of storage bins as well as a few difficult to interpret short stone walls were found in unroofed areas (Duru 2005b:12, 2008:Figure 45, 2019a:171, 180, Plate 10; Umurtak 2000a, 2007). Level EN II/2 also contained some installations in unroofed areas: small walls of unknown function south of building 1.2 and bins attached to the outer wall of 2.4 (Figure 5.20; Duru 2019a:175, 180).
The unroofed areas of the EN II settlement also contained burials. Locations of the more than 70 burials found in the EN II layers are not systematically published, but burials are mentioned from unroofed areas as well as under the floors or in the infills of buildings (Anvari and Byrnes 2022; Duru 2019c:183; Erdal 2019a:Tablo 1). In conclusion, existing information marks the unroofed areas within the EN II settlement as spaces used for activities, storage, middening, and burial.
Within the Bademağacı publications, there is no systematic discussion as to what characterised the areas between the structures and installations. However, based on remarks about individual deposits or artefact clusters, it appears as though at least some deposits between buildings contained artefacts, sometimes clusters of artefacts. These are probably partly primary deposits, i.e. evidence for activities carried out in situ; partly redeposited refuse material; and yet others might represent special depositions. For example, Duru (2019a:174) reports that “Hundreds of silex and obsidian blades and blade cores and two in situ jars, with dozens of chisels -celt- in them, were found on the floor of the passage that contained the silo [between 3.1 and 3.3]”. The number of useful artefacts collected in this deposit could represent a special deposition rather than the leftovers of in situ activity. Apart from such unique deposits, there appear to have been activity (primary) or refuse (secondary) deposits as well. The preliminary reports anecdotally mention that artefacts or ecofacts were found in between EN II buildings or “from debris” outside of buildings (e.g. Duru 2002:585, 2004a:17, 2008:Figure 156, 2019b:165). Umurtak (2007:3; also Duru 2004a:553) mentions that “Kilos of burnt but well-preserved wild apple and pear have been collected from the Bademağacı EN II/ 4B, 4A, 4 and 3 settlements. In the 3–4 meter-long open area outside the houses of EN II/4B settlement, a heap of carbonised fruit spread out was found”. Further, a description of the finds contexts of Bademağacı faunal remains provided by DeCupere (et al. 2008:371; this report was republished as DeCupere 2019) reads as if a lot of the faunal material was found in deposits between EN II buildings, where it was well preserved and might well indicate either primary deposits from activities carried
Buildings in the EN II settlement All EN II buildings were made from mudbrick with clay floors, but some variation of building materials and techniques is reported: some buildings used plano-convex bricks, while others were built in a wet-slab technique; some had posts and some had stone foundations (Düring 2011c:163; Duru 1999:180, 2004a:Levha 8/1, 2012:15– 16, 2019a:179–180; Umurtak 2000a:684–686). Most of the 21 buildings of EN II (Table 5.24) were interpreted by the excavators as individual residences (Duru 2019a:179; Umurtak 2000a:685) with the exception of 2.4 and 2.5, which are interpreted as a storage area and work area respectively (Duru 2019a:174–175). However, four of the buildings in EN II/2 (2.1, 2.3, 2.4, 2.5) were “partially excavated and in a badly damaged condition” (Duru 2019a:174, also Plate 10) so that their functional interpretations must remain tentative. Additionally, building 3.9 as well as the only building in EN II 3A (located under 3.2) were only partly excavated (Duru 2019a:171, 173, Plate 10), so that their identification as residences cannot be seen as secure. The two buildings of EN II/4, 4.4. and 4.5, also warrant another look. The excavated part of 4.4 consists of a room of much smaller dimensions (2.9 m × 2 m) than the other buildings and without internal installations (Duru 2019a:170). Due to its different characteristics, it is possible that 4.4 was not a residence. Of 4.5, only a hearth and a wall fragment were found. They might represent parts of a not otherwise preserved residence (Duru 2019a:171) but alternative interpretations of this architectural fragment are also 104
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia Table 5.24. Bademağacı: buildings in EN II. Information from Duru 2019a:169–176, Plates 8.3, 10 Level
Number of buildings
Numbering of buildings
State of preservation and excavation
EN II/2
6
2.1–6
2.1 and 2.5 only partly preserved; 2.3 and 2.4 only partly excavated
EN II/3
9
3.1–9
3.9 only partly excavated
EN II/3A
1
[under 3.2, no number]
only partly excavated
EN II/4
2
4.4, 4.5
4.5 only partly preserved
EN II/4A
2
4.2, 4.3
EN II/4B
1
4.1
possible, for example as an installation located in an unroofed area. This leaves 13 relatively well preserved and completely excavated buildings in EN II that most likely represent residences.
(Duru 2019a:173) and some direct evidence of storage use was found: A preliminary report mentions that “Plenty of grain has been found inside” the bins located west of 3.7 (Duru 2005b:12). Some bins contained non-food items such as pottery vessels or a bone spatula (Duru 1999:180, 2019a:173; Umurtak 2007:3), meanwhile others were found empty (Duru 2019a:173; Umurtak 2007:3). As always, it needs to be remembered that the content of bins might have been intentionally altered prior to their abandonment, so that their contents as found need not represent their actual use. As already mentioned, some EN II buildings featured burials either in their infill or under floors.
Buildings from the EN II appear very similar in construction, size and furnishing (Duru 2002:581, 2012:15, 2019a:171–172; Duru and Umurtak 2007:7). Most consisted of one rectangular room with dimensions of 5–6 m length and 3.5–4.5 m width, with a door opening in one long side and a fire installation on the wall opposite the door (Duru 1999:180, 2012:15–16, 2019a:171–172; Umurtak 2000a:684–686). These rectangular or horseshoe shaped fire installations are sometimes described as hearths and sometimes as ovens (Duru 2019a:169–175, 180, Plate 19.1–3); determining their exact use does not always seem to have been possible. Some idiosyncrasies exist between buildings. For example, building 3.8 had two rooms (Figure 5.21), and 3.1 and 3.2 had two door openings each (Duru 2019a:172–173). One door opening in 3.2 opens toward a narrow room or passage, located between 3.2 and nearby 3.3, that could maybe also be conceptualised as a side room used for storage and activities (Duru 2019a:174, Plate 10). Internal installations vary as some buildings had bins or platforms—sometimes with inbuilt grinding stones—and others not, while some buildings had two fire installations (Figure 5.21; Duru 2019:169–175, 180). The bins or boxes, found inside and outside of buildings, are interpreted as storage installations
A defensive wall in EN II? Several fragmentary stone walls were found southeast of the cluster of EN II buildings and at 15–20 m distance from the nearest EN mudbrick building (Figure 5.20). Buildings in this area were not well preserved (mostly only one stone course, Duru 2019a:Plate 16). The stones appeared to be forming two rectangular rooms as well as short segments of free-standing walls attached to one of the rooms. The stone-built structures themselves, as well as stratigraphic connections between them and the EN II mudbrick buildings to the northwest, could not be further investigated because of overlaying LN and EBA remains, which were not removed (Duru 2008:32, 2012:17, footnote 15, 2019a:176). As a consequence, there is no direct stratigraphic connection between these stone buildings and the EN II mudbrick buildings. The dating of these stone structures to the EN II was based on pottery since “sherds found all around those walls were mainly EN II wares” (Duru 2019a:176). This statement implies that some sherds found in association with the walls did not date to the EN II, though, so that the dating of the stone walls should be seen as insecure. Originally, the excavators interpreted this group of walls, in particular the rectangular building with adjacent free-standing walls, as a defensive structure (Duru 2004b:16–17, 2012:17, 2008:32; also Clare et al. 2008:76, Figure 5). In this interpretation, the rectangular building was either a tower (Duru 2012:17) or part of a “casemate system consisting of a row of adjacent rooms” that enclosed and protected the settlement (Duru 2019a:182, also 2012:17, 2019e:256). In the 2019 monograph on the site, however, Duru takes a more cautionary approach and states that it is not possible
Figure 5.21. Bademağacı: photo of Structure 8 in Level EN II/3 (reprinted with permission from Zero Books/Ege Yayınları from: Duru and Umurtak 2019a:Plate 14.1).
105
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia to interpret with certainty the discussed EN structures as a defence system (Duru 2019a:180, 182). And indeed, the very limited evidence available from the stone structures in the southeast corner of Trench A does not support an interpretation as defensive walls.
of the foundation for a defence wall” (Duru 2019a:177, also see 182). Since the entire LN level is so poorly preserved and little understood, though, an interpretation of this wall as a defence wall seems highly insecure. At a distance of ca. 10 m from the LN 2 building, short and disjointed wall fragments were found together with a few installations (Figure 5.22; Duru 2019a:177). These structures were not directly stratigraphically connected to the larger building, and the excavators remained unsure about their attribution to the LN (Duru 2012:18). Adjacent to the large, rectangular LN 1 building stood a structure composed of five parallel walls that were only 60–70 cm apart (‘grill plan’ or ‘grid plan’) and are understood by the excavators as possible foundations for a second building (Duru 2008:44, 2019a:177–178).
The LN and EC Levels LN and EC levels were encountered in two or three different areas of the mound: First, in the western-central part of the mound, where a deep trench (DA 3) was excavated to research the EN levels, some architectural fragments dated to the LN were found as well as LN and EC pottery (Duru 2019a:178). In the northern part of the höyük, sediment layers (1.5 m thick) were found overlaying the EN and containing the diagnostic LN/EC painted pottery, as well as badly damaged fragments of stone walls (Duru 2019a:176). Lastly, two buildings attributed to the LN were found in Trench A, southeast of the EN II mudbrick buildings (Figure 5.22; Duru and Umurtak 2011:9–10; Duru 2019a:176–177, Plate 21.1).
The dating of the described built structures to the LN should not be seen as certain. In fact, the EBA and LN buildings were found nearly on the same level, and some EBA walls overlaid LN walls directly (Duru 2019a:Plates 21.3, 21.5): “Building remains from these two time periods that are thousands of years apart in time, were found at almost exactly the same elevation next to each other” (Duru 2012:17). This very compressed stratigraphy is reason for doubt as to the correct attribution of the ‘LN’ buildings to this time period (Düring 2011c:172). It does seem possible that they did in fact belong with the EBA; in fact, when excavated they were first assigned to the EBA “because of the pottery found around them” (Duru 2019a:176; also Duru 2012:17, footnote 16; also see Duru 2004a:542–542, 2019a:179; Duru and Umurtak 2006:13 with a discussion of the complex stratigraphy of the EC-EBA levels of the mound). Later, however, “it was observed that all the pottery and other finds found in situ in these buildings belonged to the Neolithic period” (Duru 2019a:176). As a result, the buildings were re-assigned to the LN; Neolithic, but not EN because they showed different characteristics from the EN II buildings (Duru 2019a:177, 181, 2019e:256). These descriptions cast some doubt on the reliability of the dating of the supposed LN buildings as it sounds as if the finds in the buildings were not diagnostic enough to determine a subphase of the Neolithic. The only reason for not assigning the buildings to the EN II was a perceived difference from other EN II buildings – an interpretation that given the poor preservation of the ‘LN’ buildings and the existence of other stone (foundation) buildings in the EN II layers (which are actually located close to the LN buildings) is somewhat conjectural. The above cited statement about pottery found in situ in the LN buildings also needs to be qualified: The building in LN 1 did not contain any artefacts (Duru 2008:44, 2019a:177). The building of LN 2 is described in older publications as void of artefacts and thus of datable material (Duru 2008:44, 2012:18) but the 2019 publication mentions in situ vessels: “Although it was not possible to determine the level of the floor of this room, it is clear from the in situ pots found at different depth that there were several floor levels” (Duru 2019a:177). However, it seems questionable whether the vessels from the LN 2 building were really in situ: The cited statement reads as if vessels were not actually found
The architectural structures belonging to the LN consist mainly of two rectangular buildings that overlay each other (LN 1 and LN 2, Figure 5.22). None of the LN built structures are well preserved; the photos show that most walls consisted of only one layer of stones (Duru 2019a:Plate 21.3–5) although sections of the long LN 2 wall described next were preserved up to 4–5 courses high (Duru 2008:44). The older, LN 2 level featured an 11 m-long, seemingly free-standing wall that was attached to the rectangular building assigned to this level. The excavators, with some caution, understand this wall as a defence structure (Duru 2008:44, 2012:18): “Although it is not possible to say anything definite about the function of this wall, its appearance suggests that it was probably part
Figure 5.22. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures in Level LN (reprinted with permission from Zero Books/Ege Yayınları from: Duru and Umurtak 2019a:Plate 21.2).
106
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia in direct association with an architectural feature, meaning that there is no evidence that they were actually in primary position. Instead, the existence of several floor levels in the LN 2 building was inferred from the finding of vessels that were believed to be in situ for reasons not explained. Additionally, given the very poor preservation of the LN 2 building, which was only one stone course high (10–15 cm), the stratigraphic connection between the LN walls and the different levels of infill that contained pots (‘floor levels’) seems questionable. The sediment layers inside as well as directly above the LN buildings, and artefacts in these layers, could have been redeposited and therefore are not secure material for dating the buildings.
Pınarbaşı is a site located at the foot of Karadağ, a mountain and ancient volcano in the Konya plain, 25 km from Çatalhöyük. Several discontinuous phases of occupation dating to between the Epipalaeolithic and the Byzantine era were excavated at different places within the site in 1994–1995 and 2003–2004. Excavation Area B represents a rock shelter with some deposits that date to the Late Neolithic (Baird 2012b:183).
2012b:183–184, Figure 3; Baird et al. 2011:380). Within the relatively thin (Baird 2012b:Figure 5) deposits of Late Neolithic Pınarbaşı, the excavators distinguished three phases. The area of excavation is so small, however, that more remains of these phases probably existed outside the trench. The first and last (Phase F, Phase E II) featured evidence for food processing and consumption activities in the form of fire pits and refuse, but no architecture. Phase F is represented by fire pits with refuse probably related with food preparation and consumption (Baird et al. 2011:382). Phase E I featured architectural remains (Figure 10.1, 10.2): a curved wall, hearth and oven that is reconstructed as a habitation. Only part of the building was excavated; based on the plan, it seems possible to reconstruct that the wall might have formed a semi-circle and the habitation been built against the bedrock of the rock shelter. Another stone wall seems to be attached in the south. The Phase E I building was interpreted by the excavators as not permanently used because of its relatively thin stone wall that carried an organic superstructure: “A mass of reed phytoliths and carbonised reed stems suggest an easily refurbishable light superstructure of reeds” (Baird et al. 2011:382, 387; also Baird 2012:201). In the third and last phase (E II), a mixture of refuse and occupation debris accumulated in the interior of the structure (Baird 2012b:200; Baird et al. 2011:382). In Phase E II, the excavators observed “repeated occupation and abandonment” in the record, noting many subsequent and alternating layers of deposits indicative of occupation and those indicative of refuse disposal (Baird et al. 2011:382; Watkins 1996:52–53). The excavators reconstruct Pınarbaşı as a seasonally used campsite visited by groups from Çatalhöyük (Chapter 10).
5.11.1. The chronology of Pınarbaşı B
5.12. Musular
Area B at Pınarbaşı is dated to between ca. 6450–5900 BC through two radiocarbon dates from infill located in a circular built structure (Table 5.26). A third sample (OxA5502) from a shallow pit just below the site’s surface, dating to around 4500 BC, can probably be seen as intrusive (Thissen 2002a:310, 324). Pınarbaşı B thus dates mostly to the Late Neolithic, but the radiocarbon dates are only sufficient to provide a very rough timeframe for its occupation. A Late Neolithic date for the site is generally accepted (Table 5.25).
Musular, a small site located across the river from the Early Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük, is known mainly for its Early Neolithic occupation, but also featured a badly preserved
No EC architecture was encountered, but Duru interpreted that an EC settlement probably existed at Bademağacı outside of the excavated areas (Duru 2019a:178). He also offers an alternative interpretation: that the EC occupation at the site was of short-lived or ephemeral nature, by nomadic communities (Duru 2019b:164) similar to his interpretation of the Late Chalcolithic and EBA I layers, which were also without architecture (Duru 2008:18, 2019b:164). 5.11. Pınarbaşı B
Table 5.25. The dating of Pınarbaşı B discussed in the literature Thissen 2002a:324
5.11.2. The architecture of Pınarbaşı B
6400–6200 BC, 6100– 5950 BC
Set against the bedrock of a rock shelter, Area B had an irregular shape of 4 m by up to 10 m (Figure 10.1; Baird
Baird 2012b:201, Baird et al. 2011:382
Hodder 2014b:14
6500–6000 BC “the last 200 years of the East Mound occupation”, i.e. 6200–6000 (compare Hodder 2014b:Table 1)
Table 5.26. Radiocarbon dates from Pınarbaşı B. Information from Thissen 2002a:310, Watkins 1996:Table 4.1 Sample number OxA-5502
Sample material charcoal
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date (2σ, 95.4%) given by Watkins 1996:Table 4.1
Calibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
5725±65
4774–4454
4720–4443 (94.1%)
OxA-5503
7145±70
6069–6064
6099–5883 (86.8%)
OxA-5504
7450±70
6415–6160
6446–6215 (90.0%)
107
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia second occupational phase dated by the excavators to “the very end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Chalcolithic period” (Özbaşaran et al. 2012:166).
reconstructed as a multi-roomed residence or a separate storage building. 5.13. Tepecik-Çiftlik
5.12.1. The chronology of Musular
Tepecik-Çiftlik (henceforth Tepecik) is located in Cappadocia, 40 km north of Köşk Höyük in a small fertile basin between hills and mountains. A team under the direction of Erhan Bıçakçı has been excavating the site on a large scale since 2000. The site covers more than 3 ha and reached 10 m above the surrounding plain, but archaeological layers are also present below the modern plain level, so that the thickness of archaeological deposits exceeds 10 m (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:75). Since excavations are ongoing, only preliminary reports have yet been published with summary descriptions of chronology and architecture, resulting in the following description of Tepecik also being of a summary nature.
The excavators dated this second occupational phase through a single radiocarbon sample to around 5800 BC (KIA-30923, bone, 6955±45 BP; Özbaşaran et al. 2012:167; calibrated with OxCal, IntCal 20, 88.9% = 5975–5735 BC). Pottery from this occupation level confirms a Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic date (Özbaşaran 1999:151, 2000:133; Özbaşaran et al. 2012:167). The radiocarbon sample was not derived from within the single building preserved within this occupational level (5.12.2), but instead from what seems to have been a refuse deposit in the open area next to it. The excavators also relate difficulties with finding stratigraphically secured radiocarbon samples within this uppermost, disturbed level (Özbaşaran et al. 2012:167). There is therefore an element of doubt whether the one preserved building is from the same time period as the radiocarbon date, around 5900–5800 BC. Düring (2011c:150), however, accepts the Early Chalcolithic date of the multi-roomed building at Musular.
5.13.1. The chronology of Tepecik Fourteen levels (Table 5.27) have so far been excavated without yet reaching virgin soil, wherein Levels 7–9 have only been uncovered in a sondage, and Levels 10–14 in an even smaller part of this sondage (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:95–96; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:75, Figure 7). Bıçakçı et al. (2017:Figure 7) date Levels 10–2 to the PrePottery Neolithic through the Early Chalcolithic. Level 1 represents a poorly preserved Late Roman-Byzantine cemetery that used the prehistoric mound (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:90). So far, four radiocarbon dates from Levels 5–3 have been published from Tepecik (Table 5.28). However, there seems to be a much larger number of radiocarbon dates, partly processed but as yet unpublished, and partly still being processed (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77). The updated site chronology published by the excavation team in 2017 (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 7) was based on unpublished dates (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77).
5.12.2. The architecture of Early Chalcolithic Musular The uppermost, Early Chalcolithic level of Musular was heavily destroyed by erosion and modern agricultural use. Besides fragments of floors and walls, only a part of a large, multi-roomed stone building was uncovered in Trench N (Özbaşaran et al. 2012:166, Figure 14). The two occupation levels at Musular, the 8th millennium site and the Early Chalcolithic site, were stratigraphically difficult to distinguish (Düring 2011c:78). The excavators tentatively suggest the settlement of the “Pottery Neolithic” phase (i.e. the upper level, later dated EC) might have covered 800 m2 (Özbaşaran 2000:131), possibly based on the distribution of surface finds. Without further architectural remains, this remains a hypothesis.
Levels 10–5
The single building of the Chalcolithic phase was only partially excavated and consisted of three small rooms (B, F, H) and one slightly larger room (G) that probably led into another adjacent room, which was however very poorly preserved. The building contained a grinding stone and a polishing stone. Outside the building, pits, rubbish dumps, pebble flooring, parts of a bin and artefacts interpreted as a working area belonging to the same occupational level were found (Özbaşaran 1999:150–151, Plan 3, Figures 3, 7, 2000:131–133; Özbaşaran et al. 2012:166–167, Figure 14). The excavators do not provide an interpretation of this building, stating that its function cannot be assessed (Özbaşaran 2000:131). Düring suggests interpreting the preserved parts as storage areas: “The cells might have been used for storage; they are too small for any other purpose. Alternatively, the floors of these buildings could have been constructed at a higher level, with the cells supporting the raised floors” (Düring 2011c:150). Accepting this, the building could either be
Levels 10–5, as well as yet unexcavated layers below Level 10, date to the Early Neolithic. Based on radiocarbon dates, Bıçakçı et al. (2017:Figure 7) date Levels 7–6 to 6850– 6650 BC. They also state that they estimate the earliest occupation of the site to have occurred between 7500 and 7000 BC (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77), but no radiocarbon dates seem to be available yet from Levels 10–7 (“A déterminer”, to be determined, Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 7). Levels 4–2 Levels 4–2 are distinguished here as they fall into the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic periods that are the focus of this book. Based on published (Table 5.28, see also below) and unpublished radiocarbon dates, Bıçakçı et al. (2017:Figure 7) date Level 4 to 6650–6400 BC, i.e. the transition from the Early Neolithic to the Late Neolithic in the periodisation scheme used by this book (3.2.1). Level 3, with two construction subphases, dates to 108
Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia Table 5.27. The chronology of Tepecik discussed in the literature Level
Bıçakçı et al. 2012:90
Düring 2011c:148
Bıçakçı et al. 2017:75, 77, Figure 7
Level 1
Late Roman-Byzantine
Late Roman-Byzantine
Byzantine
Level 2
Middle Chalcolithic
Early Chalcolithic
Early Chalcolithic Phase 1: 6000–5900 BC Phase 2: 6100–6000 BC
Level 3
Early Chalcolithic
Early Chalcolithic
Final Neolithic Phase 1: 6300–6100 BC Phase 2: 6400–6300 BC
Level 4
Pottery Neolithic
Pottery Neolithic
Pottery Neolithic 6650–6400 BC
Level 5
Pottery Neolithic 6750–6650 BC
Level 6
Pottery Neolithic 6850–6750 BC
Level 7
Pottery Neolithic
Level 8 Level 9 Level 10–14
not mentioned
not mentioned
unexcavated
Pre-Pottery Neolithic, start of the site probably between 7500–7000 BC
Table 5.28. Radiocarbon dates from Tepecik. Information from Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103; Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2
Level “Level 3.4”
Sample number KN-5916
Sample material
Uncalibrated date
Calibrated date Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103; Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2
Ccalibrated with OxCal (IntCal 20)
–
7171±43
6041±26 (1σ, 68%)
6090–5977 (90.0%)
Level 3 or 4 (Bıçakçı et al. KN-5914 2012: sample is from Level 4. Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019: sample is from Level 3)
charcoal
7418±78 (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103)
6435–6097 (95.4%)
6426–6207 (76.8%)
Level 4
KN-5915
–
7454±41
6328±58 (1σ, 68%)
6413–6236 (95.4%)
Level 5
Col-173
charcoal
7880±49
6848–6610 (78.7%)
6861–6636 (74.2%)
7420±80 (Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2)
6400–6100 BC and Level 2, also with two subphases, to 6100–5900 BC. Level 2, designated as Early Chalcolithic by the excavators, therefore dates to the transition between the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, referring to the periodisation scheme used by this book.
sample (7418±78 BP according to Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103; 7420±80 BP according to Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2). KN-5914 as well as a published sample from Level 5 were both done on charcoal (Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2). The insecurity of the stratigraphic context of two out of the four published samples, as well as the use of charcoal for at least two samples— a material that is now deemed potentially unreliable due to the old wood effect (3.2.3)— throw some doubt on the reliability of the Tepecik radiocarbon dates. Nevertheless, for the moment we must accept the chronology published by the excavation team (Table 5.29, Figure 3.3).
Due to the lack of published details on the radiocarbon dates, it is not possible to effectively scrutinise the chronology published by the excavation team. There are some indications that possibly not all of these samples are reliable. Three radiocarbon dates have been published for Levels 4–3. For two of these samples, the attribution to either Level 4 or 3 seems to be unclear: The description of KN-5916 reads “Level 3.4” (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:103). KN-5914 is described as being from Level 4 by Bıçakçı et al. (2012:103), but Büyükkarakaya et al. (2019:2) state that it is “the latest date of level 3”. The two sources also name slightly different uncalibrated dates for this
5.13.2. The architecture of Tepecik Levels 4–2 The architecture of Levels 4–2 is characterised by buildings constructed from stone and mudbrick and by a settlement layout in which a number of rooms or buildings 109
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia successively reduced (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:91; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77). In addition, rooms or buildings were abandoned and replaced throughout the duration of Level 3, normally not following the layout of the previous building (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:92). Due to the many changes, six constructional sublevels were defined in Level 3 that were grouped into two main phases, between which the village layout was changed substantially (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:91– 92; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 7). Level 2 also featured two phases (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 7) that are, however, not explained in the publications. The sublevels indicate that the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic village at Tepecik appears to have undergone constant changes to the built environment.
Table 5.29. The chronology of Tepecik used in this book Level
Date
Level 1
Roman-Byzantine
Level 2
Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic 6100–5900 BC
Level 3
Late Neolithic 6400–6100 BC
Level 4
Early/Late Neolithic 6650–6400 BC
Level 5
Early Neolithic
Level 6 Level 7 Level 8
Most rooms in Levels 4–2 were rectangular, but Level 3 features some curved walls (Figure 5.24; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:81, Figures 12–14). Identifying buildings among the room clusters is not easily possible, but the excavators seem to have defined building units (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:92) that are, however, not indicated on the plans (Figures 5.23, 5.24). One identifiable and well-preserved building in Level 4 (Figure 5.23), structure AK, featured a large room of ca. 25 m2 with five smaller adjacent rooms that are interpreted as storage rooms by the excavators (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:79; see also Bıçakçı et al. 2012:94). The only installations found within buildings mentioned
Level 9 unexcavated
are clustered together, but there is unroofed space between the individual clusters (Figures 5.23, 5.24)– a layout different from the strongly clustered layout found e.g. at Çatalhöyük (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:91, Figures 5–6, 28; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77, Figures 12–14). In these levels, buildings were often modified through the addition of rooms or of internal subdivisions. Room additions meant that the unroofed spaces between building clusters became
Figure 5.23. Tepecik: plan of excavated structures in Level 4 (reprinted with permission from the Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes from: Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 11).
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Sites and Architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Central Anatolia
Figure 5.24. Tepecik: plan of excavated structures in Level 3.2 (reprinted with permission from the Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes from: Bıçakçı et al. 2017:Figure 12).
rescue excavations over four seasons between 2002 and 2005, directed by Enver Akgün from the Konya Museum, archaeological remains from several periods including the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic were uncovered. To date, however, only difficult-to-find reports have been published on this site (Akgün 2019; Gündüz 2019a, 2019a; see also Düring 2011c:136). From these publications, it is not possible to gain more information about the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic findings other than that the site contained substantial architecture from these periods (see especially Gündüz 2016:44–45). A more comprehensive publication is, however, reported to be underway (Gündüz 2016:44).
in the publications were ovens (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:92, 93). One building in Level 2 contained a large number of large ceramic vessels that might be in situ and is interpreted by the excavators as a collection of storage vessels (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:83, Figures 15–16). The publications contain very little description of what characterised the extensive unroofed space within the settlement. In Level 2, much of the excavated area is characterised by ashy deposits with stones that might represent either poorly preserved or constructed buildings (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:91), or maybe an extensive refuse area. A particularly interesting feature due to its unusual nature is a shallow ditch that was present in Levels 6–4, extending east-west over a section in the middle of the settlement (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:95). In Level 4, the ditch is delinated through low walls (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:79). In Level 3, the ditch was covered up and not used any more (Bıçakçı et al. 2017:81). Burials are found in buildings and in unroofed areas (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:93–94; Bıçakçı et al. 2017:77–78; Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019; Byrnes and Anvari 2022). 5.14. Gökhöyük Baǧları Gökhöyük Baǧları is a site located at the eastern edge of the Lake District, adjacent to the Konya plain. During 111
6 Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC When did we become we? Where and when did the thing called us begin? […] Where? And When? Well, of course: in the Near East, about ten thousand years ago. (Quinn 1996:259) 6.1. Introduction
6.2. 8500–6500 BC: The Early Neolithic in the Konya plain and Cappadocia and hunter-gatherers of the Lake District
This chapter summarises existing knowledge on some of the main features of the development of social organisation in central Anatolia from the start of the Early Neolithic into the Early Bronze Age. The main purpose of this chapter is to identify the major changes in social organisation that characterised the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic of central Anatolia. Therefore, particular emphasis is put on the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, but by spanning a narrative from the Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age I seek to embed the LN and EC within a longer development from the start of settled farming life to the emergence of stratified pre-state entities. In choosing this timeframe, this chapter follows the arc of Düring’s 2011 textbook on The Prehistory of Asia Minor, but consults additional literature.
6.2.1. Research framework Nine Early Neolithic sites have been excavated in central Anatolia (Figure 6.1). Among these, Kaletepe represents an obsidian workshop without traces of settlement (BalkanAtlı and Binder 2012; Balkan-Atlı et al. 1999). PınarbaşıBor, excavated for only one season in 1982 (Silistreli 1984b), and Süberde, excavated only through test trenches (1964–1965, Bordaz 1969b:Figure 2), have produced very limited evidence about settlement and social organisation (Düring 2011c:80). Similarly, Canhasan III (7500–7050 BC, Fairbairn et al. 2020:350, Figure 4) is so far only known from limited investigations (Düring 2006:114; Fairbairn et al. 2020; French 1972a). This discussion of Early Neolithic social organisation is therefore based on evidence from the settlement sites of Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu Höyük, with references to the smaller sites of Musular and Pınarbaşı. Among these, the discussion of the central Anatolian Early Neolithic has traditionally been dominated by the evidence from the two large and wellresearched sites of Aşıklı Hӧyük and Çatalhӧyük, whereby Aşıklı Hӧyük (8350–7300 BC, Quade et al. 2019:54), is the main source of evidence for the first millennium of the Early Neolithic, while Çatalhӧyük (7100–5950 BC, 5.2.1 and 5.3.1) represents the second half of the Early Neolithic as well as the Late Neolithic. Renewed research at Aşıklı Hӧyük has been focusing on the older layers (Özbaşaran, Duru and Stiner 2019). In recent years, Boncuklu Höyük has become a second important data point for the earliest Neolithic in central Anatolia. With Boncuklu and the oldest levels at Aşıklı Hӧyük currently being researched, knowledge about how settled life and farming started in central Anatolia is still emergent. The smaller site of Musular seems to have been a special-purpose satellite site that was used periodically by the community at Aşıklı Höyük. Pınarbaşı is a site with multiple episodes of settlement of which one is dated to the period here defined as Early Neolithic and adds an important contrast to the contemporary sites of Boncuklu and Aşıklı Hӧyük.
This chapter will identify four interrelated processes that characterised the LN and EC of central Anatolia and are significant because of their impact on later prehistory. The analysis in Chapters 8–11 will accordingly focus on these four processes. They are: increasing household autonomy at the expense of suprahousehold integration; increasing social competition that later in the Chalcolithic and certainly by the Early Bronze Age will lead to social stratification; increasing mobility which is related to the economic productivity that supported household autonomy and social competition; and potentially warfare. This chapter includes important non-architectural evidence on social organisation to contextualise the architectural evidence, the main features of which are introduced here, but which will be discussed in much greater detail throughout Chapters 8–11. This chapter also aims to clarify important terms for the discussions in Chapters 8–11, such as ‘household’ or ‘mobility’. I define these terms based on the literature consulted in this chapter in order to find context-appropriate definitions that capture the central Anatolian prehistoric reality. This chapter also points out cultural features or trends that were shared or not shared between the Lake District, Konya plain, and Cappadocia in order to continue from the point made in Chapter 3 that these regions followed slightly different trajectories during parts of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. As in the rest of the book, this chapter is based on literature that had been published by 30 April 2021.
6.2.2. The neolithisation of central Anatolia Two characteristics of the neolithisation of central Anatolia are of note here. First, central Anatolia was
113
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 6.1. Map of excavated Early Neolithic (8500–6500 BC) sites in central Anatolia (figure by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
neolithised by at least 8350 BC, but the Lake District not until ca. 6500 BC. The oldest farming sites in central Anatolia are Aşıklı Höyük in Cappadocia, and Boncuklu Höyük in the Konya plain. The earliest occupation at both sites has been dated to around 8300 BC, but the very oldest levels are not yet securely dated. The newest radiocarbon dates from Aşıklı Höyük attest occupation from at least 8350 BC, but no radiocarbon dates have yet been published from the oldest Level 5 (Quade et al. 2014, 2019; Stiner et al. 2014:Figure S1). Boncuklu was occupied from at least 8300 BC, possibly earlier, until 7800 BC (Baird 2014:8703, 2019b:72; Baird et al. 2018:E3078). Both Boncuklu and Aşıklı feature evidence for farming in their oldest excavated levels, demonstrating the introduction of farming to central Anatolia by at least 8350 BC, although a comparison of those two sites as well as Pınarbaşı demonstrates diversity in the approaches of local communities towards the adoption of farming in the late 9th millennium (Baird et al. 2018:E3084). At Aşıklı, the oldest Levels 5–4 featured evidence for sheep and goat management (Baird 2012a:440, 2014; Düring 2011c:60; Stiner et al. 2014; Stiner, Bailey, et al. 2019:219, 247) and domesticated plants with domestic species apparently constituting the major part of the diet (Ergun et al. 2019:206, 209, Figures 6–7; Stiner et al. 2014:8405). By contrast, the Boncuklu community practiced small-scale
plant farming and caprine herding that supplemented a subsistence mostly based on wild resources. The oldest levels at Boncuklu are not yet excavated and could show an introduction of farming even earlier than 8300 BC (Baird 2012a:440, 2019b:72; Baird et al. 2012:228–230; Baird et al. 2018). And finally, evidence from Pınarbaşı shows that not all local communities in the Konya plain chose to adopt farming in the late 9th millennium. The settlement phase at Pınarbaşı dated to between 9000–7900 BC (Baird 2012b:192, 2019b:70–71; Baird et al. 2018:E3078), the latter part being contemporary with the oldest layers at Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük, and featuring evidence for year-round occupation by a sedentary hunter-gatherer community, but no evidence for farming or the use of domesticated species. The sedentariness of this huntergatherer community can be perceived as a transitional stage towards farming, but they were not farmers while their neighbours 30 km to the north, the community that lived at Boncuklu from 8350 BC, were. The Pınarbaşı team interprets this in terms of an intentional rejection of the adoption of farming (Baird 2012a:433, 438, 440, 2012b:197–199, 2019a:38–39, 2019b:70–71; Baird et al. 2018; Fairbairn et al. 2014). The material culture at both sites demonstrates that the Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu communities had distinctly different identities, although they probably interacted (Baird et al. 2018:E3083–E3084). 114
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC While farming villages appeared in the Konya plain and Cappadocia around 8300 BC, hunter-gatherer lifestyles persisted in the Lake District until around 6500 BC. As discussed in the previous chapter (5.1.1, 5.10.1), two radiocarbon dates from Bademağacı and Hacılar predate 6500 BC, but both are problematic and the most likely scenario remains that no farmers settled in the Lake District before ca. 6500 BC. In other words, for a period of nearly 2000 years, a cultural border persisted at the fringe of the Lake District, with farmers living in the Konya plain and Cappadocia and hunter-gathers occupying the areas around the lakes and further west (Brami 2015; Brami and Horejs 2019; Rosenstock 2019; Schoop 2005b). The very eastern fringe of the Lake District, where the Early Neolithic site of Süberde (7600–6750 BC, Thissen 2002a:324) is located, belonged to the area of central Anatolia that became Neolithic before 6500 BC, as already mentioned in Chapter 3 (Rosenstock 2019:112, Figure 10). It is possible that the Çarşamba river, which ran from the Seydişehir region in the Lake District to the southern Konya plain (Kuzucuoğlu 2019a:367, Figure 17.1), might have provided the connection between the two regions during the neolithisation process. Unfortunately, we know close to nothing about the huntergatherers who lived in the Lake District between 8500– 6500 BC. Apart from the Epipalaeolithic phase at Pınarbaşı, not much is known in general about Epipalaeolithic central Anatolia (Düring 2011c:42–44; Kuhn et al. 2015:2, 6, 19), probably due to the difficulty of identifying Epipalaeolithic sites (Baird 2019b:74–76). In the Lake District itself only two Epipalaeolithic sites have been cursorily excavated and incompletely published: a short excavation at the cave site of Dereköy near Isparta in 1991 revealed “Late Palaeolithic” material, which however is not precisely dated or detailed enough to interpret social organisation (Vermeersch et al. 2000). At Baradiz, a shallow open air site located between the Eğirdir and Burdur lakes, two small trenches were excavated in 1944. A recent study (Düring 2011c:42; Kartal 2003:46–47) has questioned the Epipalaeolithic dating of the lithics. In any case, the archaeological documentation of Baradiz is not sufficient to reconstruct its socioeconomic organisation. Recent surveys by Vandam in the Lake District found one other possible Epipalaeolithic site in the Burdur plain (Vandam and Kaptijn 2015:166) as well as several possible, but not securely dated, Epipalaeolithic sites in the mountainous area east of the Burdur plain (Vandam et al. 2017a:325– 326, 328; Vandam et al. 2017b:228; Vandam, Willett, et al. 2019:264). These limited results appear to show a substantial presence of people in the area during the Epipalaeolithic, but are insufficient to answer questions such as what the relationship was between hunter-gatherers of the Lake District and their farming neighbours during the millennia 8500–6500 BC and why they chose not to take up farming. At Epipalaeolithic hunter-gatherer cave sites in the mountains south of the Lake District, Öküzini, Beldibi, and Belbaşı, evidence for contact with farmers has been found in the form of ceramics, polished axes and cultivated plants (Düring 2011c:36–38; Martinoli 2004:69–71), and it is possible or even probable that Lake
District foragers also exchanged with the Konya plain or Cappadocian farmers (Baird 2019b:74–75), even if there is as yet no material evidence for this. The cultural border that existed between the Konya plain and Cappadocia on the one hand, and the Lake District on the other hand pre-6500 BC, although not completely understood, must have had an impact on social processes after 6500 BC, and this will be revisited in the following section on the Late Neolithic. A second important point to make here is that while important impetuses for the uptake of farming, and possibly also domesticated species (Baird 2012a:440, 2019:73–74; Baird et al. 2012:219, Baird et al. 2018:E3081–E3082; Colledge et al. 2004; Düring 2011c:74), came from Northern Mesopotamia to central Anatolia, important cultural components of the central Anatolian Neolithic were developed autochthonously and continued from the preceding Epipalaeolithic (Baird 2012a:433, 435, 440, 2019b:73–74; Baird et al. 2012:219, Baird et al. 2018:E3078, E3081–E3082; Düring 2011c:51, 73–74, 121; Sagona and Zimanksy 2009:54). Düring (2011c:74, similarly Baird 2012a:440, 2019b:73; Hodder 2021a:4) interprets that the adoption of a new economy, paired with the introduction of domesticated species, occurred alongside the rejection of certain cultural traits and thus constitutes a conscious decision by early central Anatolian farmers to be culturally different from the Fertile Crescent. Also, recent genomic studies based on samples from Epipalaeolithic Pınarbaşı and Early Neolithic Boncuklu and Tepecik have shown that the Early Neolithic central Anatolian farmers were probably descendants of local hunter-gatherers, rather than originating from the Levant or Iran (Baird 2019b:71, 73; Baird et al. 2018:E3082; Feldman 2019; Furholt 2021:9–10; Kılınç et al. 2017; Kılınç et al. 2016). This means that, unlike the later neolithisation of the Lake District, western Anatolia and southeast Europe (6.3.1), the neolithisation of central Anatolia did not go along with a significant influx of people from the Levant or Mesopotamia. Contact between local communities in central Anatolia and people from the Levant and/or Northern Mesopotamia that initiated the neolithisation of central Anatolia might have evolved around the exchange of obsidian (Baird 2012a:441). Two neighbouring sources of obsidian in Cappadocia, Nenezi Dağ and Gӧllü Dağ, were used during prehistory. Gӧllü Dağ obsidian is found in the southern Levant and Northern Mesopotamia, transported over distances of up to 900 km since the Epipalaeolithic (ca. 14,000 BC) and would have fostered continuous contacts between what would become the earliest farming societies in Southwest Asia. In the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNA, PPNB) the amount of obsidian crossing the Tauruses southwards increased, and by the PPNB, it is also found on Cyprus (Düring 2011c:52–54; Ibáñez et al. 2015: Figure 1, 2; Sagona and Zimanksy 2009:73). The episodical presence of knapping specialists from the Fertile Crescent at the Kaletepe workshop at Gӧllü Dağ (8300–7800 BC) has been deduced from the observation of co-existing local 115
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia and foreign knapping traditions (Baird 2019a:41; BalkanAtlı and Binder 2012; Binder and Balkan-Atlı 2001; Düring 2011c:56). Aşıklı Höyük is located in a fertile river landscape only ca. 30 km away from the obsidian sources at Nenezi Dağ and Gӧllü Dağ (Düring 2011c:58). It is therefore likely that there was a connection between obsidian trading networks and the neolithisation process in central Anatolia (Baird 2012a:441, 462; also Ibáñez et al. 2015).
6400–6500 BC (Düring 2011c:118; Hodder 2014b:11), and Aşıklı between 8110–7300 BC (Level 2, Quade et al. 2019:54). Population estimates, notoriously difficult for such large and incompletely excavated prehistoric sites where the number of residents per building is as much subject of speculation as the number of contemporarily used houses, range between 1500–3000 people for Aşıklı Hӧyük (Düring 2011c:71), 3500–8000 for Çatalhӧyük (Düring 2011c:118; Hodder and Cessford 2004:21) and a very tentative 660–1250 people for Canhasan III (Düring 2006:125) at the peaks of their occupations. Such sizes for permanently cohabiting communities were unparalleled: earlier and contemporary settlements in the Fertile Crescent did not exceed 300 people (Düring 2011c:119, 121).
Significantly, the above-mentioned cultural border between central Anatolia and the Lake District that existed throughout the Early Neolithic might also have been linked to obsidian exchange networks. Sites in the Konya plain relied on Cappadocian obsidian since the Epipalaeolithic. At Pınarbaşı ca. 12,000 BC, 90% of the lithic assemblage was made up from Cappadocian obsidian (Baird 2012b:186; Düring 2011c:43–44). More than 95% of the lithic assemblage at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük is comprised of Cappadocian obsidian (Carter and Milić 2013; Düring 2011c:90). Cappadocian obsidian also dominates the assemblages at Boncuklu (> 90% of chipped stone, Baird 2019a:38; Baird et al. 2012:231,) and Canhasan III (Sagona and Zimanksy 2009:76). Even at Süberde, just beyond the western fringe of the Konya plain, obsidian made up 90% of the assemblage (Özbaşaran 2011:113) even though transporting it over such distances must have required considerable effort, as evidenced by the fact that the Süberde obsidian is used and re-used intensively (Sagona and Zimansky 2009:76). On the other hand, hardly any obsidian can be found prior to 6500 BC beyond the parts of central Anatolia that were neolithised around 8300 BC. There is very little obsidian at Dereköy (Vermeesch et al. 2000:451, 458) in the Lake District, and very little at Öküzini south of the Lake District (Baird 2012a:437; Carter et al. 2011; Düring 2011c:44). It seems, then, that the expanse of the first neolithisation process in central Anatolia was to a remarkable degree congruent with the extent of the spread of Cappadocian obsidian prior to and after neolithisation. Even if the exact mechanisms by which they worked remain unclear, obsidian exchange networks played an important role during the adoption of Neolithic lifeways in central Anatolia.
The large Early Neolithic sites of central Anatolia can therefore be characterised as a social experiment without precedent. These settlements exceeded group sizes that could rely on face-to-face interaction, but instead required different mechanisms of social integration to form a communal identity, keep social peace and distribute resources (Düring 2011c:119). And the fact that these communities existed over several centuries, with seemingly little alteration to their social makeup throughout the Early Neolithic, attests to the existence of a sustainable and complex set of social rules (Hodder and Cessford 2004:20). How did Early Neolithic communities organise themselves? This section will show that Early Neolithic central Anatolians developed structuring principles of society that would continue to be important throughout later prehistory: social cohesion in these settlements was organised through a three-tiered system of household, subcommunities, and village community. This subdivision of the several hundred or even thousands of people that lived in Early Neolithic central Anatolian villages into smaller social units facilitated the cohabitation of such large groups of people. Households For central Anatolian prehistory, the term household can be defined as a stable co-residence group that pools resources, or in other words: a social unit that lives together and also constitutes a nuclear economic unit (Baird 2012a:455; Düring 2006:39, 2011c:64; Hodder and Pels 2010:181; Steadman 2004:531, 534; but see Kujit 2018:566–567 and Kay 2020:462, 464 with arguments that Neolithic households might have been much more fluid than generally acknowledged in archaeological research). There has been some discussion about when households developed in central Anatolian prehistory. Based on a comparison of Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük East, Düring has suggested that households as a social institution seem to have developed, or become more articulated, during the latter part of the Early Neolithic. Düring (Düring and Marciniak 2005; Düring 2011c:64, 67) concludes that because it is difficult to recognise individual household residences at Aşıklı Höyük, the built environment indicates that a cluster of rooms was used collectively by a
6.2.3. Making households, making communities One of the most interesting features of the central Anatolian Early Neolithic settlements at Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük is their size. Both settlements were occupied without interruptions for long periods of time by populations estimated to have been in the thousands. Long occupation by large numbers of people resulted in mounds of substantial size: Aşıklı Höyük measures 4 ha with a height of 15 m (Düring 2011c:58; Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019:58), and Çatalhӧyük 13.5 ha with a height of 21 m (Farid 2014:91; Hodder 2021a:1). Canhasan III is smaller, but still of substantial size at 1 ha and 6.75 m in height (Düring 2006:114). The Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük settlements both grew over the centuries, with Çatalhöyük reaching its maximum size in Level IV around 116
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC neighbourhood group and households would not have been socially or economically autonomous units. By contrast, in the second half of the Early Neolithic, households at Çatalhöyük were a more autonomous social unit (Düring and Marciniak 2005:177; Hodder 2014b). Different from Aşıklı Höyük, household residences at Çatalhöyük took the form of large, often two-roomed buildings that in most cases were clearly distinguishable from each other. Houses at Çatalhöyük, although still diverse, appear more standardised (Düring 2011c:97). The fact that the typical household residence at Çatalhöyük was comparatively large and completely equipped with storage, cooking and sleeping facilities is interpreted by Düring (2011c:98) as evidence for economic independence of households that were able to perform “most domestic and some craft activities […] within the residence” (Düring and Marciniak 2005:177). Hodder (2014b:6) describes a range of evidence to support this, for example that storage bins as well as cooking and serving vessels are of small size, suggesting that food was not shared regularly beyond the residence group. Plant use and processing patterns suggest daily, small-scale processing of plant foods, and very similar ranges of plant foods were found in each building, further supporting the idea of autonomous consumption and processing of resources. Hodder and Cessford (2004:21–22) conclude that “production, exchange, and consumption at Çatalhöyük seem to be largely organized at the domestic scale” and that “the house is an important social, productive, and symbolic unit at Çatalhöyük”. In this book, the term house is used synonymously with residence or dwelling: a built structure used for living purposes (Düring 2011c:99; Duru 2012:25; Hodder 2014b:4; Öztan 2003:70; Steadman 2004:52). Building is a more general term for a built structure of any function – residence or other (Cutting 2005b:31; Düring 2011c:136; Hodder 2014b:4).
of household identities within a symbolic canon shared by the entire community (Baird et al. 2017:761). However, the Boncuklu team stresses that Boncuklu households should not be seen as economically autonomous entities because landscape exploitation (agriculture as well as the use of wild resources) was probably mostly organised on a suprahousehold scale. They therefore see some justification to Düring’s hypothesis that the earliest Early Neolithic did not feature truly autonomous households (Baird et al. 2017:773–774). Putting aside the argument about communal landscape exploitation, there is even some evidence that the formation of households within Konya plain communities predates the adoption of farming: At the sedentary hunter-gatherer village of Pınarbaşı, dated to between 9000–7900 BC (see above), buildings were similar in size and probably all had hearths and work areas (Baird 2012a:450); therefore, they could be reconstructed as household residences. This evidence is tentative because no building has been completely excavated (Baird 2012b:193), but Baird (2012b:198) seems to suggest that the process of becoming sedentary was what initiated the development of households as stable social units: “increased residential stability offered new opportunities for people exchange and family and household construction” (Baird 2012b:198) even though these hunter-gatherer households were not as strongly institutionalised as at the nearby farming village of Boncuklu (Baird et al. 2018:E3083). In sum, the current evidence suggests that, at least at some sites, households as social units already existed early in the Early Neolithic. But at least by the later Early Neolithic, households came to form the basic social unit that made up communities for the remainder of Anatolian prehistory, organising individuals into small groups that were building blocks for larger social groups. There is some evidence at Epipalaeolithic Pınarbaşı that households were a social feature inherited from local pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer groups. However, on a larger scale the onset of farming clearly marked the beginning of a new socioeconomic organisation as evidenced by differences between Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu (Baird et al. 2018:E3083–E3084).
More recent evidence from Boncuklu casts doubt on the dichotomy between a first half of the Early Neolithic without ‘real’ households that were socially and economically self-sufficient on a basic level, and a second half where such households existed. For example, the Boncuklu team reconstructs the existence of distinct households at Boncuklu based mainly on two lines of architectural evidence: First, using an argument similar to that of Düring about Çatalhöyük, they show that residences appear relatively standardised, each being equipped with a hearth, food production, and sleeping areas (Baird 2012a:449). Residences are also limited in size and could only have slept 10 people at most (Baird et al. 2017:758). Secondly, the Boncuklu team sees evidence for “strong household identities” (Baird et al. 2012:235) in the house-related rituals observed at the site, such as a subdivision of houses into parts for ritual and work; ritual elaboration through installations, paintings and subfloor burials; and the placepermanence whereby houses were rebuilt several times in the same spot (Baird 2019b:72; Baird et al. 2012:234; Baird et al. 2017:758, 761–762, 764, 767, 773). Also, there are differences between the ritual elaboration of various Boncuklu buildings that are interpreted as the expression
One question about central Anatolian Neolithic/ Chalcolithic households that is discussed within the research literature but will not be central in this book is their size and composition. In the literature, a majority of authors seem to envisage the typical Chalcolithic/ Neolithic central Anatolian household as a family unit of around 4–6 and possibly up to 10 people including several children (Baird 2012a:449; Baird et al. 2017:758; Cutting 2005b:Table 10.4; Düring 2013a:29–30). However, the implicit premise that household members were biologically related had not been verified through genetic studies until recently. Recent genetic results from Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük show that people buried together under buildings often were closely related, representing siblings and parent-offspring-pairings (Yaka, Mapelli, et al. 2021). However, since there can be no certainty that the people buried together at these sites also formed a household 117
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia during their lives, the burial evidence might not be a true representation of household membership. In general, reconstructing the size and composition of households is actually quite challenging due to the formation processes typical of Neolithic/ Chalcolithic houses in central Anatolia: Deducing household size and composition from the appearance of houses is problematic, for example because estimations of how many people could have been accommodated in the available space often seem to be based on modern notions of personal space and comfort, for example Düring’s (2013a:30) assumption that the platforms in Çatalhöyük houses were usually the only sleeping spaces; but for an alternative example that assumes rather crowded conditions see Baird et al. (2017:758). Also, houses were often intentionally cleaned and modified before abandonment (e.g. Boncuklu: Baird et al. 2017:765–766; Çatalhöyük: Matthews 2005a:145– 146, Table 9.3; Russell et al. 2014; Canhasan 2b: French 1998:31–32), erasing evidence that could have been useful for the question of household composition, such as items stored and activities carried out inside. The discussion therefore often turns to burial evidence, but that is also problematic: In Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolia, not all people were buried inside the settlements (Byrnes and Anvari 2022; Düring 2008b:611–612; Duru 2019:184c), which means that an unknown subset of the village community is missing from the record. And, as already mentioned, we cannot be sure that people who were buried together under the same building or in the same unroofed area also constituted households before their deaths. At Çatalhöyük, for example it is possible that co-burial groups do not represent households, but suprahousehold groups (Chyleński et al. 2019; Hodder 2014b:9; Yaka, Doğu, et al. 2021; Yaka, Mapelli, et al. 2021). Similarly, at Boncuklu the subset of people buried outside residences are interpreted as a suprahousehold group comprised of members from different households (see below). These formation processes therefore make it seem likely that archaeologists will never have secure data to really know how households, in the sense of coresidence groups as defined above, were constituted. During the remainder of the book, the focus will be firmly on discussing the relationship between households, not the details of their composition with the exception of very few examples in Chapter 8 where the question of composition is relevant to the discussion of household autonomy.
groups are social groupings within a larger village community whose members belong to different households. I use subcommunity or suprahousehold group as a term that is more neutral than similar terms also used in the research literature, such as neighbourhoods (e.g. Düring 2006:292, 2011c:70) or kin (e.g. Hodder 2014b:8; Steadman 2004:533, 539), which have connotations about what it was that held those groups together. All three of the well-researched Early Neolithic settlements in central Anatolia—Aşıklı, Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük— feature subcommunities. There are some similarities between sites in how they were constituted, but also differences. Two different types of suprahousehold ties have been prominently discussed in the literature: the first centres on creating social ties through physical proximity (clustering) of buildings in combination with a spatial subdivision of the village into different building clusters, sometimes called neighbourhoods; and the second is through ritual ties that also have social and economic components. Both principles can be observed at Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük, although to different degrees, since there is considerably more evidence for house-related ritual at Çatalhöyük than at Aşıklı Höyük, but spatial clustering might have been used more strongly as a social structuring mechanism at Aşıklı Höyük (Figure 6.2). Different still, at Boncuklu, the open spaces that existed within the settlement, to a much larger degree than at Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük, are reconstructed as important arenas for suprahousehold interactions both through informal daily interactions as well as occasional ritual use for feasting and burial (Baird et al. 2017:768–769, 773). In the following, I want to discuss two types of suprahousehold connections further: clustering in combination with a subdivision into neighbourhoods, and ritual ties (see Chapter 8 for a more exhaustive discussion of suprahousehold ties). A number of Early Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia (Çatalhöyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Erbaba and Canhasan I) have been characterised as clustered settlements (Düring 2006). Alternative terms used are agglutinating, agglomerating, and conglomerating (see Düring 2006:19; Rosenstock 2014:237 on these terms). ‘Clustered’ describes as much the visual impression of the settlement layout, with tightly packed buildings that were entered through the roof, as it does the effect this arrangement had on creating tight-knit communities (Düring 2006:301–303). At Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük, individual blocks of houses were divided from each other by unbuilt spaces, and at Çatalhöyük additionally through linear breaks in the house landscape formed by an alignment of the outer walls of adjacent houses (Figure 8.3; Düring 2011c:61, 68, 96; Hodder 2014b:6, 8, Figure 4; Özbaşaran 2011:108; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:48). There have been suggestions of associating this spatial subdivision with social subdivisions, with neighbourhoods forming subcommunities, and this seems to be most clearly evidenced at Aşıklı Höyük (Bıçakçı and Özbaşaran 2001; Cutting 2005b:41; Düring 2011c:62, 117; Düring and Marciniak 2005:181). At Çatalhöyük,
Communities and subcommunities Integral to the functioning of Neolithic village communities in central Anatolia, subcommunities occupied the middle ground within the three-tier system and organised individuals and households into larger units that made social life more easily manageable on a village scale. Here, the term community refers a large social group, for example encompassing an entire settlement (e.g. Düring 2006:306, 2011c:71; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015) or even more, possibly encompassing people living dispersed within a local landscape (e.g. Baird 2012a:446; Düring 2011c:118–119). Subcommunities or suprahousehold 118
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC
Figure 6.2. Clustered neighbourhoods at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 4.10)11.
by contrast, spatial arrangements seem to have been only one of several, coexisting forms of cross-household ties. Hodder (2013a:25, 2014b:7–8, 2014d:151–153, 156, 2021a:25–26) reconstructs that several different systems of suprahousehold integration coexisted at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük, with households entertaining multiple relationships both within their immediate surrounding neighbourhood, but also with a more spatially dispersed group of other households connected across distances by a complex web of ritual ties.
by specific rules. Çatalhöyük especially is known for the intense ritual elaboration of many of the houses, which in newer research has been interpreted as having the function of creating ritual ties between households which then form several different, coexisting systems of ritual subcommunities within the larger village community (Figure 8.3; Hodder 2014b, 2021a:27–28). Three different types of ritual suprahousehold ties have been identified at Çatalhöyük: groups that shared a particular animal symbolism; co-burial groups (see below); and subcommunities associated with the so-called history houses. A number of buildings, irregularly distributed across the site, stand out in particular as having especially abundant ritual elaboration. These houses have been called ‘history houses’ (Hodder 2014b; Hodder and Pels 2010) or ‘lineage houses’ (Düring 2011c:115–116) and are interpreted as bundling the ritual energy of a number of households. At both Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük, ritual suprahousehold ties worked differently than at Çatalhöyük and are associated with different architectural features. At Boncuklu, burials located in unroofed areas are interpreted as evidence for suprahousehold ritual ties (see below).
There is evidence at Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük and Çatalhöyük that ritual activities were shared between households. The term ritual here means activities that likely had a religious component, but also were ritual in the way that they were performed at regular intervals and
reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 11
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia At Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, the settlement had two large built multi-roomed building complexes arranged around courtyards (Düring 2011c:62, 71–72; Özbaşaran 2011:108, 2012:140). The courtyard buildings are interpreted as places for—religious or non-religious—meetings that crossed neighbourhood boundaries and integrated the greater village community, for example through feasting (Düring 2011c:72–73; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50). Aşıklı had a satellite site at 400 m distance across the river, Musular (7600–6600 BC, Thissen 2002a:324), which is interpreted as a special-purpose site for the large-scale processing of wild cattle carcasses for feasts (Düring 2011c:78; Duru and Özbaşaran 2005; Özbaşaran 2011:110; Özbaşaran et al. 2012). Özbaşaran and Duru (2015:50) interpret that special festive community events might have been one way to alleviate social tensions.
In sum, individuals and households at Early Neolithic sites were integrated into subcommunities by strong social-ritual-economic ties. Within the complex and crisscrossing webs of suprahousehold relations, individuals or households at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük belonged to more than one subcommunity at the same time. Baird et al. (2017:773) and Hodder (2014b:11, 16, 17) stress that the coexistence of households and suprahousehold subcommunities as structuring principles in the Neolithic of central Anatolia was probably always characterised by a certain degree of tension between individuals’ loyalties to their household and their loyalty to one or possibly more suprahousehold groups. Genesis of large Early Neolithic settlements Interestingly, the large Early Neolithic clustered settlements of Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük were set in nearly ‘empty’ cultural landscapes, with current evidence from surface surveys (Baird 2005:66–71; Düring 2011c:77–78) indicating no contemporary sites in the vicinity. This and other evidence suggests that the large Early Neolithic sites might have been formed in the latter half of the Early Neolithic by the contraction of several smaller communities into one large village. Such a genesis could be the origin for the above-described social organisation of subdividing large groups into more manageable smaller subcommunities: If the large central Anatolian Early Neolithic settlements were originally created by the aggregation of pre-existing smaller communities, then these might automatically have formed subcommunities within the larger village and this principle persisted throughout the Early Neolithic. This process is most clearly evidenced in the case of Çatalhöyük. Before the occupation of Çatalhöyük, several small settlements were scattered across the area that would later become the immediate surrounding of the Çatalhöyük settlement, but were all abandoned either before or a little after Çatalhöyük was established (Baird 2002:Figure 7, 2005:66; Fairbairn et al. 2020:357, Figure 9; Hodder 2014b:9–10; new and ongoing surveys have so far confirmed this pattern: Massa et al. 2019:164; also Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019a, 2019b). One of these was Canhasan III (Fairbairn et al. 2020:357, Figure 9) and another was Boncuklu Höyük, located 10 km north of what would become Çatalhöyük. Hodder (2014b:10, 2021a:4) and Baird (2012a:440, 433; Baird et al. 2012:225, 227–228, 234; Baird et al. 2017:765–766; Baird et al. 2018:E3083–E3084; also Düring 2011c:43) observe, despite the obvious differences in house form (round vs. rectangular) and settlement layout (non-clustered vs. clustered), a strongly similar social conceptualisation of houses at both sites, including building continuity, subfloor burial, installations on walls, painting on walls and floors, the symbolic importance of wooden posts, and separations between ‘clean’ and ovenrelated ‘dirty’ parts of the house. It is therefore clear that Boncuklu saw the beginning of many elements in the organisation of village community life that continued on a larger scale at Çatalhöyük and therefore that “the community at Boncuklu was a direct antecedent to that
Importantly, the ritual cross-ties observed at Early Neolithic sites also had clear economic and social connotation; or better, suprahousehold ties were of ritual-social-economic nature, with all three elements tightly integrated. In the archaeological record, the ritual element seems particularly visible, but the social and economic exchange that was part of such relations might have been the more significant component on a day-to-day basis. At Çatalhöyük, the ritual connections also had social and economic importance since Hodder (2014d:151, 153) reconstructs them as a social security system in which individuals and households could obtain support and resources if needed, mitigating economic risk for individuals and households. There is evidence for this reconstruction in the form of isotopes that indicate that people who were buried together (burial groups) shared the same diet, but diets vary between different co-burial groups (Hillson et al. 2013:246–250; Hodder 2014b:6, 8–9, 2021a:23–24; Pearson, Bogaard, et al. 2015; Pearson 2013:291–296; Pearson, Haddow, et al. 2015; Pilloud and Larsen 2011). Hodder (2014b:8–9) suggests reconstructing such a co-burial group as ‘practical’ kin – people brought together by cooperation and the sharing of daily lives, including social and economic activities, as well as the sharing of burial locations after death. Since individuals and households entertained different sets of ties with other households (co-burial groups being only one of them), they therefore shared time, food, and possibly also non-food resources through different subcommunities (Hodder 2014b:10, 2014d:153, 162). Evidence for a similar amalgamation of ritualsocial-economic elements in the relationships between households is starting to emerge at Boncuklu Höyük: some community members were buried in unroofed areas between buildings, and isotope studies have shown that the diet of people buried outside was different when compared to individuals buried under the houses. This evidence is tentatively interpreted as indicative of the existence of subcommunities within the village that cut across household boundaries and that were marked by a distinct burial pattern (outside instead of subfloor), and by regular common food consumption (Baird 2019b:72, Baird et al. 2017:770). 120
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC at Çatalhöyük East, although not necessarily the only one” if Çatalhöyük was formed through the contraction of several different older village communities (Baird et al. 2018:E3084). Based on these observations, the formation of Çatalhöyük was through the contraction of a local settlement system of smaller sites into one large settlement (Baird 2005:67; Düring 2011c:120; Fairbairn et al. 2020:357, Figure 9; Hodder 2014b:10, 2021a:4). However, since only a very small part of the lowermost levels of Çatalhöyük is excavated, nothing is known about how this process might have worked exactly (Hodder 2014b:11).
Apart from architecture, other types of material culture have been studied to identify potential status differences. At Çatalhöyük in particular, egalitarianism has been systematically researched by testing various possible indicators of status or wealth differences: the team crossreferenced potential status indicators ranging from burial goods, ritual elaboration, storage capacities, diet and health markers to obsidian points, not finding that any clear correlations which could indicate status differences (summarised in Hodder 2013b:26, 2014b:5, 2021a:24– 25). In particular, research has sought to find out whether history houses and the people who were buried in them (and might have lived in them) had a higher status than non-history houses. While earlier research showed some slight differences in diet and workload between individuals buried in history houses and others (Hodder 2013b:26–27, 2014b:5; citing work by Pearson 2013), newer research has revised this picture and instead not shown evidence for diet or health differences between history house individuals and others (Hodder 2021a:24). And other potential markers of status differences, such as burial goods, storage capacity or artefact density, also do not show differences between history houses and others (Hodder 2014b:5, 2021a:24). There also do not seem to have been differences in socioeconomic status by gender (Hodder 2006:208–214, 2014b:6; 2021a:23), but some social differentiation by age was observed, with older people being buried with more diverse and elaborate burial gifts (Hodder 2014b:6, 2021a:23; Pearson and Meskell 2015:477–478; Vasić et al. 2021:369). Apart from these slight age-related status differences, there is no evidence at Çatalhöyük before 6500 BC of discernible status differences between households or individuals and “the overall impression is of a fierce egalitarianism” (Hodder 2014b:5, 2014d:160; also 2021a:25).
A similar scenario is suggested by Düring (2011c:71) for Aşıklı Höyük, which became very large in Level 2 and also had no immediate neighbours. The older Levels 5–3 at the site are currently under excavation, so that it might soon be possible to reconstruct the formation of the Level 2 community in more detail. Based on the preliminary information from Levels 5–4 published by the excavators (Özbaşaran 2012; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015; Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019), Aşıklı 5–3 was a smaller and less densely built village compared to the densely clustered Level 2. Tentatively, it would be possible to suggest a process different from the formation of Çatalhöyük, whereby Aşıklı already existed as a small settlement (Levels 5–3), which then grew considerably in Level 2 through the integration of further communities that had previously lived in separate settlements. 6.2.4. Egalitarianism Within the recent literature, Early Neolithic societies in central Anatolia are reconstructed as ‘fiercely egalitarian’ (Hodder 2014b:5). Egalitarianism means that no person or group of people had a higher social or economic status than other community members; for example, access to different or more food or a different workload (Hodder 2013b:26, 2014b:5, 2014d:156, 159–160) or greater influence on decision-making within the group. In the older literature, there were suggestions of reconstructing the existence of elites at Aşıklı Höyük, mostly based on the above described large courtyard buildings which are spatially separated from residential quarters. In this scenario, the creation of the courtyard buildings is ascribed to an elite that was in possession of the resources necessary to build these structures (Asouti 2005a:79; Esin 1996:40; Schachner 1999:46, 109). This argument is partly built on an analogy with Neolithic sites in southeast Anatolia (Cutting 2005b:28), where there are clearer indications for social status differences but which are also part of a very different cultural sphere (Düring 2011c:72). The current excavators (Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:48) as well as Düring (2006:309, 2011c:73) and Cutting (2005b:33) have found that there is no evidence for the existence of elites at Aşıklı Höyük if the large courtyard buildings are instead understood as community buildings meant to reinforce ties between social groups in the settlement (see above).
The archaeological evidence from Çatalhöyük shows clearly, however, that the upkeep of these tight-knit, egalitarian societies required considerable effort – the ‘fierce’ part of the equation. The above described evidence for a potential slight, or occasional, special socioeconomic status of the residents of ‘history houses’ at Çatalhöyük can maybe be understood to mean that tendencies for individuals or households to attempt investing in their own status rather than the collective were always there, but that during the Early Neolithic they were kept in check (Hodder 2013b:26, 2014b:11, 2014c:18). It was likely the abovedescribed compartmentalisation of the village community into subcommunities, which at the same time were tightly integrated by various ritual-social-economic ties of reciprocity, that prevented any need to establish formal hierarchies to organise the large village (Hodder 2014b:6, 11, 17). Through a subdivision into subcommunities and households, some of the necessary decision-making could be done within social groups small enough that equal participation by all or most members was possible (Düring 2011c:120; Hodder and Cessford 2004). The high degree of social control that was possible within the households and subcommunities, and the levelling mechanisms built in to the cross-cutting suprahousehold ties, would 121
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia also have ensured that individuals or households did not monopolise resources for themselves (Hodder 2014c:18, 2021a:28). The participation in several forms of social reciprocity through suprahousehold ties would have been time-consuming and work-intensive, but this investment in upkeeping egalitarianism appears to have been deemed important by the residents of Çatalhöyük (Hodder 2014b:9, 11, 2014c:18–19). Complex evidence that will be more fully discussed in 8.2.3 suggests that the inter-household exchange system at Çatalhöyük might have included the surrendering of biological children to other households or even subcommunities (Hodder 2014b:9), and therefore the breaking up of what could be considered natural social ties, family ties, in favour of creating artificial social groupings; this could represent a particularly radical form of reciprocity as part of an egalitarian system.
possibly also Cappadocia underwent significant changes to the social geography that had characterised the Early Neolithic. This section will discuss six themes or processes, of which two—the neolithisation of the Lake District and western Anatolia, and climate change—describe the larger regional context for developments in central Anatolia. The remaining four—increasing household autonomy, emerging social competition and stratification, increasing mobility and possibly emerging warfare—represent the processes occurring in central Anatolia during 6500– 5500 BC that this book will concentrate on. These four interrelated processes were observed in different intensities and forms across the three regions studied here during this time span. 6.3.1. The neolithisation of the Lake District and western Anatolia
6.3. 6500–5500 BC: The Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic
Around ca. 6700 BC, Neolithic lifeways started spreading, and rapidly, past the boundary between farmers and hunter-gatherers that had previously existed for nearly 2000 years west of the Konya plain, reaching the Lake District, western and northwestern Turkey and finally Europe. The widespread establishment of farming settlements between 6700–6500 BC was a major cultural turning point in western and northwestern Anatolia that must have had the effect of a cultural landslide (Düring
This section summarises existing knowledge on social organisation and architecture in Late Neolithic central Anatolia and the Lake District (Figure 6.3), with some reference to general developments in Asia Minor. Between 6500 and 5500 BC, we will see all three regions studied here transformed fundamentally, when the Lake District is neolithised and communities in the Konya plain and
Figure 6.3. Map of excavated Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500–5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia (figure by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
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Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC 2011c:123, 127, 2013c:79–80). Meanwhile, northern Anatolia, north of the Konya plain and Cappadocia, remained the territory of hunter-gatherers: A recent survey project at the Black Sea coast did not find evidence for sedentariness before ca. 5500 BC (Düring and Klinkenberg 2015). For this book, two aspects of the neolithisation of western Anatolia are relevant and will be discussed in the following. First, genetic evidence indicates that a significant portion of the farmers who migrated west came from the Konya plain and the catalyst for this move might have been in socioeconomic changes that took place in the Konya plain and possibly also Cappadocia (6.3.3). Second, the neolithisation of the west produced an increasingly diverse cultural landscape in central and western Anatolia within which innovations in material culture were exchanged, also including the influence of the newly neolithised regions on the Konya plain and Cappadocia.
early Neolithic communities played a major role in the establishment of Neolithic communities across Europe, while those with lineages relating back to European hunter-gatherers were less evident in this process. This suggests a significant migration of central Anatolian farmers to Europe in the Neolithic (see Furholt 2021:9–13 for a summary and discussion of the evidence; also Haak et al. 2010; Mathieson et al. 2018). Although this topic has not yet been explicitly researched, it is likely that the Lake District and western Turkey also saw an immigration of farmers from central Anatolia during neolithisation since they are geographically located between central Anatolia and Europe. Sites in central Anatolia whose aDNA has been used in these studies are Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu, and Tepecik (Feldman 2019; Furholt 2021:9–11; Kılınç et al. 2017; Kılınç et al. 2016). This shows that the people who migrated west originated from the Konya plain and/or Cappadocia.
The oldest farming settlements in western Anatolia are dated to 6700–6600 BC. Radiocarbon dated levels with evidence for farming at 6700–6600 BC are attested at Ulucak (Çilingiroğlu et al. 2012:153), Çukuriçi Höyük (Horejs et al. 2015:299–300, Table 1, Figure 4), Uǧurlu (Horejs 2019:74) and Barcın Höyük (Weninger et al. 2014:19, Figure 14) which are located on or near the coasts of western and northwestern Turkey. These coastal settlements represent a “pioneer phase” (Horejs et al. 2015:296), with more farming settlements established in western Turkey in the following centuries (Horejs 2019:74–75; Horejs et al. 2015; Rosenstock 2019:109, 116). Secure radiocarbon evidence for farming sites in the Lake District is only available from 6400 BC (Bademağacı and Höyücek, see 5.8.1 and 5.10.1; and Hacılar from ca. 6350 BC, see 5.1.1). This could either represent sampling bias, whereby older farming sites exist in the Lake District but have not yet been found or securely dated; or an actual pattern whereby the neolithisation of the Lake District was between 200 and 300 years later than the establishment of the first farming settlements on the western coast. Since many of the earliest farming sites in western Turkey have been linked to a maritime route of Neolithic dispersal (Horejs et al. 2015), it is plausible that an inland region like the Lake District lagged slightly behind in the neolithisation process.
Hodder (2014b:18, 2021a:4–5) has linked the exodus of a significant number of people from central Anatolia, and Çatalhöyük specifically, with the profound socioeconomic change that is observable at the site around 6500 BC (6.3.3). Since the 6500 BC change at Çatalhöyük was, among many other things, characterised by a significant drop in population numbers at the site (Hodder 2014b:12), there is some justification for linking it with the roughly contemporaneous migration of Konya plain people towards the west. Furholt (2021:13–14), Düring (2011c:199, 2013c:91) and Brami (2017:113–114) have similarly argued for a connection between the Neolithic spread and the Çatalhöyük 6500 BC change. Düring pointed to the greater autonomy of individual households after 6500 BC (6.3.3), which might have enabled the migration of small groups of people away from Çatalhöyük: “large agglomerate communities broke up into smaller segments in which households became more autonomous, and this might have stimulated enterprising individuals to migrate elsewhere” (Düring 2013c:91). Furholt (2021:13–14) has pointed out that a link between the spread and internal changes in the social makeup of central Anatolian sites is a possible explanation for why, after nearly 2000 years of not moving past the eastern fringe of the Lake District, central Anatolian farmers were induced to move out of central Anatolia.
Out of central Anatolia
Cultural diversity and exchange in western and central Anatolia post-6700 BC
Based on different and sometimes conflicting lines of evidence, various researchers have in the past reached differing conclusions regarding the region(s) of origin of the western Anatolian and Lake District Neolithic, possible routes for the migration of farmers into the area, and also the degree to which pre-existing local hunter-gatherer traditions were adopted into the new lifestyle. More recently, the discussion has focused on genetic evidence, which reveals the large-scale involvement of Konya plain and/or Cappadocian people in the spread of the Neolithic: studies of modern and ancient human DNA have demonstrated people with genetic ties back to Anatolian
Looking beyond the question of the origin of the Lake District and western Anatolian Neolithic, comparisons of material culture indicate a that great cultural diversity developed in central and western Anatolia following the neolithisation of the west (Baird 2012a:443; Düring 2011c:199; Marciniak 2019a; Özdoğan 2015) The new farming regions in western Turkey appear culturally diverse both in comparison with the Konya plain/ Cappadocia, and with each other (Çilingiroğlu and Çakirlar 2013:25–26; Düring 2011c:178). Reasons named for this cultural diversity are both local choices related to cultural 123
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia identity and adaptation to local conditions, especially also pre-existing hunter-gatherer traditions (Baird 2012a:442; Çilingiroğlu 2019:219; Çilingiroğlu and Çakirlar 2013:25; Düring 2011c:197–199, 2013c:87, 92; Duru 2012:27–29; Horejs 2019:166–167; Özbal and Gerritsen 2019; Özdoğan 2011:S421; Özdoğan 2015:52).
Within the cultural mosaic that existed in western and central Anatolia after 6700 BC, cultural innovations and knowledge were exchanged between regions. In the following I would like to discuss two examples that are relevant for two reasons. First, both items of material culture came to play a role in the negotiation of social relations during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of central Anatolia: After 6500 BC painted pottery would be used in social competition through hospitality (6.3.3); later in the Chalcolithic and especially in the EBA wool played a role in the construction of social inequalities and hierarchies in central Anatolia (6.6.3). Second, both were likely exchanged in the west to east direction, demonstrating that the newly Neolithic regions in the west quickly also came to have cultural influences on the Konya plain and/or Cappadocia.
To illustrate this cultural diversity, presented here is a brief overview of some evidence on architecture, pottery and obsidian: In the Lake District as well as in the Aegean and Marmara regions, settlements were generally smaller than in the contemporary Konya plain and did not form dense house clusters, but instead often parallel lines of houses with ample open space within the settlement, indicating a different social use of space (Duru 2012:27; Schoop 2005b:49). Wattle-and-daub buildings dominate at early Ulucak and in the Istanbul and Marmara region (Çilingiroğlu 2019; Düring 2011c:180, 184; Özbal and Gerritsen 2019:188, 190; Özdoğan 2011:S423, S427), but not to the same degree in the contemporary Lake District, Konya plain or Cappadocia. Some sites in the Istanbul and Marmara regions featured round buildings that are otherwise rare in Anatolia during this time (Çilingiroğlu 2019; Düring 2011c:177–178, 180; Özbal and Gerritsen 2019:190–192; Özdoğan 2011:S421; Sağlamtimur 2012:197–198). On the other hand, Brami (2014, 2017; Brami et al. 2016) locates the origin of some houserelated practices characteristic of the Neolithic in the Lake District, western Turkey and southwestern Europe, such as ritual house closure and building continuity, in central Anatolia. The Marmara region has different pottery as compared to Aegean Turkey (Düring 2011c:178). After 6350 and 6000 BC respectively, there is an elaborate painted pottery tradition in the Lake District and Konya plain, but the pottery used in western and northwestern Turkey (Çilingiroğlu and Çakırlar 2013:25; Düring 2011c:179; Schoop 2011b:152; Özdoğan 2016:272, 277) and Cappadocia is monochrome with very few exceptions (see more on painted pottery below). From around 6000 BC, pottery decorated with the impresso technique can be found at Ulucak and Ege Gübre, a tradition characteristic of the Aegean and Adriatic coast (Çilingiroğlu and Çakırlar 2013:25; Özdoğan 2011:S421; Sağlamtimur 2012:201). Impresso pottery indicates that the Aegean coast of Turkey was part of a circum-Aegean interaction zone from at least 6500 BC, also evidenced by the exchange of obsidian from the Aegean island of Melos which is found in a number of sites in Aegean Turkey (Çilingiroğlu and Çakırlar 2013:27; Horejs et al. 2015; Özdoğan 2015:51; Perlès et al. 2011; Reingruber 2011). By contrast, Lake District sites used Cappadocian obsidian to a notable degree (Düring 2011c:166; Duru 2012:27), although with processing techniques different from central Anatolia (Düring 2011c:174), and are not involved in the exchange network of Melian obsidian (Reingruber 2011:Figure 15). Ilıpınar, Fikirtepe, and Pendik, sites in the Marmara and Istanbul region dating to between 6500 and 5500 BC, used both Cappadocian obsidian and obsidian the sources at Sakaeli and Yağlar in northern Anatolia, suggesting contacts with both regions (Düring 2011c:194–195, 229–230).
Evidence for the use of wool, albeit fragmentary, starts in western Anatolia earlier than in central Anatolia. Spindle whorls and loom weights were found in Ulucak from 6000 BC (Düring 2011c:176, 198, Table 5.4) and zoological data from the site indicates the possibility of wool production (Pilaar Birch et al. 2019:1674). At Hacılar, spindle whorls were apparently found routinely (Mellaart 1970c:165, 170) since at least Level VI (Düring 2011c:166, Table 5.4; Mellaart 1970c:159), dating to between 6350 and 6100 BC (5.1.1). If these whorls indicate wool use, this would seem to be the earliest date for wool use so far in central and western Anatolia. However, no faunal assemblage from the LN/EC Lake District has yet yielded evidence for wool production (DeCupere 2005; DeCupere et al. 2008; DeCupere et al. 2015; Duru and DeCupere 2003). Faunal research at Çatalhöyük concludes that there was probably no production of wool (Marciniak 2011:121– 122; Russell and Martin 2005:74, 96), and an absence of spindle whorls confirms this (Düring 2011c:134). Spindle whorls were maybe found at Canhasan 2b (mentioned by Düring 2011c:140, Table 5.4; French 1962:32; but not in French 2010), but the faunal assemblage of the site awaits publication. At Erbaba, faunal analysis does not indicate sheep wool use, but possibly the use of goat hair (Arbuckle 2008:359–361). In Cappadocia, wool production either started or became more pronounced at Köşk Höyük during the Middle Chalcolithic, and MC Güvercinkayası likely also produced wool. Wool production in Cappadocia intensified in the LC (Arbuckle 2012a:308–309; Arbuckle et al. 2009). Based on the fragmentary evidence collected here, the impetus for wool use might have originated in the LN/EC somewhere west of the Konya plain and only later was taken up in the Konya plain and Cappadocia. As a second example, based on the site chronologies suggested in Chapter 5, the tradition of painting pottery with intricate red-on-cream/cream-on-red designs first emerged in the Lake District and subsequently spread to the Konya plain. Small amounts of painted pottery existed at Hacılar since the start of Level IX (around 6350 BC), and its amount relative to monochrome pottery gradually increased throughout the sequence until it made up 70% of the assemblage in Level I (5950–5800 BC; on development 124
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC of painted pottery frequency see Mellaart 1970c:100; Schoop 2005a:155–157). Painted pottery is also introduced in Bademağacı around 6400 BC, between Levels EN I and EN II (Duru 2008:Figure 129; Schoop 2005a:171, Plates 129–130). At Höyücek the first painted sherds were found either in the ‘Shrine phase’ or the following ‘Sanctuary phase’ (5.8.1) and therefore around 6200 BC. Kuruçay as well has painted pottery from the start of occupation in 6200 BC (Duru 1994c, 2008: Figure 122; Schoop 2005a:263, Plate 92).The number of painted sherds in the lowermost levels of the sites is small —probably also because all these early levels were only excavated in small areas, and few artefacts overall were recovered—which is why these levels are usually still classified as monochrome (e.g. Düring 2011c:170, Table 5.2; Schoop 2005a:155, 189, Figure 4). But away from such classifications, it is precisely the slow and gradual nature of the emergence of painted pottery in the Lake District that is interesting here because it is in contrast to the later, sudden introduction of pottery painting to the Konya plain.
found in Level 3 and many more in Level 2, or whether pottery appeared suddenly in Level 2. In either case, the introduction of painted pottery at Canhasan was around the same time as at Çatalhöyük. Neither western Anatolia (see above) nor Cappadocia (Düring 2011c:154; Tepecik: Bıçakçı et al. 2012; Godon 2005) had a tradition of pottery painting between 6500 and 5500 BC with a single exception in Cappadocia: At Köşk Höyük, the clear majority of pottery was not painted, but a few painted sherds occur in all levels (Öztan 2012:39, Figure 34). This indicates the presence of very low amounts of painted pottery concurrent to the painted pottery phase in the Konya plain (Köşk Höyük V–II are dated 6000–5500 BC, 5.7.1). A few sherds resembling Canhasan 2 material (Öztan 2003:72) were found in the Middle Chalcolithic Level I (around 4900 BC), i.e. at a time period where the painted pottery tradition of the Konya plain had already come to an end; they might have been an imported (Düring 2011c:151) curiosity. This short overview shows that the appearance of painted pottery in the Lake District not only predates that of the Konya plain by a few centuries, but also that painting enters the pottery repertoire gradually in the Lake District (Düring 2011c:167), and may appear at different sites at different times, while in the Konya plain it appears suddenly but in large amounts at Canhasan and Çatalhöyük between 6000 BC and 5900 BC. This suggests a scenario whereby pottery painting was first developed in the Lake District around 6350 BC, and then became more important after 6100 BC, when it increases in relative quantity in Hacılar Level V, Kuruçay 12 and Höyücek SPh (Thissen 2010:279), and is then introduced to the Konya plain after 6000 BC (Biehl 2012b:22), but never reached Cappadocia, or only in very reduced amount.
The first painted pottery in the Konya plain dates to around 6000 BC, and therefore 200–400 years later than the introduction of painted pottery in the Lake District. Evidence from Çatalhöyük points to a sudden appearance of painted pottery in large amounts: At the top of the Çatalhöyük East Mound, where the last building is dated to around 5950 BC (Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:172–173), the only find of painting on pottery is one single sherd with a red line. On the West Mound, in layers dated to between 6000 and 5800 BC (Trench 1) and 5900–5800 BC (Trench 5; Orton et al. 2018), a majority of pottery is painted. At the same time, the amount of pottery in general increased dramatically (Franz and Pyzel 2022). Future research may finetune the dating of the painted pottery introduction at Çatalhöyük and determine whether it took place on the West Mound concurrent to the latest occupation on the East Mound which featured unpainted pottery, or on the West Mound just after the abandonment of the East Mound. Unfortunately, evidence on the start of painted pottery at Canhasan, the only other Konya plain site with excavated layers dating to around 6000 BC, is uncertain. Originally, a small number of painted sherds were assigned to Level 3 (French 1967:172; Schoop 2005a:113), which might have been the reason why French termed this level Early Chalcolithic (5.4.1). Level 3 is not well dated, but was probably around 6000 BC. Later, French (2005:18) stated that Layer 3 pottery cannot be securely defined, because no in situ pottery was found in this layer. He also states that parts of the Level 3 pottery assemblage were re-assigned to Level 2 after review of the stratigraphy. Accordingly, in 2005, French (2005:18–22) saw the introduction of painted pottery at the site in Level 2 (starting in 5950 BC, 5.4.1). Schoop’s (2005a) pottery review was not able to discuss this matter in detail, because it was not able to refer to the full publication of the Canhasan pottery, published around the same time (French 2005). Unfortunately, the lack of certainty about the stratigraphic position of the earliest painted sherds at Canhasan creates ambiguity as to whether there was a gradual start, with few painted sherds
6.3.2. Climate change and a possible influence on socioeconomic changes I would like to only briefly mention climate change here as a topic that has been part of the LN-EC discussion in recent years, although a direct influence of climate change on the processes that are the focus of this book has not yet been proven. Several researchers have argued that a short period of climatic deterioration referred to as the 8.2ka event had a profound influence on prehistoric communities in Europe and Southwest Asia. The 8.2ka event, characterised by droughts and cooling, can be observed in the northern hemisphere and was first dated to ca. 6200–6000 BC (Horn et al. 2015:2–5; Weninger et al. 2014:1–10) but more recent research has extended the period of climate change to ca. 6600–6000 BC (Clare 2016:43–45). For central and western Anatolia in specific, there are reconstructions of the 8.2ka event as triggering several of the processes discussed in this section: mobility and dispersal, and warfare, as well as the spread of Neolithic lifeways to western Turkey (Berger and Guilaine 2009; Budja 2007; Clare et al. 2008; Clare and Weninger 2010, 2014, 2018; Turney and Brown 2007; Weninger et al. 2014; Weninger et al. 2009). 125
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia To show a connection between the 8.2ka event and these social processes it would be necessary to first show that the 8.2ka event had an influence on local environments in central Anatolia, and second, demonstrate that any cultural changes occurring during the time were directly related to such environmental and climatic changes. Recent publications on the reconstruction of environmental conditions in central Anatolian prehistory have weighed in on both sides, reconstructing either a long-term resilience of environments during the 7th millennium without significant sudden changes (Asouti 2009; Asouti and Kabukcu 2014; Ayala et al. 2017; Hodder 2021a:13, 20; Wainwright and Ayala 2019; Willett et al. 2016; Woodbridge et al. 2019:738) or significant environmental changes probably liked to the 8.2ka event (Lewis et al. 2017; Roffet-Salque et al. 2018; Roffet-Salque et al. 2019). A second issue is demonstrating a connection between environmental and cultural changes, a topic that is also complicated by the fact that both environmental and cultural changes are often not securely dated. In addition, in my view, publications writing in support of the idea of an impact of the 8.2ka event on social change in LN central Anatolia are generally too superficial to be convincing, with researchers disregarding the complexities and details of processes of social change (similarly Hodder 2021a:13, 20). I will here briefly discuss two examples that have been used by a research group around Weninger and Clare to demonstrate that central Anatolia experienced considerable climateinduced social turmoil around between 6600–6200 BC: First, they perceive a connection with the cultural changes observed at Çatalhöyük after 6500 BC (6.3.3, 6.3.4), citing different evidence in different publications. Earlier publications cite the sudden abandonment of Çatalhöyük East, followed by a hiatus of 200 years before a reoccupation at Çatalhöyük West as evidence for climateinduced turmoil (Weninger et al. 2006:410; Weninger et al. 2009:33–34). That in fact no such hiatus existed had already been suggested earlier when successively emerging radiocarbon dates increasingly closed the gap between the two mounds at Çatalhöyük (Cessford 2005:77, 95, Figure 4.10; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015) and more recently has been conclusively resolved (Orton et al. 2018). Taking that into account, Clare and Weninger still saw evidence for disruption based on the relocation of the settlement across the river to the West Mound and the introduction of painted pottery (Clare et al. 2008:79; but see a return to the hiatus claim in Clare and Weninger 2014:1). Most recently, they have pointed to the household autonomy, social competition and associated changes in material culture that are observable at LN Çatalhöyük (Clare 2016:195–197; Clare and Weninger 2018:43). In none of these publications, however, is there real discussion of the causality that translates cold/dry weather into social competition, settlement location, and pottery painting (see also Hodder 2021a:13, 20). Second, Clare et al. (2008; also Clare 2016:197–201; Clare and Weninger 2018:44–45) then link the interpretation of turmoil in the Konya plain with that for site destruction in the Lake District to postulate attacks of displaced Konya plain peoples on settlements in the Lake District.
The evidence for hostile attacks on LN/EC Lake District settlements is highly problematic (6.3.5; see 5.1.2, 5.6.2, 5.10.2 for a discussion of possible fortification walls; and Chapter 11). And finally, even if these hostile attacks took place in the LN/EC Lake District, there needs to be a more holistic discussion of other possible causes before seeking an explanation in environmental changes. In short, I and others (Baird 2012a:435, 446; Düring 2011c:125) remain unconvinced that climate changes had a significant influence on the processes studied here. 6.3.3. Household autonomy and social competition The 6500 BC change at Çatalhöyük Following a review of the larger regional framework, the remainder of this section will discuss a series of socioeconomic transformations in Cappadocia, the Konya plain and Lake District that significantly changed the social landscape between 6500 and 5500 BC. Much of this and the following section (6.3.4) will be based on evidence from Çatalhöyük. Çatalhöyük is not the only excavated site in central Anatolia that was occupied before and after 6500 BC, but the only one where levels on both sides of the 6500 BC-mark have been investigated thoroughly: Tepecik is still being excavated and only partially published (5.13). Erbaba was excavated in a manner that did not produce much data on social organisation (5.5; Düring 2006:248). By contrast, at Çatalhöyük the 6500 BC transition has been a research focus over the last years. New evidence from a wide array of material culture (summarised in Hodder 2013a, 2013b, 2014b; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015; Özdöl-Kutlu et al. 2015) confirms and substantiates what was already known before in broader terms (Düring 2006:246–247; Düring and Marciniak 2005:182; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:126, 2012; Mellaart 1967:210, 217): Starting in ca. 6500 BC, a series of major and relatively fast changes took place at Çatalhöyük that completely changed the social geography established in the Early Neolithic and led to a drop in population numbers, greater autonomy of households, incipient social competition and a stronger focus on pastoral mobility. Hodder (2014b, 2021a:21, 28) describes the 6500 BC change at Çatalhӧyük as a solution to tensions that increased gradually through a kind of ‘overheating’ of the Early Neolithic system of community-making. Early Neolithic Çatalhӧyük was a very large and tightly integrated community. The increasingly large number of people living at the site was organised and held together by complex social ties that centred around the sharing of resources and symbolism, and relied on subcommunities to integrate and organise a number of households (6.2.3). This system culminated in the middle levels, South M-O/ North G (Mellaart Levels VII to VIa, dated to 6700–6500 BC, Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2), which Hodder (2014b:1) calls the ‘classic’ levels. It was the material culture of these classic levels that originally drew attention to the site through the intensity of their symbolic elaboration (Mellaart 1962a, 1963a, 1967). The particular abundance 126
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC
Figure 6.4. Reconstruction of dispersed occupation at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Farid 2014:Figure 4.2)12.
of house elaboration in the middle levels is now interpreted to signify increasing efforts to keep an ever more demanding social/ritual system intact. The number of animal installations, the number of burials and burial gifts all peaked in the middle levels (Hodder 2014b:10–11). In South M-O, the village was the largest and most populated. The increased population caused stress through workload, insufficient nutrition and disease, visible on the bones and teeth of buried community members (Hillson et al. 2013:386; Hodder 2014b:11, 2021a:21; Knüsel et al. 2021; Larsen et al. 2015; Larsen et al. 2019; Millela et al. 2018). This also included an increase in interpersonal violence in the middle levels (Knüsel et al. 2021:342–343; Larsen et al. 2019:12620–12621). These signs point to increasing strains on a system of community life that had previously been successful and sustainable over a long period of time. Population increase might have been an important factor that fuelled this steady process of ‘overheating’: the community potentially initially increased the number of births to produce more people to share the workload, but then the increasing size of the group only added to the demands on community organisation (Hodder 2014b:1, 11, 17). Social organisation changed considerably in the Late Neolithic, i.e. after 6500 BC, after Level O. From Level South P onwards, Çatalhӧyük looked quite different
(Figure 6.4). Overall population numbers dropped together with signs of physiological stress on human skeletons and teeth; however, workload remained high (Düring 2006:246–247; Farid 2014:112; Hodder 2014b:11–12, 2021a:21; Larsen et al. 2015; Larsen et al. 2019; Millela et al. 2018). A decrease in symbolic elaboration in houses is the most immediately visible sign that community and subcommunity ties might have been loosened: After South O, the number of bucrania installations, burials, and animal reliefs decreases (Düring 2006:201; Hodder 2014b:11, 15). Research into the production and processing of food and artefacts, discussed below, has shown that households relied more strongly on their own productive capacity than community ties to secure their subsistence. How serious, severe or revolutionary would this transformation have seemed to the people who experienced it. Hodder describes the 6500 BC change as “radical” (Hodder 2013b:20) but not necessarily sudden, since radiocarbon dating has not yet precisely dated all the various changes to material culture that mark this transition (Hodder 2014b:18). Based on current dates, the transformations described here as ‘the 6500 BC change’ occurred between 6500 and 6300 BC (Hodder 2014b:17), but were followed by a period of ongoing change that lasted for another few centuries and is represented by the late/final levels of the East Mound as well as the West Mound. An end to this period of transformation is difficult to grasp because data from the centuries after 6300 BC at Çatalhӧyük is much sparser than from the
reprinted from S. Farid 2014 Timelines: phasing Neolithic Çatalhöyük, in I. Hodder (ed.), Çatalhöyük Excavations: The 2000–2008 Seasons (Çatalhöyük Research Project 7; British Institute at Ankara Monograph 46; Monumenta Archaeologica 29) London and Los Angeles, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 12
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia middle levels. The excavators of the latest layers on the East Mound interpret the evidence in terms of ongoing change in continuation of the transformations that took place between 6500–6300 BC (Marciniak 2019b:158– 160; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015). Similarly, research on the West Mound has shown that new developments in material culture dating to 6000–5800 BC can be interpreted as resulting from transformations that started in 6500 BC (Anvari et al. 2017; Rosenstock et al. 2019), showing continued change until at least then. Regarding strictly radiocarbon-dated excavation areas on the West Mound, the last two centuries of occupation on the West Mound, and Çatalhöyük more generally (5800–5600 BC), have only been excavated in a small sondage (Trench 2; but note that three other trenches, Trenches 3–4 and Trench 8 have not been radiocarbon dated, 5.3.1) making it unclear whether the transformation processes that started in 6500 BC continued until the end of the site. Returning to the observation that a period of only ca. 200 years, 6500–6300 BC, saw major socioeconomic transformations at Çatalhöyük: this time span is short enough that the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük were probably aware that their world was changing, offering the possibility to study a socioeconomic transformation that is not only noticeable in hindsight by archaeologists, but one that likely was also being observed and deliberated by people at the time. In the following, I will discuss further the main consequences of the 6500 BC change for social organisation at Çatalhöyük.
increasing signs of socio-economic specialisation and differentiation of households. Household autonomy and social competition appear to have developed along an already existing social fault line: Hodder believes that the Early Neolithic system of constituting and maintaining the large Çatalhöyük community was “already under threat at the start of the occupation of Çatalhöyük, when house units were both independent and heavily dependent on complex crosscutting social networks. The tensions in this system were released by allowing individual house units greater self-sufficiency” (Hodder 2014b:17) after 6500 BC. In this scenario, the dual demands of maintaining the household while also investing resources and time into maintaining suprahousehold ties became steadily unbearable up to a breaking point, after which households shed much of the strongly collectivist community ties and focused on their own production (Hodder 2014b:17–18). In the following, I will discuss two lines of evidence for the interconnected processes of increasing household autonomy and increasing social competition at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Competitive productivity Household autonomy and competition at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük were created through higher householdspecific economic productivity, which also included some economic specialisation. A new use of domestic animals seems to have played an important role in this process. From 6500 BC (Level South P) onwards, there is a sharp increase in the number of sheep being herded at increasing distances from the site (also see 6.3.4) and sheep meat being consumed. At the same time, cattle increasingly become part of daily consumption whereas earlier, cattle had mostly been used for feasting (Russell et al. 2013:217, 223; Hodder 2014b:12, 16, Figure 7, 2021:22, 28; Twiss et al. 2021:177, 179). Cattle were probably being managed on a small scale since the early levels of the site, but prior to 6500 BC, half or more of the cattle herds were kept at a distance from the site in the Taurus mountains, whereas after 6500 BC, most were kept closer to the settlement (Hodder 2021a:22; Wolfhagen et al. 2021). There is also tentative evidence from animal bone taxa and pathologies, as well as animal diets (isotopes) that sheep/goats were now managed in smaller herds by individual households, whereas in the classic levels, herds might have been pooled (Hodder 2014b:12; Russell et al. 2013:236). In combination, this evidence suggests an increased investment in herds and meat production, a higher meat consumption within daily subsistence, and differences in herd management that might have included management by individual households. Hodder (2014b:16) thinks it might have been the ownership of a large number of animals that allowed households to rely more on their own resources and invest less in social security via bonds with other households. When individual ownership became more pronounced, there might even have been the beginning of an accounting system that involved small clay objects (Bennison-Chapman 2013:273–274; Hodder 2014b:16).
Autonomous and competing households at Çatalhöyük Household autonomy here describes the ability of a household to act—socially, economically and potentially ritually—fairly independently from other households within the same community or subcommunity (e.g. Düring 2011c:98; Düring and Marciniak 2005; Hodder 2014b:6). Household autonomy is not an absolute variable; for example, Hodder (2014b, also Düring 2006:247) describes the Çatalhöyük households as embedded in a careful balance of dependencies and autonomies all throughout the duration of the site, whereby the relative scales shifted only around 6500 BC towards greater autonomy (see also 6.2.3 for a discussion of the balance between household autonomy vs. community integration in the Early Neolithic). In the context of the discourse investigated here, ‘autonomous households’ then means ‘more independent than in the Early Neolithic’, before 6500 BC. Post-6500 BC household autonomy was thus related to a partial loosening of the suprahousehold ties that existed in the Early Neolithic. In 6.2.4, I discussed that these same suprahousehold relationships also maintained egalitarianism. And when the ties between households loosened at Çatalhöyük around 6500 BC, there is evidence that egalitarianism also decreased and social competition emerged or became stronger. Hodder (2014b:12) concluded that egalitarianism persisted until the end of the occupation at the site, but after 6500 BC there are 128
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC Late Neolithic household autonomy and competition, then, was based on individual households increasing their productivity, and keeping the yields for themselves rather than investing them into suprahousehold relationships. ‘History houses’, previously nodal points of suprahousehold ties without apparent higher socioeconomic status (6.2.4), participated in the newly emerging social competition (Hodder 2014b:12). Male members of ‘history house’ households were significantly more mobile than those of houses with less ritual status (Hodder 2013b:27, 2014d:159–160), suggesting investment in productivity outside of the settlement, for example related to herding. Pastoral productivity appears to have been one way for households, and especially history house-households, to increase their productivity. Craft specialisation was another: some Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük households specialised in the production of e.g. antler tools, stone and shell beads, clay and stone figurines, chipped or ground stone (Hodder 2013a:19–20, 2013b:22, 24, 2014b:14). Productive specialisation might have been another way to increase the household’s productivity and thus allow economic independence. But specialisation also meant that items were exchanged between households each producing different things (Hodder 2014b:14, 17, 2014c:19), and these items might therefore have easily become incorporated into the increasingly competitive relationships between households. Many of the abovenamed materials that were part of early specialisation at Çatalhöyük can be described as ‘rare’ insofar as it required effort to obtain them: the sources of obsidian as well as many of the kinds of stones and shell used for beads and grinding implements were located several days travel from the settlement (Hodder 2014b:14; Nazaroff et al. 2015); and antler could only be obtained by hunting, or opportunistic collection of antlers that had been naturally shed. Antler and stone were therefore not readily available in unlimited quantities, and having and exchanging these rare items could have economically and socially empowered households. There is some evidence for the role of specialisation in competitive productivity in Hodder’s (2013a:19–20, 2014d:161) observation that there seems to be some concentration of stone workshops in history houses at post-6500 BC Çatalhöyük. Investing more heavily in specialisation and mobility, Late Neolithic history house-households thus seem to have been particularly successful at becoming socioeconomically more powerful than others (Hodder 2014b:11). This could indicate the translation of ritual into socioeconomic status by history house-households after 6500 BC, something which was apparently not possible previously (6.2.4).
enabled them to accommodate a greater range of storage and production activities (Hodder 2014b:12). The now more abundant open areas within the settlement were more intensely used for productive activities. More fire spots are found within middens, as well as ovens and hearths constructed outside which were associated with cereal processing. Some buildings had private yards where activities were performed similar to those inside houses, using installations such as ovens or a mudbrick platform (Bogaard et al. 2014; Hodder 2014b:12, 2014c:18). The use of the house for creating ritual ties between households decreased in importance. Not only did symbolic house elaboration decrease, but also burials and wall paintings were located in different parts of houses, suggesting changes to the rules or conventions by which they were created (Hodder 2014b:1). Also after 6500 BC, building continuity decreased. Houses were lived in for shorter times, abandoned earlier, and when they were rebuilt, the new house often did not follow the footprint of the older (Düring 2006:228, 247; Düring and Marciniak 2005:180; Hodder 2014b:15). By 6000 BC, houses often (before 6000 BC in TP) or completely (after 6000 BC on the West Mound) lack symbolic elaboration, and subfloor burials disappeared altogether. In TP, individuals were interred in a constructed burial chamber, and on the West Mound, only two burials were found, both within the infill of houses. In TP, some buildings were continued and others not, and some were lived in for only a short time (Anvari et al. 2017; Byrnes and Anvari 2022; Marciniak 2015a, 2015b; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015; Biehl et al. 2012a, 2012b; Biehl and Rogasch 2013). Competitive hospitality Next to economic productivity, another important factor in the creation of household autonomy and competition at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük was competitive hospitality. The domestic animals that households invested so much energy into after 6500 BC (see above) began to be used for feasting, i.e. large-scale consumption events involving more than one household. The sheep and goat which had become much more important in the subsistence economy after 6500 BC were now also used in feasting, whereas prior to 6500 BC, (then wild) cattle had been preferred for feasting (Hodder 2014b:16; Russell et al. 2013:235). After domestic cattle are introduced around 6500 BC, they are used alongside wild bull for feasting. The fact that some houses in the later levels (South P-Q and North G-H) have large collections of feasting remains suggests that feasting now had a competitive aspect of display and differentiation, rather than of giving and social inclusion as previously (Hodder 2013b:25; Russell et al. 2013:236).
Architecture also changed alongside these socioeconomic shifts. Not only did the settlement contract, but also increasingly there were gaps in the settlement texture, with a few houses forming clusters that were scattered around the mound surface, or even free-standing houses (Düring 2006:228; Farid 2014:96; Hodder 2014b:12). As households started to rely more on their own production, houses became larger, and began to have more complex layouts including several rooms and outdoor areas which
Pottery seems to have changed in connection with increasing competitive hospitality. Changes to the pottery repertoire after Level O could indicate a new function of these containers in display, exchange and hospitality: a greater variety of shapes is developed, and pottery decoration through cutting and pricking increases 129
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (Hodder 2014b:15–16; Yalman et al. 2013). After 6000 BC, painted pottery (Figure 6.5) appears rather suddenly at the site (see 6.3.1), and at the same time, the amount of pottery increased dramatically (Franz and Pyzel 2022). Several explanations have been suggested for the ‘painted pottery revolution’ that occurred in several areas of southwest Asia around 6000 BC (Nieuwenhuyse 2009), but in light of the use of ceramic dishes in competitive hospitality after 6500 BC discussed here, painting might have been adopted as a means for social competition during commensal events (Hodder 2013a:23). Andesite trays that became more common in the TP Area and on the West Mound where they also became footed might equally have been used for display during commensal events (Hodder 2014b:16).
for social competition. At Çatalhöyük, households started competing for socioeconomic resources immediately after gaining greater autonomy, with the result that mild, incipient differences in wealth and status developed at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Hodder 2013b:2, 2014b:5, 2014f:182). These first intimations of social competition and differentiation are of particular interest; they suggest that the origins for social stratification that would emerge in the Middle Chalcolithic (6.4) and grow until the Early Bronze Age (6.6) can be found in the LN and EC. A number of recent publications (especially Arbuckle 2012a; Duru 2008; Hodder 2014b) have made a number of new suggestions as to the details of the process of emerging status differences during the LN and EC, and demonstrated that this process was tightly entwined with emerging mobility, which produced the means (herds, meat) for households to compete; and possibly warfare, which in the Lake District might have emerged alongside differences in social status. These two factors of social transformation in the LN and EC will be discussed in 6.3.4 and 6.3.5.
This section has portrayed the increasing household autonomy and increasing social competition of the Late Neolithic as interconnected processes, with social competition possibly being an outcome of household autonomy; or household autonomy being a prerequisite
Figure 6.5. Painted vessels from Trench 5 on the Çatalhöyük West Mound (reprinted with permission from the Çatalhöyük Research Project from: Franz 2010:Figure 69, figure created by Ingmar Franz).
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Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC 172) discussion of LN/EC Hacılar, Bademağacı and Höyücek does not mention evidence for social competition, the excavators of the above-named sites recognised many signs of social stratification at LN/EC Lake District sites. Duru (2008:7) interprets the fortification walls of Kuruçay 11 (6100–6000 BC; Thissen 2010:Figure 13) as a sign for the formation of social stratification and “the concentration of authority” in the hands of a few. For the following Early Chalcolithic, he reconstructs that settled farming communities became increasingly prosperous, causing raids by nomadic groups (see 6.3.5) which in turn gave rise to “the emergence of strong individuals or those of status to rule over the society” (Duru 2008:8). Mellaart (1970c:34, 38; and Steadman 2000b:183–184) interpreted Hacılar II as a village with status differences based on differences in architecture and pottery distribution between different parts of the site. He also saw the massive ‘fortress’ of Hacılar I as evidence for the existence of a ruler (Mellaart 1970c:77; see 5.1.6 for a critique of the evidence)
Beyond Çatalhöyük Given the significance of the 6500 BC change at Çatalhöyük not only for the social makeup of the Konya plain but also possibly the spread of Neolithic lifeways towards the west (6.3.1), it is highly relevant to research to what degree the 6500 BC changes at Çatalhöyük were mirrored at other sites in the Konya plain and Cappadocia. There has, however, not yet been a systematic investigation of this question. In the following, I summarise the fragmentary information available about household autonomy and social competition at other sites. This overview shows that there are no indications of (or possibly no discussions of) increasing household autonomy at other LN/EC sites, but some indications for social competition. In the southern Konya plain, the Late Neolithic to Early/Middle Chalcolithic Canhasan shows no signs of social stratification according to the excavator, French (1998:68). Since both LN/EC Canhasan as well as LN Erbaba, located at the eastern fringe of the Lake District, were clustered settlements, Düring (2006:280–281, 2011c:141) suggests that both might have followed a different course than Çatalhöyük in the LN and EC: “we cannot draw the scattered evidence from the various Central Anatolian Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic settlements into a single grand narrative. Rather, various local developments took place, some of which might have contradicted one another” (Düring 2011c:141). However, due to the lack of detailed research into the socioeconomic makeup of both sites, it is not possible to really compare LN/EC Canhasan and Erbaba to LN/EC Çatalhöyük.
In conclusion, there is also evidence for emerging social competition or stratification in the LN/EC in Cappadocia and the Lake District. However, Chapter 5 highlighted problems with the evidence from Hacılar and Kuruçay which warrants a reanalysis. However, the more pressing problem is that the 6500 BC change has not yet been systematically researched beyond Çatalhöyük despite taking on an important role in some recent literature as the change that finally catapulted the Neolithic out of the Konya plain and Cappadocia after nearly 2000 years of pause.
The portrayals of LN-EC Tepecik and EC Köşk Höyük in Cappadocia by Bıçakçı et al. (Bıçakçı et al. 2012; Bıçakçı et al. 2017), Öztan (2012) and Düring (2011c:151–154) do not refer to increases in household autonomy, or emergence of social competition. However, a process somewhat similar to the above outlined changes at Çatalhöyük after 6500 BC has been recognised by Arbuckle (2012a) at Early Chalcolithic (post-6000 BC) Köşk Höyük in Cappadocia. Arbuckle outlines evidence that the inhabitants of the site regularly engaged in meat-feasting events that were located around outdoor ‘roasting pits’ and that had a competitive aspect; competition evolved around the differential contribution of households to the feast, and attribution of meat shares to households/individuals during the feasts. Feasting events allowed households to display their economic and social success by providing meat and decorated ceramic dishes. Arbuckle points out that the negotiation of social relations through food sharing had a long tradition since at least the Neolithic, but now they were used to display socio-economic differences publicly. The Early Chalcolithic is thus, in Arbuckle’s (2012a:310) reconstruction, the period when social and economic inequalities first emerged in Cappadocia, and by the Middle Chalcolithic they became more clearly visible in the material culture (6.4.3).
6.3.4. Mobility, dispersal and the development of dense cultural landscapes Changes to the social geography of individual village communities, as discussed so far, were embedded in changes beyond settlement borders: the period 6500– 5500 BC also saw increased mobility, dispersal and the development of dense cultural landscapes. Mobility is used here (similar to e.g. Baird 2005:55; Hodder 2013a:21, 2013b:21) as characterising a socioeconomic practice whereby groups of people spend at least some months of the year moving from place to place and exploiting resources scattered throughout the landscape, never staying in one place for longer than a few days or weeks. As this section will show, a main reason for mobility in Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia was the maintenance of large herds of sheep, therefore the terms ‘pastoralism’ (Arbuckle 2012a:310) and ‘transhumance’ (Bachhuber 2015:39) are also often used in the literature to refer to what is here more neutrally called mobility. By the term dispersal I mean both the evidence that large settlements like Çatalhöyük appear to have been reduced in size when significant numbers of people left to live elsewhere (6.3.3; Figure 6.4); but also and especially the establishment of denser clusters of contemporary sites rather than the relatively large, settlement-less spaces that had existed between sites during the Early Neolithic.
It is also relevant to ask whether the newly neolithised Lake District showed any signs of household autonomy and social competition after 6500 BC. Whereas Düring’s (2011c:163– 131
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia In the Konya plain, the Late Neolithic (6500–6000 BC) saw the increased mobility of Çatalhöyük people and animals as well as the establishment of satellite campsites probably related to mobility; and in the Early Chalcolithic (6000–5500 BC) the establishment of new permanent villages around Çatalhöyük. Skeletal remains of both sheep and humans, and isotopes studies suggest that mobility increased throughout the centuries between 6500 and 6000 BC. Isotopes from sheep bones show that after 6500 BC, the diet of sheep became more varied, suggesting that they were grazed over increasingly wider territories (Hodder 2014b:13; Pearson et al. 2007; Pearson et al. 2021:242). The observation that the opposite trend appears to have been the case for cattle, which were kept closer to the settlement after 6500 BC (Hodder 2021a:22) shows that the newly increased mobility of large parts of the Çatalhöyük population was foremost related to sheep herding. Since the ownership of large herds was now not only possible, but also desirable for enabling household autonomy and competition (6.3.3), it would have been both attractive and necessary to secure the well-being of animals by moving them to favourable grazing areas away from the immediate surroundings of the site. Together with animals, people moved as well: From South Level P onwards, human skeletal evidence suggests increased mobility of men, women and children (Hodder 2014b:15; Larsen et al. 2015:33; Larsen et al. 2013:400–401; Larsen et al. 2019:12619, Table 1; Knüsel et al. 2021:336–339; Sadvari et al. 2015). This does not indicate nomadic pastoralism, but rather a type of mobility whereby groups operated from a permanent settlement (Çatalhöyük), but spent part of the year traveling and using campsites (Hodder 2014b:13–14, 2021a:4, 20–21, 28). One such campsite was Pınarbaşı, 24.5 km south of Çatalhöyük in the Konya plain, which has produced evidence of occupation as a seasonal camp for sheep herders and possibly hunters between 6500–6000 BC (Baird 2012a:447, 2012b; Hodder 2014b:14).
of which households increasingly came to create and sustain relationships with other communities outside of the Çatalhöyük settlement. The increased use of the landscape in the Late Neolithic then morphed into a more permanent establishment of settlements beyond Çatalhöyük towards the end of the LN and especially in the Early Chalcolithic. Above (6.2.3), I discussed that the establishment of Çatalhöyük went along with an abandonment of the scattering of sites that had previously existed in the southern Konya plain. From around the time of its establishment until about 6000 BC, the Çatalhöyük had no immediate neighbouring settlements. However, at probably 6200 BC, a new settlement was created at some distance (60 km) to the southeast of Çatalhöyük, as people settling nearby to the now abandoned Early Neolithic site of Canhasan III created the substantial new settlement of Canhasan I (Fairbairn et al. 2020:357–358, Figure 9). In addition, the new and ongoing Konya Regional Archaeological Survey Project (KRASP) has identified two sites “contemporary with the latest phases of Çatalhöyük East” ca. 45 km to the southwest of Çatalhöyük (Bachhuber et al. 2019:33). And after 6000 BC, many new sites were established close to Çatalhӧyük on the Çarşamba river alluvial fan, as demonstrated by Baird’s Konya Plain Survey (Baird 2002, 2005, 2012a:446; also Gibson 2022). The many (14) Early Chalcolithic sites around Çatalhӧyük were relatively small and possibly short-lived, while Çatalhӧyük (West) still remained a large, permanent settlement that could have had a central role in the interaction of the many communities on the Çarşamba fan (Baird 2002:150, 2005:71–73). Baird (2012a:446) suggests that these new settlements were established by people who left Çatalhöyük, but it just as likely might have been people coming from elsewhere. In either case, the Çatalhöyük community were now embedded into a very different cultural landscape with other communities permanently living nearby. New surveys that were started in the Konya plain in recent years and that include areas beyond the immediate surroundings of Çatalhöyük have so far confirmed the pattern found by Baird’s survey whereby no settlements other than Çatalhöyük existed on the southern Konya plain from approximately the time of its establishment in 7100 BC until new sites were founded at the very end of the 7th millennium and especially after 6000 BC (Bachhuber et al. 2019:33; Massa et al. 2019:164– 165; Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019b:176, 187). Hodder describes the changing relationship between Çatalhöyük and its surroundings as follows: “It is almost as if the site sucked in population and then spat it out again in the later levels of occupation, culminating in an increase of Chalcolithic sites on the plain” (Hodder 2021a:4).
The newly autonomous LN Çatalhöyük households thus increasingly used areas further away from the site for their increased productivity (Hodder 2014b:12). Herding might have been a primary focus of this extension of household productivity into the landscape, but other items of material culture also display it. After South M (6500 BC), pottery was mainly produced from clays likely originating from volcanic regions west of the site, instead of from local clays as previously (Doherty and Tarkan 2013; Hodder 2014b:10). Shell and stone used for bead production after 6500 BC also made use of a greater variety of raw materials brought from different locations, of which some also came from greater distances (Hodder 2014b:14). Next to Cappadocian obsidian, the later levels also contain obsidian obtained from the Lake Van area 650–800 km to the east of the site (Carter and Milić 2013:417; Hodder 2014b:14–15). Ostaptchouk (2020) has reconstructed that by ca. 5900 BC, people on the West Mound obtained stone for chipping through several networks, of which one brought flint from at least 200 km to the east. Hodder (2014b:10) links these developments, too, with the new intensity of household-specific production in the course
In both Cappadocia and the Lake District, current evidence shows LN/EC developments regarding mobility and dense cultural landscapes that are partly similar, partly different from the Konya plain. In Cappadocia, isotope evidence from Köşk Höyük sheep and goat shows that herds were probably communally herded during the Early Chalcolithic (Meiggs et al. 2019:91–92), different from the 132
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC and dispersal. However, due to the poor chronological resolution, it remains unclear what part of this development took place in the EC; Allcock and Roberts (2014:48) hypothesised that it mostly post-dated the EC.
Late Neolithic trend at Çatalhöyük towards management by households. Unfortunately, the resolution of data is inadequate to retrace changes in the LN/EC cultural landscape in detail: In survey evidence as summarised by Allcock and Roberts, a majority of Neolithic and especially of Chalcolithic sites are not dated to a subphase of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. Further, the Neolithic sites are mostly categorised into ‘Aceramic’ and ‘Ceramic’ (Allcock and Roberts 2014:Table 2), which is not equivalent to the EN and LN as used in this book. Based only on the sites that could be attributed to subphases, the trend in settlement pattern does not mirror that in the Konya plain since a scatter of small village sites existed in the region throughout the Neolithic (Allcock and Roberts 2014:47, Table 2). During the Chalcolithic, more sites in more varied settings were created, a process that Allcock and Roberts (2014:48, also Figure 4) link to increasing household autonomy, thus echoing interpretations made for the Konya plain about a link between household autonomy
In the Lake District, surveys identified small Late Neolithic sites scattered loosely across the landscape (Vandam 2019:205–206, Figure 9). The proximity of some of these sites suggest that they were in contact (Vandam 2019:206); this included the excavated sites of Hacılar and Kuruçay, located only 10 km from each other (Duru 1994c:104; Umurtak 2011:6). In the Early Chalcolithic, new settlements were founded, leading to a denser cultural landscape (Vandam 2019:209, 211). Vandam and Kaptijn’s survey in the surrounding of Hacılar and Kuruçay showed that the Early Chalcolithic cultural landscape newly included short-lived hamlet sites, of which some are located in the immediate surrounding (< 5 km) of Hacılar and Kuruçay (Figure 6.6; Vandam 2015:288, 2019:209;
Figure 6.6. Early Chalcolithic settlements around Hacılar and Kuruçay attested by survey (reprinted with permission from Lockwood Press from: Vandam 2019:Figure 2).
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia emerging warfare and social stratification are therefore related (Duru 2008:8–9). Clare et al. (2008; also Clare 2016:197–201; Clare and Weninger 2018:44–45) recently connected the evidence of warfare in the region with the 8.2ka climatic event and suggested the destruction in the Lake District was inflicted by people who had come under economic stress in the semi-arid areas of central Anatolia after climatic deterioration (Clare et al. 2008:81–82). They further (Clare et al. 2008:78, 79) identify a defensive component to the linear arrangement of (yet unexcavated) contemporary sites in the Beyşehir plain, i.e. at the border of Lake District and Konya plain, stating that “long linear arrangement of sites provid[ed] inhabitants with mutual support from neighbouring communities in times of danger” (Clare et al. 2008:78).
also see De Cupere et al. 2015). Very similar to the Konya plain and Cappadocia, Vandam (2019:208) connects this development with increased household autonomy. Neither Cappadocia nor the Lake District, then, saw the intense focus on one or a few large settlements during the Neolithic that characterised the Konya plain between 7100–6200 BC; but the Lake District and Konya plain, and possibly also Cappadocia, saw a sharp increase in the number of settlements in the Early Chalcolithic, forming denser cultural landscapes. However, these developments might generally have been focused on plain areas: a recent survey by Vandam and Willett in the highland region west of Lake Burdur in the Lake District did not show any clear evidence of Late Neolithic or Early Chalcolithic occupation (Vandam et al. 2017a:326; Vandam, Willett, et al. 2019:264).
This account of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic warfare in the Lake District not only contrasts with the current understanding of contemporary developments in the rest of Asia Minor, where no signs for warfare have been observed, but also the basis of evidence for the above scenario is weak. Chapter 5 has outlined that none of the suggested defensive perimeter walls can with certainty be identified as defensive, or even as perimeter walls (5.1.2, 5.6.2, 5.10.2). Further, the invasion of Hacılar II by the people who built Hacılar I was convincingly challenged by Rosenstock’s (2010a) re-evaluation of the excavation evidence, who instead argued for stratigraphical and cultural continuity. Düring (2011c:165) has pointed out that at least some of the house fires observed at Lake District sites could represent intentional, ritual burnings. In sum, there is no clear evidence that there was warfare in central Anatolia between 6500 and 5500 BC.
6.3.5. Warfare? The term warfare is used in this book (as in Bachhuber 2015:127; Clare et al. 2008; Selover 2015:6–10) to describe larger-scale violent conflict between different social groups, mostly between groups that live in different settlements. This differentiates warfare from smaller-scale violent conflicts and tensions that also occurred within prehistoric central Anatolian village communities (e.g. Hodder and Cessford 2004; Larsen et al. 2019:12620– 12621; Knüsel and Glenncross 2017; Knüsel et a. 2019; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50; Selover 2015:6–10). The excavators of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in the Lake District, James Mellaart and Refik Duru, painted a picture in which this region first experienced a few centuries of peace after the introduction of farming, but then entered a period of turmoil in ca. 6100 BC that extended into the Late Chalcolithic. The evidence for this comes mainly from the architectural record: at Hacılar, Höyücek, and Kuruçay, the excavators interpreted the existence of warfare from settlement perimeter walls with a defensive function (see Chapter 5: Hacılar VI, II and I, Kuruçay 11, Bademağacı ENII4–3 and possibly Bademağacı LN); levels of destruction, sometimes through fire; changes in building and sometimes pottery traditions interpreted as turnover in population following attacks. Both Duru and Mellaart reconstruct that the threat came from outside of the region: Mellaart (1970c:16) interpreted the fires that destroyed Hacılar VI, IV and IIa as accidents, but found (Mellaart 1970c:145, 1978:24–25) that Hacılar II was intentionally destroyed and Hacılar I established through the invasion by a people from southeast Anatolia who brought with them a new style of decorating pottery. Duru connects the frequent destruction levels observed at different Early Chalcolithic sites—e.g. Kuruçay 7 (ca. 5900 BC, Duru 2008:15); Hacılar Ib (ca. 5800 BC, Mellaart 1970c:76)—as the result of “plundering raids launched by nomadic groups who had not as yet switched to a sedentary way of life” and were taking advantage of the prospering sedentary groups (Duru 2008:8). This constant threat, he claims, led to the fortification of Hacılar and Kuruçay, as well as to the establishment of more authoritarian social structures, with a ruling elite (6.3.3);
6.4. 5500–4000 BC: The Middle Chalcolithic The Middle Chalcolithic in central Anatolia is characterised foremost by a poor resolution of archaeological knowledge. Based on the available evidence, the MC might have been dominated by mobile lifeways across central Anatolia. However, from Cappadocia two settlements are known, both of which display relatively clear signs for social stratification, constructed in ways that seem to form a continuation from the LN/EC social competition. Overall, despite the uncertainties produced by the incomplete state of research on the Middle Chalcolithic of central Anatolia, this period emerges as another key turning point in this narrative. While it could be argued that Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic social organisation maintained a lot from its Early Neolithic genesis, these lifeways were discontinued in the centuries leading up to 5000 BC as established settlements were abandoned (Figure 3.3), and groups of people across all three regions explored different settlement locations and/or different (mobile, pastoral) economic strategies. In Cappadocia, social stratification and elites first become clearly visible, and their strategies of obtaining wealth and power seem to be intimations of structures that grew until the Early Bronze Age. This reconstruction fits well within the larger picture, 134
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC as communities all across Asia Minor began exploring entirely new economic strategies during the 5th millennium (Düring 2011b:808, 2011c:255–256; Schoop 2011b: 160–161).
agenda, which views Anatolian prehistory as a series of important threshold events that led towards social modernity. In such a research framework, the ‘millennia in the middle’ (Düring 2011b)—between the agricultural revolution of the Early Neolithic and the urban revolution of the Early Bronze Age (Düring 2011b:796)—are of relatively little interest, the Middle Chalcolithic even more than other periods: “This problem is mitigated to some degree for the Early Chalcolithic, which is often considered an extension of the Neolithic, and the Late Chalcolithic, which is commonly perceived as the initial stage of the subsequent Early Bronze Age. Whereas the Middle Chalcolithic in particular has been caught in the middle, one might say” (Düring 2011b:796). Few projects across Asia Minor have explicitly researched the MC directly. Instead, most known Middle Chalcolithic material was discovered during projects focussed on other periods (Düring 2011b:797, 2011c:202). The Middle Chalcolithic is further generally neglected in the synthesising literature. Düring (2011b:797) points out that the MC is dealt with in one paragraph in Sagona and Zimansky (2009:134), and not discussed at all in Yakar’s (1985, 1991, 1994) overview monographs on prehistoric Anatolia. In the context of a research bias against the seemingly comparatively eventless ‘millennia in the middle’ (Düring 2011b), the Middle Chalcolithic is clearly therefore the most neglected period, despite its considerable length of 1500 years.
6.4.1. Absence of evidence or evidence of absence? In general, the Middle Chalcolithic of Asia Minor is poorly investigated, although more Middle Chalcolithic sites have been excavated over the last few years (Düring 2011b:797, 2011c:223, 232). In central Anatolia in particular, the number of known Middle Chalcolithic sites is dramatically lower than from all other periods of prehistory. In fact, only three Middle Chalcolithic sites have been excavated in central Anatolia: Canhasan, Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası, and no sites in the Lake District (Figure 6.7). With the beginning of the MC, other regions of Asia Minor start to be much better documented, and the focus of discussion (e.g. in Düring 2011c) moves away from central Anatolia. To what degree does the empty map of Middle Chalcolithic central Anatolia represent research bias, rather than actual developments in the past? Düring (2011b:796–797, 2011c:200–201) ascribes a main responsibility for the poor state of Middle Chalcolithic research in Asia Minor to a neo-evolutionary research
Figure 6.7. Map of excavated Middle Chalcolithic (5500–4000 BC) sites in central Anatolia (figure by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia A lack of interest might thus be partially responsible for the ‘Dark Ages’ of the Middle Chalcolithic. There remains, however, the real fact that very few MC sites are known despite some projects explicitly setting out to find them (e.g. Vandam 2015:284). It will be argued here that this is due to two interrelated issues: the problem of recognising MC material during surface surveys; and a real absence of sites of substantial size.
a number of Chalcolithic sites but has not so far dated them to a subperiod of the Chalcolithic (Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019b:181–183, 187). No Middle Chalcolithic sites whatsoever are known from the Lake District. No previous survey, including recent ones by Vandam and Willett, has identified a single MC site (Vandam 2015:289, 2019:199, 211; Vandam et al. 2017a:327), including the first 500 years of the Late Chalcolithic until 3500 BC (DeCupere et al. 2015:10). Duru (2008:188–189; also Eslick 1980) interprets this lack of archaeological evidence for human habitation over about 2000 years as the quasi-desertion of the region during this period. Vandam (2015:289, 291), however, points out that without known MC sites from the region there is no way of knowing what MC material might look like and thus it would not be recognised by surveys; a precarious situation similar to that in the Konya plain which can only be overcome by excavating stratified MC material. However, Vandam also points out that no Middle Chalcolithic occupation was found at excavated Lake District sites with occupation spanning from the LN or EC to the LC or EBA (Vandam 2015:292), suggesting that indeed MC occupation was absent or covered only a very small area of the sites. My re-evaluation of site chronologies confirms that at Kuruçay and Bademağacı, the two excavated sites with occupation prior to and after the MC, no MC occupation was attested – in fact, at both sites occupation ceased sometime around 5900 BC and they are not reoccupied until the LC and EBA respectively (Figure 3.3; Chapter 5). Since radiocarbon dating was used sparingly in these excavations, however, it is possible that remains dating to between 5500 BC and 4000 BC (MC) were simply subsumed within levels ascribed to the EC or LC.
In the Konya plain, Baird’s Konya Plain Survey identified five MC sites (Baird 2002:144) and the new KRASP survey has so far identified at least one (Massa et al. 2019:165), and possibly more (Massa et al. 2019:Table 2) Middle Chalcolithic sites whose dating however seems to be unsure based on the labels “Mid/Late Ch” (Massa et al. 2019:Table 2) or “Early/Middle” Chalcolithic (Massa et al. 2019:165). Survey data so far seem to show a noticeable reduction in site numbers during the Middle Chalcolithic as compared to the Early Chalcolithic (Baird 2002:151, 2005:62, 73, Figure 5.6). Çatalhöyük West is abandoned around 5600 BC and therefore before the start of the MC (5.3.1; Figure 3.3). In an updated chronology of Canhasan (5.4.1), the uppermost Level 1 can probably be dated to the MC; the previously MC-dated Level 2a however is clearly Early Chalcolithic. This in turn raises questions about the dating methods used by the Konya Plain Survey, which relied on French’s Canhasan chronology (French 1998:69) to date survey pottery to the Middle Chalcolithic (Baird 2002:144, 2005:62). This continues to be an issue in new and ongoing surveys: “the dearth of well-published stratified contexts for the later prehistoric and historic periods hinders a fuller understanding of material chronotypological developments after the end of Çatalhöyük West. For instance, we are currently struggling to characterise the assemblages of the Middle Chalcolithic period, whose only known fossil guide is the painted pottery with redon-cream lattice motifs found in Can Hasan 2A (cf. Baird 2005:62). We can still cannot [sic] distinguish with confidence other non-painted wares from this phase, nor provide a chronological span for the period” (Massa et al. 2019:163). This remark demonstrates that the new KRASP survey project still relies on French’s now outdated dating of Canhasan 2A to identify survey pottery. It is therefore possible that the six sites identified as MC by KRASP and Baird’s survey based on painted pottery styles are in fact all EC, and that no MC sites at all have been recorded in the Konya plain. At the same time, Düring (2011c:246) notes that Canhasan Level 1 has monochrome pottery similar to wares that were dated to the Late Chalcolithic by Mellaart (1963d:199) during his surveys of the Konya plain, which was also the reason why French (1998:69) originally dated Level 1 to the LC. It is thus possible that some of the many LC sites recorded for the Konya plain through surveys (6.5.1) are in fact Middle Chalcolithic. In sum, previous ambiguities in the dating of Canhasan have compromised the reliability of survey results to the point that it is not possible to say where Middle Chalcolithic occupation actually exists on the Konya plain. The second new survey project currently ongoing in the Konya plain, the Taşeli-Karaman Archaeological Project, has identified
Vandam (2015:293–296) concludes that for the Burdur plain, the lack of MC sites in the surveyed areas is not an oversight, but also that the favourable environment makes a total absence of human activity over 1500 years unlikely. Rather, settlements might have changed in nature, e.g. to shorter-lived settlements with architecture made from organic materials, producing thinner deposits; or occupation relocated to more marginal areas, such as hillsides or hilltops, and were thus not found in surveys that tend to concentrate on plain areas – this settlement relocation or transformation still, however, suggests substantial cultural change (Vandam 2015:293, 295). One of these possible explanations—a change to more mobile lifeways—will be discussed below. It must also again be pointed out here that excavations as well as newer surveys have concentrated on the southwestern area of the Lake District around Burdur and Bucak (3.1; Belli 2002:Map 2; Vandam 2015:Figure 13–2). It is thus possible that the observed cultural change at the beginning of the MC encompassed only this area within the Lake District, not the entire Lake District. In Cappadocia, all excavated EC sites—Köşk Höyük, Tepecik, Musular and Gelveri—had been abandoned 136
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC by the end of the EC (Figure 3.3). However, around 5200 BC, Köşk Höyük was reoccupied and a new site was established: Güvercinkayası. Two further Middle Chalcolithic sites are known through survey, Büyük Deller and Kabakulak, both close to Güvercinkayası (TAY 2021; Düring 2011c:233, 244). Summarising the results from several surveys in Cappadocia, Allcock and Roberts (2014:46, Figure 4) note that sites proliferate in the Chalcolithic, but can often not be dated to a subphase of the Chalcolithic. They list (Allcock and Roberts 2014:Table 2) only two sites dated securely to the Middle Chalcolithic, but 163 sites that are not dated more specifically to any period of the Chalcolithic. More Middle Chalcolithic sites could be hidden in this figure, but Allcock (2017:71) thinks it to be more likely that most of them date to the Late Chalcolithic, representing an increase of settlements from that period onwards. She interprets that the Middle Chalcolithic was indeed characterised by a significant decline in settlement and a focus on mobile pastoralism (Allcock 2017:76–77). Interestingly, a recent survey of the Taurus highlands just south of Cappadocia, in the immediate vicinity of Köşk Höyük, has identified a relatively dense cluster of Middle Chalcolithic sites, some with stone-built structures and others that were most probably seasonal camps (Hacar 2017; Hacar et al. 2019). This could indicate a shift of settlement into the mountains, which could have been partly motivated by pastoralist strategies and partly by other factors, e.g. a beginning of mining and metallurgy as suggested by Hacar (2017; Hacar et al. 2019:6–7).
fragmentary. Nevertheless, the widespread abandonment of sites in central Anatolia prior to, or around, the start of the Middle Chalcolithic in 5500 BC, and the lack of substantial MC occupation at sites spanning the EC to LC, could indeed point towards a substantial reorganisation of settlement and society (Vandam 2015:293). In Cappadocia, contrary to the Konya plain and Lake District, substantial MC sites were found and excavated, suggesting different processes occurring there. 6.4.2. Middle Chalcolithic mobility? The sparsity of MC remains in central Anatolia raises the question of whether this period might have been characterised by more mobile lifeways. In the Lake District, a change to more mobile lifeways could be one possible option for explaining the apparent total absence of sites. Mobile peoples would have used different parts of the landscape than sedentary farmers, and constructed more ephemeral and less archaeologically visible settlements. This fits with Vandam’s (2015:293, 295) suggestion that settlements relocated and became more short-lived during the MC and DeCupere et al.’s (2015:10) observation that in the Burdur plain, “palynological and sedimentological data also point towards a low anthropogenic impact” between 5500 and 3500 BC, thus indicating that people were present in the area, but practising low-impact economic strategies. Sites probably used sporadically by mobile groups during the MC were found in the Taurus mountains and intermontane valleys just south of the Lake District (Düring 2011c:219; Eslick 1980:13; Vandam 2015:294) which is not direct evidence for mobility in the Lake District, but at least in the wider region.
However, in Cappadocia a lack of comparative material might also have biased the survey results. Since Middle Chalcolithic sites are excavated in Cappadocia, recognising MC pottery during surveys may have been less of an issue, and this data might actually represent an overall scarcity of MC settlements. However, prior to the start of the Köşk Höyük excavations in 1981, surveys such as that by Ian Todd (1964–1966, Todd 1980), which is cited as a main source by Allcock and Roberts (2014:34), would not have been able to relate surface finds to the red and black burnished ware that characterises the MC assemblages at Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası (Düring 2011c:244). It must also be remembered that Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası represent only a short time period within the MC, and from the rest of the period no excavated settlements are known within Cappadocia to assist in the relative dating of surface assemblages – unless sites excavated just north and east of Cappadocia (Düring 2011c:Figure 6.1) are used as points of reference, which however often only allows for a very broad chronological attribution (Düring 2011c:244–245); this explains the high number of ‘Chalcolithic’ sites reported by Allcock and Roberts (2014).
In the Konya plain, the increased mobility related to herding that was observed for the Late Neolithic (6.3.4) might have led to communities eventually turning to mobile pastoralism entirely. The possible remains of a Middle Chalcolithic camp used sporadically by mobile pastoralists was excavated at Canhasan Level 1. After the Early Chalcolithic occupation represented by Level 2 came to an end, the site was not occupied for an unknown period of time. When it was reoccupied, Level 1 architecture was very different to that of Level 2, with free-standing buildings surrounded by large open areas that featured pits, paving, hearths and storage installations (French 1998:50–54, 66–67, Figure 26–31). Both the buildings and the outside areas provided ample room, and French (1998:67) remarks that “there is now space inside or beside the structure for the safe-keeping of animals”. The Level 1 architecture not only abandoned the tight clustering and the building layout that was observed in the LN-EC layers, but the walls are also thinner, the buildings had only one storey and no standardised layout, and were “constantly changed and adapted” (French 1998:50–53, 67). A domestic function can be deduced from the hearths, ovens and benches found in at least some structures (French 1998:67). Düring (2011b:800–801, 2011c:246–247), using ethnographic parallels, suggests
To conclude, the lack of known Middle Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia might be partially due to research biases. Surveys need stratified material from excavated sites to securely date surface finds; and with such a low number of excavated MC sites in central Anatolia, the data is very 137
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia that the nature of Canhasan Level 1 buildings and their frequent alteration might indicate transient, episodic use rather than permanent use. The thin walls could indicate temporary roofs/tents rather than substantial constructed roofs, and the many large storage installations could have been essential while their owners were travelling. The relatively large size of the buildings could indicate that they served as camps for more than one household (Düring 2011c:246), or that they were also used to house animals as suggested by French (1998:67).
(Figure 3.3). This observation of a gradual transition refutes not only Duru’s (2008:8, 189) scenario of raiding nomads putting an end to the prosperous settled life of the Early Chalcolithic Lake District, but also challenges suggestions of connecting the nomadic transition to climate change (Clare et al. 2008:81–82; Vandam 2015:295–296). It is difficult to combine the fact that the transition to widespread mobile lifeways took at least a few hundred years with an explanation of pressure by external forces only. Instead, internal cultural processes would have at least contributed to the process, and these could have had a lot to do with the economic opportunities offered by sheep herding. The prosperity of Cappadocian MC pastoralists as reconstructed by Arbuckle (2012a, 2014) demonstrates that this might have been an attractive socioeconomic option during the Middle Chalcolithic.
In Cappadocia, animal remains from the two excavated Middle Chalcolithic sites, Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası, show evidence of increased mobility, although not necessarily by the residents of these villages. Culling patterns at MC Köşk Höyük as compared to the EC levels can be interpreted in terms of a scaling up of herding activities and/or a complete change in the management of animals towards a more specialised specific form of husbandry practiced around mobility (Makarewicz et al. 2017:71, 2019:114; Meiggs et al. 2019:79). At both sites, isotopes show the increased mobility of sheep, but the culling age distribution suggests that animals were not kept at the settlement (Arbuckle 2012b:308–310). Based on this evidence, Arbuckle (2012a:309) argues that the sedentary inhabitants of Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası were provisioned with meat “through an increasingly complex, large-scale and mobile pastoral system”. Newer studies at Köşk Höyük have added to the evidence base by confirming through isotopes from sheep/goat teeth that, compared to the EC, MC herding employed pastures further away and had become a more specialised practice whereby different herds used different parts of the landscape (Meiggs et al. 2019:92; also Makarewicz et al. 2017:71, Makarewicz et al. 2019:114, 120). The existence of mobile pastoralist groups in Cappadocia fits with the above noted scarcity of (substantial and therefore recognised) Middle Chalcolithic sites; together, this evidence could reflect that the landscape was used by prosperous nomadic pastoralists alongside settled farmers. The presence of mobile pastoralists is only indirectly reflected in the Köşk and Güvercinkayası faunal assemblages; direct archaeological remains of pastoralists, such as transient camps, have not (yet) been identified.
6.4.3. Cappadocian villagers, pastoralists and chiefs Two Middle Chalcolithic settlements have been excavated in Cappadocia, both radiocarbon dated to 5200–4800 BC (Düring 2011c:241–242; or 5300–4700 BC by Arbuckle 2012a:303). Hacar’s survey in the Tauruses just south of Cappadocia has tentatively identified hilltop settlements with fortification walls, similar to Güvercinkayası (Hacar et al. 2019:2), but the fortified nature of these settlements will have to be verified by excavations. These findings indicate that more settlements like Güvercinkayası and Köşk might have existed in the area, but these have not yet been investigated by excavation. The architectural and animal bone records from both Güvercinkayası and Köşk Höyük give indications of hierarchical structures and socio-economic differences that might have evolved alongside an agro-pastoral economy. Further, both sites might have been located strategically to control their surroundings: Köşk Höyük at the intersection of routes leading to the Cappadocian obsidian sources, the coast through the Tauruses, and the Konya plain (Meiggs et al. 2019:79; Özbaşaran 2011:118), while Güvercinkayası overlooks a river valley that forms an important eastwest communication route (Arbuckle 2012a:303). Social stratification is here defined as being marked by social and economic differentiation and hierarchies whereby some people acquire more wealth and/or social influence than others within the same community. Other terms encountered in the literature are hierarchy (e.g. Düring 2011c:289) or inequality (e.g. Arbuckle 2012a; Düring 2011a:80). The term social differentiation is also sometimes used to describe mild hierarchies (e.g. Hodder 2014b:5) but can also be used to describe socioeconomic differences between groups of people, e.g. economic specialisation, that does not entail hierarchies (e.g. Mazzucato 2019:4 about history houses).
To sum up, mobile peoples might have dominated the cultural landscapes of the Lake District and Konya plain during the MC. In Cappadocia, substantial village settlements existed that interacted with an ever more specialised and prosperous nomadic pastoral economy. Together with the observation that pastoral mobility became economically more important in central Anatolia and the Konya plain in the LN, and that population was increasingly dispersed into more and smaller settlements in the EC (6.3.3, 6.3.4), the uptake of more mobile lifeways by many groups in central Anatolia in the MC can be seen as part of a gradual transition. The longstanding permanent settlements that existed during the LN and EC were abandoned, but this happened at different sites at different times between 6000 and 5500 BC
At Köşk Höyük, about 60 km southeast of Güvercinkayası, the Middle Chalcolithic Level I (Figure 6.8) was separated from the EC occupation by a hiatus of about 300 years (5.7.1), and when the site was reoccupied in the MC, the settlement layout was very different, with houses forming rows along wide stone-paved streets (Arbuckle 138
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC
Figure 6.8. Köşk Höyük: plan of excavated structures in Level I (reprinted with permission from Elsevier from: Arbuckle 2012a:Figure 2b)13.
2012a:303; Öztan 2003:70). The excavators interpret this regular layout as the sign of centralised decision making (Arbuckle 2012a:303). Level I is well preserved (Düring 2011c:242), possibly because at least some of its buildings were destroyed by fire (Öztan 2003:71). The buildings making up this level were all residences and similar to each other in layout and furnishing (Düring 2011c:242; Öztan 2003:70–71). Although following the same layout as the other residences, one house in Level I, House II, was nearly twice as large as the other buildings, with a large storage space. It was burnt twice, and its inventory is exceptionally well preserved. It consisted of large amounts of pottery, as well as female figurines, bone tools and grinding implements (Arbuckle 2012a:303; Düring
2011c:242–244; Öztan and Faydalı 2004). Arbuckle (2012a:303; similarly Düring 2011c:243–244) suggests reconstructing this as the residence of people with “a prominent, and perhaps central, role in the community”. This is further supported by faunal evidence, as it can be reconstructed based on deposits found associated with houses that the large House II had preferential access to quality cuts of meat (Arbuckle 2012a:309). Güvercinkayası, excavated from 1996 until 2017 by Sevil Gülçur, was a settlement newly founded on top of a steep rock formation (Figure 6.9). The major occupation of the site (Levels I–II) comprises a period of only 400 years during the Middle Chalcolithic, radiocarbon dated to 5200–4820 BC (Gülçur et al. 2018:45; also Düring 2011c:241). Level III, with much scanter occupation and/ or preservation, is dated to the LC (Gülçur et al. 2018:45, Figure 4). The MC settlement did not exceed an area
reprinted from Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 31, B. Arbuckle, Animals and inequality in Chalcolithic central Anatolia, 302–313 (2012) with permission from Elsevier. 13
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Figure 6.9. Güvercinkayası: plan of excavated structures from Levels I–II (grey) and Level III (red) (reprinted with permission from Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum from: Gülçur et al. 2018:Figure 4).
of ca. 1–2 ha (Arbuckle 2012a:303; Gülçur 1997:85), confined by the limits of the hill top. An estimated 80% of the site was excavated and Levels I–II feature good preservation (Gülçur et al. 2016:423). From the size of excavated houses, it is estimated that not more than 40 buildings in total could have fit on the hilltop during one occupation phase (Düring 2011b:804), housing a population that Düring (2011c:241) estimates to be around 200 people. The excavators reconstruct an upper and a lower settlement at Güvercinkayası (Arbuckle 2012a:303; Gülçur and Firat 2005:42). The lower settlement consisted of a dense cluster of relatively small houses along a street in the northern part of the site (Figure 6.9). The stone buildings were generally uniform in size and layout. Overall, their layout resembled houses at Köşk Höyük (Düring 2011c:241; Gülçur et al. 2018:45–47; Gülçur and Firat 2005:42). Of the built structures excavated in the ‘upper settlement’, located in the southern part of the site, two were twice as large as the residences in the ‘lower settlements’, and featured large ceramic assemblages, a unique assemblage of high-status objects, such as copper tools, stamp seals and imported painted ceramics, clusters
of grinding stones and several large ovens, as well as ceramic storage jars with significantly larger storage capacity than the smaller residences. The upper settlement was located directly adjacent to the lower settlement, but separated from it by a thick wall with at least three round external towers (attached to H13-H18, Figure 6.9; Arbuckle 2012a:304; Gülçur et al. 2018:51–53; Gülçur and Firat 2005:43–44). The excavators suggest reconstructing the Güvercinkayası ‘upper settlement’ as a building complex used for storage, and potentially as a place of residence, by a group of people who controlled a significant agricultural surplus and used it to exert influence over others – a ‘chiefly estate’ within a stratified society (Arbuckle 2012a:304, 310; Gülçur et al. 2018:50, 53; Gülçur and Firat 2005:43; Gülçur and Kiper 2008:251; Gülçur et al. 2015:554). This estate was separated from the rest of the resident community by the above-mentioned wall and towers. Gülçur et al. (2018:52– 53, Figure 10) interpret that this wall served two functions: the demonstration of power and the defence of the upper settlement and the agricultural resources kept therein, 140
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC mostly from the pastoral nomads living in the region. At Güvercinkayası, the signs of differential access to meat is even more pronounced than at Köşk Höyük. The spatial distribution of consumption and butchering assemblages shows that across the lower settlement households seem to have had equal access, processing entire carcasses. In the upper settlement, butchery waste was nearly absent, which suggests that the upper settlement was provisioned with high-quality cuts of meat that were initially butchered in other parts of the settlement (Arbuckle 2012a:309). An alternative interpretation also suggested by Gülçur is that the ‘upper settlement’ was a communally used storage and meat-consumption space, as previously suggested by Gülçur (Gülçur and Firat 2005:43; Gülçur et al. 2015:53).
took the form of ‘large houses’ could indicate that the elites residing in them were limited in their ability to express their status and intended to naturalise their position through the “‘framing’ of the new MC social system within the fundamentally Neolithic lexicon of households” (Arbuckle 2012a:310). Further, the beginnings of a wool economy at these two sites, as tentatively reconstructed by Arbuckle (2012a; also Makarewicz et al. 2017:71) are particularly interesting because by the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, wool became a commodity produced and traded on a large scale in Anatolia, as well as in Mesopotamia, and functioned as an item that secured wealth and power to its owners (Arbuckle 2014). I would like to point out in particular the connection between pastoral mobility and incipient social stratification as evidenced at Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası: As reconstructed by Arbuckle and Gülçur, MC elites distinguished themselves through preferential access to the products of agricultural productivity. In particular, the meat produced by the nomadic pastoral sector was used in status negotiations. Although it might seem counterintuitive, the very pastoral mobility that makes the MC so obscure in archaeological research seems to have been a very important factor in the construction of social stratification.
Düring (2011c:244) objects to this reconstruction by stating that the Güvercinkayası community would have been too small to have hierarchies, but this argument seems less viable given that the community might have extended beyond those permanently living in the settlement. Gülçur (Gülçur and Kiper 2007:118; also Arbuckle 2012a:304) interprets Güvercinkayası as a pre-urban settlement that housed an elite who controlled the surrounding land and defended themselves and their surplus behind defence walls, representing the beginning of a class system. As mentioned above, Arbuckle (2012a:309) reconstructs both Köşk Höyük Level I and Güvercinkayası as connected to an independent, large-scale and off-site pastoral economy that provisioned entire settlements with meat, milk and probably wool.
6.5. 4000–3000 BC: The Late Chalcolithic The Late Chalcolithic of central Anatolia is poorly explored. Surveys have shown a proliferation of LC sites across all three regions. However, excavated sites are rare. One poorly preserved site (Güvercinkayası) is excavated in Cappadocia and three in the Lake District (Figure 6.10), of which only one, Kuruçay, is a substantial settlement that has been thoroughly researched. Although the Late Chalcolithic in Anatolia is generally perceived as the leadup to the Early Bronze Age (e.g. Allcock 2017:77; Düring 2011c:201), this gap in the research landscape impedes exploration of the development of social organisation from a long-term perspective, such as the question of how the incipient social stratification of the Middle Chalcolithic developed into the stratified societies of the EBA.
Individual aspects of the current social reconstruction of MC Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası could be contested. For example, Düring (2011b:805, 2011c:244) cautions that the social function of the wall around the ‘upper settlement’ of Güvercinkayası needs to be better investigated, and the same could be said for the potential roles of these two sites as centres of a larger, pre-urban settlement system. However, overall there is convincing evidence at both sites for the existence of communities with increasing socioeconomic differentiation that evolved around the ownership of, or control over, agricultural and pastoral products. It is tempting to interpret the evidence from Middle Chalcolithic settlements in Cappadocia as the further development of processes that started at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük in the Konya plain and at EC Köşk Höyük. Arbuckle (2012a:310) posits that, by the Middle Chalcolithic, the mechanisms through which the ownership of animals was translated into wealth and power had changed; instead of asserting status subtly through competitive, yet still ostensively community-oriented feasts, as at EC Köşk Höyük, the emerging MC elites began to overtly assert wealth and influence through preferential access to meat. The clustering of storage and grinding installations and seals in the upper settlement, demonstrating control of an elite over agricultural products (Gülçur et al. 2018:53; Gülçur and Kiper 2008:251), is also a very visible demonstration of status. However, the fact that elite residences at Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası
6.5.1. Late Chalcolithic: regional perspectives No Late Chalcolithic sites have been excavated in the Konya plain. Surveys, however, have found many Late Chalcolithic sites there, suggesting that a completely unexplored cultural landscape existed in the region: The TAY database lists 35 Late Chalcolithic sites in the plain (TAY 2021). In addition, two new survey projects have discovered new potential LC sites, but both are hampered by the same problem of the poor resolution of the pottery sequences that underpin the dating of surface material: The lack of excavated, stratified and securely dated LC pottery in the Konya plain creates uncertainty about the accuracy with which surface sherds could be dated (Massa et al. 2020:48; also see the discussion on the dating of Middle Chalcolithic survey pottery, 6.4.1). As a result, for 141
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 6.10. Map of excavated Late Chalcolithic (4000–3000 BC) sites in central Anatolia (figure by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
the moment both projects have experienced difficulties in dating Chalcolithic sites securely to either the MC or LC, much less subphases of the LC. KRASP lists many sites as “Mid/Late Ch” (Massa et al. 2019:Table 2) and the other survey project, concentrated on the southern Konya plain, mostly reports “Chalcolithic” sites, at least some of which are LC (Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019b:181–183).
interpret LC Güvercinkayası as a small colony established by people with Mesopotamian traditions (Gülçur et al. 2018:53–55, Figures 4, 15). This interpretation should probably be seen as tentative given that Güvercinkayası is the westernmost site where such Mesopotamian influences in the LC were observed (Gülçur et al. 2018:55) and also because without other excavated LC sites in Cappadocia, it is not really possible to know what local architecture and pottery traditions looked like, and thus whether LC Güvercinkayası really does not fit these traditions.
In Cappadocia, Allcock and Roberts (2014:Table 2) record nine sites dated to the LC, and 163 sites that are not dated specifically to a period of the Chalcolithic. They (Allcock and Roberts 2014:48) think that the lack of knowledge about LC Cappadocia is entirely research bias: “The energetic Early Bronze Age that followed in the area also gives confidence to the idea that there was thriving settlement development towards the later Chalcolithic”. As a consequence, Allcock (2017:71, 77) thinks it likely that most of these “Chalcolithic” sites date to the Late Chalcolithic, representing an increase of settlements from that period onwards. There is a single excavated LC site in Cappadocia: Güvercinkayası features a poorly preserved Late Chalcolithic settlement layer (Level III) which has until recently hardly been discussed in the literature. Level III is dated to the beginning of the LC (4600–4500 BC) and features large mudbrick buildings. The architecture, pottery and seals of the level are interpreted by the excavators as foreign to local traditions; as a consequence, they
After a curious absence of sites in the (surveyed parts of the) Lake District during the Middle Chalcolithic, occupation during the Late Chalcolithic is again well documented. Apart from the two excavated sites, Kuruçay and Beycesultan, TAY (2021) lists 21 sites documented through survey, and the Vandam survey (Vandam 2015:Figure 13– 2; Vandam and Kaptijn 2015:168; Vandam, Mušič, et al. 2019) added another eight small LC sites in the Burdur plain, located 1–3 km from each other. These date to the second half of the Late Chalcolithic after 3500 BC, while for the first half only scant remains are attested (DeCupere et al. 2015:10; Vandam 2015:289; Vandam and Kaptijn 2015:168). A geomagnetic survey at one of the small newly discovered LC sites in the Burdur plain revealed evidence of building clusters with relatively large unbuilt spaces in between (Vandam, Mušič, et al. 2019:9–10, 142
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC Figures 8–10). Vandam (DeCupere et al. 2015:10; Vandam 2015:288–289; Vandam, Mušič, et al. 2019:11–12) reconstructs life in the Burdur plain during this second half of the Late Chalcolithic as a dense occupation with small and probably short-lived settlements co-existing with larger villages like Kuruçay, all practising mixed farming, leading up to the denser occupation, urbanisation and social complexity of the Early Bronze Age. At the same time, mobile peoples might have still existed in the region: Duru (2008:19, 122) recognises a small, shortlived site at Bademağacı, where some LC pottery without related architecture was found, and suggests it might have been used periodically by a nomadic people. And not least, a survey in the mountain region east of the Burdur plain by Vandam and Willett has recorded a clear increase of sites during the Late Chalcolithic, at least some of which are of substantial size and probably represent settlements. This uptick of activity in the mountains is interpreted as an exploration of new environmental zones (Vandam et al. 2017a:326–327, Figure 15–4b). This suggests that during the LC, communities with different socioeconomic structures co-existed in the plains and mountains of the Lake District: small agricultural villages, larger villages or towns like Kuruçay, and mobile groups.
nuclear households (Düring 2011c:223–224). A new excavation project at Beycesultan started in 2007, but so far has explored only Bronze Age and later levels (Abay et al. 2019).
6.5.2. Early urban centres in the Lake District?
The only site where LC architecture has been excavated on a large scale is Kuruçay 6–3. The oldest LC Level 6 has been radiocarbon dated to between 3600 and 3400 BC, suggesting that Kuruçay 6–3 postdates most of the LC occupation at Beycesultan (Düring 2011c:226), and its later Levels 5–3 span the time period until 3200 BC as suggested by pottery dating (Duru 2008:15; Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.10). Levels 5–3 yielded only limited architectural evidence, but the Kuruçay Level 6 settlement is “undoubtedly the best documented village of Chalcolithic Asia Minor” with 23 buildings excavated (Düring 2011b:802). As the other levels at the site, Level 6 was also not well preserved: of most houses, nothing of the house interior was left and of the house shells, often only the stone foundations survived, though some walls stood 1.5 m high (Duru 2008:124–128). Most buildings consisted of a single room of ca. 4 m × 7 m, but some had two rooms or a small room added on the outside. One collapsed roof was found and indicates that houses were single-storied mudbrick structures with flat roofs (Düring 2011c:227; Duru 1996c:113).
Within the lively LC cultural landscape in the Lake District, two larger sites have been excavated: Beycesultan just west of Işıklı Gölü at the western edge of the Lake District, and Kuruçay in the Burdur plain, a LN/EC site that was reoccupied in the LC (5.6.1). Duru (2008:9) notes similarities between the two sites. Beycesultan (dated 3800–3400 BC by Schoop 2005a:Figure 4.10) was the first excavated Chalcolithic site in southwestern Anatolia (Düring 2011c:223). Due to the limited size of the exposure, and incomplete publication of architecture, only fragments of Late Chalcolithic architecture, settlement layout and social organisation can be reconstructed at Beycesultan, although LC remains were 11 m thick and attest to substantial and long-lived occupation. The excavated architecture seems to represent houses for
Duru (1996b:58, 1996c:114–116, 2008:9, 123–132) interpreted Kuruçay 6 (Figure 6.11) as a small urban centre (‘town’) “ruled by a strong authority”. He recognises a central power in the regular, and therefore planned, layout of the settlement, which also qualifies Kuruçay 6 as a ‘town’ rather than a village. In the centre of the village, the excavators further identified a building complex that included an elite residence, a temple marked by a large table made from clay and a special finds inventory, and a large storeroom housing “items belonging to the temple” (Duru 2008:127). This building complex was surrounded by domestic buildings that cluster so tightly that their outer walls constituted, in the interpretation of the excavators, a defensive wall with narrow gaps acting as gates (Duru 2008:123–124, 126). Potential defence walls were also
Figure 6.11. Kuruçay: reconstruction of the Level 6 settlement by Duru (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 234).
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia identified in the much less well preserved Levels 5–4, and another temple with mudbrick-stele and storeroom in Level 3 (Duru 1996c:116–117, 2008:130–131). Duru (2008:15, 122, 129–130) ascribes a number of destruction events throughout Level 6–3 to warfare. In Duru’s reconstruction, therefore, LC Kuruçay was a small pre-urban centre with defence wall that experienced multiple hostile attacks.
research methods, personnel, and affiliation, typically being oriented forward towards the later Bronze Age and Iron Age, and eastward towards southeast Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The EBA can be seen as the start of the ‘complex societies’ or ‘civilisations’ in Southwest Asia and there is a tendency by Bronze Age archaeologists to ignore the roots that EBA culture had in previous cultural developments (Düring 2011c:257–258; but see Bachhuber 2015:29–33, 47, 56 with remarks on some such roots). In this book, however, the Early Bronze Age is the beginning of the end: In the overt social stratification evident in the EBA, which is related to agricultural productivity and warfare (see below), in some ways we mark the culmination of developments that began in the LN and EC with household autonomy and social competition related to pastoral mobility and potential warfare. A relatively clear cultural break divides the EBA from the following MBA: there is a period of turmoil and destruction across the Anatolian plateau around 2200 BC (Bachhuber 2015:181–182; Massa et al. 2020:62), and in the following MBA, important new developments start such as the establishment of Assyrian (Mesopotamian) trading colonies in the Anatolian centre (Düring 2011c:261, 274; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:225). There is a further novelty that also fundamentally changes the way postEBA Anatolia is being researched by archaeology: the first appearances of writing in Anatolia start immediately after the EBA (Bachhuber 2015:183; Düring 2011c:258). The EBA is therefore the last true prehistoric period.
Düring (2011c:227–228), on the other hand, argues against this reconstruction. He points out that the Level 6 ‘temple’, apart from its good preservation, is similar to other buildings in construction and inventory; and further points out that the reconstruction of a planned and defensive settlement does not adequately acknowledge that Level 6 was subdivided into seven subphases and rather represents an organically growing village that started out with more open space and gradually became more densely built up. Düring (2011b:803, 2011c:228) instead suggests a reading of Level 6 as an increasingly dense settlement made up of several “household clusters” of three to five buildings, occupied by core households connected through kinship lines. Vandam et al. (Vandam, Mušič, et al. 2019:13) also does not see clear evidence for a settlement hierarchy in the Burdur plain, which casts doubt on the identification of Kuruçay as a pre-urban centre. Alternatively, Kuruçay 6 could therefore simply be interpreted as a large settlement that formed part of a dense network of differently sized settlements in the Late Chalcolithic. 6.6. 3000–2000 BC: The Early Bronze Age
Within the generally well-developed research landscape of the EBA (Bachhuber 2015; Düring 2011c), central Anatolia represents an unfortunate exception (Figure 6.12). Excavations at larger EBA settlements in central Anatolia are still underway or not yet comprehensively published: Bademağacı was excavated until 2010 and the EBA period is not yet completely published. Since 2011, Umurtak and Duru have been excavating Hacılar Büyük Höyük in the Lake District, where a larger EBA settlement is currently being uncovered (Umurtak 2020; Umurtak and Duru 2014, 2019). Excavations at Hacılar Büyük Höyük have so far concentrated on the fortification wall; not much has so far been excavated of the settlement proper (Umurtak 2020:Figure 1) and its social organisation remains to be researched. Also in the Lake District, the EBA area excavated at Beycesultan in the 1950s was too limited in size to facilitate research on its social organisation (Düring 2011c:269, 288–289; Steadman 2011:237), but new excavations are underway since 2007 (Abay et al. 2019). EBA Kuruçay was a small settlement that existed between 2500–2200 BC, but of its architecture only fragments were preserved (Duru 2008:15, 146, 158). In Cappadocia, the large site of Acemhöyük might have been an important EBA centre, but excavations first concentrated on the Middle Bronze Age (Arbuckle 2012b:463–464) and have only recently reached EBA levels (Kamış and Öztan 2019). At Konya-Karahöyük in the Konya plain, excavations between 1953 and 1982 concentrated on the MBA and not much is known about the EBA settlement layout (TAY 2021; Massa et al. 2020:62–63), and this remains the only
In the centre of Anatolia, the Early Bronze Age (EBA) is commonly regarded as the period when complex society emerged (Sagona and Zimansky 2009:174; Steadman 2011:231); or the period when development towards complexity became more pronounced (Düring 2011c:257), while some aspects of complexity, such as urbanisation, were only fully developed in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (Bachhuber 2012:575). There are several elements that make EBA societies ‘complex’: important ones are the development of urban centres (towns or cities) with influence on surrounding areas, forming small state-like entities (Çevik 2007; Steadman 2011:231), the development of extensive long-distance trade networks (Düring 2011c:257; Steadman 2011:232) and of stratified societies with an elite controlling an urban centre and its hinterland (Düring 2011c:257; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:174; Steadman 2011:231). This literature review will concentrate on the latter, social stratification, and end by summarising to what degree it is possible to distinguish roots of EBA social stratification in the LN and EC. 6.6.1. Research framework With the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, the research framework changes considerably. In the words of Düring (2011c:257), “the archaeology of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) in Asia Minor is worlds apart from that of the Chalcolithic” and Neolithic in terms of research questions, 144
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC
Figure 6.12. Map of excavated Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC) sites in central Anatolia (figure by Patrick Willett and Jana Anvari).
EBA site excavated in the Konya plain. The Karahöyük excavation is also only cursorily published (Massa et al. 2019:162; Massa et al. 2020:46). The evidence from settlements is complemented by other types of sites, of which four were excavated in central Anatolia: EBA cemeteries were found at Harmanören (Düring 2011c:278) and Gâvur Evi Tepesi (Vandam et al. 2013) in the Lake District; Kestel in Cappadocia was a tin mining site used in the EBA, and nearby Göltepe was interpreted as a non-permanent village set up by the miners (Bachhuber 2015:38–39, 41–42; Düring 2011c:276; Yener 2009).
homogenous and larger cultural regions can be identified in western and central Anatolia (Düring 2011c:264–266, 299). For the issue of most relevance to this book, that of elite-making (Bachhuber 2015), the existing evidence indicates that central Anatolia saw developments similar to its larger and better-researched regional context. 6.6.2. Early Bronze Age cultural landscapes In this short section I want to provide a framework for the following discussion of elite-making by describing the cultural landscapes that elites operated within. During the EBA, cultural landscapes developed that were inhabited more densely and by more people than in earlier periods (Düring 2011c:257), and economically more intensively used (Bachhuber 2015:29). And increasingly, there were relationships of mutual dependency between settlements, for example in form of the hierarchical relationships that existed between citadels and their rural surroundings (Allcock and Roberts 2014:48; Bachhuber 2015:122–127, 185–186). In contrast to the low number of excavated EBA sites in central Anatolia, surveys have produced an image of active cultural landscapes. Allcock and Roberts (2014:Table 2, Figure 4c) record 340 EBA sites in Cappadocia that produced a very dense cover of settlements and other types of sites. Many sites that had been inhabited during the Late Chalcolithic remained
As a result of the poor resolution of EBA data from central Anatolia, with the beginning of the EBA, the focus of synoptic discussions of Anatolian prehistory—which for the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic rely heavily on central Anatolian evidence—begins to shift away from central Anatolia to other, better researched regions of Anatolia (Massa et al. 2020:46). Overviews of the EBA (Bachhuber 2015; Düring 2011c:257–299; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:172–224) are typically based on evidence from other regions, and this section will draw on these discussions to contextualise the central Anatolian evidence. There is some justification for this approach in the fact that in the course of the EBA, regions of central Anatolia became part of larger cultural entities. Throughout the first 400 years of the EBA, ceramic assemblages become more 145
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia inhabited and grew, and many more sites were founded, causing a sharp increase in settlement numbers. Allcock (2017:77) links this development with population growth and agricultural intensification. This development is mirrored in the Konya plain, where an increased number of settlement sites of different size indicates higher population density in areas of agricultural potential (Allcock and Roberts 2014:48 drawing on preliminary data from Baird’s Konya Plain Survey; Massa et al. 2020:60; also Şerifoğlu and Küçükbezci 2019b:187). Evidence for the beginning of artificial irrigation channels in the Konya plain show that this proliferation of sites was supported by new agricultural techniques (Massa et al. 2020:56, 60). In the Lake District as well, Vandam (2015:289; Vandam and Kaptijn 2015:168–169) noted continuity of settlement locations from the Late Chalcolithic and an increasingly dense occupation with a mixture of small, and sometimes short-lived, as well as larger sites, possibly representing a settlement hierarchy. Similarly, for the Konya plain Massa et al. (2020:62) hypothesise that the different sizes of EBA settlements could represent a settlement hierarchy.
historical-ancestral relationship through interment of the dead outside of the village. 6.6.3. Early Bronze Age elite-making A recent book by Bachhuber (2015) provides a summary of strategies that Early Bronze Age elites in Asia Minor employed in creating and maintaining their status. The title of Bachhuber’s book, Citadel and Cemetery, refers to two different elite-making strategies he identified in Asia Minor, of which the ‘citadel’-strategy was more wide-spread. Both strategies existed throughout the entire EBA, although with some differences between periods and regions that I will disregard in the following summary; and both are typical of the EBA in Asia Minor and would not continue into the MBA (Bachhuber 2015:128, 189). Most evidence to support Bachhuber’s narrative is from outside of central Anatolia, where considerably more sites have been excavated on a larger scale. Based on the available evidence from EBA central Anatolia, there is however no reason to expect that this region significantly varied from the framework developed by Bachhuber.
The more economically intensive usage of the landscape foremost refers to a more intense agricultural use, but also included the use of areas that are agriculturally marginal, such as upland areas (Massa et al. 2020:60; but note that a mountain survey in the Lake District has so far not produced evidence for EBA occupation: Vandam et al. 2017a:328; Vandam, Willett et al. 2019:265). Some sites in mountain areas are related to the mining of metal ores (Bachhuber 2015:29–31, 41–43, 46–49). The mining settlement of Göltepe, related to the Kestel mine in the south of Cappadocia, might have been a settlement used seasonally during the summer for people employed in mining, metal processing, and pastoralism (Bachhuber 2015:38–39, 42; Yener 2009). Discussion continues as to the degree of pastoral mobility that might have existed in the EBA in marginal areas independent from mining settlements. Connected to the Alacahöyük burials (see below) especially, there have been suggestions of an important and partially mobile pastoral sector, but Bachhuber (2015:39, 75) rejects most evidence for EBA mobility as unconvincing, and Arbuckle’s (2014) and DeCupere et al.’s (2015:10) reconstruction of EBA animal economies does not explicitly reconstruct a mobile sector.
Cemetery: burials and performance The ‘cemetery’ strategy refers to the site of Alacahöyük, located east of Ankara. Alacahöyük is not a citadel: there is no evidence of fortification, an elite residence, or any other buildings that stand out from the residential architecture, except for a larger complex (Building ABC) that was probably used in cemetery-related rituals. At Alacahöyük, the local elite asserted their status not through the architecturally expressed elite-making strategy associated with citadels (see below), but through ostentatious funerary rituals that included the deposition of large amounts of metal, processions and communal feasts. Through these acts, the elite demonstrated their control over agricultural production, trade, prestige objects and a relation with the supernatural (Bachhuber 2011, 2015:97–106, 128, 185; Düring 2011c:293). A closer examination of the details of this strategy is less relevant to this book, since this elitemaking strategy is explicitly not strongly related with architecture. It is, however, important to note that in the EBA, not all elite status was architecturally expressed. So far, the ‘cemetery’ strategy has in this particularly strong expression only been observed at Alacahöyük and possibly a few less well preserved/excavated sites in the surrounding region (Bachhuber 2015:105), but Bachhuber (2015:98, 103, 185) stresses that it represents a more emphasised variation of status assertion through mortuary ritual that can also be observed at other sites (below, Villages). Alacahöyük was first excavated from 1935, and Bachhuber (2015:10–14, 99; also Düring 2011c:290) considers it possible that the present image of the site, which is unique in the EBA of Asia Minor in many ways, might be distorted due to the premodern excavation and research style and less-than comprehensive publication of the site. New excavations were conducted at Alacahöyük until 2012 (Bachhuber 2015:97; Çinaroğlu et al. 2013) and the results of this project might modify the reconstruction of this site in the near future.
Extramural cemeteries, located in vicinity of settlements, represent a new type of site so far rarely known from earlier periods (Bachhuber 2015:85; Düring 2011c:278; Selover and Durgun 2019; Steadman 2011:232). In central Anatolia, one cemetery has been excavated: Harmanören, located between the Burdur and Eğirdir lakes (Düring 2011c:278). Another one was found in a recent survey (Vandam et al. 2013). Based on better researched cemeteries from other regions (Demircihöyük-Sarıket, Karataş-Semahöyük, Düring 2011c:280–281), Bachhuber (2015:53, 94–95) describes extramural cemeteries as part of a strategy of rural (village) communities to lay claim to territories in the agricultural landscape by establishing a 146
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC that took place in these locations was instrumentalised and transformed by EBA elites into part of their powerassertion strategy. One such central complex (‘palace’, Duru 2008:151) was excavated at Bademağacı (marked blue in Figure 6.13): in the centre of the relatively large settlement that encompassed an estimated 60–100 houses (Düring 2011c:282), there was a large building with at least 16 rooms, of which some were storage rooms with bins and ceramic storage containers (Duru 2008:146– 151). The many stamp seals and sealings found in and near this building indicate that goods and transactions were centrally administered here (Bachhuber 2015:130–132; Umurtak 2009, 2010, 2013). Through the extraction of agricultural products, the influence of citadel elites would also have extended into the surrounding landscapes, and into smaller communities living in villages and farmsteads (Bachhuber 2015:130–138, 147–149, 180–182, 185). This included wool, as wool and woollen textiles would have constituted significant value during the EBA, which was used in elite-making strategies in two ways: as a centrally administered agricultural product, and as bodily adornment worn by elites in form of brightly coloured, often red, clothing. Red pigment was a prestige item insofar as it had to be laboriously produced (Arbuckle 2014; Bachhuber 2015:137, 165–166; see Arbuckle 2012a; Schoop 2014 for roots of this development in the MC-LC).
Citadel: administration and monumentality The ‘citadel’ strategy of EBA elite-making is the focus of Bachhuber’s book and can only be summarised here. Cornerstones of this strategy are: control over agricultural productivity including wool as an important commodity; preferential access to rare and imported items; the potential for violence; and a visual assertion of status through the architecture of the citadel itself. EBA elites based their status on two forms of wealth: locally produced agricultural products, and prestige items obtained through exchange networks, of which metal is an important example (Bachhuber 2015:130, 185). Of these two, agricultural production—of food, and wool which was manufactured into textiles—was the more important resource for providing a basis for, and legitimisation of, elite status; EBA elites were foremost agricultural elites (Bachhuber 2015:181). Agricultural productivity soared in EBA Asia Minor, when landscapes became much more densely settled and intensively farmed (Bachhuber 2015:147), and wool production proliferated (Arbuckle 2014:210; Bachhuber 2015:29–41). Elites derived power from administering the production, storage, and distribution of these products and the associated labour, which included placing large workshop and storage buildings used by a larger community in or near the elite residence – the ‘central complex’. EBA citadels and also non-citadel settlements had what Bachhuber (2015:55, 77, 107–129) terms ‘central complexes’ that combined elite residences, large storage facilities, larger open areas and temples, and functioned as administrative centres and places for congregation. In these central complexes, much of the community’s work, and probably also food consumption, took place in a spatial and social framework created by the elite. The social inclusion and integration
The influence over the surrounding rural areas by citadel elites was also supported by the potential of the elite to use violence (Bachhuber 2015:148, 180) against villages, or to protect them from violent attacks by other, competing citadels (Bachhuber 2015:127, 181, 185). EBA status assertion has a clear martial element: elites used violence, or the threat of violence, as a means of asserting their status over non-elites (Bachhuber 2015:103, 106, 148,
Figure 6.13. Bademağacı: plan of excavated structures dating to the EBA, MBA and Medieval period. Structures labelled ‘İTC’ and ‘saray’ are dated to the EBA (red, yellow, blue), including the stone slope surrounding the settlement, labelled ‘İTC yamaç döşemesi’ (reprinted with permission from R. Duru and G. Umurtak from: Duru and Umurtak 2011:Figure 1).
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 185), and this is overtly expressed for example through the ritual deposition of weapons on citadels, their heavily fortified appearance (Bachhuber 2015:148), or also the concentration of weapons in the Alacahöyük elite tombs (Bachhuber 2015:55, 106). Different elite groups might have fought each other, but more often, the many destruction events of citadels observed in the archaeological record might have been caused through violent attacks by the non-elites that the citadel elites sought to govern (Bachhuber 2015:128, 171, 182, 187). A main reason for warfare during the EBA thus seems to be conflicts resulting from the emerging social hierarchies, and from (violent) negotiation of hierarchies (Düring 2011a:79–80; Selover 2015:370 reached a similar conclusion).
This represents a particularly drastic and spectacular form of the conspicuous consumption of wealth by the disposing of valuable items. This strategy was also used with other valuable items: evidence from Troy and other sites indicates that meat was ritually burnt and deposited in what would have been public spectacles. Moreover, several sites including Bademağacı contained metal hoards that were intentionally deposited during non-public, more exclusive events that might also have had connotations of piety and fostered the building of exclusive relationships with the supernatural (Bachhuber 2009, 2015:170–177, 181, 187; Düring 2011c:278). Citadels were the places that enabled and bundled all these elite-making strategies: they were central complexes for the storage and control of agricultural products, heavily fortified, and also the stage for feasts and other events of conspicuous consumption (Bachhuber 2015:114). And they were visually monumental, thus widely communicating and re-enforcing elite status, mostly through their façades: citadels were fortified settlement cores, of which most were built on top of existing höyüks and therefore in an elevated location. Many had massive fortification walls, towers, and glacis, i.e. stone encasings of the mound flanks that stabilised slopes and enhanced the visual effect of fortifications. Citadel façades communicated an element of power and stability that would have visually projected into the surrounding landscape from the top of the mound, and was employed by elites as a statusassertion technique (Bachhuber 2015:107–114, 128–129). That defensive architecture is chosen as the architectural language of hierarchy adds to the impression of a martial element to EBA elite-making. And citadels were probably built with labour extracted from the surrounding, dependant hinterland (Bachhuber 2015:128). Among the fortifications of EBA citadels, Bademağacı is a rather humble example: its höyük is not very high and there is no fortification wall, instead houses formed a continuous ring at the settlement edge. This house ring was further surrounded by a 4–7 m wide glacis-like structure forming a gradual slope of rubble stones that is interpreted as flood protection rather than an effective defence against hostile attacks (Figure 6.13, Duru 2008:154). Altogether, the Bademağacı settlement perimeter was rather humble in its monumental, representative function (Bachhuber 2015:108). The fortification wall currently being excavated at Hacılar Büyük Höyük (Umurtak 2020; Umurtak and Duru 2014, 2019) was a much more massive example of an EBA citadel façade. In contrast to such monumental façades, elite residences in citadels where often not actually architecturally spectacular and were so tightly integrated into the storage, workshop and ritual areas of the central complex that they become architecturally difficult to discern for archaeologists (Bachhuber 2015:114–122; Düring 2011c:282, 284; Ivanova 2013:30–31).
The display of rare and valuable items was another important EBA status-making strategy and represents an exclusionary strategy: the display of these items communicated inclusion into an elite group at the exclusion of non-elites (Bachhuber 2015:168, 188). The strategy included imported objects such as amber, carnelian and lapis lazuli (Bachhuber 2015:167), but most importantly the conspicuous consumption of metal. The first evidence for metalworking in the Anatolian centre dates to around 3500 BC, the middle of the Late Chalcolithic (Lehner and Yener 2014:549; Mehofer 2014; Schoop 2011a; Yalçın 2008:20– 21; see crucibles found at LC Kuruçay: Duru 2008:143). Metal was produced and consumed in increasingly large amounts throughout the EBA (Bachhuber 2015:155; Düring 2011c:274–275; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:200– 205; Yener et al. 2015:597–598). Its value as a prestige object derived from the amount of work needed to produce it (Düring 2011c:275), but also from a range of other mechanisms discussed by Bachhuber (2015:157–165, 168–169) that included craftsmanship, object biographies, and a cosmopolitan connotation resulting from the fact that Anatolia was part of metal exchange across a larger region of Southwest Asia. There was mutual exchange of bronze, possibly raw materials for bronze production, but certainly metal-production technologies and styles with Northern Mesopotamia and northwest Iran (Bachhuber 2015:155–165, 186–187; Düring 2011c:275–276; Steadman 2011:232–233). Metal was conspicuously consumed by citadel elites in different ways on different occasions: it was displayed during funerary rituals and processions (see above, Alacahöyük), daily as jewellery (Bachhuber 2015:166–167), and during feasts in the form of wine drinking vessels. Wine consumption also started or became more widespread during the EBA, and it became another commodity for elite-making through conspicuous consumption (Bachhuber 2015:31–32, 138–143, 164–165). The social importance of both wine and metal is further attested by a curious artefact category: skeuomorphic pottery vessels, which imitate the look of metal vessels and often were wine drinking vessels (Bachhuber 2015:139–143), found for example at Beycesultan (Bachhuber 2015:62–63; Düring 2011c:264). Large public feasts were sometimes concluded by the deposition of ceramic tableware and other consumption debris such as animal bones (Bachhuber 2015:141–143).
Villages: hidden hierarchies A third form of elite-making refers to ‘villages’, used by Bachhuber (2015:53, 107) to refer to settlements where 148
Social Organisation in Central Anatolia 8500–2000 BC social hierarchies do not exist or are not overtly expressed in material culture, two examples being Demircihöyük and Karataş, located north and south of central Anatolia. Bachhuber (2015:53, 55, 70–82, 84, 107; cf. Eslick 1988:39 on Karataş) suggests that social hierarchies or status differences did exist within village communities, but that the place for the building and negotiation of status differences might not have been the village itself, where— at least architecturally—communal integration and equality prevail, and social competition may not have been appropriate, but rather the extramural village cemetery. In the cemetery, households competed for status by displaying their farming productivity through sponsoring feasts related to mortuary ritual and by depositing valuable items such as metal (Bachhuber 2015:89–97, 150; Eslick 1988:38); this is not dissimilar to the elite-making strategy characteristic of Alacahöyük. Particularly rich graves could indicate that individuals with leadership authority (‘chiefs’) existed in villages (Bachhuber 2015:96–97; Massa 2014). Villages were additionally in a hierarchical relationship with a citadel that extracted parts of the villages’ farming productivity, maybe in exchange for protection (Bachhuber 2015:122, 185–186). Roots of Early Bronze Age social stratification in the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic This chapter has attempted to demonstrate that social stratification, as a central element of EBA social organisation, had probably developed over many centuries and millennia during the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic as the unintended outcome of many interrelated changes in the social fabric of local communities (Arbuckle 2012a; Çevik 2007:132; Düring 2011b:809, 2011c:256, 297; Steadman 2011:231–232). Also, new research has brought attention to previously unperceived mechanisms and pathways towards social stratification, for example demonstrating the role played by mobile pastoralism. In conclusion, the changes in social organisation observed in central Anatolia after 6500 BC are significant not only, but also, because they represent the roots of Anatolian social complexity. Although the research gap represented by the Late Chalcolithic especially complicates gaining a long-term perspective, it is possible to argue that some of the strategies and items of material culture used in EBA elite-making were already present in the LN/Chalcolithic. For example, animal products (meat) were important in LN/EC social competition as also in EBA status assertion (wool). That material wealth, the subject of LN/EC social competition and of EBA elite control, was foremost in the form of agricultural products is also a common feature across the millennia. Architecturally, MC Güvercinkayası (6.4.3) features an ‘upper settlement’ in a raised location not unlike the EBA ‘central complexes’ in citadels. Chapter 9 will discuss further the possible roots of the architectural aspects EBA elite-making in the LN and Chalcolithic.
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7 Methods Thorough exploration knows no short cuts. (Mellaart 1970c:25) 7.1. Text as data: content analysis
element: if language is analysed, it is the individual researcher who makes the decision whether a combination of words constitutes a certain meaning. While it can thus never be an ‘objective’ technique (cf. Berg 2009:341), content analysis allows a deeper, more systematic and less biased evaluation of a data set composed of text or images than mere listening or reading would. Content analysis aids in condensing information contained in a text because researchers focus in detail on particular aspects of the information (Schreier 2013:170). This allows content analysis to conceptualise data in new ways (Abbott and McKinney 2013:319; Berg 2009:353). Coding, especially open coding as employed by me (see below), “helps researchers to see the familiar in a new light; gain distance from their own […] taken-for-granted assumptions; avoid forcing data into preconceptions; and to focus further data collection, including the potential of leading the researchers in unforeseen directions” (Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:156; similarly Schreier 2013:171).
This book is a reflection and discussion of the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record at LN/EC central Anatolian sites into interpretations of social organisation. Specifically, this book concentrates on the academic discourse around the four processes that Chapter 6 identified as most relevant for an understanding of social transformations during the LN and EC: increasing household autonomy in relation to decreasing suprahousehold integration, increasing social competition with incipient social stratification, increasing mobility and warfare. The research aim of this book necessitated a systematic and detailed study of existing archaeological literature in order to identify patterns in the interpretation of architecture and social organisation. The method of content analysis, developed in the social sciences, is ideally suited for this purpose. 7.1.1. Content analysis
7.1.2. Grounded theory and applying content analysis in reflexive archaeology
Content analysis describes a range of techniques that systematically identify and evaluate the content and meaning of communications with the aim of reconstructing underlying patterns of thought and behaviour. It can be applied to any form of conserved communication – written text, recorded speech or music, images or videos. Content analysis sorts, condenses and synthesises meaning contained in text and images through coding. Coding is a process, often done through a software program, by which researchers attach labels to segments of text or images. The labels depict the meaning of the text or image segment as understood by the researcher. In a second step, the researcher can then observe patterns from these labels (Abbott and McKinney 2013; Berg 2009:338–339; Price 2010; Schreier 2013). Content analysis is not the same as discourse analysis in the most common definition of discourse analysis, which refers to an analysis technique that studies language, diction and grammatical structures (Fairclough 2013; Gee 2014).
According to my research using large literature databases (Google Scholar, Scopus, Web of Science), some archaeological research projects have previously used content analysis. A majority of the examples can be characterised as reflexive work, i.e. projects investigating archaeological practice rather than archaeological data (Beaudry and White 1994; Oikarinen and Kortelainen 2013; Rosenswig 1997; also see De Leuien 2015 with a similar method). Content analysis has also been used to study how archaeological work, archaeological sites and objects are presented and perceived in the public (Corpas and Castillo 2019; Eakle and Chavez-Eakle 2013; Huvila 2013; Leskovar 2010; Nichols 2005), which is also a form of archaeological reflexivity. Shanks and Tilley (1992:211–240) used content analysis to research newspapers and advertisement as part of a study of modern material culture.
Content analysis has been characterised as a quantitative technique by some (Krippendorf 2004; Lacy et al. 2015; Riffe et al. 2019), and as qualitative by others (Abbott and McKinney 2013; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013), as a mixture (Berg 2009:342–343; Price 2010) or a method that can be either qualitative or quantitative (Schreier 2013:171– 173). While it certainly has a quantitative element in that the coding results can be analysed statistically, I agree with those (Abbott and McKinney 2013; Price 2010) who hold that content analysis has by default a strong qualitative
This range of topics indicates that content analysis was used previously in projects not dissimilar to mine: archaeological projects which sought to systematically analyse (sometimes larger amounts of) text, and often employed a reflexive element. Content analysis seems to lend itself as a tool for reflexivity, especially the type of context analysis rooted in grounded theory. Grounded theory is a concept or method in the social sciences that can either be viewed as part of content analysis, representing the decidedly qualitative version of content 151
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia adding sources I had read while writing Chapters 1–6, by looking through the reference lists of these sources, by systematically searching on Google Scholar using key words such as Neolithic AND central Anatolia or the names of sites, and by looking through the publication lists of researchers that I knew to be key figures in the debate. I then did an initial reading of the collected literature to determine whether it was relevant and should be coded. I selected the list of sources to code according to the following criteria:
analysis (Abbott and McKinney 2013:319–320), or as a method separate from content analysis, which however also employs coding (Charmaz 2014; Mayring 2014:16– 17; Schreier 2013:173, 181). I argue that the principles underlying grounded theory will sound very similar to the principles of contextual and reflexive archaeology that are used as the basis for this book (Chapter 2). In the social sciences, ‘theory’ is used as a term to describe what this book refers to as ‘interpretations’: the result of a research project (e.g. Abbott and McKinney 2013:319–320; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:153). This is different from archaeology, where ‘theory’ typically describes part of the foundation of a research project: assumptions—essentially about how to get from material culture to interpretations of human behaviour—existing prior to data analysis that guide the examination of data (Hodder 1995:4, 1999a:12– 13). Grounded theory therefore means interpretations grounded in data (Charmaz 2014:1; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:153). Grounded theory seeks to work inductively and to develop concepts and interpretations from an intimate and detailed exploration of the data itself (Abbott and McKinney 2013:319–320; Charmaz 2014:1– 4; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013). This is reminiscent of the “interpretation from the inside” formulated by Hodder (1990:21) as a principle of contextual archaeology. In a grounded theory project, data collection and analysis occur concurrently and are mutually informative, with researchers developing and assessing hypotheses along the way (Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:153, 155). Not only the final interpretations, but also the ‘middle-ground’ analytical categories that lead from data to interpretations are derived from the data themselves (Charmaz 2014:1–4). This principle sounds very much like Hodder’s (1991:16) appeal to interpret archaeological data through “the telling of stories grounded in the data”. And just like Hodder (1995:13) for contextual archaeology, Charmaz (2014:23) cites Geertz’s (1973) ‘thick description’ as the ideal rich data for a grounded theory approach. In sum, especially if done in a grounded theory framework, with emphasis on and awareness of the qualitative and interpretative nature of the process, content analysis has a strongly exploratory nature. Coding immerses the researcher deeply in the data, and labels, patterns, ideas and interpretations emerge successively during the data exploration process (Charmaz 2014:4, 113–120, Figure 1.1). This fits well with my intention to conduct a first systematic study of a complex web of archaeological thought. The notion of grounded theorists (Charmaz 2014:14; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:154) that the individual researcher inevitably has great influence on the research process and its results connects well with reflexive archaeology (2.1).
First, type of publication – academic texts were chosen that are likely to contain social interpretations, even merely brief ones, of architecture rather than simply descriptions of architecture. For this reason, the yearly reports published by most excavation and survey projects working in Turkey were not included, with the exception of the field reports that represent the very earliest publications about central Anatolian Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture: the annual reports in Anatolian Studies from the 1950s and 1960s excavations at Hacılar, Çatalhöyük and Canhasan. The reason for including these reports was that in the case of Hacılar and Canhasan, some time—or considerable time at Canhasan—passed between the end of excavations and the publication of the site monograph. In the meantime, the considerable research interest directed towards these pioneering sites of central Anatolian prehistory (Chapter 4) would have referred to the evidence and interpretations published in the preliminary reports. For example, Alkım’s (1969) textbook on Anatolian prehistory was published before the Hacılar book (Mellaart 1970c). French published his final architecture monograph only in 1998, and for the 31 years between then and the end of excavations in 1967, his preliminary reports remained the latest work on Canhasan. Another reason for including the annual reports was that French and Mellaart used each other’s reports to compare evidence and interpretations while forming opinions about the sites they were excavating (e.g. French 1962:29, 30, 32, 1966:118; Mellaart 1963e:46, 55, 60, 1965:135–136, 153–155). Despite being preliminary reports, the annual reports from the 1950s-1960s Hacılar, Çatalhöyük and Canhasan excavations are therefore foundational texts for the discussion of Late Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic architecture and social organisation. The decision to exclude all other field reports kept the amount of literature to process to a more manageable level, allowing me to focus in more depth on the publications that were included in the coding. Excluding field reports might mean that my analysis may have missed some interpretations related to the social interpretation of architecture that were postulated in preliminary reports but quickly revised, meaning that they did not make it into the more visible books, chapters and articles. Also excluded were unpublished theses or theses that were published only as downloadable copies on university websites. This was done to keep the amount of literature at a manageable scale and also based on the assumption that most thesis work did somehow make it into the fully published literature.
7.2. Defining a body of literature to code As the basis for the content analysis, I defined a list of literature that represents a comprehensive image of the archaeological debate around social organisation and architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia since its beginning in the late 1950s. I first created a preliminary list of potentially relevant literature by 152
Methods Second, geographically – the coding list was restricted to publications that discuss central Anatolia as defined in 3.1, applying the contextual approach outlined in 2.2. Publications could include discussions of other regions, which were then however not coded (7.3).
synthesising textbook-like publications such as The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia (Steadman and McMahon 2011). Second, architectural syntheses, meaning works focused on architecture that compare evidence from more than one site. And third, most publications can be characterised as site-specific discussions of which some are focused on architecture and others summarise evidence from other categories of material culture also. Due to the exclusion of yearly site reports in most cases, these sitespecific publications were books, papers, or chapters offering syntheses and interpretations of architectural and other evidence.
Third, chronologically – the list of literature has a focus on the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic, but also includes many publications that discuss architecture and social organisation from other periods of central Anatolian prehistory, i.e. from the Early Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age. To find chronological boundaries for the content analysis turned out to be one of the major challenges encountered in my analysis because ‘chronological blurring’ was an inbuilt feature of many sources on the coding list for reasons explained more fully below (7.2). As I will also discuss below, I eventually decided to apply the chronological selection criterion less strictly than the geographical one. For the selection of sources to code, this meant that I eventually included two publications that only discuss the LN and EC to a very small degree but are highly relevant for understanding Early Neolithic (Baird et al. 2017) and Early Bronze Age (Bachhuber 2015) architecture and social organisation.
As I reworked my doctoral thesis to create this book in 2020–2021, I repeated this selection process to include publications that were newly published since mid2016. The final list of coded literature contained 284 publications (Table 7.1). This represents, to the best of my search capabilities, all of the relevant literature published until the end of 30 April 2021, which was the cut-off date for literature to be included in the analysis. It is possible that some relevant content was not noted because it was missed through my literature search methods (see above); for example, because it was hidden in publications with titles and abstracts that do not express that they contain discussions of architecture and social organisation.
Fourth, date of publication – the coding list contains literature about central Anatolian architecture and society published since the start of excavations at Hacılar in 1957, i.e. since the first examples of the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolian architecture were unearthed. Earlier publications could not refer to architectural evidence and were therefore not included. This temporal depth allows my research to investigate the development of interpretations and opinions circulating within the research landscape over the last 60 years and to show how archaeological thought has been modified over this time. Based on their publication date, post-2015 publications of the Çatalhöyük West project where I am a co-author were excluded from coding, as these were influenced by the very research presented in this book.
7.3. Coding indicators and themes 7.3.1. Identifying relevant text passages Text passages that discuss or mention the aspects of social organisation (household autonomy, suprahousehold integration, social competition, social stratification, mobility, warfare) studied in this book were identified by searching the literature for a list of pre-determined terms (Table 7.2). For this to be possible, all sources had to be digitised via scanning and then the text rendered readable with automatic text recognition in Adobe Acrobat XI Pro. It was necessary to employ such a computationally assisted reading technique due to the large amount of literature used. Excluded from the automated process were Turkish and French sources for two reasons: first, both languages have many special characters that complicate automated text recognition. Second, I am less familiar with these two languages than with German and English, and therefore found it safer to read Turkish and French sources completely with the help of dictionaries, Google translate, and the English summaries included in some sources to supplement my basic understanding of these languages.
Finally, authorship – the identity of the author(s) did not matter. A few authors in the body of coded literature are not archaeologists by training, but for example architects writing about prehistoric central Anatolia (Aydin et al. 2014; Kuçak Toprak 2020) or a multidisciplinary group of researchers who were invited to write about Çatalhöyük as part of the Templeton project that included ethnographers (Bloch 2010), theologists (Van Huyssteen 2010, 2014) and artists (Kamerman 2014). I did, however, only include literature from sources that were subject to academic quality control, such as papers in academic journals or books produced by academic authors or editors and publishing houses.
The search terms were chosen based on my experience with the lexicon of the scholarly discourse, acquired while writing Chapters 1–6. They were also first tested on a number of different sources that I knew particularly well (and thus was able to judge whether anything was overlooked after employing the search terms) to verify that the search terms indeed capture all relevant text passages. I processed each publication four times for each of the four
As a result of this selection, the types of publications on the coding list can be described as follows (Table 7.1; also note my discussion of publication types in 4.5): first, overview publications, meaning textbooks on the prehistory of Anatolia, and chapters on Anatolian prehistory from 153
Overview publications on the central Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic
154
Mellaart 1961a Mellaart 1963c Mellaart 1965b Mellaart 1966a Mellink 1966 Alkım 1969 French 1970 Mellaart 1970a Mellaart 1970b Mellaart 1971a Mellaart 1971b Mellaart 1972 French 1972 Bittel 1973 Mellaart 1975 Singh 1976 Redman 1978 Mellaart 1978 Mellaart 1979 Todd 1980 Yakar 1985 Duru 1989 Yakar 1991 Yakar 1994 Balkan-Atlı 1994 Duru 1996a Duru 1996b Joukowsky 1996 Duru 1999 Umurtak 2000a Umurtak 2000b Acar 2001 Duru 2001b Schoop 2002 Baird 2002 Thissen 2002b Duru 2002 Gérard 2002
Umurtak 2005d Duru 2007 Marciniak and Czerniak 2007 Umurtak 2007 French 2008 Clare et al. 2008 Marciniak 2008 Duru 2008 Rosenstock 2009 Sagona and Zimansky 2009 Clare and Weninger 2010 Clare et al. 2010 Rosenstock 2010a Rosenstock 2010b Thissen 2010 Schoop 2011b Düring 2011b Düring 2011c Umurtak 2011 Özbaşaran 2011 Steadman 2011 Yakar 2011a Yakar 2011b Duru 2012 Rosenstock 2012 Baird 2012b Biehl 2012a Arbuckle 2012a Düring 2013b Düring 2013c Duru 2013 Rosenstock 2014 Clare and Weninger 2014 Arbuckle 2014 Özbaşaran and Duru 2015 DeCupere et al. 2015 Vandam 2015 Vandam and Kaptiijn 2015
Synthesising work focused on architecture Eslick 1988 Schachner 1999 Steadman 2000b Düring 2002 Cutting 2003 Steadman 2004 Cutting 2005a Cutting 2005b Düring 2005 Cutting 2006a Cutting 2006b Düring 2006 Düring 2009 Steadman 2010 Düring 2011a Bikoulis 2013 Düring 2013a Aydin et al. 2014 Düring 2014 Baird et al. 2017 Brami 2017 Furholt 2017 Duru 2018 Kinzel et al. 2020 Kuçak Toprak 2020 Türkteki and Çalık 2021
Site-specific publications Hacılar Mellaart 1958 Mellaart 1959 Mellaart 1960 Mellaart 1961b Mellaart 1970c Mellaart 1998b Çatalhöyük East Mellaart 1962b Mellaart 1963e Mellaart 1964 Mellaart 1966b Mellaart 1967 Heinrich and Seidl 1969 Todd 1976 Hodder 1987 Forest 1993 Becks and Jacobs 1996 Hodder 1996a Hodder 1996b Hodder 1996d Last 1998a Mellaart 1998a Hodder 1999b Boivin 2000 Voigt 2000 Düring 2001 Düring 2003 Hodder and Cessford 2004 Lewis-Williams 2004 Asouti 2005a Cessford and Near 2005 Hodder 2005b Hodder 2005c Hodder 2005f Hodder 2005g Hodder 2005h
Hodder 2013a Hodder 2013b Love 2013a Love 2013b Love 2013c Matthews et al. 2013 Shillito and Ryan 2013 Stevanović 2013 Tung 2013 Barański 2014 Bogaard et al. 2014 Buchli 2014 Czeszewska 2014 Hodder 2014b Hodder 2014c Hodder 2014d Hodder 2014f Hodder and Farid 2014 Kamerman 2014 Mills 2014 Nakamura and Pels 2014 Özbaşaran and Duru 2014 Russell et al. 2014 Van Huyssteen 2014 Weismantel 2014 Whitehouse et al. 2014 Wright 2014 Barański et al. 2015 Carter et al. 2015 Haddow et al. 2015 Marciniak 2015a Marciniak 2015b Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015 Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015 Özdöl-Kutlu et al. 2015 Taylor et al. 2015 Hodder 2016
Erdoğu and Ulubey 2011 Biehl et al. 2012a Biehl 2012b Forte et al. 2019 Canhasan French 1962 French 1963 French 1964 French 1965 French 1966 French 1967 French 1968 French 1998 Fairbairn et al. 2020 Erbaba Bordaz 1973 Bordaz and Alpers Bordaz 1982 Arbuckle 2008 Kuruçay Duru 1994c Duru 1996c Duru 2001d Köşk Höyük Silistreli 1989b Silistreli 1991c Öztan 2003 Öztan and Faydalı 2004 Öztan 2007a Öztan 2010 Öztan 2012 Höyücek Duru 2001c Duru and Umurtak 2005
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Table 7.1. Literature used for the content analysis
Özdoğan 2002 Yakar 2004 Baird 2005 Schoop 2005a Schoop 2005b Rosenstock 2005 Düring and Marciniak 2005 Umurtak 2005b
Bachhuber 2015 Clare and Weninger 2018 Baird 2019a Baird 2019b Marciniak 2019a Özdoğan 2019
155
Last 2005 Matthews 2005a Matthews 2005b Tung 2005 Hodder 2006 Cessford 2007 Düring 2007a Düring 2007b Farid 2007 Hodder 2007b Düring 2008b Twiss et al. 2008 Russell et al. 2009 Bloch 2010 Hodder and Meskell 2010 Hodder and Pels 2010 Nakamura 2010 Pels 2010 Van Huyssteen 2010 Whitehouse and Hodder 2010 Hodder 2012 Love 2012 Marciniak and Czerniak 2012 Matthews 2012 Stevanović 2012a Stevanović 2012c Carleton et al. 2013 Harrison et al. 2013
Mazzucato 2016 Der and Issavi 2017 Anspach 2018 Bernardini and Schachner 2018 Kujit 2018 Matthews 2018 Anspach 2019 Chantre 2019 Fuchs-Khakhar 2019 Garfinkel 2019 Johnsen 2019 Marciniak 2019b Mazzucato 2019 Portillo et al. 2019 Barański 2020 Fagan 2020 Kay 2020 Issavi et al. 2020 Hodder and Gürlek 2020 Shillito and Mackay 2020 Hodder 2021a Çatalhöyük West Mellaart 1965a Gibson and Last 2003a Erdoğu 2009a Erdoğu 2009b Biehl and Rosenstock 2009
Gelveri Esin 1993a Gülçur and Kiper 2009 Gülçur et al. 2010 Bademağacı Duru 2001a Duru and Umurtak 2019a Pınarbaşı B Watkins 1996 Baird et al. 2011 Baird 2012b Musular Özbaşaran 1999 Özbaşaran 2000 Özbaşaran et al. 2007 Tepecik Bıçakçı et al. 2007 Bıçakçı et al. 2012 Bıçakçı et al. 2017
Methods
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 7.2. Search terms used to identify text passages discussing architectural indicators of social organisation Topic
Search terms
Household autonomy and Suprahousehold integration
English: house, commun, autonom, depen, neighb, collectiv, group, lineage, kin, famil, corpor German: Haus, Gemein, kommun, auton, abhä, eigenst, selbstst, selbstä, kollektiv, nachbar, Grupp, Famil, Clan, Klan
Social competition and social stratification
English: elite, lead, rul, hierarch, stratif, equal, egal, compet, public, chief, class, wealth, differentiat, complex, importan, dominan, rank, power, prestige, residen, priviledge, aggrand, status, authori German: Elit, herrsch, Macht, Fürst, Hierar, stratif, gleich, egal, öffent, Autori, Klasse, Reich, wohl, Unterschied, Prestig, komplex, wichtig, domin, Rang, Privil, abhäng
Mobility
English: mobil, sedent, nomad, move, transhum, pastor, transien, seasonal, tempor, camp, ephem, herd, permanen, migra German: mobil, nomad, sessh, seßh, transhum, pastor, saisonal, Camp, Lager, Herde, permant, dauer, kurz, lang, Hirte, tempor, zeitw, konstan, migr
Warfare
English: defen, abandon, desert, destruct, destroy, fort, war, confl, protect, attack, perim, enclos, viol, fire, burn, conqu, peace, feud, inva, blaze, massac, hostil, bastion, sack, intru, raid, enem, aggress German: verteid, verlass, auflass, zerstör, forti, befest, krieg, konflikt, schutz, schütz, angriff, attack, umfass, gewalt, brand, erober, fried, inva, massak, feind
aspects of social organisation studied in this book, with some intervening time after each cycle. This allowed me to analyse many text sections several times. I also consulted many sources again while writing Chapters 8–11 following the coding so that I was able to check whether I had missed any indicators. I believe that using this search strategy, my content analysis is exhaustive in the sense that no indicator that is mentioned at least twice or three times in the coded literature was overlooked.
to the interpretation that a clustering village layout represents strong suprahousehold integration. If a certain architectural feature was associated with different social interpretations, different indicators were created for each of them; for example, there are four different indicators (#18, #55, #141, #183) that represent social interpretations of the clustered settlement layout. In defining indicators, I tried to be as specific as possible in identifying concrete characteristics of architectural features. For instance, I created different indicators for the presence/absence of storage installations in a house (#8, #83) versus their size (#9, #85–#87). Occasionally, however, I had to create more general indicators, or ‘headline indicators’, that capture important opinions related to architecture and social organisation voiced in text but that are not specific about the associated architectural features. For example, indicator #1 refers to the opinion that ‘complete’ houses can be associated with autonomous households, but without authors specifying what features make a house ‘complete’ (8.2.1).
7.3.2. Coding indicators and themes After finding relevant text passages through keyword searches, I read these and identified architectural indicators. ‘Indicators’ are defined as the connection, claimed by the author(s) of an analysed text, between one particular architectural feature and one of the four aspects of social organisation studied here. An example is the following statement that names an architectural feature (a clustered settlement layout) and attaches a social interpretation about household autonomy and suprahousehold integration: “The fact that people chose to live in tightly nucleated clusters of houses rather than in distinct buildings might suggest that the household was not a clearly defined entity to the people at Canhasan III” (Düring 2006:122). ‘Architectural features’ are here defined holistically, e.g. also referring to unroofed space, house-related processes such as construction and abandonment, and ritual objects weaved into the fabric of the house. Using the software programme NVivo, relevant text passages were tagged with one or more labels, called ‘nodes’ within the software. Each label represents one indicator and each indicator also received a number (#1, #2, …). The names of indicator labels contain the particular architectural feature and the social interpretation given to it by the author of the tagged source. For example, the above cited text passage was coded as ‘#55 community-clustering’, referring
As a second means of recording apart from the NVivo database, I maintained MS Word lists of the labels and explanation for each indicator, text passages that mention this indicator, and sites related to it. These lists were kept as a security copy in case a problem occurred with NVivo, and to more easily be able to sort and organise indicators. The lists are provided here (Appendices 1–5) to enable others to recreate and confirm my coding results. However, for copyright reasons attached to the coded sources, I was unfortunately not able to include the NVivo database in this publication. While coding and immersing myself in the literature, I kept a note file for recording observations that later assisted in the discussion of analysis results in Chapters 8–12. These notes are typical of content analysis rooted in grounded theory, where they are called ‘memos’ (Charmaz 2014; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:163–165). 156
Methods As my content analysis was progressing, I started organising indicators into groups I called ‘themes’: groups of indicators that refer to similar architectural features, for example all those related to ritual house elaboration.
understand exactly what a researcher meant by a certain term or to get a better overall impression of the types of research issues prioritised by authors, in order to provide context. The complete analysis of some longer and more complex pieces of writing could take days. Choosing an open coding strategy facilitated the deep immersion in the discourse necessary to achieve this.
7.3.3. Exploratory coding The manner of coding chosen by me had a decidedly exploratory nature, which suited my aim of exploring architectural epistemology broadly and deeply. If coding is done in an exploratory manner without a predefined set of nodes, it is referred to as ‘open coding’, an approach derived from grounded theory (Abbott and McKinney 2013:320–321; Berg 2009:353). Open coding avoids forcing preformed assumptions onto the data and leads to a particularly deep immersion in the analysed texts, thereby minimizing the risk of missing important information (Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:156–157). Because I employed open coding, my indicator labels and themes emerged during coding. In this way, the categories (indicators, themes) by which I sorted and made sense of the research discourse are themselves a result of the content analysis. In exploratory coding, the list of nodes is typically constantly changing and evolving (Abbott and McKinney 2013:320; Thornberg and Charmaz 2013:158), and I also regularly changed the names of indicator labels, decided to split one indicator into two or three, combined two indicators when I recognised them as essentially the same, or moved indicators between themes. Such an exploratory manner of coding required a lot of back-checking. For example, when I only discovered an indicator fairly late in the coding process, which was usually a result of my increased understanding of the subject matter as I was immersing myself in the discourse via coding, I went back and re-processed literature to check for content relating to the newly discovered indicator. In order to obtain a fairly broad overview of different opinions in the discourse early on during the coding process, I took care to initially analyse a variety of literature from different authors to experience a range of opinions and ways of expressing them. These steps correspond to the best practice advice for open coding by Berg (2009:353–356, Figure 11.1), Abbott and McKinney (2013) and Thornberg and Charmaz (2013:156–158).
7.3.4. Including and excluding text passages from coding I coded all text passages that expressed that the author considered an association between a certain architectural feature and a certain social interpretation (i.e. an indicator) possible, independently of whether the author referred to or cited other researchers, or based the interpretation on their own research. Text was coded whether or not the author stated explicitly why they associated an architectural feature with a social interpretation. In many cases, the reasons for an interpretation were not actually stated explicitly, and that is discussed as part of the results in Chapters 8–12. When an opinion was repeated in the same source more than once, every mention was coded in order to document how prevalent a certain opinion is in the literature. During coding, I encountered a particular type of text passage I called ‘hypothetical’. Hypothetical text passages, which are marked in Appendices 1–5 by being bracketed, name an indicator and then immediately discount it. The reason to include hypothetical statements into my analysis was that they supported my research aim of creating a detailed and complete map of the academic discourse. There were two categories of hypothetical statements. The first category refers to statements that name indicators, but conclude that these were not present at the site in question, such as the following example which contains four architectural indicators for differences in social status: “At Çatalhöyük there is no evidence that [house] size [#120] can be correlated with wealth (for example numbers of storage bins [#112], numbers of ovens [#113] or numbers of burials [#134])” (Cutting 2005a:167). The second category names an indicator and then refutes its validity, i.e. the validity of the particular connection between an architectural feature and a social interpretation that is contained in the indicator, for example: “At Kuruçay in level 11 a feature that was interpreted as a city wall with towers [#187] was found (Duru 1994). Likewise, at Hacılar a small fortified settlement was found in level 2B, and what has been interpreted as a large fortification wall [#181] in level 1 (Mellaart 1970). Recently these fortifications have been interpreted as evidence for endemic warfare and this has been linked to stresses caused by the climatic fluctuation known as the 8.2 KA event (Clare et al 2008). There are several reasons why this reconstruction is problematic […]” (Düring 2011a:72).
Content analysis can be automated with automatic text recognition and tagging (Berg 2009:366–372; Lacy et al. 2015:799–802), but this was not feasible for my research. In fact, coding for this research project was a deeply interpretive, rather than mechanical task. Researchers’ thoughts about the social interpretation of architecture are interlinked with a wider web of notions about cultural developments in prehistoric central Anatolia and about the purpose and limitations of archaeological research. It was therefore required to achieve an understanding of the wider interpretational framework of each researcher’s work, as laid out in their publications. I often found myself reading and re-reading longer parts of text several times to make sure I adequately captured the essence of a particular statement. It was, for example, important to
The contextual approach employed in this study (2.2) required, at least in principle, restricting the coding 157
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia to statements about only Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia. As for the geographical scope, I followed this requirement by not coding statements about architecture and social organisation that did not (also) refer to central Anatolian sites. I encountered some text passages that sought to interpret central Anatolian Neolithic/ Chalcolithic architecture by comparing it with roughly contemporary sites from other regions in Anatolia or Southwest Asia (e.g. Joukowsky 1996:116 about fortification walls at Mersin and Hacılar) or even ethnographic cases as far away as Indonesia (Düring 2006:42, 210, 300; Hodder 2006:24–25, 109–110, 162– 163). Since these statements did, among other regions, refer to central Anatolia, they were included in the coding. I analysed two volumes (Brami 2017; Furholt 2017) that synthesise evidence from central and western Anatolia as well as southeast Europe. In these volumes, it was not always clear whether certain text passages referred to central Anatolia or only to other regions. In those cases, I did not code the statements.
is often diachronic. In Appendices 1–5 I included a list of the sites mentioned in connection with each indicator in order to be able to include an evaluation of what time periods each indicator might apply to into my discussion in Chapters 8–11. A second main challenge I encountered while coding were opinions formulated in the literature in ways that did not express a clear connection between architectural form and social organisation. My technique of identifying ‘indicators’, as defined above, necessitated that a text named an architectural feature in direct connection to a social interpretation. In some cases, however, texts did not make unequivocal connection (within the same sentence or paragraph) between architectural form and social interpretation. This was particularly the case with publications in which data description and interpretation are separated into two parts within the text; examples are Marciniak’s publications (e.g. Marciniak and Czerniak 2007; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015) which discuss household autonomy and papers by Steadman (2004) and Baird (2012b; Baird et al. 2011) on mobility. In these cases, the social interpretations contained in the discussion/conclusions section of a text are rarely directly linked to architectural features mentioned in the descriptive middle part of the publication. Further, there were of course many social interpretations of architecture in the literature that could not be accurately mapped onto the research questions asked in this book, i.e. not clearly connected with one of the four aspects of social organisation that are studied here. This issue was particularly prevalent when researching household autonomy and community integration for Chapter 8. Sentences such as “[Çatalhöyük’s] elaborately decorated and maintained buildings signal a considerable investment of time, and therefore of identity, on the part of the groups of people associated with each building” (Cutting 2005b:140) do not clearly refer an architectural feature (here, ritual house elaboration) to either the household or a suprahousehold group unequivocally and could therefore not be coded.
7.3.5. Challenges encountered While it was relatively unproblematic to observe my selfimposed geographic boundaries during coding, it turned out to be impossible to employ strict chronological boundaries to the selection of coded text passages due to blurred chronological divisions in the analysed literature. Many of the analysed publications employ a diachronic approach in which the LN/EC is discussed in connection with other prehistoric periods pre- or postdating the LN/EC – either because they deliberately employ a long-term perspective, such as textbooks and architectural syntheses (Table 7.1) or because they discuss sites that span a timeframe longer than the LN/EC, or both. Many sites that feature occupation dating to 6500–5500 BC also have layers preor postdating this period, so that publications focused on individual sites often present a diachronic discussion. A prominent case of this is the site of Çatalhöyük East, which dominates the academic discourse analysed here and which in most sources is discussed as a unit, combining evidence from the Early and Late Neolithic levels. In dealing with this ‘chronological blurring’, I eventually decided to code all indicators mentioned in an analysed source, even those that explicitly refer to levels pre- or post-dating the LN/EC. As a consequence, Chapters 8–11 discuss indicators relevant to architecture from the EN to EBA, with a focus however on the LN and EC due to the selection of coded literature (7.2). While this is a deviation from the contextual approach laid out in Chapter 2, I found that not strictly enforcing chronological boundaries to the coding actually led to a better realisation of my research aim: to provide a holistic understanding of the academic epistemology that has shaped our current understanding of LN/EC architecture and its social interpretation. Coding entire sources instead of only statements about the LN/ EC provides a more accurate and comprehensive portrayal of the archaeological thought landscape that I set out to research because it includes the context in which LN/ EC architecture is understood by researchers – and that
In dealing with such textual ambiguities, I decided to code only if the text was unequivocal about linking a certain architectural feature with one of the social processes researched in this book, as not to put words in the authors’ mouths. To achieve this, I employed knowledge on idiosyncrasies of central Anatolian architecture as described in Chapters 5–6. This was particularly relevant for the very nuanced discussion that exists around households and suprahousehold groups (Chapter 8). For example, I could not equate ‘house’ with ‘household’ since the two are not always congruent (6.2.3). A sentence like “Geoarchaeological analysis of mudbricks established that cultural modifications were used to create social differences between neighbouring houses” (Love 2013c:263) was therefore not coded for household autonomy. Where it was not possible to document them through coding, I collected such text passages about specific architectural features (here, differences in building materials) on my 158
Methods note sheet, so that I could refer to them while evaluating and contextualising indicators in Chapters 8–11.
indicator so as to produce a vetted indicator list that can be used as a toolkit for future archaeological research. To explore and evaluate indicators, I discussed whether the specific social interpretation ascribed to an architectural feature by previous researchers can be substantiated based on available archaeological evidence. To do so, I tried to extract the reasons why the particular architectural feature in question was connected to a particular social interpretation from the coded text passages themselves and the wider textual context. To then evaluate these epistemological notions, I also drew on additional archaeological evidence by searching the literature for evidence relevant to a particular archaeological feature, including also publications beyond the coding list. For example, to discuss issues around storage, I drew on publications about the botanical and faunal remains found in storage contexts. As a further means of evaluation, I compared and cross-referenced indicators and themes and evidence related to them. I also checked whether a particular connection between social and architectural expression was possibly only valid for a particular site, region, or time period, by observing which sites were named in the discussion of a particular indicator. Indicators were discounted if the evaluation concluded that either there was strong evidence against an indicator—against the particular connection of architectural feature and social interpretation contained in the indicator—or if available evidence for an indicator was very weak. Because my main purpose was to explore indicators and the evaluation was less important, when in doubt I opted to not discount indicators in order to encourage further research on them. I marked which indicators I discounted in Appendices 1–5. The remaining indicators should be seen as a toolkit useful for future research related to social organisation and architecture on Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia. It is also important to note that throughout Chapters 8–11, I mostly discuss whether an indicator holds up in theory, for example whether an enclosure wall should be seen as evidence for the existence of warfare (#181), not whether the architectural record at a particular site undoubtedly proves the existence of an enclosure wall. The example of the enclosure wall was chosen here purposely because the focus on discussing epistemology, not the architectural record, is especially relevant in Chapter 11 on warfare, as evidence for fortifications and large-scale site destructions in the study area have been particularly strongly contested. Chapter 5 has provided some critique of the architectural record of each site and its reconstruction by the excavators; but to summarise and evaluate the architectural record itself is not the purpose of this book.
7.3.6. Limitations The results of the coding process are my personal understanding of the academic discourse. For example, my understanding of Turkish and French is limited. I accessed Turkish and French sources by identifying relevant passages based on my basic knowledge of Turkish; and then translating them with the help of Google translate and dictionaries. If a source had an English summary, that too was used to access the text. In cases where publications provided a full English translation of a Turkish text, I coded only the English. In all cases, interpretational nuances contained in the Turkish or French texts might have missed my notice. The results of the coding process also reflect my research preferences; for example, the results are mostly qualitative. My coding strategy incorporated only a minor quantitative element in that it documented how many different people discuss a particular indicator, how often it is stated, and how many sites it refers to. Had quantitative analysis been the focus of my work, this would have required different research decisions. For instance, my decision to exclude most, but not all, annual excavation reports meant that the analysis is skewed towards authors who produce more interpretational texts in addition to site reports. My analysis therefore did not produce reliable numbers on how often an individual author commented on the social interpretation of architecture. It also means that I cannot claim to have counted how many times in total an indicator was mentioned in all of the published literature. Further, my decision to capture different appearances of the built environment in the indicators as detailed as possible meant that I often split rather than lumped indicators, and therefore might have numerically inflated the significance of a certain group of indicators (see e.g. Theme 26.1 which describes several different types of settlement walls). Although the coding results are therefore not suitable for advanced statistical analyses, my indicator evaluation in Chapters 8–11 has a few slight quantitative elements in that it does sometimes make arguments based on, for example, the number of times a particular indicator was mentioned, or how many sites it was connected with, as the basis for evaluating the validity of the indicator. 7.4. Exploring and evaluating indicators and themes Chapters 8–11 contextualise and critically discuss the coding results. This discussion produced two research outcomes. The first and much more important outcome is a comprehensive and systematic mapping of the epistemology by which archaeologists have interpreted social organisation from LN/EC architecture in central Anatolia. This mapping of the discourse consists of a combined exploration and evaluation of indicators, whereby exploration was the main priority. A more minor aim was to critically evaluate the validity of each
As mentioned in Chapter 1, a second research outcome of my content analysis is increased knowledge about the social use of architecture in Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolia. The indicator evaluation in Chapters 8–11 dissects the social mechanisms behind the architectural expression; discussing these indicators thus essentially meant discussing existing knowledge about how prehistoric peoples in the study region designed their built environment in order to construct the kinds of social 159
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia relationships that were important to them. In particular, the themes that resulted from the content analysis were meant to capture overall patterns in the social use of architecture. As something like a side product of the indicator evaluation, I therefore also provide systematised knowledge on how LN/EC people might have used architecture to create social structures. However, my research was aimed primarily at understanding how previous researchers have viewed the social use of architecture during the LN/EC. Consequently, I did not investigate the social use of architecture in the past directly, but instead skewed and biased through the veil of archaeological research traditions. The patterns I observed and formulated into indicators and themes might therefore be patterns of archaeological thought rather than of how Neolithic/Chalcolithic peoples really used architecture. Nevertheless, this book represents the first publication to provide this degree of systematised and comprehensive knowledge on how architecture as material culture might have been used by LN/EC people in central Anatolia. I therefore suggest that future research should take the indicators and themes described in Chapters 8–11 as hypotheses about the social use of architecture in the LN/EC and employ and assess these results through further research.
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8 Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration Houses are in us as much as we are in them. (Love 2013c:264) chronological component to the subdivision of themes (Table 8.2). Specifically, I decided to separate indicators of household autonomy mentioned for pre-6500 BC (Early Neolithic) household autonomy from those mentioned primarily in the context of post-6500 BC sites in order to more accurately depict a possible development of the architectural expression of autonomy across the 6500 BC-divide. This division does not mean that indicators in the first group were only mentioned in connection with EN sites, and indicators in the second only for LN or later sites. Rather, during the analysis it became clear that indicators in the first group describe how household autonomy was constructed at EN sites, although they can also apply to later sites. Indicators in the second group have most strongly been associated with LN or later household autonomy in the recent literature. For example, Themes 1 and 8 both discuss the aspect of house furnishing, but were separated due to the chronological significance of their indicators. Theme 1 describes the patterns of relative distribution of installations that characterised Early Neolithic household autonomy; Theme 8 captures how internal house furnishing changed after 6500 BC alongside changes towards stronger household autonomy. Also related to house furnishing, Theme 13 describes indicators of community integration through all chronological
8.1. Introduction This chapter discusses how architecture from settlements in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia can be studied to research the balance of household autonomy and suprahousehold integration that was described in Chapter 6 as undergoing significant shifts around 6500 BC. For the purpose of this chapter, the different levels of community integration (subcommunities, village community) are all discussed together as ‘suprahousehold integration’ in order to prioritise the distinction of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration over a discussion of the exact nature of that suprahousehold integration. This chapter is very long since many indicators (106) are associated with the household autonomy and suprahousehold integration debate. Further, this chapter also discusses some more fundamental issues that later chapters will draw upon, for example the difficulty of reconstructing food storage capacities (Theme 1) or the significance of researching building materials (Theme 2). The content analysis (Appendices 1–2) has identified 54 architectural indicators of household autonomy, and 52 indicators of suprahousehold integration. I organised these 106 indicators into 16 themes by sorting them into five groups according to the aspect of architecture that they refer to (Table 8.1), as well as introducing a
Table 8.2. Chronological relevance of themes identified in the household autonomy and suprahousehold integration debate
Table 8.1. Themes identified in the household autonomy and suprahousehold integration debate House layout and installations
Building materials and construction techniques Ritual house elaboration
Settlement layout
Unroofed space and non-residential buildings
Theme 1 The complete house Theme 13 Sharing social and economic space Theme 8 More productive space Theme 12 Constructing similarities Theme 2 Constructing individualities Theme 11 Building and destroying together Theme 7 Building independently
Early Neolithic household autonomy
Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age suprahousehold integration
Theme 3 Symbols of the household Theme 4 Leaving and continuing the house Theme 14 Symbols of community Theme 5 Ritually breaking with the past Theme 9 Living close together Theme 10 A paradox of division and cohesion Theme 6 Giving each other space Theme 15 On common ground Theme 16 Constructing community space
Post-6500 BC household autonomy
161
Theme 1 The complete house Theme 2 Constructing individualities Theme 3 Symbols of the household Theme 4 Leaving and continuing the house Theme 9 Living close together Theme 10 A paradox of division and cohesion Theme 11 Building and destroying together Theme 12 Constructing similarities Theme 13 Sharing social and economic space Theme 14 Symbols of community Theme 15 On common ground Theme 16 Constructing community space Theme 5 Ritually breaking with the past Theme 6 Giving each other space Theme 7 Building independently Theme 8 More productive space
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia periods from the Early Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age; these were not further chronologically subdivided since the focus of this analysis is on autonomy.
particular will emphasise a notion that is already present in Theme 1 to a less strong degree: Theme 13 will show that in the eyes of Neolithic/Chalcolithic researchers in central Anatolia, suprahousehold sharing can be indicated by both a ‘too much’ of the vital architectural features recorded in Theme 1—hearth, storage, house size—as well as a ‘too little’. Similarly, some indicators in Theme 1 (especially #3, #4, #9) refer not only to a presence/absence of features but also to the size of features and document the perception that features need to fall into a certain size range if they are to be interpreted as supporting household autonomy.
This chapter is structured according to the themes, and further in roughly chronological order: First (8.2), I discuss indicators that have been associated with a ‘baseline’ household autonomy at Early Neolithic central Anatolian sites. Second (8.3), I discuss architectural evidence for suprahousehold integration that spans all periods including the Early Bronze Age. The third and final section (8.4) deals with indicators for household autonomy that are derived from post-6500 BC archaeological contexts and therefore mark the LN/EC movement towards greater household autonomy – beyond the Early Neolithic ‘baseline’. This structure is displayed in Table 8.1, which can be used as a roadmap for navigating this chapter.
The basic social and economic needs of a household are summarised by Cutting (2006b:96) as “rest, cook, eat, sleep and work”. Steadman (2004:531, 533) uses similar criteria when arguing that ‘complete’ houses at Kuruçay 12 or Bademağacı ENII3–4 must have incorporated a cluster of different structures that together fulfilled all the functions of a house. Although the idea of a ‘complete’ house is at least partially based on ethnographic parallels (e.g. Düring 2006:42, 91, 2011c:64), it also makes sense for the central Anatolian prehistoric context. The central Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic household was defined in Chapter 6 (6.2.3) as a social unit that lives together and pools resources. Cutting’s description of the basic set of activities that a household residence needs to facilitate fit this definition. Applying indicators #1 and #2, Düring (2006) equates ‘living rooms’—his term for the typical main room of Çatalhöyük houses which contained fire installations and platforms (Düring 2006:167)—with households. That he counts the number of households at a site or in a neighbourhood by the number of ‘living rooms’ in a house cluster (e.g. Düring 2006:306), and postulates that houses with more than one living room must have housed more than one household (Düring 2006:173, see #74 in Theme 13), clearly shows that the household is equated with a ‘complete’ living unit. The equation of ‘complete house’ with household makes the architectural indicators of Theme 1 the very foundation of the basic autonomy of households that developed at some point during the Early Neolithic (6.2.3).
8.2. Early Neolithic household autonomy 8.2.1. Theme 1: The complete house Several researchers share the notion that there is a basic set of features that a house needs to possess in order to make its residents economically and socially self-sufficient on a basic level. Not always do they specify what features make a house self-sufficient, therefore a headline node (#1) was created to collect all text passages that did not specify individual features, such as Stevanović’s (2012a:77) description of the Çatalhöyük house as a “self-sufficient entity, in the sense that each contained the necessary domestic features for the household or social group that inhabited it in order to fully function”. Closely related to #1 is the notion that to identify a community made up from autonomous households, all or nearly all houses within one occupation level need to be ‘complete’ (#2); otherwise those living in ‘incomplete’ houses had to rely on other households (see #78 in Theme 13). For example, Düring (2007b:163, 176, 2011c:97, 2013a:29) sees the fairly standardised size and furnishing of Çatalhöyük houses as evidence that its community was made up of relatively independent households, and for Hodder (2005b:15), the existence of storage and food production installations in each house as evidence for independent food processing. Some text passages coded for #2 use the term ‘standardised’ (e.g. Düring 2011c:97, 98; Furholt 2017:300) for what I have called here ‘symmetric completeness’ (the code nickname for #2, see Appendix 1). Indicators #1 and #2 are headline nodes that introduce the overall notion contained in Theme 1. They also show that all indicators of Theme 1 view individual houses in comparison to others: that all or most houses within a settlement need a set of basic features if we want to reconstruct a village community made up of households that are autonomous at a basic level. Theme 13, to be discussion in section 8.3, is the counterpart to Theme 1 because it contains the reverse of many of Theme 1’s indicators and interprets them in terms of suprahousehold cooperation, for example viewing houses without hearth (#81) or storage (#83) as not autonomous household residences. Theme 13 in
Indicators #1 and #2 represent a guideline for thought, but an actual list of criteria for discerning a ‘complete’ prehistoric Anatolian house is still needed: what, precisely, are the features that prehistoric Anatolian houses needed to make the inhabiting group self-sufficient on a basic level? Eleven indicators were identified in the literature. Out of those, three deal with the size of buildings (#3–#5), one with fire installations that can be used for cooking (#7), and three with storage facilities (#8–#10). Another indicator (#6) mentions “features related to daily food economy” (Kay 2020:454) which presumably also refers to cooking and/or storage installations. These three topics (house size, cooking installations, storage) are most prominent in Theme 1, which indicates that these are the features many researchers think necessary for an autonomous household to function on a daily basis. The remaining three indicators in Theme 1 (benches, platforms and plaster, #11–#13) 162
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration were less prominent in the literature and are discussed here at the end of the section.
parallels (Düring 2006:91, 102) that vary significantly, and finally seems to settle on between 9 and 12 m2 as the minimum house size for a household of 4–5 people (Düring 2006:90–91, 122, 2011a:64, 97). This book has pledged scepsis towards cross-cultural analogies (2.2), and such scepsis seems especially justified in this case. Düring (2006:90, 111, 2011a:64, 98) himself always qualifies the cross-cultural discussion of minimal house size with the label ‘problematic’. Space requirement is so deeply entrenched within culturally constructed notions of personal space and privacy (Garvey 2005; Leino-Kilpi et al. 2001) that it is not reasonably possible to determine how much space a prehistoric Anatolian household would have needed to be able to cook, sleep, socialise and work in their house. Further, the size of the household (number of people) of course also needs to be known before deciding what an appropriate house size might be; and to reliably reconstruct household sizes is very difficult for the Anatolian Neolithic (6.2.3). There is a third issue: the only measure of house size accessible to archaeologists is the internal area of the lowermost living floor, and even that is only accessible in cases of good preservation and complete excavation of buildings. It is, however, generally accepted that much of daily life took place outside of houses in central Anatolian prehistory: either on rooftops (Theme 9) or in unroofed areas next to houses (Theme 15). The daily social and economic activities that marked autonomous households did not therefore all necessarily have to take place in the house. This, and the fact that some buildings from the Late Neolithic onwards might have had more than one storey (as suggested for Erbaba, Canhasan, Çatalhöyük West and Hacılar; see Chapter 5) must complicate the relationship between the size of the house footprint and the living/activity space available to its residents to the point where it is not realistic to decide whether a house is large enough for an autonomous household. Indicators #3–#5 are therefore accepted in principle, but their application in an analysis would be difficult because the house size appropriate for an autonomous central Anatolian prehistoric household cannot be reduced to a number. Theme 13 will discuss further reasons why house size is a very difficult criterion in the identification of autonomous households.
To contextualise Theme 1, I would like to mention that the indicators in this theme are embedded in a wider field of discussion around the Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic house(hold) as an autonomous productive unit. Research on this issue also refers to non-architectural evidence for food and non-food related production activities performed in the house such as grinding equipment (Cutting 2005b:136; Hodder 2013b:24) or microdebris on floors (Hodder 2013b:23; Matthews 2005b), which are seen as evidence for household autonomy (e.g. Düring and Marciniak 2005:177; Hodder and Farid 2014:27). Because they do not refer to architectural features, these arguments could not be coded for this analysis. Further, the in-house consumption of food is also mentioned by e.g. Düring (2006:122) as an important criterion for household autonomy. However, previous research has not identified clear architectural markers associated with consumption, so it cannot be researched here directly, although features such as cooking installations, benches and sitting platforms might be linked to socialising and food consumption (e.g. Düring 2006:176). House size (#3–#5) Indicator #3 expresses the notion that a house needs to offer a certain amount of space to allow for the entire range of basic social and economic tasks of the household. For example, Düring and Marciniak (2005:177) state that “living rooms at Çatalhöyük are much larger than the rooms of Aşıklı Höyük, averaging about 21 m2 […], giving additional support for the idea that discrete households were present at this site but were lacking at Aşıklı Höyük”. The second indicator in this group (#4) is complimentary to #3: it collects text passages that state that if houses are relatively small, then they probably housed nuclear households, e.g. “each unit [at Çatalhöyük] is quite small, ca. 40 m2 in size, indicating that it was used by a nuclear family” (Garfinkel 2019:81). Together, #3 and #4 function like bookends, expressing that a residence housing an autonomous household should not be too small nor too large. And finally, indicator #5 expresses a notion already identified with #2: to reconstruct that an entire village community was made up of autonomous households, all houses should be of roughly equal size.
Cooking installations (#6-#7) The first indicator in this group, Indicator #6 refers to Kay’s (2020:462) statement, “The premise that each house was home to a self-sufficient household grows from the idea that every house was fully equipped for daily metabolic tasks”. Indicator #6 is similar to indicators #1–#2, but refers more specifically to “features related to daily food economy” (Kay 2020:454). Although the text passages coded for #6 do not specify what installations these are, they are defined as features to “store, process and prepare food” (Kay 2020:462). From this and Kay’s article more generally I infer that he mostly means hearths, ovens and storage facilities. Indicator #6 therefore functions as a headline node for #7 and the following set of indicators, which deal with storage (#8–#10).
In principle, indicators #3–#5 make sense for reasons discussed above for #1–#2: if the central Anatolian household is defined as the basic social and economic unit within village communities, then household residences need a certain amount of space to accommodate necessary daily activities; but maybe not too much since the household only fulfils basic functions. However, how much space was appropriate for an autonomous Early Neolithic household in central Anatolia—neither too little (#3) nor too much (#4)—is much more difficult to decide. The only one to discuss this question in greater detail was Düring (2006). He discusses various ethnographic 163
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia A range of authors specify fire installations (hearth or oven; #7) as a necessary feature of a socially and economically self-sufficient household. Many discussions of the necessity of a hearth in the house centre around Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, where only 35% of the rooms have hearths (Düring 2006:84), including many rooms that are not directly connected to others and could therefore be seen as independent houses (Düring 2006:92). Researchers discussing the phenomenon of the asymmetric hearth distribution at Aşıklı Höyük agree that hearthless houses could not have housed autonomous households (see also #81). Düring (2006:296, 2011c:64; also Uzdurum 2018:39–40) reconstructs a usage pattern at Aşıklı whereby a group of people used several dispersed rooms, including one with a hearth, together as their residence. However, this spatial fragmentation of the household residence is seen as strong evidence that Aşıklı households were dependant on each other to the degree that they might not even meet the basic independence assumed for Early Neolithic households, and are therefore not truly households (Düring and Marciniak 2005:173– 174). Similarly, Steadman (2004:546) sees many Aşıklı buildings as ‘incomplete’ houses and reconstructs biological kinship relations between the group of people who shared the use of several ‘incomplete’ and complete’ houses. At Çatalhöyük East as well, the few examples of houses without a hearth are interpreted as evidence for a close daily social and economic cooperation between different residential groups (Hodder 2014c:17; Hodder and Farid 2014:4, 29; Kay 2020:462; Stevanović 2012c:79).
2006:87). Hodder (2006:147–148, 194) mentions that sometimes figurines were found in hearths of abandoned houses, and sometimes young people were buried close to the hearth rather than under the more commonly used platforms (Hodder 2006:217–218). At Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 as well, burial and hearth are linked insofar as rooms with hearths were preferentially used for burial (Düring 2006:89, 2011a:67; Özbaşaran 1998:560), and Özbaşaran (1998:560) uses ethnographic parallels to argue that the hearth might have been “the heart of the house” and imbued with connotations of life and continuity. While the fact that the hearth might have become charged with householdrelated symbolism does not in itself make it a necessary household feature, the argument that fire installations were a necessary requirement in the Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic for a household to function autonomously on a daily basis is overall convincing, especially regarding the economic aspect of food preparation. When applying indicator #7 in an architectural analysis, however, care needs to be taken since in principle hearths/ovens could also have been located on roofs, upper floors, or in privately owned outdoor areas rather than the ground levels that are normally preserved for excavation. And at Çatalhöyük East, some houses temporarily did not feature fire installations over certain periods of their use-life (Kay 2020) as will be discussed further in Theme 13. The absence of a hearth or oven in a certain room therefore needs to be contextualised with other evidence to be sure about presence or absence. Storage (#8–#10)
Although most text passages coded for #7 do not actually explain the assumed connection between fire installations and household autonomy, it is likely that most authors think foremost of food preparation (e.g. Hodder 2006:180; Steadman 2004:533, 544). Many food-preparation procedures necessitate heat, and a residential group without a fire installation would have had to rely on fire installations located in other buildings or in communal areas, and therefore on cooperation with other households, to fulfil one of the most basic and daily functions of the household as an economic unit: provisioning its members with food. Heat from the oven could also have been used for some manufacturing procedures, and Steadman (2004:537) and Özbaşaran (1998:559) point out that fire installations were also necessary to heat and light the house throughout the cold central Anatolian winters. The presence of a hearth or oven in a building is generally seen as a very strong indication for identifying a relatively autonomous household, even if there is not much other evidence to verify and contextualise this interpretation (e.g. Cutting 2005b:127, 136; Düring 2006:172, 212; Steadman 2004:533, 544).
Indicator #8 expresses the notion that households needed to store their own food to be self-sufficient. All coded examples refer to storage installations located inside houses, and the overwhelming majority to Çatalhöyük. However, as the discussion of #98 in Theme 15 will show, there are some cases (although not those coded for #8) where storage installations located in unroofed areas of Neolithic/EC central Anatolian settlements have been interpreted as belonging to specific households. Cooking (#7) and storage installations are two related issues since they both are interpreted as evidence for the householdbased ownership, processing, and possibly consumption of food (e.g. Düring 2006:296; Hodder 2006:219). The fact that in-house storage is coded for #8 in most of the text passages and simply mentioned as evidence for household autonomy instead of being discussed in detail shows that the connection between both is often seen as self-evident, very similar to #7. However, a few arguments can be drawn from text passages coded for #8: Düring and Marciniak (2005:177) point out that in-house storage shows that each residential group pooled its resources, thus fulfilling one requirement for making it a household. Second, Hodder (2006:94, 219) mentions storage in the context of activities that were shared within a household group, thus drawing attention to the fact that not only the stored resources themselves, but also the work carried out around them (e.g. maintenance of stored goods, pest control) would likely have involved only the household
Looking beyond the text passages coded for #7, there are also indications that the hearth had symbolic and social importance in Neolithic central Anatolia. Preparing or eating food together had a social dimension: “As people ate in the house, the domestic unit was brought together and social relations were formed and reformed” (Hodder 164
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration group, and thus contributed to its identification as a social and economic unit through shared time and work. Lastly, Hodder (2014c:17–18, 2014d:156; also Twiss et al. 2008:54) mentions that the in-house storage has a connotation of ‘hiding’ household-owned resources from the eyes of non-household members, which implies an aspect of privacy and suggests that whatever was stored was not shared between households but was rather owned by individual households. Related to this issue of privacy, indicator #10 also refers to the interpretation that storage being foremost located in side rooms at Çatalhöyük East demonstrates the economic independence of households, e.g. “storage was more common in poorly accessible side spaces than in main rooms, suggesting to several authors that food stores were privately managed property of discrete and economically autonomous households (Bogaard et al. 2009; Twiss 2012). Food sharing between houses, either routinely or through dramatic feasts, proceeded from this basis of fundamental daily autonomy (Demirergi et al. 2014)” (Kay 2020:455).
While it seems straightforward that independent food storage would have been necessary to create an autonomous Neolithic/Chalcolithic household, to a much larger degree than the presence/absence of a hearth, storage is often not clearly archaeologically visible (Anvari 2020). The poor archaeological visibility of storage is a serious issue when actually applying indicator #9 in an architectural analysis. For several reasons, archaeologists can never be sure that the visible storage, e.g. installations such as bins, actually represents the entirety of the storage space available to or used by the household – and vice versa, whether all visible storage space was actually taken up with food, and with what kind of food. Demirergi et al.’s (2014:93–99) discussion of various storage containers at Çatalhöyük reveals that storage took place in a range of mobile, fixed, organic and non-organic containers, or simply on the floor of storage rooms and possibly even outside of the house (see also Atalay and Hastorf 2006; Bogaard et al. 2021:121; Bogaard et al. 2013; Bogaard et al. 2009:660– 663). Thus, it seems impossible to judge with accuracy the total capacity of storage space inside one building at a given point in time and “bin capacity is therefore an imperfect (and conservative) indicator of total storage capacity” (Bogaard et al. 2013:119; similarly Twiss et al. 2009:892). Further, in one text passage coded for #8, Kay points out that a fine-grained stratigraphic analysis reveals that the association of side (storage) rooms with particular buildings at Çatalhöyük fluctuated over time: “Barański et al. (2015) pose a sharp challenge to both the idea of independent household storage and the architectural unity of Çatalhöyük houses, by showing that side spaces (conventionally associated with storage) were often added on to houses, closed before the end of the main house’s occupation, or closed off from one side and connected to a neighbouring house instead” (Kay 2020:456). These observations suggest that even in better preserved and researched houses within central Anatolian archaeology, it is incredibly complex to reconstruct how much storage space was available to a household at any given time. This discussion at Çatalhöyük echos the wider context: A survey of Neolithic storage facilities across Southwest Asia (Bartl 2004) showed just how many different architectural forms are associated with storage – some more, and some less visible to archaeologists.
Different from the hearth indicator (#7), which for the most part means only the presence/absence of a hearth or oven, but similar to house size (#3–#5), storage is a relative variable: How much storage space is enough (and not too much) for a household to store its own food and non-food resources? This leads into the discussion of the next indicator (#9), the argument that households were autonomous if each house has storage space only large enough to feed the household group (e.g. Hodder 2013a:17–18, 2013b:23). Indicator #9 is related to the notions (to be discussed later with Theme 13) that if the house does not have enough storage space to meet the household’s requirements, the resident household was probably engaged in suprahousehold sharing relationships (#85, #86), but that if in-house food storage exceeds a certain size, the very large storage capacity also indicates sharing on a suprahousehold level (#87). In other words, there is a ‘right’ amount of storage capacity that indicates an autonomous household (#9). The discussion around household-appropriate storage space (#9, #85–#87) centres on Çatalhöyük East, where it is embedded in a wider discussion around the social meaning of food consumption and sharing (e.g. Atalay and Hastorf 2006; Bogaard et al. 2009; Demirergi et al. 2014). At Çatalhöyük, there is non-architectural evidence to contextualise the architectural evidence for food storage and processing. This non-architectural evidence, which is actually referenced in several of the text passages coded for #9, indicates a household-based food economy based on microdebris found on the floor which show that plant food, meat and fish were probably processed regularly in small amounts inside the house (Bogaard et al. 2013:127; Hodder 2013a:18, 2013b:23, 2014c:17–18; Hodder and Farid 2014:22), which is confirmed by the size range of East Mound pottery vessels, where large pots are missing (Hodder 2013a:17–18, 2014b:6, 2014d:155–156). However, reconstructing social geography based only on architectural evidence for storage is much more difficult, as will be discussed in the following.
Then there is the issue of determining what was stored in archaeologically visible storage installations. There is an assumption underlying much of the storage and food discussion at Çatalhöyük that the storage bins found in nearly every building were most often used to store plant staple foods, such as grain and pulses (e.g. Atalay and Hastorf 2006:301; Bogaard et al. 2009:661; Hodder 2013b:23). Although grains and pulses were often recovered from bins and other recognisable storage deposits (Bogaard et al. 2021:93; Bogaard et al. 2009:Tables 3–4), the assumption that bins were mostly used for plant staple foods is problematic. For example, in the well-preserved burnt buildings at the top of the East Mound, meat (Twiss et al. 2009:888) and non-food items such as tools and preforms were also found in bins 165
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (Bogaard et al. 2009:657, Table 3; Twiss et al. 2009:888). Moreover, Bogaard et al. (2009:663) raise the possibility that some of the stored plant foods could have been animal fodder.
more situated in a social and symbolic sphere. Benches (#11) and platforms (#12) are mentioned by Cutting (2005b:136, 2006b:96) in the context of her argument that houses at Çatalhöyük East were ‘complete’ and therefore represent residences of autonomous households: “At Çatalhöyük, the ornate buildings were, almost without exception, self-contained household residences containing full sets of routine domestic features (ovens, hearths [#7], benches [#11], storage facilities [#8] and platforms [#12]) and domestic artefacts (food household processing tools)” (Cutting 2005b:136). No real argument is made as to why benches (#11) or platforms (#12) are necessary for household self-sufficiency. However, as mentioned in the introduction to Theme 1, Cutting (2006b:96) names resting, sleeping and working as some of the “basic living needs of a household group”, and it can be inferred that benches and platforms are probably seen by her as resting and sleeping facilities. Düring (2006:167, 176, 212, 2011c:97) also names platforms (#12) as features of a ‘complete’ house at Çatalhöyük East. Using an argument different from Cutting’s, Düring (2006:176–178) focusses on the fact that platforms lead to a subdivision and compartmentalisation of internal space, therefore referring to platforms as compartments (Düring 2006:176). He views this subdivision of internal space as an important feature of Çatalhöyük ‘living rooms’ (e.g. Düring 2006:269, 296, 312), however also without arguing how exactly it supported household autonomy. The relatively standardised internal division of Çatalhöyük houses will be discussed later in this chapter, especially in Theme 12 in the context of rules or shared practices that create suprahousehold ties.
A second issue when applying #8 and especially #9 in an analysis is the difficulty of knowing how much food was needed by a household in order to survive independently. Even if equating bin capacity with the amount of plant staple foods owned by a household, it is difficult to judge how much of such food would have been enough for economic independence. For Hodder’s (2013b:23) argument that typically the storage capacity of Çatalhöyük East houses was to “hold enough staple food to feed a small-scale family for one year”, he cites work by Bogaard et al. (2009; also Bogaard et al. 2013:119, 127). Bogaard et al. use evidence from some of the better preserved houses at Çatalhöyük to postulate that their bin space “would accommodate nearly a ton of cereal grain or similarly concentrated plant food, which approximates the annual staple requirement of a small-scale family (c. 5–7 people)” if the diet did not rely only on such foods, but also included a range of other wild and cultivated foods. These estimations are based on ethnographic studies of diet. By contrast, using ethnographic evidence from interviews with women from the modern village of Küçükköy near Çatalhöyük, Atalay and Hastorf (2006:301) instead state that if assuming the bins were used to store plant staple foods, such as grain, the average bin content of a Çatalhöyük house could have fed a group of 6–8 people for only a few months if grain is eaten as a staple food. These examples already show a level of disagreement about the food requirements of a household at Çatalhöyük. The uncertainty increases when contextualised with a larger study of Neolithic storage by Bartl (2004:39–42) who studied a greater number of ethnographic examples that show clearly that how much plant food an individual person consumes in a given time depends on physical activity as well as overall consumption behaviour and diet, such as the ratio of meat consumption vs. plant consumption. And of course, when dealing with households, the food requirements of the household group also depend on its size, which is known to be a difficult variable in Neolithic archaeology (6.2.3). To conclude: While in principle it makes sense that the independent ownership and storage of sufficient food resources (#8, #9) is of central importance to making an autonomous household, when applying these indicators to an analysis of architecture, researchers should gather all available evidence on storage behaviours and also acknowledge that they will still, very likely, never be able to fully determine the storage capacity available in a particular building. The discussion around storage in the context of household autonomy and suprahousehold relationships will be continued with Theme 13.
Both platforms (#12) and benches (#11) are not convincing as features indicative of household self-sufficiency. Benches and platforms support sitting, sleeping and socialising. Referring to the definition of households in 6.2.3 and above, these activities are associated with household autonomy since the house of an autonomous household needs to accommodate socialising and resting (although these activities can also be done without benches and platforms). However, as already mentioned, in text passages coded for #11 and #12, these indicators are mentioned in a rather cursory way without real discussions of their interpretation as supporting household autonomy. Further, as in the statement by Cutting cited above, in the coded text passages platforms and benches are nearly always mentioned in combination with other installations (mostly fire and storage installations, #7, #8), never as strong stand-alone indicators for the autonomy of households. In that way they are closer to a range of other internal features discussed especially by Düring (2006:178, 211) found in many Çatalhöyük living rooms (e.g. screens, niches, wall paintings, moulded features and subfloor burials), which are, however, not clearly mentioned as connected to household autonomy, and consequently were not coded in this project. Because of the epistemological vagueness around #11 and #12, and because they are not standalone indicators, they are here dismissed.
Benches, platforms and plaster (#11–#13) While in the arguments for indicators #3–#10 economic factors prevail, the arguments for indicators #11–#13 are 166
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration A range of different arguments are named by Düring and Hodder to connect the quality and quantity (i.e. number of replastering events) of wall and floor plaster with the identification of a building as the residence of a selfsufficient household (#13). The discussion centres mainly on Çatalhöyük East, where the number of plaster layers is routinely researched through micromorphology (e.g. Matthews 2005b), which has not been done to the same degree at the other sites studied here. Düring (2011c:64) mentions ethnographic studies in modern Southwest Asia showing “that the best index for households consists of ‘living rooms’ characterised by superior plaster, regular upkeep, and the presence of hearths”. He observed the same principle in archaeological evidence at Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük where ‘living rooms’ were replastered much more often, and with finer and whiter plaster, than side and storage rooms (Düring 2006:165, 166, 176). Düring (2006:165) also connects the frequent replastering to the fact that household residences by common definition contain a hearth and/or oven (#7), therefore the white walls become sooted and need to be replastered regularly to keep the interior of the house bright. A more symbolic meaning of replastering is invoked by Hodder’s argument for a link between replastering and the symbolic upkeep and continuity of the household. He stated that, “The particular historical moment that creates the multiple replasterings at Çatalhöyük seems to involve the housebased construction of continuities and links with the past (ancestors or the dead). It is part of a wider shift from community to household-based organization” (Hodder 2006:128, also 2007:32).
between houses (#17, #18). To an even higher degree than the other themes, Theme 2 relies nearly exclusively on evidence from Çatalhöyük East, the only site among those studied here where in-depth research of construction practices was conducted. Building materials (#14) At Çatalhöyük East, each occupation level represented a mosaic of houses made with different mudbrick materials. A range of authors have interpreted these differences between the specific clay mixtures and brick sizes used to construct houses as indicative of a baseline household autonomy (#14). This interpretation is based on studies by Love and Tung, who, based on patterns in the composition of bricks and mortar used for house construction, established that at Çatalhöyük East, each household manufactured their own bricks, and connect this to social and economic independence (Love 2012:152, 2013a:91; Tung 2013:80). Occasionally, a small group of neighbouring houses share the same brick or mortar recipes, which is accordingly identified as functioning in close social/economic connection (#73; Hodder 2013a:17, 2014b:6, 2014d:155, 156). As will be discussed in Theme 12 (#71), it is only mudbricks and mortar that display such a variety of house-based recipes at the site, not plaster, and this can probably be interpreted as a juxtaposition of community-wide conventions for plaster and householdspecific preferences for mudbrick and mortar. It is mostly the composition of mudbricks that is mentioned in the discussion of #14, but brick sizes are also occasionally referenced, e.g. “These subtle nuisances found in the variability of mudbrick dimensions further supports individualized production and manufacture, reinforcing the idea of household-based production” (Love 2013a:94). Mudbrick manufacture is a process during which the maker(s) can choose from a multitude of different possibilities pertaining to what sediments and temper to mix in at what ratios, so that each brick or batch of bricks “are the result of a complex series of socially informed choices” (Love 2012:141); this makes the mosaic of different brick types at Çatalhöyük seem socially meaningful rather than accidental. Three different mechanisms by which household autonomy can lead to different use of building materials and techniques have been discussed in the literature. First, it was hypothesised that different materials could indicate differential access to clay and/or wood sources in the landscape, and therefore a household- or neighbourhood-specific territoriality outside of the settlement (Matthews 2005b:396; Stevanović 2012a:190, 200, 2013:112). For example, Hodder (2005d:29, 2012b:67–68, 179–182) points out that the existence of rules about digging for clay around the settlement might have been necessary to prevent harm to the complex interaction of water table and vegetation in the marshland surrounding the site, and a similar argument could be made for the management of wood resources around the site (Asouti and Kabukcu 2014; also see Asouti 2013:161 for suggestions of communal control
In the cited text passages, replastering is seen in the context of caring for the house, but also of continuity and repetition, which will be discussed in greater detail with Themes 3–4 and ascribed to suprahousehold control over the house. Further, the house was the stage not only for the social rituals and symbolism of the household, but also and foremost of suprahousehold groups (Theme 14), which is why ‘care for the house’ cannot be unequivocally ascribed to the house’s residents. And replastering specifically might have been performed in the context of ritual events such as burial (Boivin 2000; Stevanović 2012c:56) or the application and concealing of wall paintings (Last 1998a:369, 371), and since symbolic house elaboration is at least partially related to the suprahousehold sphere (Theme 14), replastering could in contrast be interpreted as influence of the suprahousehold sphere over the interior of individual houses. The regular upkeep of highquality plaster (#13) can therefore not be an indicator for household autonomy and is discounted here. 8.2.2. Theme 2: Constructing individualities Theme 2 bundles indicators that express the notion that small or large idiosyncrasies in the construction of individual houses is indicative of household autonomy. It comprises indicators discussing the materials used to build house walls (#14), idiosyncratic choices regarding ovens and hearths (#15, #16) and the non-sharing of walls 167
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia over woodland use around Çatalhöyük and Bogaard et al. 2021:119–120 with a reconstruction showing that specific groups of households farmed only specific parts of the landscape). Studies of mudbrick material use at Çatalhöyük have shown that there was probably no allocation of clay sources to specific parts of the community – households or neighbourhoods (Hodder 2013a:17; Love 2013a:93; Tung 2013:78–79). This does not, however, discount the fact that in principle, differences in building materials between contemporary houses could indicate householdspecific accessibility to resources, thus strengthening the identification of a household as an independent economic unit. It must however be pointed out that while a system of allocating different areas of the landscape to the use of different households for the extraction of building materials would signify economic independence of individual households, it would also attest to a suprahousehold level of organisation and rule enforcement as in e.g. Bogaards reconstruction.
building” (Love 2013c:263). Love argues that within the otherwise relatively uniform built environment (Theme 12) and egalitarian social structure of Çatalhöyük East, house construction provided an opportunity to exhibit household identity in a very visible way since “It was impossible to build a house without being seen by others” (Love 2013c:276). Because brick manufacture and brick laying “was a large-scale, outdoor activity involving a suite of actors, locations and materials over a certain length of time” (Love 2013c:263), it was akin to a performance, and one during which household-specific brick recipes and construction techniques exhibited household-specific identity, that is, before walls were plastered over, and the mudbrick matrix (and the identity statement connected to it) was hidden inside the fabric of the house. Even hidden, mudbrick differences might still have had meaning, though, given that they “are situated in a larger practice of hiding and burying meaningful objects at Çatalhöyük, where unseen objects had as much power and affect as any object on display” (Love 2013c:264, 274–275). The practice of concealing meaningful objects in the house will be further discussed with Theme 3 below, and indeed practices like the burial of people under floors, and deposition of animals parts in the walls of Çatalhöyük houses renders credibility to Love’s argument.
Second, Love (2012, 2013a, 2013c), Stevanović (2012a, 2013) and Tung (2013) relate the act of shared construction to shared practices and knowledge that bind together the group participating in construction. In their interpretation, house-specific building materials indicate that each household was (primarily) in charge of building their own home, thereby reinforcing its identity as a social and economic unit. Not only would working together to construct a house have meant that the builders spent a lot of time together over a certain period of time, likely over the course of a few weeks or months (Stevanović 2012a:202), but house construction also probably represented a particularly meaningful experience for all those involved. Given the multiple social, economic and ritual importances ascribed to Çatalhöyük houses, the creation of a house would likely have constituted an event of special significance for those involved, especially since it was not a daily occurrence (Love 2013c:276; Tung 2013:78). There is evidence that house closure as well as construction involved feasts (Hodder 2006:60; Russell et al. 2014:111, 112) which added to it being a shared meaningful experience (see also Theme 4 on house closure rituals). Tung (2013:67, 74, 78) further stresses the connection between shared building practices and shared knowledge, for example knowledge of the location and properties of raw materials. The sharing of knowledge and sharing of time which provided opportunities for informal socialising that strengthened personal ties, but also and especially the sharing of a significant experience (house creation), are important factors to support the argument that house construction was of significance for the coherence of the building group.
In conclusion, there have been convincing arguments for indicator #14. Given that the discussion of #14 deals exclusively with mudbrick at Çatalhöyük, it remains an open question whether idiosyncratic construction choices are also used at other sites by households to support and express their autonomy. At no other site in the study area were building materials and techniques systematically studied, and often detailed descriptions of e.g. mudbrick colours are not even systematically included in publications. The results from Çatalhöyük show that studying distribution patterns of building materials and construction techniques should be an important concern during future research of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of central Anatolia. Further, due to the focus of Theme 2 on Çatalhöyük, all coded text passages refer to mudbrick houses. There is, however, no reason to assume that similar social processes as those discussed here could not have evolved around the use of wood and stone as building materials, especially at other sites which relied more strongly on stone and wood construction materials. Idiosyncratic hearths and ovens (#15–#16) Indicators #15 and #16 refer to interpretations by Fuchs-Khakhar that idiosyncrasies between Çatalhöyük buildings related to the choice of fire installation (hearth, or oven, or both) and the designs of fire installations are indicative of household autonomy, e.g. “It seems then, that self-sufficient households varied their cooking facilities according to their preferences and needs. Where one house preferred cooking in an oven (B52), the neighbouring house (B49) relied mostly on its hearth, while other households used both fire installations [#15]” (FuchsKhakhar 2019:12) or, “As the varying oven sizes within
So far, house-specific building materials at Çatalhöyük East have been discussed in the context of access to resources and of shared knowledge and practice. As a third argument for indicator #14, Love (2013c) has argued that visible differences in mudbrick fabrics were deliberately displayed during the construction process in order to “mark social identity and autonomy through the performance of 168
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration one building and between houses show, the construction of an oven was an individual matter for each household and changed over time, according to the needs of a growing or shrinking household [#16]” (Fuchs-Khakar 2019:3). In the coded text passages, Fuchs-Khakhar always mentions #15 and #16 in context with individualised preferences and needs that differed between households. In the case of #16, these are preferences related to the size of households (Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:3, cited above, also Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:7) or to choices regarding organisation of internal space (Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:3, 7, 14). In the case of #15, it is preferences related to cooking techniques (FuchsKhakhar 2019:12, 14). Especially the statement that “the construction of an oven was an individual matter for each household [#16]” (Fuchs-Khakar 2019:3, also cited above) shows that households were free as to the choice and design of fire installations. Similar to mudbrick design in #14, indicators #15 and #16 are therefore connected with household autonomy because they show that households were able to choose constructional details of their residence. Different from #14, Fuchs-Khakhar did not relate #15 and #16 with the deliberate performance of this independence.
to share party walls. While party walls occur, they are relatively rare. There is almost a fierce independence in the retaining of independent walls. There is a desire to retain a house-based autonomy. To have party walls would have restricted a particular house’s ability to rebuild or to change” (Hodder 2005d:15). Düring (2006:162) also stresses the aspect of modification to a building: “The near absence of party walls at Çatalhöyük in a densely built up environment seems counterintuitive, given that many building efforts could have been saved if neighbouring units had shared walls. Given the fact that party walls are rare there must have been compelling reasons to built [sic] separate walls for each unit. One reason for this could be the fact separate walls facilitated the individual renovation and reconstruction of buildings. In accidented parts of the mound an additional advantage would have been that buildings could be more easily accommodated to the mound relief” (Düring 2006:162). Related to the observation that non-shared walls allowed independent construction and modification of houses, Heinrich and Seidl (1969:118–119; similarly Hodder 2006:219) stated that they demonstrate sole, unshared ownership of the house by its residents.
Non-shared walls and clustering (#17–#18)
A second argument in relation to #17 is that non-shared walls increase privacy in the case of neighbours being able to surmise events taking place next door: Steadman (2000b:188) points out that double walls “lessened transmission of household noise or smells” between residences. In a third argument, several authors have stated that house-owned walls symbolically create independence through a clear physical boundary as a separation from the next house(hold): “Houses at Çatalhöyük had their own four walls, which could establish a private independence from the neighbours by physically and emotionally creating a boundary” (Love 2013c:274). A related argument is that own walls also visually display household autonomy: “The domestic house, then, constrained by its walls and only peripherally connected to the surrounding houses, was seen as implicitly proclaiming itself to be a self-sufficient entity” (Stevanović 2012c:77). Similarly, Steadman (2000b:188) indicates that non-shared walls could signify a marking of household territory.
Indicator #17 was grouped with Theme 2 because independent walls in the coded passages have, similar to #14–#16, been interpreted to mean that each household controlled and possibly executed the construction of its house autonomously (see below). However, the social meaning ascribed to wall independence, as will be outlined in the following paragraphs, transcends the construction process and also has connotations of house ‘completeness’ as captured in Theme 1 and of independent control over modifications to the house similar to some arguments in Theme 4. Indicator #17 further needs to be seen in context with Theme 9, which discusses clustering (#55) as evidence for suprahousehold integration. There is a shared perception among a range of architecture researchers that the juxtaposition of the dense clustering (#55) typical of Neolithic/Chalcolithic Anatolian sites, and the fact that houses still often had their own independent set of walls (#55) requires some explanation, that it was socially meaningful (e.g. Düring 2006:162, cited below; Hodder 2006:57, 94; Steadman 2000b:188).
Arguments for indicator #17 are therefore similar to the indicators so far discussed in Theme 2. As for #14–#16, an important argument is that #17 indicated that households built, modified, and terminated their houses independently. And indeed, own walls would in principle have enabled households to modify their house without coordinating with others (see #61 in Theme 11 on walls shared between buildings), although when discussing clustering (#55) I will point out that in dense settlements, house construction would never have been an entirely independent undertaking. Also, similar to Love’s argument about mudbrick differences being displayed to visually demonstrate household autonomy (#14), own house walls were also a symbolic expression of independence.
All text passages coded for #17 refer to clustered sites, and most to Çatalhöyük East. Most mentions of indicator #17 assume a connection between independent walls and household autonomy without an explanation for this interpretation. However, a range of arguments can be extracted from the coded text. First, non-shared walls can indicate that each household controlled and possibly executed the construction of its house autonomously. Hodder (2013a:17, 2014d:155) points out that non-shared walls allow the household to retain its ability to change and modify their house without cooperating/negotiating with others: “And yet it is also remarkable that, given such packing [clustering], there is such a strong preference not 169
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia The final indicator in Theme 2 refers to two statements by Rosenstock (2009:217) and Garfinkel (2019:95) that the clustered layout typical of some Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolian sites is the result of individual households being able to make decisions about construction without any suprahousehold coordination of building activities (#18): “At Çatalhöyük the site organization, with its condensed dwelling units and the Iack of passageways, developed without any preplanning, and is simply the final result of activities carried out on the nuclear-family Ievel. There are no indications of extended families or the involvement of a village authority” (Garfinkel 2019:95). In Theme 9, I will discuss evidence that clustering was a deliberate choice made by village communities (not the outcome of chaotic, noncommunally planned construction activities) and that this settlement layout fostered strong suprahousehold ties. Indicator #18 is therefore dismissed.
around them includes genetic evidence. Text referring to mobile ritual items was not coded for this study, only items fixed within the house structure. Cases from Çatalhöyük have shown how portable items with symbolic or social power such as figurines or obsidian were constantly moved and circulated within the built environment (Carter and Milić 2013; Meskell 2015; Nakamura and Meskell 2013). Although the following discussion will show that seemingly fixed ritual items such as animal parts embedded in walls were also sometimes removed and circulated, their at least temporary embedding in a house structure allows for a better stratigraphic control over them whereas the formation processes behind the deposition of mobile items in houses are often more complex. A closer look at the text passages relating to indicator #19 shows that the discussion around ritual house elaboration and household autonomy is nearly entirely based on Çatalhöyük and more recently Boncuklu Höyük, where ritual practices similar to those of Çatalhöyük were found (6.2.3). There are two reasons for this focus on Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Höyük: other Neolithic sites in the study region do not feature ritual house elaboration in the same intensity found at those two sites; and ritual elaboration found at other sites has not been systematically researched in relation to the autonomy question. Canhasan, Bademağacı, and Höyücek are mentioned only once in connection with the debate around #19 (Baird 2012a:453), and this particular text passage clearly shows the transmission of Çatalhöyük/Boncuklu interpretational templates to other sites: “The constant reconstruction of houses on the same location [#28], the elaborate decoration of some houses with paintings and/or reliefs [#19] at Çatal Höyük, Bademaǧacı (Duru 2008: Figure 58), Boncuklu and Çan Hasan I [sic], and the accumulation of particular materials in Sanctuary 3 at Höyücek (Duru 2008), may each reflect the expression of particular household identities, suggesting the importance of a co-resident household” (Baird 2012a:453).
8.2.3. Theme 3: Symbols of the household A majority of the symbolism discussion is based on Çatalhöyük East, where houses were routinely symbolically elaborated to a degree not observed at most other Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites. The symbols at Çatalhöyük have attracted a lot of scholarly attention since the early 1960s, therefore the debate around them and their social meaning is complex and there is a broad range of sometimes contradictory opinions to be found in the literature. Only excerpts of the symbolism debate can be related here for two reasons: first, while symbolism features prominently in both the household autonomy and in the suprahousehold discussions (Theme 14), it has also been discussed in relation to many other aspects of Neolithic life (e.g. domestication, gender relations, Hodder 2006) that are not of direct interest here. Second, as already mentioned, the symbolism has been debated since the 1960s, but household autonomy has only become a topic of scholarly discussion during the last ca. 10 years, so the connection between household autonomy and symbolism is explicitly discussed only in the newer sources. In conclusion, only parts of the symbolism discussion can be mapped onto the present debate of household autonomy.
Why did researchers at Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Höyük conclude that symbolic items located in the house strengthen household identity? Only some of the coded sources give reasons, many more just assume a link between elaboration and household identity, as in e.g. the above cited statement by Baird. However, four interrelated arguments can be identified. First, the location of symbolic items inside the house could have had connotations of ownership or at least non-sharing of ritual beyond the limits of the household: Those who do not live in the house would only get to see and interact with the symbols when allowed inside the house by the resident household, while house residents would have been constantly surrounded by the symbols belonging to their house (Hodder 1996a:48; Last 2005:208). It is argued, in particular, that there is a sense of ownership and privacy if symbolic items are hidden from sight inside the house fabric, under floors or inside walls. When hidden, only those who either saw the item prior to hiding, or were told about it, even know of the presence of the ritual item in the house: “one might
Ritual house elaboration (#19–#20) With indicator #19, I collected statements that in essence argue that when, and because, ritual items are located inside the house, they worked to strengthen the identity of the household group. Items with symbolic connotation can be different at every site, but it is beyond the scope of this discussion to also address the validity of the identification of specific items as symbolic. House elements that are typically interpreted as ritual in the central Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic are: burials located under floors (subfloor), wall paintings, moulded images attached to walls or installations, and artefacts embedded into floors or walls. Whereas the other items of ritual house elaboration were bundled within #19, subfloor burials will be discussed separately (#23) because the discussion 170
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration gradually learn the secrets hidden behind the walls, that a vulture skull was behind that protrusion on the wall, that a fox and a weasel skull were behind that lump of plaster, that there used to be a painting on that wall. And those that lived for long in a house would know in greater detail where individuals were buried, which head came from where, and exactly where the obsidian was hidden beneath the floor near the oven. The more one was in the ‘in group’, the more one would know about what was hidden” (Hodder 2006:169–170, also 184). Again the assumption seems to be that such knowledge would most likely be (mostly) restricted to the actual residents of the house—the household—and Hodder (2006:170) argued that such shared, secret knowledge was used to construct and negotiate membership of the household group; he also seems to envisage social power being drawn from secret ritual knowledge.
routines (Last 1998a:371–374); and some imagery is related to the negotiation—within the household group— of family life and household roles (Hodder 1987:49, 1996a:47). Somewhat related is the fourth argument identified in the discussion around #19: That at least some symbolic imagery, and the timing of its creation, hiding, re-revelation and removal, were related to life cycles of the household, commemorating and marking socially and ritually important events that occurred inside the household group such as birth, ageing and death (Haddow et al. 2015:19; Hodder 1996a:48, 1999; Last 1998a:369, 2005:202; at Boncuklu Höyük: Baird et al. 2017:761, 762) so that the house itself became an archive of family history (Hodder 2005f:184; Last 1998a:370). Last (1998a:369), and similarly Cutting (2006b:96), even suggest that a Çatalhöyük house without ‘decoration’ might not have been a fully functioning house; not a ‘complete’ house.
Second, Hodder (2005c:11, 2005d:23, 2005f:186, 2005h:131, 133, 2006:58; also Asouti 2005a:81) connected the Çatalhöyük ritual house elaboration with a larger process occurring during the earlier Neolithic in Anatolia whereby the location of ritual items changed from being within public space to being inside houses. Hodder compares Çatalhöyük to older sites such as Aşıklı Höyük, as well as Göbekli Tepe and Çayönü in southeastern Anatolia, to argue that the relocation of symbols was part of creating a stronger ritual, social, and economic autonomy of households at Çatalhöyük as compared to the earlier Neolithic. This argument closely relates to indicator #20: that a lack of large, communally used ritual buildings at Çatalhöyük, in contrast to the above-named sites where communal ritual buildings existed, supports the notion that ritual was appropriated by the household (e.g. Asouti 2005a:81; Hodder 2005d:23, 2005f:186, 2005h:131, 133, 2006:58) or at least that the ritual maintenance of suprahousehold ties was weaker than during the earliest Early Neolithic (Düring 2006:310). As a third argument for connecting ritual house elaboration with empowerment of the individual household, elaboration has been understood as part of a larger cultural behaviour of constructing memory and ancestry on the house(hold) level (Baird 2012a:453; Hodder 2005f:185, 186, 2005h:133, 2006; Özbaşaran and Duru 2014:625, 632) that also includes e.g. closure rituals, building continuity (Theme 4) and subfloor burials (#23). Hodder (e.g. Hodder 2006:204, 232) reconstructs that house-based groups at Çatalhöyük, but also in the Anatolian later Neolithic in general, were to a high degree constituted by shared memory and ancestry, and accordingly the management of memory and ancestry was done mostly within the individual household groups. The visualisation of memory and ancestry in the form of ritual items in the house then not only served to bind the household group together, but also to display household autonomy at occasions when they were exhibited to other households (Asouti 2005a:86). Inside this interpretational framework, symbolic items become part of myths and narrations specific to a household (Hodder 2005g:133, 2005h:186, 195, 2006:164, 165); they might have somehow been incorporated into daily social and economic
A number of arguments can be collected to discount indicator #19. Although the mechanisms described so far are, in theory, valid reasons for connecting ritual house elaboration with household autonomy, newer research at Çatalhöyük has started to research ritual house elaboration in new ways that challenge many of the arguments summarised above. Looking beyond the individual house, newer studies focussing on the diachronic and synchronic distribution of ritual items inside four-dimensional space at Çatalhöyük have tended to see ritual practices as mostly organised within the suprahousehold sphere (Theme 14, e.g. Düring 2006; Hodder 2014b; Hodder and Pels 2010). A majority of sources coded for #19, and Theme 3 more generally, were published by the Çatalhöyük team in the 2005/2006 publication cycle, with Hodder’s monograph (2006) providing a comprehensive summary of thoughts he and others had been developing since the 1990s (Hodder 1987, 1996a, 1999) as part of a larger interpretational framework about developments of symbolism and ritual accompanying the origins of agriculture and sedentism (Hodder 1990). The 2005/2006 interpretations on ritual house elaboration were written under the then current opinion that at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük, the independent household, or small groupings of houses, was the most important institution creating social cohesion and integration and managing resources (e.g. Hodder 2005g:29, 2005h:185, 2006:128, 250). This has since been refuted and the current, more rigorously tested knowledge about the social geography of Çatalhöyük demonstrates that social cohesion at the site relied to a large degree on suprahousehold connections (6.2.3; Hodder 2014b). Older sources also tend to treat Çatalhöyük as a homogenous unit whereas the last few years of research at Çatalhöyük, published in the 2013/2014 research cycle, has focused more strongly on development over time (Hodder 2013b:2, 2014b). As a result, important changes to ritual house elaboration after 6500 BC were identified. As the Theme 5 discussion will show (also see 6.2.3), ritual house elaboration at Çatalhöyük declines after 6500 BC alongside increasing household autonomy. This, too, is an argument against assuming that elaboration functioned primarily to strengthen individual households: if that were the case, we 171
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia should rather expect to see an increase of elaboration after 6500 BC. In sum, newer and more detailed analyses have modified the simple equation of ‘symbols in the house = symbols of the household’. Indicator #19, as a default attribution of house elaboration to the household sphere, will therefore be discounted here. And although the presence of community buildings (#103) will be found in Theme 16 as indeed marking suprahousehold integration, the absence of such buildings (#20) cannot automatically be equated with an absence of suprahousehold shared ritual, since such shared ritual can also become visible in different architectural form, of which many examples will be discussed in Theme 14. Indicator #20 is therefore also discounted.
which symbols to use, very much on a household level” (#21, Hodder 2006:143). Ritual idiosyncrasies were also observed at Boncuklu and associated with household identity-making: “While the Boncuklu houses display a general schema in terms of a structured use of space and the marking of spatial divisions, specific symbolic elements are deployed in an individual fashion within houses. […] This symbolic repertoire thus seems to express individual household identities [#21] as well as broader community ritual and symbolic concerns [#88]” (Baird et al. 2017:760–761). Interestingly, in this particular example, ritual expression is interpreted as both following communal guidelines as well as expressing household autonomy.
There is a noteworthy difference between interpretations of house-related ritual at Çatalhöyük as compared to Boncuklu Höyük: Whereas Çatalhöyük ritual is now interpreted as having mostly supported suprahousehold ties, the Boncuklu team interprets all house-related ritual—of which much is similar to later house-related ritual at Çatalhöyük (6.3.2)— as administered by the resident households, for household purposes. In this reconstruction, symbolic imagery [#19], subfloor burial [#23], and building continuity [#28] served the formation of household identities through ancestry- and memoryconstruction and idiosyncrasies in ritual expression that feature slight differences between houses (Baird et al. 2017:761, 762, 766–767; Baird et al. 2012:234–235). This discrepancy between interpretations at Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük could either represent interpretational preferences in the excavation teams, or actual differences between ritual practices at the two sites. If the latter is the case, this could demonstrate change throughout the Early Neolithic on the Konya plain. Since this question concerns the Early Neolithic, it is beyond the scope of this book to discuss in detail. Here, it shall suffice to conclude that the Boncuklu evidence is not strong enough to change my opinion that #19 should be discounted, because the Boncuklu literature has not yet provided a comprehensive discussion of why elaboration supported household autonomy instead of suprahousehold ties – this is rather assumed, not argued, in the coded sources.
Theme 2 has already discussed the use of idiosyncrasy— i.e. differences, possibly subtle— between the configurations of individual houses in the construction of household autonomy. Indicator #21 fits within this same pattern. At Çatalhöyük, the issue of idiosyncratic ritual expression has actually been researched systematically by Mazzucato (2019) who mapped a broad range of ritual and non-ritual features and their distribution across houses to identify different communities of practice within one building level. This observation has been coded as indicator #73 in Theme 11 and is cited as evidence in the Çatalhöyük literature for suprahousehold ties. The recent literature has not, by contrast, described individual houses with ritual idiosyncrasies that are not shared with neighbouring buildings and interpreted that as supporting household autonomy (#21) – although that does not necessarily mean that such single-house idiosyncrasies did not exist, just that they do not feature in the present Çatalhöyük research. In any case, there is not currently firm evidence at Çatalhöyük to support indicator #21. Nevertheless, I would like to very tentatively accept this indicator for two reasons: First, because Theme 2 offers some support to the possibility that subtle differences in ritual expression between individual houses supported some ritual autonomy of household underneath the mostly suprahousehold organisation of ritual that characterised Neolithic Çatalhöyük, similar to the way subtle differences in mudbrick composition between houses communicated household autonomy underneath the overall very similar configuration of Çatalhöyük houses (#14). And second, to foster future research into this possibility of householdlevel ritual idiosyncrasies.
Idiosyncrasy and symmetry (#21–#22) That indicator #19 was discounted does not, however, mean that by default all Çatalhöyük ritual should be attributed to a suprahousehold sphere; it is possible that some ritual was organised by households and served to bond the household together while other ritual practices functioned on a suprahousehold level. And in fact, there have been suggestions that idiosyncrasies in the ritual elaboration of different houses (#21) identify ritual as being household-controlled. For example, Hodder mentioned that “the art produced in neighbouring buildings is often quite different within an overall canon” (Hodder 1996a:47) and understands this to mean that “Despite the overall conventions on where symbols should be located [#69], people were able to pick and choose the specifics of
Indicator #22 describes Düring’s (2006:217, 2007a:136) tentative interpretation that the Çatalhöyük wall paintings belong within the household sphere because they occur in nearly every house unlike other symbolic items, which were irregularly distributed and therefore probably organised on a suprahousehold level (#92): “More than half of the living rooms excavated in the 1960s at Çatalhöyük have evidence of wall paintings, and in the new excavations wall paintings are even more common. It seems plausible that wall paintings are part of the normal set of practices that occur in every building at the site. In this respect, they can be contrasted with the moulded 172
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration features and installations and the sub-floor burials at the site” (Düring 2011c:102–103). Düring’s statements are based on evidence excavated up until 2006, as the footnotes associated with the cited passage reveal. More recent evidence does not confirm his observation: the most recent overview of wall paintings counts 65 paintings discovered until 2011, and these 65 paintings are located in 30 buildings (Czeszewska 2014:187–190). A small handful more of new paintings were discovered during the excavation seasons 2012–2017 (Hodder 2014e:9– 10; Hodder 2017:11). The number of 30 buildings is substantially lower than the total number of buildings excavated at the site: Hodder’s (2021a:11, Table 1.4) final tally of buildings excavated by the Çatalhöyük Research Project (ÇRP) lists 81 buildings, and to this figure buildings excavated by Mellaart that were not re-excavated by the ÇRP must be added. However, because wall paintings were so frequently painted over and can only then be recovered if the extremely thin layers of plaster are slowly removed through painstaking work, the number of recovered wall paintings is probably significantly lower than the number of paintings that actually existed in the excavated buildings. Hodder therefore hypothesised that “most if not all buildings at Çatalhöyük had some form of paintings on their walls at some time during their occupation. Often these paintings were only visible for a short period of time before being covered over again in white plaster” (Hodder 2014e:9; similarly, Hodder 2017:11). While there is thus no firm evidence to support Düring’s statement “that wall paintings are part of the normal set of practices that occur in every building at the site” (Düring 2011c:102–103), the excavation team believes that this probably was the case. Additionally, there is some proof for #22 in the fact that the distribution of painting tools and materials strengthen the impression that wall paintings were created by each household: “Çamurcuoğlu [2013] indicates that painted plasters, pigments and stone palettes/tools are found within buildings and spaces in all contexts. Çamurcuoğlu interprets the evidence in terms of house-based painting activity” (Hodder 2014d:161; also Hodder 2013a:20). This argument might work even if the actual content of the paintings sometimes indicates connections between households through similarity to other paintings in other houses (#90), or because the painted scene depicts— possibly ritual—group activities (Hodder 2005g:15, 2006:30–31): the act of creation was still done and controlled by the individual household. Indicator #22 is also reminiscent of Theme 1, where the relatively equal distribution of features across contemporary houses was identified as evidence for household autonomy. Because of the tentative evidence in favour of #22 outlined here, and a lack of evidence to the contrary, #22 is tentatively accepted here.
Anvari 2022 for an overview of burial locations in Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia). This discussion will first concentrate on Çatalhöyük and later discuss Aşıklı and Boncuklu Höyük. The arguments for why Çatalhöyük subfloor burials display a strong household identity are very similar to those discussed above for other forms of ritual house elaboration (#19). Subfloor burials, keeping deceased household members close to the living, are associated strongly with the control or ownership of individual households over their own sphere of memory and ancestry at Çatalhöyük (Asouti 2005a:84; Hodder 2005h:133, 2006:164). Ancestry, articulated in the location of burials under living rooms, might have been relevant to the living members of the household for obtaining and maintaining household-specific access to economic and social resources (Baird 2012b:460; Hodder 2007b:32), for example to claim ownership of the house itself (Hodder 2005h:137, 2006:249). Burials also bind living household members to the house and therefore create strong social cohesion between them (Hodder 2005f:195, 2005h:137, 2006:165). Burials and the deaths of household members also mark important transformative events in the history of the household, and the collection of burials under the house floor become part of the tangible archive of the household’s shared history (Haddow et al. 2015:19, 20; Hodder 2005f:195, 2006:165): “the lifecourse of houses and the individuals associated with them were deeply intertwined and, moreover, can be seen to be part of a shared biography that was achieved through the periodic and episodic embedding of bodies—whole or in part—within them. In so doing, the social and biological vicissitudes of life for the Neolithic inhabitants of Çatalhöyük—birth, changes in status, demographic crises, death, the unification/dissolution of lineages, etc.—were inscribed in the architectural record of their buildings” (Haddow et al. 2015:24). Burials might even have been catalysts for important household decisions such as house abandonment and renewal (Baird 2012a:460; Haddow et al. 2015:23; Matthews 2005a:132). As mentioned, the arguments for an association of subfloor burials with household autonomy are essentially similar to those for indicator #19: they take the location of burials in individual houses as evidence that individual households organised and benefitted from this ritual practice. Similar to #19, concerning Çatalhöyük, most text passages coded for #23 are older and the same process of re-interpretation that was described above for #19 has also affected indicator #23. At Çatalhöyük, the equation of ‘burial inside house = burial by and for the household’ is too simplistic since newer and more complex analyses of burials within four-dimensional space at Çatalhöyük have found strong arguments for associating burials with suprahousehold ties. There are two main reasons for this re-interpretation, which will be discussed more fully in Themes 14 and 5: First, burials are not evenly distributed between contemporary houses (#91 in Theme 14), indicating that burial location was part of a negotiation between households, and that people from different households were buried together. Also, genetic and biodistance studies
Burials: subfloor and chambers (#23–#19) The discussion around the social interpretation of subfloor burials (#23) is again mainly based on Çatalhöyük, although a number of Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia feature this burial form (see Byrnes and 173
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia at Çatalhöyük showed that the people buried together were not genetically related (Yaka, Mapelli, et al. 2021; also see #91). These two findings effectively undermine the assumption, intuitively assumed by many researchers (e.g. Duru 1996c:120; Heinrich and Seidl 1969:115; Hodder 1987:46; Mellaart 1964:93, 1967:205; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:78; Yakar 1991:208, 220), that indicator #23 is founded on: that those buried in or under the house previously lived in the house, and that they are of the same biological kin as each other and as the people still living in the house. At the same time, since the genetic evidence mentioned above also possibly indicates that households were not composed of biologically related people (Hodder 2014b:8, 2021a:27), it therefore cannot actually be used as evidence against #23. If households were not genetically related, then the observation that people buried together were not genetically related cannot count as evidence against the co-burial of household members. However, the uneven distribution of burials among contemporary buildings, which produced a high number of buildings that did not feature any burials (#91), is a strong argument against #23. Second, the fact that—similar to ritual elaboration more generally (#19)— subfloor burials decrease or disappear after 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük in connection with increasing household autonomy (#31 in Theme 5; also Byrnes and Anvari 2022) is a strong indication that burial indeed functioned mostly to connect households on a suprahousehold level (Theme 14) and did not foremost support household autonomy. If subfloor burials had been closely related to household autonomy, this practice should have intensified, not decreased, after 6500 BC.
burial distribution. Most recently, genomic evidence from Aşıklı Höyük Levels 4 and 2 as well as Boncuklu Höyük has demonstrated that—different from Çatalhöyük— people buried together in the same or neighbouring buildings were closely related biologically (Yaka, Mapelli, et al. 2021). Although it is by no means certain that people were buried in the buildings where they lived, this provides some support for the assumption that households buried their members inside the household residence at Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu Höyük. At Boncuklu, even before the genomic evidence, subfloor burial was already interpreted as supporting household identity (e.g. Baird 2012a:460; Baird et al. 2017:764), and the associated text passages read like a default association of subfloor burials with the household sphere rather than a well-considered interpretation. However, based on the genomic evidence, Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük might indeed have featured different burial practices than Çatalhöyük, and burial at the two older sites might indeed have been managed mainly by households, not suprahousehold groups. The potential difference currently indicated by the available data between Aşıklı and Boncuklu Höyük on the one hand, and Çatalhöyük on the other, will be further discussed in Theme 14 with #91 in the context of a spatial distribution of burials, which offers additional support to an interpretation of subfloor burials at Aşıklı and Boncuklu as having functioned on a household level. Where does that leave indicator #23? As a general interpretation of all subfloor burials in Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolia supporting household autonomy, indicator #23 cannot be accepted. The discussion on #91 in Theme 14 will show that it is probably the relatively even distribution of burials between buildings—such as at Boncuklu and Aşıklı, where the aDNA evidence can be used to back up the interpretation of household-based burial practices— rather than the location of burials under the floors, that should be seen as evidence that burials were administered by the individual households. Therefore indicator #23 is not accepted here.
Outside of Çatalhöyük, Düring (2011c:67) and Özbaşaran (1998:560) tentatively link subfloor burials at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 with household identity. A total of 70 sub-floor burials have been excavated and published from Aşıklı Hӧyük Levels 3–2 (Düring 2011c:67). Of the burials for which location is known, 80% were found under rooms which contained a hearth, and about half of the remains show signs of burning (Düring 2006:89). This suggests symbolic links between burial and fire/hearth, and possibly between burial and households which centred around hearths (Düring 2011c:67; Özbaşaran 1998). However, Düring’s (2006:86–89) longer discussion of burial distribution at Aşıklı Level 3–2 shows that the contextual data for this conclusion is not reliable: in most houses the subfloor area was not excavated, and the location of every known burial is not published so that the sample might be distorted. Also, the relatively low number of burials (n = 70) found as compared to the expected number of residents at the substantial Level 2 settlement show that only some members of the village community were buried inside the settlement (Düring 2011c:67–68, 108–110), and the limited selection of people for burial inside the settlement is interpreted by Düring and Marciniak (2005:175) as indicating that burial was regulated by a suprahousehold group, like the neighbourhood. The ongoing excavations and research at Aşıklı Höyük might produce new interpretations of burial practices in the future based on
The second indicator in this group, #24, refers to the two burial chambers excavated in one of the uppermost levels of the Çatalhöyük East Mound. Two different burial chambers were found with a temporal gap of ca. 55–155 years between the disuse of the first and the construction of the second, and Marciniak (Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:174) has suggested that this timeframe “may indicate a […] memory regime that probably referred to the past of the individual household and its specific genealogy”. As in many text passages coded for #23, this statement assumes rather than proves that a particular household undertook and benefitted from the ritual connected with the burial chamber. By contrast, the relatively high number of individuals in each chamber (8–9 individuals in Sp.327, 9–14 individuals in Sp.248; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:170–171), paired with the fact that none of the houses in these latest levels of the East Mound featured subfloor burials (Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:155), could be used as evidence for the suprahousehold pooling of burials in the chambers. Like #23, indicator #24 is here 174
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration discounted because it appears to be founded on a default interpretation of burial as household-organised that does not hold up to scrutiny.
a lot of attention from the research community, despite only a minority of buildings actually being burnt (Haddow et al. 2015:23; Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.5). Some of the burnt buildings at Çatalhöyük were investigated for the cause of the fire, and were identified as having been deliberately set ablaze, rather than burnt accidentally or through arson or warfare. The fact that they were ritually cleaned and prepared in the ways mentioned above served as evidence that house burning was deliberate, and part of the abandonment ritual (Haddow et al. 2015:22; Taylor et al. 2015:128–129). Further, the specific and idiosyncratic ways in which buildings burned is suggestive of a controlled process (Cessford and Near 2005; Haddow et al. 2015:22; Harrison et al. 2013; Hodder 2005c:12, 2013a:17; Twiss et al. 2008). Most house burnings at Çatalhöyük were therefore probably intentional. As summarised in Chapter 5, many other sites in the study area also featured burnt buildings, and Düring (2006:272–273, 2011c:165) has raised the possibility that these burnings might also have been intentional, but this has not yet been supported with proper analyses.
8.2.4. Theme 4: Leaving and continuing the house Theme 4 also describes house-related ritual, but was separated here from Theme 3. While Theme 3 in essence refers to the deposition of ritual items within houses, Theme 4 refers to a set of practices that accompanied the closure and foundation of houses. Ritual practices accompanying the abandonment, closure and rebuilding of houses were observed mainly at Çatalhöyük East, but partially (#28) also at Boncuklu Höyük and Aşıklı Höyük. This set of practices is poorly explored in terms of the household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration balance, and there seems to be much future research potential especially in relation to possible changes in house closure rituals after 6500 BC. This section first discusses ritual practices related to house abandonment (#25–22) and then practices that supported continuity between successive buildings (#28–#29). I will show throughout this section that these two sets of practices were connected in many ways. House closure rituals might better be referred to as house closurecontinuity rituals, but I will continue to refer to them here as house closure rituals for the sake of brevity.
The final step of the abandonment process was often the construction of a new building on top of the abandoned one. This practice, called building continuity, will be discussed below (#28) and has also been observed at Boncuklu and Aşıklı Höyük. Here, building continuity is relevant in the context of foundation deposits. Since the closing and dismantling one house and the erection of the next house seems to have happened in close temporal proximity—at least at Çatalhöyük, which has the highest resolution of stratigraphy and radiocarbon dating of the three sites featuring building continuity—it is likely that house abandonment and rebuilding at this site was one connected process (Düring 2011c:114; Farid 2014:93; Hodder and Cessford 2004:32; Russell et al. 2014:113). As stated by Hodder (2013a:16), “In fact it is often difficult to define the difference between the ending of one building and the beginning of another in the continuous sequence of dismantling and founding a new house”. There is evidence that house closure and foundation was accompanied by ritual feasting, and the feasting remains were buried as commemorative deposits under infill of abandoned houses or under the walls or floor of newly founded houses (Hodder 2005f:186; Hodder and Cessford 2004:32; Russell et al. 2009:106; Russell et al. 2014:117). In other cases, human burials deposited inside the infill of abandoned houses or under walls of newly founded houses are interpreted as foundation deposits (Hodder 2005f:186; Russell et al. 2009:106; Russell et al. 2014:117). Although most authors use the term ‘foundation deposit’ for these deposits (but see Russell et al.’s 2009 ‘commemorative deposits’), they are stratigraphically between the abandonment of one and the foundation of the next house. I therefore counted them as part of the house closure-continuity ritual and subsumed them under #25.
Leaving the house (#25–#27) At Çatalhöyük East, most houses were ritually closed upon abandonment (#25). Five subsets of closure practices were observed: cleaning of the house interior, deposition of closure deposits, dismantling of the house shell, intentional house burning, and the deposition of foundation deposits. The cleaning or preparation of the house interior could include the removal of valuable objects such as wooden posts and ladders as well as ritual items such as mouldings and paintings. Installations such as ovens and bins were either removed or stabilised by infilling with sediment to prevent collapse. Sometimes floor and wall plaster were removed, possibly for reuse in another building (Hodder 2005f:186). Closure deposits were for example human skulls, parts of animal heads, sprinkled red ochre, figurines, grain or other objects that were placed on the floors, in postholes or bins (Düring 2006:161; Farid 2014:92–93; Hodder 2005f:186, 2005h:134; Hodder and Cessford 2004:32–33; Hodder and Farid 2007:52; Last 2005:201; Matthews 2005a:145–146, Table 9.3; Russell et al. 2014; Stevanović 2012c:70–74). Afterwards, the roof and the upper part of the walls of nearly all houses were dismantled and the buildings filled in with fairly sterile (artefact-less) sediment that might have been specially prepared (Martin and Russell 2000:64–66; Matthews 2005a:129, 133). Some buildings were intentionally burned as part of the abandonment process. Although this practice is discussed here as part of closure rituals (#25), I attributed the intentional burning of houses upon abandonment its own indicator number (#26) because this practice will be discussed again throughout the remainder of the book (#35, #139) and has also otherwise received
Just as the indicators of Theme 3, the Çatalhöyük house closure-continuity rituals were first investigated when the ritual elaboration of houses was still attributed practically 175
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia by default to household identity, and it is therefore not surprising that abandonment rituals as well were assigned to the realm of household ritual supporting household autonomy. Different from Theme 3, there has been no reinterpretation of the Theme 4 indicators in recent years: some newer publications from Çatalhöyük still portray them as supporting household identity (e.g. Russell et al. 2014:119, 120) and there have also not been clear refutations of #25 in the new literature. Closure rituals are interpreted—similar to the Theme 3 discussion—as part of the memory-, ancestry- and continuity-building and appropriation of ritual that strengthened household identity and asserted the position of households within the community, e.g. their right to access certain resources (e.g. Baird 2012a:453; Hodder 2005c:14, 2005f:186, 195, 2005h:134). For example, closure and foundation deposits are interpreted by Russell et al. (2009:108, 120; Russell et al. 2014:119) as supporting household autonomy: “the commemorative deposits are hidden, and specifically hidden in houses. This certainly suggests that they were considered to carry power that was harnessed for the benefit of the household, and also shielded so as to avoid inadvertent harm to those coming in contact with them, or to prevent outsiders from appropriating their power” (Russell et al. 2009:120).
their houses, but that burials of several households were clustered within a few buildings in suprahousehold coburial groups (#91 in Theme 14), it is quite likely that a particular individual that might have induced the closure of a house did not reside in this house prior to death. If the person was not a member of the household, the fact that the death of a non-resident was a reason to close the house could instead be seen as evidence for suprahousehold ties. An automatic equation of closure/foundation rituals (#25, #26) and a household sphere of ancestry- and identitymaking is therefore rejected here. Additional evidence to see house closure-continuity rituals within the suprahousehold sphere comes from the already mentioned feasting deposits (part of #25) that were deposited either on the floors of to-be-infilled houses as closure deposits, or in the sterile infill of houses as foundation deposits. These have been interpreted as the remnants of festivities or perhaps work-feasts that went along with house closure and construction, which must have required weeks of labour for a group of people (Russell et al. 2014). The composition and size of these deposits clearly show that a larger number of people were involved in these feasting events: “Like other feasting deposits at Çatalhöyük, these are always partial: they contain remains of multiple animals, but never anything close to an entire individual. This suggests that the remains are divided among more than one house, and that house closure feasts, while tied (perhaps) to the end of a single house, are multi-household in scale. Indeed this is also implied by the amount of meat: several caprines and certainly several aurochsen would feed many households, possibly even the whole settlement in the case of multiple aurochsen” (Russell et al. 2014:117; also Hodder 2006:172). Russell et al. (2009:121) also point out that there is an asymmetry of distribution of foundation/abandonment deposits as well that could indicate suprahousehold relation the same way that other asymmetrically distributed ritual (Theme 14) did: “Rather, not all houses are suitable for holding either burials or commemorative deposits, perhaps because their occupants do not constitute an independent household but are spatially separated adjunct of another house (Düring 2005), or because houses of lineage heads are the centers of ritual” (Russell et al. 2009:121). And finally, it is possible to argue that no house abandonment and dismantling could ever have happened without at least the passive involvement of neighbours in such dense living conditions as at Çatalhöyük or Aşıklı Level 2. By passive involvement, I mean that residents in neighbouring house plots were aware and accepting of the ongoing work, and increased traffic, dust and noise that necessarily went along with house construction and destruction: “What must have been a major disruptive exercise appears nonetheless to have been carried out whilst neighboring houses continued in use” (Farid 2014:93). It is especially impossible to imagine the controlled burning of one house (#26) without the involvement of neighbours, who presumably needed to be part of making the necessary precautions to prevent damage to adjacent structures.
As with many indicators in Themes 3 and 4, there is very little explicit discussion for why closure rituals were controlled or conducted by the individual households; rather, this seems to have been assumed quite automatically as part of an overall ‘house-related ritual = ritual by and for the household’ notion that prevailed at Çatalhöyük until a few years ago, as already discussed. For example, (most) houses were ritually terminated before becoming structurally unstable (Matthews 2005a:145), inducing researchers to discuss what might have prompted house closure, with suggested reasons for this having mostly been assumed to be within the household sphere. In some cases, there is evidence that the timing of abandonment and rebuilding might have been determined by the death and interment of a certain individual, when stratigraphic evidence and the condition of skeletons indicated that one particular individual was buried in the house just before abandonment (e.g. Haddow et al. 2015:24). Based on the assumption that this individual must have been a member of the household residing in the house in question (#23), the timing of house abandonment was then seen as additional evidence to support the view of closure rituals as within the household sphere (e.g. Haddow et al. 2015:24; Russell et al. 2014:120). Other, not directly archaeologically verifiable household events, such as marriage or illness, were also named as reasons for house closure and foundation (e.g. Matthews 2005a:145; Russell et al. 2014:120). However, if the death of a certain individual was in some cases reason for house abandonment, this individual does not necessarily need to have been a member of the household living in the house that was chosen as burial location, as pointed out by Russell et al. (2014:120). In fact, given the already discussed observation that most people were not buried in 176
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration More promising are suggestions to relate closure rituals with household autonomy when and if they were idiosyncratic. Among the many possible different practices to choose from for closure ritual (see above), Çatalhöyük houses often received quite idiosyncratic treatment (#27), and sometimes different consecutive house versions within the same continuous house stack (see building continuity, #28) received similar abandonment treatments (e.g. Hodder 2005c:12, 2005f:188, 2013a:16; Hodder and Cessford 2004:32–33; Matthews 2005a:145–146, Table 9.3). Further, different houses were abandoned and rebuilt at different times, each house following its own schedule (Farid 2007:52; Hodder 2014b:6). Therefore, in most cases at Çatalhöyük, abandonment rituals (#26) were idiosyncratic (#27). Hodder (2013a:16–17, 2014c:17, 18) interprets idiosyncratic house closure rituals as preserving household identities within the tight-knit Early Neolithic village community. Russell et al. (2014:119) make similar observations, for example: “Rare and distinctive obsidian tool types appear as both closing deposits and caches in B.56 and B.44 [two successive houses within one house stack]. These material constructions of memory hint at a household identity maintained through the generations, in part through the material incorporation of meaningful objects into the house”. Such idiosyncratic closure practices seem meaningful since they contrast with other cases where closure treatment is similar between houses, for example, “there is a wider pattern of placing obsidian points in western retrieval pits. So the memories involved in these practices in Buildings 1 and 5 may be larger in scale than the house” (Hodder 2005f:187, 191).
as the foundation upon which a new structure was raised” (Düring 2011c:65). This practice is interpreted as the continuous re-creation of a particular house over centuries, and the various consecutive houses are therefore essentially all the same house (Düring 2011c:114). Not every building was renewed, and how often buildings were rebuilt was highly variable (Düring 2006:220; Farid 2007:52). Some house stacks at Çatalhöyük, made up from continuous houses, span up to seven rebuilding episodes (also Düring 2006:246, Figure 6.27). The duration of use of individual houses was anywhere between 20 and 140 years (see Kujit 2018:571 with a summary of the discussion, also Bayliss et al. 2014). Continuous house stacks could therefore have lasted several hundred years. Even though it has been argued (see Düring 2005:4, 2009:29, 2011c:66 for a discussion) that practical considerations prompted the use of old walls as foundations for new ones, thus increasing stability, or that the tight clustering of buildings (#55) might have prevented radical changes to their layout, a further investigation of building continuity makes it more likely that it was a deliberately chosen ritual practice (Düring 2005, 2009, 2011c:66): Apart from the location of walls, other house features were continued as well, such as hearths, activity patterns shown by microdebris, or painted and moulded ritual items, which often occur in the same spot in the house across different levels (Düring 2011c:66, 114; Hodder 2005f:187, 188, 2006:227, 2013b:25, 2014b:6; Hodder and Cessford 2004:20, 35; Matthews 2005a:147). These practices of continuing individual features in the house were here subsumed as part of building continuity (#28). As already mentioned, closure rituals (#25–#27) and continuity rituals (#28–#29) were probably in many cases a continuous process in terms of their timing. Also, some form of orderly abandonment seems a prerequisite for building continuity and Düring (2009:33) suggests that the wish to replicate the building could have been a reason why buildings were so carefully dismantled and stabilised.
Since it fits within the wider pattern of a relationship between household autonomy and architectural idiosyncrasy already discerned in this chapter (#21, Theme 2), indicator #27 is tentatively accepted as a potential indicator of household autonomy. However, house closure rituals deserve a systematic re-interpretation in the context of new insights into the social geography of Çatalhöyük since the 2013/2014 publication cycle. Finally, I would like to mention that there are cases where a small group of neighbouring houses shared similar idiosyncratic abandonment treatments, and this is interpreted by Hodder (2014d:162) rather as a sign for suprahousehold connections. These examples were therefore coded with indicator #73.
Building continuity (#28) has been interpreted as a practice connected to household autonomy for similar reasons as other ritual practices discussed in Theme 3: Because building continuity practices appear to have been concerned with continuing individual houses, they are seen as supporting the maintenance of continuous ancestral lines that served to bind the household together and assert its place (quite literally) inside the community (Baird 2012b:453; Baird et al. 2012:234; Haddow et al. 2015:19; Hodder 2005f:195; Twiss et al. 2008:42). Specifically, it has also been argued that building continuity binds a household to place, thereby building household identity through spatial continuity (Baird 2005:71; Baird et al. 2012:234) and strengthening the ownership of this particular spot in the settlement, this house, by a particular household (Baird et al. 2012:234; Cutting 2005b:127). Rosenstock (2009:221) points out that a strong attachment of individual households to place might have been both reason for and result of building continuity. At Boncuklu Höyük, Baird (2012a:460) sees evidence for connecting burial with the timing of house rebuilding and household cycles. Further, building continuity has also
Continuing the house (#28–#29) When Çatalhöyük houses were rebuilt over older houses, in a majority of cases the new house replicated the footprint of the previous building (Düring 2006:161, Figure 6.27; Farid 2014:Figure 4.6a). This practice has been termed as building continuity (#28) and is also observed at Aşıklı Höyük (Düring 2006:97, 2011c:65; Özbaşaran 2011:108) and Boncuklu Höyük (Baird et al. 2017:763; Baird et al. 2012:234). Building continuity is defined by Düring as a practice whereby “buildings were continuously reconstructed on the same spot, with the same dimensions and orientations as older buildings, using existing walls 177
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia been interpreted as strengthening the household through a specific form of architectural, and thereby social and symbolic, reproduction (Haddow et al. 2015:19): The continuous destruction and renewal of the house can be seen in the context of other house-related practices that involve destroying something in order to create it anew, or hiding something and retrieving it later. Such practices built continuity of the house, and the social group(s) related to it, precisely not by the conservation of built features, but by their constant renewal and reproduction. These practices include: destroying a seemingly usable house only to erect a more or less exact copy of it (#28); creating wall paintings, but then hiding them under a layer of white plaster, only to create a new painting later (Baird 2012a:453; Düring 2011c:100–101; Hodder and Farid 2014:17; Last 2005:202, 207); and the hiding of animal parts or human bones in the house fabrics, which were sometimes retrieved at a later point (Hodder 2006:144– 146, 238).
with communal control over built space. Further, just like ritual elaboration (#19) and subfloor burials (#23), building continuity (#28, #29) decreases after 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük alongside increasing household autonomy (see #33 in Theme 5), and this observation severely undermines claims that building continuity supported household autonomy. 8.3. Suprahousehold integration 8.3.1. Theme 9: Living close together One of the most iconic features of (some) Neolithic/ Chalcolithic settlements in central Anatolia is the dense clustering of buildings within them, with often only a few centimetres of space between houses. The clustered settlement layout has been described as the characteristic central Anatolian Neolithic settlement type, and a style of organising settlement and community that was unique to the central Anatolian Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic (Baird 2012a:465; Düring 2006:23, 2011c:61; Düring and Marciniak 2005:170; Özbaşaran 2000:135, 2011:118; Steadman 2000b:176). One of the most widely held beliefs among those documented by my analysis, with 54 coded text passages from 33 different publications, is that this spatial closeness must reflect social closeness between households (#55). Among the text passages documented here, there was a substantial number that connected clustering with suprahousehold ties without any further explanation or discussion of this epistemological connection. This observation is worrying insofar as a lack of epistemological reflection prevents a closer archaeological examination of this architectural feature, and in fact Düring (2011c:121) states that “the reasons for this type of agglomeration remain poorly understood”. From the text passages coded for #55, though, three main arguments can be identified for relating clustering to strong suprahousehold integration.
The final indicator in Theme 4, #29, is related to this overall practice of hiding and revealing. Indicator #29 refers to the retrieval of ritual items from already abandoned houses within a house stack by digging narrow, targeted pits through floors and infill to remove something from an older version of the house, such as a moulded feature, post, obsidian deposit or bones from a burial (#29). Retrieval pits clearly show that things deposited under the floors, in previous versions of the house, continued to have meaning, and show that the inhabitants of the new house were aware of what was below their feet, and even of the exact location (Hodder 2006:227). Hodder (2005f:186; Hodder and Cessford 2004:33) sees the transmission of the knowledge about the location of such valuable items located at the house-scale. Also, a range of researchers have pointed out that in general, practices of hiding items somewhere in the house fabric suggests an element of privacy whereby knowledge is limited to a small group (e.g. Love 2013c:276; Russell et al. 2009:120). As a result, this practice has been understood as strong proof for the connection of the closure/continuity ritual with the household scale rather than a communal scale (Hodder 1999b:162, 2005f:191, 2013a:16).
First, it has been argued that clustering represents a visual demonstration of communal ties: the individual house becomes visually undiscernible within the house landscape, and this is seen as a reflection of a strong community identity that prevented households from achieving and/ or displaying too much independence (Düring 2005:21, 2006:92, 122; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175, 178, 182– 183; Hodder 2005g:16, 2014d:155). Evidence for this can be found in irregular house shapes that demonstrate the importance of leaving no gaps between buildings. For example, within an Aşıklı Höyük house cluster, some buildings took irregular shapes to fit into existing gaps between other buildings (Düring 2011c:68), indicating that the gapless physical proximity of houses, and possibly symbolically between the groups residing in them, was important at Aşıklı. French (1998:68) makes a similar argument about Canhasan I, and Biehl et al. (2012b:99) about Çatalhöyük West. In this line of argumentation, clustering is equated with the desire to visually display social closeness. Some researchers sought to support this equation by postulating the following genesis of clustered
Indicators #28 and #29 can be discounted for the same reason as most other indicators of Theme 3 and Theme 4: House abandonment and continuity practices need to be re-evaluated in light of the fact that newer research sees more evidence for associating most ritual practice at Çatalhöyük with the maintenance of suprahousehold ties (Theme 14). While some newer publications out of Çatalhöyük still mention continuity practices as managed by individual households and therefore were coded for #28 or #29 (Hodder 2013a:16, 17, 2014d:155), continuity rituals have in the recent literature also been interpreted as supporting suprahousehold communities. In particular, building continuity will be shown in Theme 14 (#93) to be a cornerstone of the ‘history house’ concept and thus of the creation of suprahousehold ties at Çatalhöyük. At Aşıklı Höyük as well, building continuity has been associated 178
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration settlements, or Çatalhöyük in particular: First suggested by Heinrich and Seidl (1969:118 “Stammhäuser der Sippen”, translatable as ancestral houses of clans), and picked up by others (Düring 2001:2, 2002:226; Hodder 1996a:48, 2005h:137, 2012a:309; Matthews 2005a:129), this model holds that a small group of initial settlers built the first buildings in a loose arrangement. Because their descendants preferred to live close to the original house of their kinsmen and ancestors, as the settlement grew it became increasingly dense. Clustering is here equated with kinship ties between different households (also e.g. Düring 2006:112; Steadman 2004:547, 548 for Aşıklı Höyük and Canhasan). However, until the lowermost occupation levels of clustered sites such as Aşıklı, Çatalhöyük and Canhasan are excavated on a larger scale, which is not easy to achieve at höyüks of such heights, such models remain conjecture.
than the interior of the often small, windowless houses, it seems reasonable that it was convenient for a whole range of activities. Düring (2011c:69; also Özbaşaran 2012:139; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:48) suggests seeing the roofs of clustered settlements as fulfilling the same functions as courtyards in non-clustered settlements. Given the sometimes small area of Neolithic/Chalcolithic houses, roofs would have presumably not offered much privacy when they were used as work space and social space during the day. The necessarily ensuing informal sharing of daily activities, experiences, knowledge and maybe resources on the roofscape would have produced bonds across household boundaries (Düring 2011c:69, 117) as well as social control. In this context, it is not important whether this effect of clustering was intended by the creators of clustered settlements: Living so close together inadvertently created close social ties simply through the fact that people would have witnessed much of each other’s lives. Neighbours were able to see who and what passed in and out of the individual houses, they probably could hear at least some of the sounds from the other side of the house walls (Hodder 2014b:18), and this deliberate or unintentional monitoring produced social control (Hodder 2006:108) that Hodder (2014b:18) suggests was also an integral part of maintaining egalitarianism and ensuring that no household cheated the system by amassing undue social or economic resources.
One issue with this first argument is that, although this is not explicit in the coded text passages, it is possible that researchers argue from the underlying notion that living in such dense conditions is not desirable in itself— which is problematic insofar as it derives from modern European notions of privacy—ergo there must have been an important social reason for this arrangement. However, the rest of this section will show that clustering indeed produced some challenges that could have been avoided by choosing a different settlement layout (from roof maintenance to transport) so that it can be assumed that clustering was a deliberate choice (Düring 2006:92, 122; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175).
An important weakness of this reconstruction of roofscapes as communal space is the fact that roofs are hardly ever found in Anatolian archaeological excavations. This means that what happened on the roofs remains conjecture – believable, but still not backed up by actual material evidence. Different formation processes are responsible for this lack of roofs, including the intentional dismantling of roofs upon abandonment attested at Çatalhöyük (Theme 4), which might also have been practiced at other sites, even if that has not yet been demonstrated. In fact, until recently, only one single (more or less) completely preserved roof had been found from all Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia: that of Building 3 at Çatalhöyük East (dated to 6700–6500 BC, Hodder 2021a:Tables 1.2, 1.4). More recently, research at Aşıklı Höyük has produced evidence of five more examples of collapsed roofs from Levels 4–2, which are still being researched but have not so far delivered evidence for activities on the roof surface (Özbaşaran 2012:143; Özbaşaran, Duru and Stiner 2019:89, 96–97, 100, 153, 165, 222, 267). For the moment, the roof of Building 3 at Çatalhöyük therefore remains the only available evidence for researching possible roof activities. This roof featured a fire installation as well as areas ascribed to different kinds of activities, probably around food processing. Micromorphological evidence indicates that this use of the roof might have been regular, though seasonal in the warmer and drier parts of the year (Matthews 2012; also Düring 2006:242, 2011c:116–117; Matthews 2005a:126, 134, 144, 2005b:368, 373, 393, 395). The one available example of a complete collapsed roof therefore supports the reconstruction of the roofscape of clustered settlements as an important activity area. On the
The second argument for clustering supporting suprahousehold integration rests on a consideration of the roofscapes that were created by the clustering layout (Figure 8.1). Within clustered settlements, buildings normally do not have doors opening onto unroofed spaces on ground levels (Düring 2011c:61). The absence of doors in most or all houses of a cluster indicates access through the roof, as evidenced at Çatalhӧyük and assumed at Aşıklı and Canhasan III (Düring 2006:77, 117, 2011c:63, 116). Charred ladder bases were found at Çatalhӧyük by Mellaart (1963e:75, Plate 16b), and the recent excavations have documented many examples of ladder imprints or ‘scars’ in the wall plaster (Düring and Marciniak 2005:176; Hodder 2014a:172, 419, 488, Figure 23.6). Due to the clustering, access to each house must have required walking across the roofs of neighbouring structures, and very likely residents of one building had to cross their neighbours’ roofs regularly during their daily activities, also transporting objects to and from houses (Hodder 2006:101–102). Traffic across the roofscape probably was regulated through rules or negotiations involving several households (Düring 2007b:169; French 1998:68; Hodder 2006:100; Love 2013c:276; Rosenstock 2014:239). Further, Düring (2011c:69, 116–117) especially has portrayed the roofscapes as important activity areas, suggesting that the roofs would have been used during the day for social and economic activities. Given that the roof would have offered more light, space, and fresh air 179
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 8.1. Canhasan I: Reconstruction of the Level 2B roofscape with Karadağ mountain in the background (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: French 1998:Figure 59)14.
other hand, other burnt buildings at Çatalhöyük contained smaller fragments of roofing material that indicate the existence of different roof types, including some with an incline (Stevanović 2013). This means that probably not all roofs were flat and therefore suitable as activity areas. There further might have been roof height differences created by terracing (in the upper levels of mound sites) and differences in the floor heights of neighbouring buildings (Düring 2006:236–237, 243). Further, the roof of B.3 had evidence of a light construction made possibly from wood and mats (Stevanović 2012c:49). Height differences, different roof types and small shelters on top of roofs would have impeded the visibility across the roofscape. Hodder takes this to mean that “we can no longer assume the roofs were for intense communal activity” (Hodder 2014d:162). However, height differences and some shelters would only partly have inhibited informal socialising and social control on the roofscape; the arguments outlined here therefore still work. The observation by Düring (2006:236) also, that the current state of radiocarbon dating even at Çatalhöyük cannot prove that all buildings within one occupation level of a clustered site were used at the same time, does not essentially weaken the argument: the occasional gap in the cluster does not contradict any of the arguments made here.
The third argument for the connection of clustering with suprahousehold ties is that clustering forced households to participate either actively or at least passively in the construction, maintenance and dismantling of individual buildings since these activities necessitated the transport of large amounts of materials across roofs, and the use of adjacent roofs for the storage and/or preparation of building materials (Cutting 2005b:135; Düring 2006:112; Matthews 2005a:134; Russell et al. 2014:119; Stevanović 2012a:174, 201, 2013:112). By passive participation, I mean that at the very least, neighbours would have indirectly been impacted by construction activities by witnessing and tolerating construction and similar activities (Love 2013c:276). There is also evidence for more active cooperation. Some go as far as to equate clustering with the community-wide planning of construction activities (French 1998:68; Stevanović 2012a:203), for example the timing of such activities could have been coordinated so as not to disturb other important activities: “The levelling and infilling of old buildings, and construction of new buildings would have caused considerable upheaval and required at least some social co-operation with residents in adjacent buildings” (Matthews 2005a:134). The roofscape in particular likely needed to be maintained or planned collaboratively. Maintaining a usable roofscape without inconvenient gaps or major height differences, while at the same time individual houses were destroyed and rebuilt every few decades (#93), would have necessitated a certain amount of management; neighbouring houses must have coordinated their building activities to a
reprinted from D. French 1998 Canhasan Sites 1. Canhasan 1: Stratigraphy and Structures (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monograph 23) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, London, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 14
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Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration degree. Stevanović (2013:100, 110, 112) further stated that to assure the drainage of snow melt and rain from the roofscape it needed to be designed, by communal cooperation, in an adequate way with height differences channelling the water (see also Düring 2006:242). It must be noted that these arguments contradict and discount Rosenstock’s (2009:217) suggestion discussed in Theme 2 that clustering might instead reflect a lack of cooperation between households during house construction (#18).
but also the not as densely clustered sites typical of the Lake District – the latter will be discussed in the second part of this section. The arguments mentioned in the coded literature in support of #57 are closely related to those discussed above for clustering (#55). In fact, it is often difficult to tell the two indicators apart since many publications discuss both as closely related. Especially in Düring’s (2006:23–24, 2011c:61) work the ‘clustered neighbourhood settlements’ are presented as a unique form of settlement and community organisation, inherently combining the clustering aspect (#55) with the sectoring aspect (#57).
In conclusion, although throughout this discussion I presented some counter-arguments, especially the fact that direct evidence for roof activities is mostly missing, the arguments are convincing that a clustered settlement created, and possibly also represents social and economic bonds across household borders. I would argue that— although these sites are not mentioned in text coded for #55—the integrating effect of clustering also applied at the other LN/EC sites in central Anatolia that were not clustered to the same degree as Çatalhöyük or Canhasan I, but feature fairly densely arranged buildings. I would argue that some of the points made above, specifically about social control and enforced cooperation during house construction and abandonment, can also be made about these sites, although these mechanisms might have operated less strongly at less clustered settlements. This idea will be discussed again in Theme 6, where indicator #39 argues for associating non-clustering with household autonomy.
From the coded text, four arguments can be extracted for why neighbourhoods supported suprahousehold integration. The first argument is related to the title of this theme, “a paradox of division and cohesion”. This word grouping was first used by Bogaard et al. (2010:314) to describe more generally the social geography of Çatalhöyük whereby autonomous households were still integrated on a suprahousehold level, and was later used also by e.g. Kay (2020:454). I found that this word grouping is particularly well suited to describe the principle ascribed to neighbourhoods as suprahousehold subcommunities. Because neighbourhood groupings subdivided a large village community into subcommunities, they facilitated the self-governance of a large village community. This argument was put forward by Düring (2006:301–302, 2007b:170, 2011c:117–118) in particular, who supports this reconstruction with analogies to ethnographic studies of (pre-)modern Moroccan towns that functioned by similar principles, and to anthropological work citing 150–250 as the maximum number of people in a social grouping that can rely on regular face-to-face interaction as a cohesive principle. He further cites anthropological studies as well as investigations of Bronze Age and Iron Age sites from Southwest Asia and Europe to state that “large groups of people can be integrated in two ways: first, by developing social hierarchies; and, second, by subdividing society into more or less egalitarian sub-units of a restricted size, the delegates of which can then negotiate amongst one another on the basis of equality. The clustered neighbourhoods of Çatalhöyük might be considered as such units engaging in decision-making processes” (Düring 2011c:120, also Düring 2007b:175–176). At Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, where three fairly clearly demarcated neighbourhoods were excavated, Düring (2006:Figure 4.10, 2011c:68) was able to estimate population numbers per neighbourhood, arriving at a population of 150 people per neighbourhood by counting a core family (five persons) per individual house. This is close not only to the Moroccan example described above, but also to the typical size of earlier and contemporary Neolithic settlements in Mesopotamia and the Levant, which do not exceed 300 people (Düring 2011c:71). These neighbourhoods of maybe up to 300 people would thus have formed an intermediate level of social cohesion inside the communities occupying central Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, of which at least some probably had several thousand inhabitants (6.2.3).
Indicator #56 refers to an isolated, yet interesting remark by Düring regarding the development of houses with two storeys, which probably took place in the central Anatolian Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. Discussing Canhasan, he suggests that “one of the reasons why people may have started to build two-storey buildings may have been their desire to maintain a clustered corporate residence group, while being faced with a lack of space on the ground” (Düring 2006:281). Two-storied buildings are here portrayed as an extension of clustering. However, the chronological position of this development suggests that it might instead be related to increased household autonomy, and this suggestion will be discussed below (#46, #48 in Theme 8). Indicator #56 is therefore discounted. 8.3.2. Theme 10: A paradox of division and cohesion Another widely held notion within the central Anatolian research community, with 89 coded text passages from 37 different publications, is that the division of settlements into spatially and visually separated house groups is indicative of a strong level of suprahousehold integration (#57). The term most often used for this spatial arrangement is ‘neighbourhoods’ (e.g. Düring 2006, 2011c; Hodder 2014b:8, 2014f:182), although other terms have also been used such as sectors (Hodder 2005h:127, 2006:107, 2014b:8), zones (Hodder 2006:58, 107) or groups/clusters of buildings (Kuijt 2018:565, 568, 570; Love 2013a:92). Indicator #57 was mentioned in connection not only with the clustered sites of the Konya plain and Cappadocia, 181
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Second, neighbourhoods might have constituted a visualisation of social groupings within the settlement. The visual division of neighbourhoods would have been especially pronounced at the densely clustered central Anatolian sites. Here, individual blocks of houses are divided from each other by streets, alleys and middens at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (Düring 2011c:61, 68); alleys and ‘courts’ at Canhasan III (Düring 2006:123), and by alleys and middens (Düring 2011c:96), continuous lines of house walls (‘radial divisions’), as well as terraces (Hodder 2014d:153, Figure 10.1) at Çatalhӧyük. At Erbaba and Canhasan I, excavated to a lesser extent, the nature of spatial subdivision into house groups is unclear (Düring 2006:257, 265). The spatial arrangement into separate clusters of houses, is seen as the visualisation or expression of the subdivision of a village community into subcommunities: “Thus the neighbourhood would have been a physical manifestation of a group” (Düring 2001:16), a visual display of who belonged to whom inside the village community (Düring 2006:247, 2011a:71; Gérard 2002:107; Hodder 2006:107; Yakar 2011b:174). Because the spatial subdivision is particularly clearly visible at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (Bıçakçı and Özbaşaran 2001; Cutting 2005b:41), Düring suggests that the social division into neighbourhoods might have been particularly strong there. He (Düring 2006:246, 301, 2007b:170, 173, 2011a:71, 2011c:117) suggested that access to the roofs and houses might have been controlled by a neighbourhood and that during most of daily life the space inside the house cluster was only used by members of the neighbourhood group. As houses at the clustered central Anatolian sites are reconstructed without doors or large windows, each neighbourhood would have been closed off towards the outside, featuring a gapless façade towards the alleys and middens. Each house cluster was accessible only by ladder onto the roofscape, making each sector appear nearly fortress-like: “The outer boundaries of the neighbourhoods [at Aşıklı Höyük] were emphasised by the construction of an unbroken outer façade, which symbolised the integrity and unity of the neighbourhood” (Düring 2006:112).
the spatial groupings with other architectural evidence for suprahousehold ties, most importantly ritual ties (Theme 14), and found that these cut across the spatial divisions as well. Although the Çatalhöyük team ascribes social meaning to these spatial arrangements and separations (Hodder 2013a:16, 2014d:153, 2016:2; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Love 2013a:92; Stevanović 2012c:79– 80), Hodder (2013a:25, 2014b:7–8, 2014d:151–153, 156) reconstructs that several different systems of suprahousehold integration coexisted at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Individual households entertained multiple parallel relationships both within their immediate surrounding, which can be called neighbourhoods although they are not as clearly spatially demarcated as at Aşıklı; but also with a more spatially dispersed group of other households connected across distances by a complex web of ritual ties. Spatial proximity was thus only one of several mechanisms creating social cohesion between households, but it was significant as demonstrated by evidence for shared practices that will be summarised in the next paragraph. I would like to mention here that this possible difference between Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük as to the significance of neighbourhoods as subcommunities could either be real, or created by research bias as Aşıklı has not yet seen as much research on other possible types of suprahousehold ties. Third, each neighbourhood cluster would form a roofscape that functioned as a space creating social integration across household borders as discussed above in Theme 9 – but now exclusively to the social group inhabiting the neighbourhood, which would thus become a key sphere of social life. On the roofscape, people would spend most of their daily lives within the neighbourhood community, and the functioning and cohesion of the neighbourhoods would have relied on regular face-toface interaction on the roof that created collective identity and social control across household boundaries (Düring 2001:16, 2006:112, 231, 246, 303, 312, 2007b:169, 170, 2011c:117, 129; Stevanović 2012c:79–80). This daily contact would have been the foundation of the social and economic collaboration and sharing that is assumed to have existed in neighbourhoods (Marciniak 2008:108; Steadman 2004:527). At Çatalhöyük, there is evidence for the sharing of practices among neighbouring households: Mazzucato’s (2019) study identified different communities of practice among roughly contemporary households based on a broad range of different data that included shared architectural idiosyncrasies. This will be discussed in more detail in Theme 12 (#73) but is relevant here because Mazzucato was able to show that in the clear majority of cases, communities of practice had a spatial component in that neighbouring groups of houses shared similar practices: “the community detection analysis has highlighted a modularity partition essentially based on spatial proximity. Within the highly interconnected system of networks at Çatalhöyük, the modularity maximization algorithm was able to isolate groups of buildings that were related or were interacting more intensely among themselves than with buildings belonging to other
At Çatalhöyük, by contrast, spatial arrangements seem to have been only one of several, co-existing forms of crosshousehold ties, as already mentioned in 6.2.3. Düring (2006:229–235; 2011c:117) tried to identify Aşıklı-like neighbourhood clusters at Çatalhöyük, separated by middens. Hodder (2006:101, 2014b:6, 8, Figure 4; Hodder and Farid 2014:29; also Kuijt 2018:572–574) mentions two additional means of spatial delineation at the site: The outer walls of adjacent buildings sometimes formed a long continuous wall and thus a linear break in the house landscape (‘radial lines’), and in the later levels there is also evidence of terracing in the large excavation area at the highest point of the mound (the ‘South’ excavation area). However, more holistic analyses of the built environment (Hodder 2014b:8, Figure 6) show that the various spatial separations—terraces, middens, continuous walls—cut across each other instead of forming clearly delineated house clusters. The Çatalhöyük team also cross-referenced 182
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration sub-communities; these groups (modules/communities) are made of spatially adjacent buildings” (Mazzucato 2019:17). She interprets this to mean that “Spatial proximity might have been sought in order to facilitate a strong sense of community and social cohesion” (Mazzucato 2019:21). This significance of spatial proximity appears to, based on the available data, have lessened during the Late Neolithic levels at the site, but this observation could also be a result of the smaller dataset from the later levels (Mazzucato 2019:19). Mazzucato’s and additional studies (summarised by Hodder 2021a:24, 26) show that diet and production practices also varied between house clusters, demonstrating that the separation between different neighbourhoods/ communities of practice also extended into the surrounding landscape. Based on the fact that different house groups appear to have used fields with different growing conditions, Bogaard et al. (2021:116, 119–120; also Hodder 2021a:24, 26) hypothesise that access to different parts of the landscape was regulated based on neighbourhood affiliation. These analyses support indicator #57 on the one hand, while on the other, the figures in her article that show communities of practice mapped onto plans of the settlement reveal that these communities are not congruent with the visible breaks in the settlement landscape created e.g. by middens and radial divisions (Mazzucato 2019:21, Figure 5d, 7c, 11c). This means that apparent breaks in the settlement landscape do not need to be congruent with actual neighbourhood boundaries and shows once more that archaeologists need to cross-reference spatial clustering with other data to identify social groupings.
room clusters “probably were occupied by large extended families or other solidarity groups”. Düring offers a very similar interpretation of Hacılar: “It is likely that these house clusters were occupied by kin groups” (Düring 2011c:164). Schachner (1999:62) and Düring (2011c:228, 283) make similar interpretations about Kuruçay. Cutting offered the following interpretation of Bademağacı EN II: “The relative position of the five buildings suggests that their occupants formed two groups, those living in Buildings 1 to 4, and those in Building 5 (who may have been associated with people who occupied the as yet unexcavated buildings). Building 5 was set some way apart from the others and its entrance faced away from them. It is possible that this clustering arrangement marked family ties between the occupants of Buildings 1, 3 and 4 (and possibly 2) as distinct from those occupying Building 5, and therefore signalled architecturally the presence of kin groupings” (Cutting 2005b:129; similarly Duru 2019a:177). In these cited examples, as in most of the text passages coded for #58–#59, neighbourhoods at Lake District sites are associated with biological kinship, whereby households from the same kin group formed house clusters. This is different to the central Anatolian sites where neighbourhoods are described in the literature primarily as social groupings (but note some isolated suggestions for a biological component to spatial groupings at Çatalhöyük: Hodder 2005h:127; Yakar 2011b:140). In all the Lake District examples, the kinship ties are assumed from the village layout with no additional evidence e.g. genetic or biodistance studies. This appears to represent a region-specific research bias whereby researchers, when writing about the Lake District, prefer to see a biological component in social groupings. In any case, since this biological component is not backed up by evidence, I will treat the interpretation of kin groupings here more generally as interpretations of suprahousehold groupings.
A fourth possible argument for indicator #57 consists in the hypothesis that clustered settlements were originally created by the contraction of several smaller village communities into one large settlement, as discussed in 6.2.3. In this scenario, due to their origins as once separate villages, each neighbourhood group functioned similar to an independent village, only within a larger settlement. Again, the best example to support this hypothesis seems to be Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, where the size, location and overall shape of neighbourhood clusters might have been planned, since they each form a regularly built outer façade made up from a ring of buildings which was later filled in, in a more haphazard way, with other structures (Düring 2011c:68). In Düring’s reconstruction of Aşıklı Höyük, neighbourhoods were the most important social grouping and each neighbourhood could have functioned like a village in itself; and the large village would thus have functioned like a cluster of villages, compressed into one large settlement (Düring 2006:111–112; Düring and Marciniak 2005:181).
Indicators #58 and #59 describe spatial patterning different from the examples associated from #57, but which are similar insofar as they describe a subdivision of settlement space into room groupings and interpret this as indicative of suprahousehold connections. Indicator #58 refers to Schachner’s (1999:60, 163) and Steadman’s (2004:531, 533, 534, 536, 541) reconstruction of houses clustering around at several Lake District sites: rooms interpreted as residential and rooms interpreted as workshop or storage rooms cluster together and this arrangement often includes small unroofed space (‘courtyard’). These arrangements are interpreted by Schachner (1999:60, 163) as evidence for a collective use of workshop and storage buildings. Steadman (2004:531, 533, 534, 536, 541) interprets these room clusters as the residences of extended households, for example made up from several generations of the same family or a polygynous family. Steadman describes the social unit attached to these room clusters as households (Steadman 2004:531: “an economically cooperating extended family household”; Steadman 2004:534: “cooperative household unit”), not suprahousehold subcommunities. However, Steadman’s interpretation
Neighbourhoods: a survey of variety Moving on from clustered sites, several researchers recognised a similar principle of house groupings at the less dense settlements of the Lake District (#57). Among the Lake District examples coded for #57, Hacılar is mentioned by Redman (1978:208) as a site where house or 183
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia of these social units as a multi-part biological family is very similar to other interpretations coded for #57–#59 of house clusters at Lake District sites as the residences of extended kin. Therefore, her interpretations were here coded for #58. The difference between #57 and #58 is that, in the case of indicator #58, courtyards are seen as a feature that connected instead of divided houses of the same subcommunity.
to cross-reference spatial patterning with other indicators of suprahousehold connections to verify that spatial groupings are synonymous with social groupings. Finally, I would like to point out that spatial subdivision of a settlement has also been understood at later sites as indicative of hierarchies (#146 in Theme 21).
Indicator #59 refers to a suggestion by Schoop, who proposed a yet different spatial and social subdivision system in the Lake District: “In several instances, the fortunate coincidence of horizontal excavation and well preserved remains has revealed lines of parallel houses facing one another across open squares of various size. Such examples are known from Hacılar II A/B and Bademağacı in the Lake District, Ulucak Höyük in the Aegean Region, and Ilıpınar VI in the Marmara Region. This brings to mind the social organization known in the ethnographic record as the ‘moiety system,’ in which a community views itself as consisting of two competitive halves. I do not wish to elaborate on this, for at the present state of investigation it would only be grasping at straws” (Schoop 2005b:49). An important difference between #59 as compared to #57 or #58 is that Schoop emphasises competition as an important principle of the moiety system, but competition is not explicitly described as a factor in the examples coded for #57 and #58. As pointed out by Schoop himself, the house rows/moiety model is borrowed from western Anatolian sites, but the more recently shown existence of moieties at Çatalhöyük renders some credibility to the potential existence of such a principle at Lake District sites. The two-coned mound of Çatalhöyük East is interpreted as consisting of two communities who might have exchanged women on marriage, as more recently confirmed by biodistance studies (Hodder 2005h:127, 2012:247, 2013b:25, 2014d:163, 2021:27; Rosenstock 2014:237). Since the Çatalhöyük moieties have not been identified through architectural evidence, but rather through dental morphology and mound relief, they do not appear on my coding list. But it seems entirely possible that moiety systems existed at other Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolian sites and were expressed in spatial arrangements such as in Schoop’s hypothesis.
Theme 11 bundles indicators that are interpreted as evidence that a group larger than an individual household built or destroyed houses together, and interprets this in terms of suprahousehold cooperation. The indicators in this theme can be further subcategorised into three groups: The first subset (#60–#61) describes cases where neighbouring houses shared parts of their structures. Also in this first group, #62 is a poorly explored indicator referring to contemporary construction. Next, indicators #63–#66 are seen as evidence that the labour of house construction was too much for one individual household. The final set (#67– #68) concerns house destruction.
In conclusion, the spatial subdivision of settlements, reflecting a social subdivision of the village community facilitating its overall cohesion, can be recognised as an important principle at Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolian sites, and all indicators of Theme 10 (#57–#59) are accepted here as potentially different variations of the same principle. Although indicators #58–#59 are much less well explored than #57, they are tentatively accepted to foster further research into the social meaning of these spatial arrangements. Evidence for #57–#59 comes from Çatalhöyük in particular, where several lines of evidence show that spatial proximity did create subcommunities. Research from Çatalhöyük also shows that it is necessary
Sharing house parts (#60–#62)
8.3.3. Theme 11: Building and destroying together
Before starting into the discussion of Theme 11, I would like to say that house construction at Neolithic/ Chalcolithic Anatolian sites could most likely never have been an entirely independent event that only involved a single household without any impact on neighbours. As already discussed (Theme 9), at the clustered or at least dense settlements characteristic to the study area, the construction of a new house would always have at least impacted neighbouring structures and households to a small degree, even if they did not participate directly in construction. The transport of materials, the dirt, and noise involved in house building would have necessitated negotiation with neighbours, and in spatially dense settlements, a new house would have changed the local social as well as physical village fabric significantly and impacted the lives of a number of people: “Whether or not neighbours were physically involved in house building, they would have witnessed and experienced the process in the public sphere” (Love 2013a:276). All house construction was thus always, at least to some degree, an experience shared between different households. Against this backdrop, my discussion of Theme 11 will focus on evidence for cooperation in house construction beyond the level of merely witnessing.
The sharing of foundation rafts between two buildings (#60) was observed in a few cases at Çatalhöyük East, where Hodder (2007b:27, 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:29; Stevanović 2012c:79) interprets this as evidence that “the household in the Anatolian Neolithic was not an independent and self-sufficient unit, but rather was part of a larger social association that inhabited clustered neighborhoods”. Shared outer house walls (#61), observed at Çatalhöyük and Hacılar, are similarly seen as evidence for contemporaneous construction of two or more houses and further of suprahousehold planning, cooperation 184
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration and identity (Brami 2017:56; Cutting 2005b:103, 130, 132, 135; Farid 2007:53; Hodder 2007b:27; Matthews 2005a:133; Stevanović 2012c:79).
as a physical demonstration of resource sharing across household borders (Hodder 2006:86, 2013b:25). Because these arguments can be cross-referenced with Themes 2 and 9, #60 and #61 are accepted as indicators.
From the text passages coded for #60–#61, as well as a comparison with Themes 2 and 9, it is possible to extract three arguments to connect these indicators with suprahousehold cooperation. First, the argument named most often in the literature is that sharing of foundations or walls is evidence that households cooperated during the construction of their houses (e.g. Hodder and Farid 2014:29; Matthews 2005a:133; Stevanović 2012c:79), for example by Cutting at Hacılar VI (Figure 5.1): “The substantive and sophisticated architecture, together with the frequent use of party walls [#61], reveals a considerable investment of time and labour, possibly at a supra-household level, and a strong community organisation” (Cutting 2005b:132). The argument of cooperation makes sense. Even if—as is theoretically possible for shared foundation rafts (#60) or cases where walls of one building were not bonded to the shared party wall—the neighbouring houses were not built at the same time, putting a house onto a foundation laid by another household, or including an existing wall into a new house, would have necessitated some communication and sharing. In the case of shared party walls that were bonded to the walls of both neighbouring structures, these two houses would have been built at the same time. If houses located directly next to each other were built at the same time, it is difficult to imagine this happening without at least some common planning and the occasional and informal exchange of knowledge, labour, tools, or materials happening between groups, even if each house was built by a separate group of people. Further, time spent building together or next to each other would have created a platform for informal socialising that would have created bonds across household borders (see e.g. discussion of roofscapes in Theme 9). If the contemporary construction of two neighbouring houses involved a more then occasional and informal cooperation, then the mechanisms by which shared construction activities support the integration of the involved individuals and groups as discussed in Theme 2 would have applied: house construction represents an opportunity for resource and knowledge exchange, socialising, and possibly the sharing of festivities.
The third indicator #62 collects two text passages that link the contemporaneous construction of neighbouring buildings with suprahousehold ties between the households residing in these buildings, for example “it became clear that all these structures [in the BACH excavation area at Çatalhöyük] were built at the same time and coexisted, and most likely were inhabited by people who were socially related” (Stevanović 2012c:78). The only two coded text passages in this indicator (the second one by Cutting is cited below), do not actually name the evidence based on which the buildings are interpreted as having been built at the same time. Despite this, I still included them in my analysis because indicator #62 also expresses the notion attached to #61 and #60: that the contemporary construction of neighbouring buildings meant sharing beyond household borders. Actually, in the case of Stevanović’s text, the basis for her statement coded for #62 was likely the shared walls (#61) that existed in the example discussed by her; the second coded passage is by Cutting (2005b:82) about Canhasan I and in this case, it is not possible to deduce from the text what her basis was for interpreting a contemporary construction of the buildings. Although indicator #62 is so poorly explored, it is tentatively accepted here because it forms a group with #60–#61. Sharing the burden of construction work (#63–#66) The next indicator group in Theme 11 collects indicators stated in the literature as evidence that house construction involved so much work that it was probably shared between households. Indicator #63 collects text passages that simply refer to the amount of work as evidence that it must have been shared without citing further physical evidence, e.g. “The effort required to build the structures [of Canhasan I] [#63], together with the likelihood that buildings were constructed together [#62] indicates considerable communal planned effort” (Cutting 2005b:82). Cutting, the source of most statements for this indicator, does not explicitly state how she came to recognise that some of the sites and occupation levels in her study required communal building effort (and others seemingly not). However, she generally mentions indicator #63 in combination with evidence that several houses were constructed at the same time as in the example above (also Cutting 2005b:130, 132) – thus suggesting a scenario whereby a number of households built a neighbourhood in collaboration, or an entire settlement. She also seems to mention indicator #63 only in relation to occupation levels or sites that have been excavated on a large scale and feature well-preserved architecture (Canhasan I, Hacılar VI, Hacılar II); the substantialness of the architectural features here apparently serves as evidence for the labour investment required for construction. At Çatalhöyük also, some authors refer to
Second, even past the act of construction, neighbouring houses sharing walls or foundations would have shared property and its maintenance: Sharing walls or foundations means that households invested labour and materials into an object that would be shared with another household group (Cutting 2005a:132). They would also have required cooperation to solve problems if issues such as structural instability arose later with the shared wall or foundation. Additionally, two household groups who shared a wall needed to negotiate and possibly cooperate whenever the wall required maintenance or modification or before houses were dismantled (see #17 in Theme 2). And finally, the sharing of house parts can be seen 185
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia the amount of work as evidence for sharing: “Despite the independence of house construction it is clear that a considerable amount of labor was involved and that cooperation between houses seems likely, as is shown in the work of Tung and Love (Volume 9, Chapters 4 & 5 [Love 2013a; Tung 2013])” (Hodder and Farid 2014:18; this statement is again discussed below). Stevanović (2012a:202) provides further argument by stating that house construction would likely have been restricted to the warm and dry parts of the year, thus putting a degree of time pressure on the process, which including the preparation of materials, would have taken several months even if done by a larger group of people.
Kujit 2018:571), the construction of a new house was not a frequent occurrence for the individual household and might have been prepared at leisure over a longer period of time. Wood could have been collected opportunistically over a number of years in smaller-scale operations – that could have been managed by individual households without help from others. Wood procurement might then not have been such a large-scale, planned, and possibly festive event as the procurement trips envisaged by Asouti and Stevanović. Further, at sites where it can be shown that houses were partially dismantled upon abandonment, and wood reused, the procurement of new wood might not have been a regular necessity. At Çatalhöyük itself, there is reliable evidence in the form of ‘scars’ in wall plaster for the regular removal and reuse of the large posts of which each house had one or two (Hodder and Farid 2014:17; Russell et al. 2014:110; Stevanović 2012a:202). Although there is no direct proof due to the absence of roofs from the architectural record, roof beams were very likely also dismantled and reused. As already mentioned in 3.2.3 and Chapter 5 regarding its significance for radiocarbon dating, reuse of architectural wood precisely because of its difficulty to procure seems to have been a regular feature in central Anatolian prehistory outside of Çatalhöyük as well, and has been evidenced through the ‘old wood’ effect in radiocarbon dates at Hacılar (Mellaart 1970c:93; Thissen 2002a:333), Kuruçay, and Höyücek (Thissen 2010:274–275). The recycling of wood might have eliminated the need for frequent, large-scale wood procurement trips – and if these trips were fairly infrequent, their impact on the social fabric might have been minimal. These observations serve to assert that the existence of large amounts and/or large pieces of wood in a house cannot be seen as unequivocal evidence for (regular) suprahousehold cooperation.
Indicator #64 refers to Stevanović’s (2012a:201–202) hypothesis that the sheer quantities of heavy clay needed to build a Çatalhöyük house indicate collaboration across household boundaries: “During the course of house construction, massive quantities of building materials were needed and it is feasible that communal effort was required for the extraction of clays and timber. For example, procuring hundreds of pieces of wood for roof construction, some of which were massive tree trunks, as well as moving hundreds of kilos of construction clay would have required the engagement of large group of people. As such, it is likely that roof construction would have been an undertaking not just for house occupants but for a larger group of households” (Stevanović 2013:112). Similar to #64, the next two indicators, both based on statements by Stevanović, state that the use of large pieces of wood for house construction (#65) or the application of thick internal plastering (#66) at Çatalhöyük indicate cross-household collaboration. For the wood argument (#65), Stevanović builds on Asouti’s work who suggested “that timber used in construction had to be transported to the settlement from some distance upstream. She [Asouti 2005b] suggested that special woodcutting trips would have been arranged at the beginning of spring” (Stevanović 2012a:201). And the weight of the wood required for a single house—mostly in roof construction, including roof beams and pillars to support the roof—makes it likely that such trips included a larger number of people (Stevanović 2013:112, cited above). This example is for Çatalhöyük, but could also apply to other sites in the study area that did not have sufficient amounts of timber in large pieces available nearby. The image painted here by Stevanović is that of a larger group of people from several households setting out for a number of days to fell and transport trees, which would certainly have made wood procurement a special event with an abundance of opportunities for socialising and bonding across household borders. However, a number of arguments can be made to counter this scenario: Stevanović’s reconstruction rests on the conclusion that all or most wood needed for a house, or maybe a number of houses, was procured at the same time, in one large event. It is, however, also possible to imagine that since houses were often used for fairly long periods of time at Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites in the study area (at Çatalhöyük, the duration of use of individual houses was anywhere between 20 and 140 years, Bayliss et al. 2014;
The notions underlying indicators #63–#66 seem to a large degree to be based on Stevanović’s (2012b) experience with experimentally reconstructing a Çatalhöyük house, for example: “In the process of re-creating a Neolithic Çatalhöyük house (Chapter 22), it became apparent that plastering the interior wall and floor surfaces was a task that required a group effort or an unreasonably long time if done by an individual (#66)” (Stevanović 2012a:202). Here one should caution that the definition of what a reasonable time for plastering is might have been different in the Neolithic, and that Neolithic builders—who might have replastered houses at least once a year, maybe more often (Matthews 2005a:137)—might also have been more versed, and faster, in applying plaster than archaeologists who do not build mudbrick houses on a regular basis. The same can be said more generally about the construction of mudbrick buildings, which would have been more familiar to the inhabitants of Neolihic/Chalcolithic villages in central Anatolia than it is to archaeologists doing experimental work. To conclude the discussion of indicators #63–#66, these are not accepted as unequivocal indicators of suprahousehold cooperation here. It is relevant that this indicator group 186
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration is dominated by two researchers, Cutting and Stevanović, who seem to default to equating the large amount of work involved in house construction with communal effort without evaluating this assumption against evidence. The effort of house construction alone, however, cannot count as evidence for suprahousehold sharing of the work, especially when there is abundant evidence for householdbased construction at Çatalhöyük, the only site that has seen detailed research into construction methods. Especially indicators #14–#16 in Theme 2 demonstrate house construction was an event used to demonstrate household autonomy. The idiosyncrasy of mudbrick recipes observed at Çatalhöyük (#14) shows that details of the construction process were also managed by the individual households. The possibility that members of other households helped out can of course not be discounted even if the construction process was mostly managed by the individual household; in fact, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove this through archaeological means. However, in sum, indicators #63–#66 are not unequivocal indicators of suprahousehold cooperation.
at Lake District sites and connects this with suprahousehold interaction: “After c. 6,500 BC cal., nearly every single building Ievel has burned at Hacılar, Bademağacı, Höyücek, Kuruçay and Ulucak (§4.3.2). Entire villages were deliberately set on fire with anomalously large concentrations of ceramic and figurine objects scattered on the last floor surfaces or in managed fills. Hence, for instance, the remarkable collection of 45 female figurines neatly distributed around the ovens of three of the houses in Hacılar VI and the consistent preservation to roof Ievel (1.8 m in height) of the buildings in the settlement. The effort that must have gone into these collective destructions is tremendous and calls attention to a degree of communal interaction as yet unmatched in this part of Anatolia” (Brami 2017:106, similarly 114). It should be mentioned that site-wide, intentional fires are a very particular reading of the evidence at the mentioned sites which have not yet, for example, been backed up by radiocarbon dating that proves the contemporaneity of the fires. In sum, the indicators in this last group are all poorly explored and argued in the literature and therefore here discounted. Nevertheless, they are interesting and worthy of further research: if constructing houses together created ties across household borders, then sharing the work and experience of destroying houses did to. In this context, it is relevant to remember the discussion in Theme 4, where house closure rituals have been mostly interpreted as household-based so far, but I suggested this should be re-evaluated in the light of increasing evidence that ritual practice was shared between households in Neolithic Anatolia (Theme 14).
Destroying houses together (#63, #67–#68) With indicator #63, I also coded one statement by Russell et al. who argue that the work involved in house dismantling at Çatalhöyük (see Theme 4 on the intentional dismantling of houses) required suprahousehold cooperation: “Demolishing a house would require substantial labor, and also considerable space outside the house: to store items removed, at least temporarily; to maneuver large posts; to process the demolished building material into fill (breaking it up into small pieces, sometimes even screening it). In a settlement of closely-packed houses such as Çatalhöyük, this would have a significant impact on the neighbors, whose roofs would have to be used at least to transport materials, and perhaps to store and process them. The demolition of a small house would, then, inevitably involve more people than just the residents. The feasting remains we find in many of the houses may derive from work-party feasts to mobilize extra labor and compensate those inconvenienced” (Russell et al. 2014:119). This argument combines indicator #63 with the observations I summarised at the beginning of Theme 11: that in clustered settlements, neighbours would always have been at least passively involved in construction and dismantling processes.
8.3.4. Theme 12: Constructing similarities Indicators in Theme 12, similar to Theme 11, deal with house construction. But different from Theme 11, they go beyond the moment of construction/destruction as a shared activity that connected households. Indicators in Theme 12 describe the creation of house features that remained and therefore were a constant statement of shared connections: house layout (#69), construction techniques and materials (#70–#72) and architectural idiosyncrasies (#73). Similar house layouts (#69) The uniformity of house layouts, meaning the shape, sometimes size, and internal structuring of houses, has been interpreted as an indicator for suprahousehold ties (#69). Four different arguments for this can be distinguished from the coded text passages. First, at Bademağacı, Duru has connected planned construction of houses with communal use: “Houses no. 2 and 3 of EN II/3 and houses no. 3–5 of EN II/2 are similar in and [sic] position and planning, giving the impression that houses were sometimes built to be used communally by more than one family” (Duru 2019a:177). This argument, however, cannot hold up without further evidence for collective use. Second, several scholars have associated the similarity of house layouts with communal planning which fostered
Indicator #67 consists of a statement by Hodder who mentioned the contemporary destruction of two buildings at Çatalhöyük in the context of relations between households: “B.52 was placed over two earlier buildings. The fact that they were demolished as a pair and rebuilt as one building suggests some degree of neighborly relationship between them” (Hodder 2014d:162; also Hodder and Farid 2014:29). A weak point in this argument is that it does not mention actual evidence that the two pre-B.52 buildings were destroyed at the same time. The final indicator in Theme 11, #68, refers to statements by Brami, who observes site-wide, intentional conflagrations 187
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 8.2. The typical layout of an Early Neolithic house at Çatalhöyük (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Boz and Hager 2013:Figure 19.1)15.
communal cohesion (Hacılar VI: Cutting 2005b:130; Canhasan I: French 1998:68).
cosmology of the community – also maintaining a kind of continued socialisation throughout the lives of individuals, whereby community rules and traditions, and communal identity, were constantly reinstated and reinforced. The individual house is here seen as a microcosm embodying a set of principles central to Çatalhöyük community organisation (Düring 2006:215, 245; Hodder 2005f:184, 191, 2006:128– 129, 135–137, 227, 2007b:30–32; Matthews 2018:85; Stevanović 2012c:67). In this argument, the mechanisms by which house standardisation produces communal identity can be found firstly in the creation of ancestry, memory and continuity (Hodder 2014f:181; Hodder and Farid 2014:25– 26), which were important cohesive mechanisms at Çatalhöyük (Theme 14); but, secondly, also and especially in the way that the house compelled people towards daily repetitive behaviours. This second principle has been most thoroughly discussed by Hodder and Cessford (2004), who connect repetitive house layouts with the subtle embedding of community social rules within seemingly mundane daily practices and bodily routines (also similarly Baird et al. 2017:758 about Boncuklu). This included a regulation of movement through the house, rules concerning which kinds of activities could be done in what parts of the house, and possibly also regulating who was able to sit or sleep where in the house (Hodder and Cessford 2004:22, 29, 30). Among the house-related repetitive routines socialising people into the community is also the regular replastering of interior surfaces (Hodder 2005c:11; Hodder and Cessford 2004:22). Whether replastering and standardised house layout might also have had more functional reasons or advantages does not essentially contradict a function of these features for suprahousehold integration (Düring 2006:215).
In a related third argument, house standardisation within one occupation layer of a site, or also diachronically within the mound sequence, was ascribed to communitywide shared rules, taboos, conventions or traditions around building and furnishing that displayed and reinforced communal identities (Aşıklı, Bademağacı, Hacılar VI: Cutting 2005a:95, 135; Çatalhöyük: Cutting 2005b:127; Hodder 2005g:16, 2006:56, 144; Matthews 2005b:396; Stevanović 2012c:67). This and the fourth argument have mostly been mentioned in connection with Çatalhöyük. As mentioned in 6.2.3, despite some variation, Early Neolithic houses at Çatalhöyük had remarkable similarities in their internal structure (Figure 8.2). Living rooms were typically structured into a ‘clean’ northern part and a ‘dirty’ southern area with hearth, oven, access to the side/ storage room, and microdebris attesting more production activities (especially Hodder and Cessford 2004; also Düring 2006:245; Düring and Marciniak 2005:177). As also mentioned in 6.2.3, elements of the typical subdivision of Çatalhöyük houses can already be found at the older site of Boncuklu Höyük. Building on the idea of shared rules, a fourth argument has been made specifically for Çatalhöyük East that the just described standardised house interiors were an important tool in the socialisation of new community members, for example children, into the overall social system and reprinted from B. Boz and L.D. Hager 2013 Intramural burial practices at Çatalhöyük, in I. Hodder (ed.), Humans and Landscapes of Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 2000 -2008 Seasons (Çatalhöyük Research Project 8; British Institute at Ankara Monograph 47; Monumenta Archaeologica 30) London and Los Angeles, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 15
The function of the house as a socialisation tool might be specific to the strongly standardised house plans at Çatalhöyük and Boncuklu Höyük; or at least the 188
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration existence of a similar mechanism has not yet been investigated at other sites. Within the socialisation argument, there is a degree of ambiguity as to the status of house standardisation within the household-community balance that can be felt in Hodder and Cessford’s (2004) discussion, for example in the following statement: “So the house is an important social, productive, and symbolic unit at Çatalhöyük, and we now want to argue that it was also the main mechanism for creating social rules” (Hodder and Cessford 2004:22). Although this sentence talks about house, not household, the first part (“important social, productive, and symbolic unit”) sounds especially like a description of a household although the remainder of their argument is clearly about community-wide rules and conventions. But nevertheless: If the house was such an important locus of socialisation, does that not also empower the household? The rules embodied in the standardised house layout might be mandated by the community, but the individual house(hold) is chosen as the locus for the transmission of these rules. In this context, it is relevant to remember that Hodder and Cessford’s article was written when the significance of suprahousehold integration at Çatalhöyük had not yet been recognised (see Theme 3 discussion). The described ambiguity is maybe therefore a product of the time of writing. In sum, the arguments brought forward for connecting synchronically and/or diachronically standardised house layouts with community-wide shared practices are convincing and #69 is here accepted.
Several researchers associate similarities in building materials (#71) or construction techniques (#70) with communal sharing. More text passages have been coded for #71 than for #70; the latter refers only to passing references to construction techniques, for example by Cutting about Bademağacı: “However, similarities in construction techniques [#70] and the internal configuration of the buildings [#69], together with the possibility that some storage was shared [#84], suggest the presence of a strong communal tradition” (Cutting 2005b:95). With not much basis for an evaluation of #70, this discussion will focus on built materials (#71). All examples coded for #71 refer to Çatalhöyük, the only site where systematic studies of building materials have been done (Love 2013a; Tung 2013), as outlined in Theme 2, which is complementary to this subset of Theme 11. Theme 2 discussed in detail that at Çatalhöyük, each house had its own idiosyncratic mudbrick recipe – or in some cases, a group of neighbouring buildings shared the same idiosyncratic mudbrick recipe (#73). This has been interpreted to mean that households organised their own construction activities. And in fact, the text passages coded for #71 do not contradict this since all refer to one of two lines of evidence: The first line of evidence refers to Level K, an early occupation level at the site (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2), of which only five houses have been excavated with four sharing similar mudbrick recipes (especially Love 2013a:90; also Hodder 2013a:23; Hodder and Farid 2014:18). The evidence on similar mudbricks in level K can maybe be ignored here since, as pointed out by Love (2013a:90), the sample is very limited. The second line of evidence has been documented mostly by Tung. Tung (2013:67, 75, 80)—although noting (Tung 2013:76, 78) the same house-specific mudbrick and mortar recipes as Love (2012, 2013a)—sees the (diachronically and synchronically) shared use of similar plaster (also Stevanović 2013:112) and similar ‘make-up’ materials as indicators of the existence of communal building traditions at the site. ‘Make-up’ is a Çatalhöyük Research Project-specific term used for the fine sediment applied by builders before plastering a floor or other feature (see e.g. Hodder and Farid 2014:18). The similarity of plasters and make-up forms an interesting juxtaposition with the mudbrick and mortar differences. At Çatalhöyük, then, households appear to have used idiosyncratic mudbrick and mortar recipes to demonstrate some autonomy (#14), but followed community-wide conventions when it came to plaster and make-up (#71).
Sharing materials (#70–#72) This subset collects three indicators that are cited in the literature as evidence for the suprahousehold sharing of construction materials as well as knowledge and access rights related to building materials. Indicator #72 refers to a single statement by Hodder and Farid who observed a house built with different brick types and tentatively suggested interpreting this as an indication for collaboration between different groups (#72): “Despite the independence of house construction it is clear that a considerable amount of labor was involved and that cooperation between houses seems likely, as is shown in the work of Tung and Love (Volume 9, Chapters 4 & 5) [#63]. Possible indication of this was found in the northern FTs [foundation trenches = reference to a particular excavation area within the North area]. The walls of B.101 had been built using three types of brick and mortar in groups of courses up the wall (see Chapter 30). This either suggests groups of people collaborating and taking their turn to contribute to the walls, or people running out of one source and changing to another” (Hodder and Farid 2014:18). The ‘contribution’ here could represent knowledge, recipes and/or materials. However, in this case the interpretation of suprahousehold collaboration seems to be only one among several possible – others being the use of different sources as pointed out by Hodder and Farid, or possibly the recycling of mudbricks. Indicator #72 cannot unequivocally indicate the collaboration of different household groups during construction and is therefore here discounted.
The text passages coded for #71 do not argue in detail how and why a sharing of similar building materials supported suprahousehold ties. #71 has been mentioned in context with the sharing of knowledge and access to raw materials in the landscape (Stevanović 2013:112; Tung 2013:67, 78). Drawing on the discussion in Theme 2, I would suggest that similar materials found in different houses could also be a visible demonstration of suprahousehold ties to all who saw the construction materials – and this observation is particularly relevant for the plaster, which 189
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia at the end of a construction process would have concealed the possibly idiosyncratic mudbrick and mortar and created houses that on the surface (literally) all looked very similar. Indicator #71 is therefore accepted here as an indicator of suprahousehodl connections. By association, the much less-well explored #70 is also accepted because the community-making mechanisms discussed for #71 could also for the most part be applied to #70.
have been built at roughly the same time. The similar composition of the mudbrick may reflect a choice for a certain resource that was available, or it may be tied to a specific knowledge of making mudbrick persistent at the time. This persistence may be related to either a common and shared knowledge of doing, or may point to an individual or a group maintaining this knowledge and disseminating it through the embodied practice of building” (Tung 2013:67, italics in original). In the case of two neighbouring houses in Level K that, based on stratigraphic evidence, were built at the same time, Love posits that shared mudbrick recipes indicate the sharing of resources: “The mudbricks share a similar composition and physical appearance, suggesting that these two houses likely pooled resources collectively, such as sediments, chaff and other tempering materials, labour, time and space for the production of their mudbricks” (Love 2013c:270).
Sharing idiosyncrasies (#73) The final indicator in Theme 11 refers to a pattern that has been well documented at Çatalhöyük, where groups of neighbouring buildings and/or successive buildings in the same house stack (see building continuity, #28) shared distinctive and idiosyncratic characteristics regarding layout, building materials, installation details, ritual elaboration, or abandonment practices. This sharing of idiosyncrasies has been interpreted to mean that the group of buildings shared suprahousehold ties and at the same time differentiated themselves from other house groups. Shared idiosyncrasies therefore denote subcommunities at the site (e.g. Hodder 2014b:6, 2014d:162, 2014f:181): “There is evidence for various scales of grouping beyond the individual house. For example, there is much evidence that individual houses were components of neighbourhoods, sectors and submounds. B. Tung (2013) notes groups of neighbouring buildings with similar brick compositions, either built at the same time or using a similar source or using similar knowledge about how to make bricks. N. Yalman et al. (2013) identify a group of buildings in the South Area that all have pots set into floors in the southeast of the main rooms. Vasić et al. (2014) note that the only two burials of women with decorated boar-tusk collars occurred in South M in adjacent buildings (B.50 and Mellaart’s building EVII.12)” (Hodder 2014b:6). More recently, this pattern has been systematically documented by Mazzucato (2019), who mapped the distribution of many different items of material culture, mostly architectural but also non-architectural, to identify communities of practice coexisting within the same building level. She also refers to these communities as “socio-material similarity networks” (Mazzucato 2019:5). Within these networks, not all houses have all features in common, but criss-crossing similarities of various features between various houses create, overall, communities of practice distinct from each other. As already discussed in Theme 10 (#57), these networks of houses are often located in spatial proximity (Mazzucato 2019:17, 19). Mazzucato (2019:6) portrays indicator #73 more generally as evidence for shared practices that reproduce social relationships between houses on a daily basis. Similarities in material culture are seen here as a proxy for social interactions (Mazzucato 2019:6, 17). Tung, writing specifically about the sharing of similar idiosyncratic mudbrick recipes, connects indicator #73 with the sharing of knowledge and the passing on of knowledge within the subcommunity: “Neighboring buildings with similar mudbrick compositions, such as B.8, B.40, Sp. 168 and Sp.169 in Level South M, may
Because there is so much evidence to verify it, indicator #73 is here accepted. It can also be cross-referenced with other themes that discuss shared practices as a bonding mechanism across household boundaries (e.g. Themes 11, 15). It is also noteworthy that Mazzucato (2019:19) tentatively observes that socio-material ties between buildings decreased in the post-6500 BC levels. If this pattern is verified in future research using a larger sample from the later levels, it can be connected with evidence for increasing household autonomy. 8.3.5. Theme 13: Sharing social and economic space Theme 13 is structured into two groups of related indicators that differ in the scale of suprahousehold integration that they refer to: Indicators #74–#77 describe cooperation between a smaller group of neighbouring houses, while #78–#87 can either refer to a similar neighbourhood scale as #74–#77, but also to a larger scale cooperation encompassing an entire village community. This second group of indicators (#78–#87) is closely related to Theme 1, which introduced the features a Neolithic/Chalcolithic Anatolian house needed to possess—in the view of researchers—to make its household economically and socially self-sufficient. The same features return in the discussion of #78–#87, where either a deficit or an abundance of these features is seen as evidence for suprahousehold social and economic cooperation. Sharing space with neighbours (#74–#77) Indicator #74 refers mostly to interpretations made by Düring (2006:214, 245, 297, 2011c:98) about a small number of cases from different occupation levels at Çatalhöyük East in which single buildings, with borders indicated by walls, contained two ‘living rooms’ – Düring’s term for the typical main room in a Çatalhöyük house which contained a hearth, oven, platforms and sometimes other features (Düring 2006:167). Düring terms this residential pattern “twin buildings” (Düring 2006:162, 170) and understands it as two somewhat independent 190
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration households sharing one building, and thus choosing to live in close socioeconomic relation. Düring (2006:214) interprets this in terms of kinship relations, saying, “The most plausible interpretation of these multiple living room units, to my mind, is that they were used by close kin, for instance the families of two siblings”. However, it would be equally possible to suggest a non-biological kin relation for this example. Cutting describes a similar example from Hacılar II, where “[t]he presence of two separate main areas combined with a shared entrance suggests that these buildings belonged to two separate but associated families” (Cutting 2005b:130). This interpretation of close socioeconomic cooperation between two households indicated by the deliberate choice of living in the same building in a “‘close but separate’“ (Düring 2006:214) manner is convincing – if it can actually be shown in the archaeological record that the building was indeed inhabited by two households, but conceptualised by its inhabitants as one building, for example through shared entrance or shared storage (#84) as in some of the examples of ‘twin buildings’ documented by Düring (2006:162, 170–171).
alternative interpretations can be excluded, they seem to indeed indicate suprahousehold relationships.
A notion related to #74 is that independent houses/ households connected by doors (#75) closely cooperated during daily life and perceived of themselves as a socioeconomic grouping (Düring 2006:245; Hodder 2005g:15, 2007b:27, 2013b:25, 2014d:162). The reasons why researchers associate connecting doors with suprahousehold ties remain unspecified, but it seems clear that such doors are envisaged as being unpoliced shortcuts by which residents from one house could access the other on an informal and regular basis. If we were to reconstruct such a mode of usage, the direct entrance to another residence does indeed suggest an element of social control and informal socialising that would have connected households closely. Also, given that such doors connecting two residences are not the norm at any site in the study region, they appear as a deliberate and meaningful architectural feature indicative of social relations. However, it is also possible to imagine that the door was not open to daily, informal traffic – if so, it might not have had much influence on the daily life and mutual relation of residents. For both indicators #74 and #75, I thus see the challenge in substantiating archaeologically that a building containing several living rooms (#74) or houses connected by doors (#75) did indeed contain two (or more) households who cooperated daily; and did not, for example, constitute a large multiroomed building with several different activity areas used by the same household, or two separate houses connected through a seldom used door that had little influence on social relations. The fact that many of the examples cited for #74–#75 are from the top of the Çatalhöyük East Mound, where multiroomed buildings were also found that are instead interpreted as evidence for household autonomy in a post-6500 BC world (#48) makes alternative interpretations possible. Nevertheless, indicators #74 and #75 are here accepted because if
And finally in this group of indicators, Düring (2011c:164) has suggested reconstructing close social relationships between households at Hacılar VI based on shared roof support since some buildings had wattle-and-daub walls (#77; Figure 5.1): “Complete house interiors with wattle-and-daub exterior walls have been found, using the more solid walls of neighbouring structures for roof support. This suggests that within spatially defined house clusters, mutual accommodation was the norm. It is likely that these house clusters were occupied by kin groups”. However, it would require further evidence to rule out that the wattle-and-daub walls were able to carry their own roofs; for example, Mellaart (1970c:19) sees “stout posts” carrying the roof of the structures in question (also see Chapter 10, Theme 22 for a discussion of prejudices within central Anatolian archaeology against the stability of wattle-and-daub). Further, the evidence discussed with indicator #55 (clustering) suggests that within house clusters, neighbours must have already coordinated roof construction in order to ensure that water could drain off the roofs and not cause puddles that would have impaired house stability by making roofs overladen and structurally unsound (Stevanović 2013). While using the walls of a neighbouring house for roof support of course represents a stronger degree of communication than if every building supported its own roof, it might not have much altered the degree to which coordination between neighbours was needed. These observations question whether wattle-and-daub walls really had the householdconnecting importance Düring ascribes to them; #77 is therefore not accepted as an indicator of suprahousehold relations.
Indicators #76 and #77 refer to the sharing not of internal space like #74–#75, but rather of house walls or external walls. Hodder (2014b:6–7, 2014d:162) names one example from Çatalhöyük East where two buildings shared a retaining wall (#86) that protected the house walls from the adjacent midden, and connects this with social cooperation between a group of adjacent households. We can here refer back to some aspects of the discussion of indicator #61 (shared house walls): a common construction project means that two households invested time and resources into shared property, that they communicated over the construction and maintenance of the wall, and possibly that they built together. For example, Issavi et al. associate #76 with a suprahousehold scale of construction: “Construction efforts can also vary in size and include communal efforts, such as the construction of shared retention walls” (Issavi et al. 2020:115). Because it can be cross-referenced with #61, #76 is here accepted.
The incomplete or overequipped house (#78–#87) Theme 1 demonstrated that to reconstruct a village community made up of households that were autonomous 191
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia on a basic economic and social level, each house needed to possess a certain range of internal features (‘the complete house’), and that these features also needed to be present in roughly equal amounts/sizes in all contemporary houses within a village (referred to here as ‘symmetry’). Correspondingly, Theme 13 documents the wide-spread notion that a lack of vital features (#78, #81, #83, #85) or too many or too few of these features (#79, #80, #82, #86, #87) in some or all houses is evidence that households were not fully self-sufficient but must have relied on other households to fulfil important daily tasks. As said in the introduction to Theme 13, the examples cited for this set of indicators refer both to sharing within a group of neighbouring buildings as well as on a villagewide level.
space for a single nuclear household (#80) and therefore connects the large buildings of Middle Chalcolithic Canhasan 1 with possible use by multiple households (Düring 2011b:800; similarly Düring 2007b:163 about large buildings at Çatalhöyük). As already discussed in Theme 1, house size is not a reliable indicator of household autonomy, since archaeologists cannot be sure about issues such as personal privacy preferences that determine the space requirements of individuals and groups, the degree to which unroofed spaces were used as activity areas, as well as household size, a generally unknown variable for Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites. Especially the latter, household size, appears relevant to the critique of #79– #80: Houses that are seemingly too small or large could simply reflect particularly small or large households that deviate from the norm that is accepted by most researchers in the study area: As discussed in 6.2.3, a majority of researchers seem to envisage the typical Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolian household as consisting of around 4–6 individuals, including Düring (2011c:64), who is the researcher that ascribes the most significance to the house size criterion for identifying households (see text passages coded for #79–#80 as well as #3–#5 in Theme 1). While a degree of variation in the size of households and accordingly houses is acknowledged (e.g. Cutting 2005a:167, 2005b:127; Düring 2006:213–214, 278), I have not read any discussion of the possibility that some households living at Neolithic/Chalcolithic villages in central Anatolia might have been very small, for example consisting of 1–2 individuals. While the ethnographic parallels to preindustrial societies that underlie considerations of household size and composition in prehistoric central Anatolia—either acknowledged, as by Düring (2006:90– 91, 122, 2011c:64), or implicit—might not indicate that even in preindustrial societies, some individuals might choose to live alone or in very small households, this possibility should be considered by archaeologists; for example, when encountering small rooms with hearths as at Aşıklı Level 2 (Düring 2006:Figure 4.6). As with indicators #3–#5 in Theme 1, I tentatively accept #79–#80 as constituting potential indicators of suprahousehold cooperation in principle, but caution that it seems impractical to actually apply these indicators in an architectural analysis because it appears impossible to determine the appropriate dimensions for a house of an autonomous household of unknown size.
Indicator #78 collects text passages by Steadman (2004:531, 537, 539, 546, 547) who discusses the concept of ‘incomplete houses’ in Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia. She interprets that an ‘incomplete’ house was used by a household that relied on others—possibly related by kinship—for some of their daily needs. Indicator #78 was separated from the following indicators #79–#87 because Steadman does not always clearly state what led her to interpret houses as incomplete; #79–#87 represent more concrete criteria. Indicator #78 therefore functions as a headline node. Indicators #79 and #80 refer to the size of the house. As mentioned when discussing indicator #3 in Theme 1, several scholars share the opinion that a house needs a certain minimum size to be a fully functional household residence. With indicator #79, a number of cases have been documented where researchers believed houses were too small to facilitate an independent household. Most text passages coded for #79 are written by Düring and refer to Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, where many seemingly independent rooms, marked by their lack of connections to neighbouring rooms on ground level, are very small. As summarised in Theme 1 (#7), this is taken by Düring as evidence for reconstructing a usage pattern at Aşıklı Level 2 whereby a group of people used several dispersed rooms—including one with a hearth—together as their residence. However, this spatial fragmentation of the household residence is seen as strong evidence that Aşıklı households were dependant on each other to the degree that they might not even meet the basic independence assumed for Early Neolithic households, and therefore cannot truly be considered households (Düring and Marciniak 2005:173–174): “First, the building units at Aşıklı Höyük seem to be too small to have served as household residences [#79], if cross-cultural averages are used as a guide. Second, only half of the building units contained a hearth [#81], which is considered a defining element for a household. It seems that the evidence does not support a reconstruction of households as groups defined by clearly demarcated residences and economically autonomous. Instead we may regard the neighbourhood group as the basic defining element of society” (Düring 2006:111). Further, Düring also believes that there can be too much
Indicator #81 refers to the notion that a house(hold) without a hearth cannot function socially and economically independently, a notion shared by a number of researchers. The related indicator #82 refers to a single text passage by Furholt (2017:393) who interprets Hacılar I, with interconnected rooms containing more than one hearth, as related to social units larger than households. Since there are many more text passages coded for #81 and therefore greater basis for this discussion, I will here focus on #81. Three somewhat different examples are 192
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration Therefore, while it is possible that some buildings saw total lapses in their occupation (Matthews 2005a), it is also necessary to imagine lifestyles that involved living in and using one house, but dining elsewhere. Put otherwise: daily foodways regularly involved residents of multiple structures, not only in contexts of feasting or occasional visiting (Demirergi et al. 2014), but as a matter of true dependency of some people on multiple spaces (Stevanović 2012a)” (Kay 2020:462). The ubiquity of this house usage mode, mentioned by Kay, should be seen as a tentative interpretation that would need to be verified by studying a much larger sample of houses from different levels at Çatalhöyük, and of course at other sites. Nevertheless, Kay’s study shows the absolute necessity of researching building biographies rather than lumping all installations found in a building together as one usephase, which can lead to incorrect social interpretations as pointed out by Kay. Similar studies should also be done at other sites in the study region. Kay concludes that “The data presented here challenge the idea that each house at the site was the home of a single, autonomous household” (Kay 2020:462), and instead suggests a much greater significance of the suprahousehold social level at the site than previously acknowledged (Kay 2020:462–465). However, again with reference to the limited sample, I would conclude that the data is insufficient to challenge the overall interpretation of Çatalhöyük as made up of autonomous households, but shows that around 6700– 6500 BC, there were at least some examples at the site where, over certain periods of time, households must have collaborated closely with others on a daily basis as evidenced by the temporary lack of cooking (#81) and storage (#85) facilities in some buildings.
cited in relation to #81: First, the already discussed small rooms of Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, of which only about half had hearths, which is seen by many (Düring 2006:92, 296, 2011c:64; Schachner 1999:46; Steadman 2004:546) as additional support for the reconstruction outlined above of the importance of the suprahousehold social level in this village. Second, Cutting (2005b:103) points out that at Hacılar Ia “the only two ovens found were both outside, suggesting some form of communal cooking”. I coded this text passage for both indicator #99 (outside cooking installations) in Theme 15 where this interpretation will be critiqued further, and also for #81, because it refers to the lack of ovens inside buildings. And third, several examples for indicator #81 refer to temporarily incomplete houses at Çatalhöyük. This phenomenon was first documented in the BACH excavation area, but has recently been more thoroughly researched by Kay (2020). In the BACH area, a group of neighbouring buildings (B.3 and adjacent buildings) was excavated at the top of the Çatalhöyük East Mound whose internal furnishings changed several times over the duration of their use-lives, and in some phases a portion of houses lacked ovens, hearths (#81) and/or storage facilities (#85; Stevanović 2012c). Stevanović (2012c:79) reconstructs a mode of usage whereby a few households would share cooking facilities periodically (also Hodder 2013b:2, 25; Hodder 2014c:17). She suggests that such sharing might have become necessary periodically through the occurrence of events that made one house unusable, such as replastering or burial (Stevanović 2012c:80). Hodder and Farid (2014:29) pointed out a few more examples of buildings without hearths or ovens from the later levels of the East Mound). Most recently, a larger study by Kay (2020) showed that this was possibly a relatively wide-spread phenomenon. Kay (2020:456, Figure 2) analysed four buildings from Level G (6700–6500 BC, Hodder 2021a:Table 1.2). Recording the presence/ absence of various features (cooking installations, storage installations, platforms, posts, features related to ritual elaboration) during different use-phases of each building, he found an unexpected degree of fluctuation in the equipment of houses over their entire biography. Speaking about cooking and storage features in particular, he concluded that “The premise that each house was home to a self-sufficient household grows from the idea that every house was fully equipped for daily metabolic tasks. This appears to be true if one sums each house’s contents, but a biographical view shows that this is not the case. While this has been noted previously in regard to a few houses (Farid 2005; Stevanović 2012b), the data here suggests a surprising ubiquity of oven-less or kitchen-less periods in the use-lives of otherwise diverse houses. On any given day in the sixty-fifth century, some Çatalhöyük houses would have been equipped to store, process and prepare food; some would have been partially equipped; and others would have been largely unequipped for these tasks. Houses that lacked hearths, ovens [#81], bins and/or basins [#85] continued to be used, their floors replastered and their features modified.
For reasons already discussed with Theme 1—that fire installations are necessary for daily food preparation, as well as heating in winter and for some craft activities—I agree that ownership of fire installations for cooking is an essential feature to allow for economic and social independence on a basic level, and households without their own cooking installations cannot be completely independent. As already stated in Theme 1, an application of #81–#82 in an architectural analysis would however require care since hearths/ovens could also have been located on roofs, upper floors, or in privately owned outdoor areas rather than the ground levels that are normally preserved for excavation. The absence of hearth or oven in a certain room therefore needs to be contextualised with other evidence to be sure about presence or absence. Indicators #83–#87 deal with storage space. Storage has already been discussed with Theme 1, where it was shown that reliably reconstructing storage capacity and the food requirements of a household is archaeologically very challenging; these issues also apply here. Indicator #83 collects a number of statements by Hodder (2013a:6, 2014c:6) associating the fact that Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 features very little evidence of storage facilities in houses
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia with collective and communal identity. The implication here—albeit not really made explicit—seems to be that if food was not stored within individual houses, it must have been stored in facilities shared by several households. Beyond text passages that could be coded for #83, other researchers also understand the scarcity of in-house storage facilities at Aşıklı Level 2—with only a minority of rooms having a bin or basin—as a sign for social and economic sharing across household boundaries: Düring (2006:92) interprets the absence of storage and also the general lack of other productive installations in Aşıklı 2 houses, such as grinding stones, as evidence that much economic activity occurred in the open midden spaces and relates this to a strong communal identity at the site (#97 in Theme 15). Steadman suggests two options by saying, “The absence of numerous permanent storage areas (bins, etc.) is curious, but storage may have been in baskets or other receptacles not preserved in the archaeological record; alternatively, large silos may be located in unexcavated areas of the site” (Steadman 2004:537). Cutting (2005b:45, 46; similarly Steadman 2000b:184) sees evidence for the existence of a large separate storage building at Aşıklı Level 2 that was used collectively. This building will be discussed further with #105 in Theme 16. Here I would like to point out that without clear evidence for a collective storage building, and even with, the mere absence of visible storage inside houses cannot be taken as unequivocal proof for the complete absence of household-maintained storage since containers might have been made from perishable materials as pointed out by Steadman, and more generally, not all forms of storage are architecturally visible (Theme 1). Further, especially at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, where Düring (2011c:64) and Steadman (2004:546) reconstruct that a household or kin group used a number of dispersed rooms, it is possible that some of the very small rooms were used for storage and/ or food processing; micromorphological analysis of the floors could confirm this possibility. Therefore, while I agree that collective storage in shared facilities (#105) does imply communal ties, collective storage needs to be evidenced directly by finding such facilities, and not indirectly by the absence of in-house storage (#83).
2005b:95). Indicator #85 has been mentioned in relation to the already discussed ‘temporarily incomplete’ houses documented at Çatalhöyük, which over certain usephases lacked storage facilities. Stevanović (2012c:79), Kay (2020:462, cited above), as well as Hodder and Farid understand the lack of storage facilities in some houses (#85) as evidence for sharing beyond household boundaries: “In some phases of occupation of B.3, storage bins and basins did not exist, suggesting that the house was closely linked to other houses” (Hodder and Farid 2014:29). And finally, indicators #86–#87 refer to the amount of storage capacity, with both rather small (#86) and rather large (#87) storage capacities being interpreted in terms of suprahousehold cooperation. Indicator #86 refers exclusively to Çatalhöyük: While there is general agreement that the fact that nearly every Çatalhöyük house had a storage room can be interpreted as evidence for a baseline household autonomy (#8), Hodder (2014d:151, 2014f:174) has pointed out that the typical storage space of a Çatalhöyük house was limited, so that each household still had to maintain close ties with others as a precaution: “Individual houses seem to have been relatively self-sufficient but without large-scale storage they also depended on tightly-knit networks of various types so that in times of failure or hardship a wide range of links could be called upon” (Hodder 2014f:182). Hodder portrays moderate storage capacities as both a result of, and incentive for, the maintenance of suprahousehold economic ties: the pre-6500 BC Çatalhöyük household did not need large storage, because it could rely on its social ties as a security net—but it also needed to invest in these ties, many of which were ritual in nature (Theme 14) because it did not possess large amounts of stored food (Hodder 2014b:11, 2014d:153, 2014f:175). There is disagreement as to how many people could have been fed for how long with the contents of a typical Çatalhöyük storage room (Theme 1), but this might not be of central relevance in this discussion. The possibility of storage failure must have been a real threat since especially in dense living conditions the stored food was under constant threat from pests such as rodents (Bogaard et al. 2013:119; Twiss et al. 2009:888) and this renders additional support to Hodder’s statement. Then there might also be cases of too much storage (#87): Cessford takes the particularly large storage space in B.1 at the top of the Çatalhöyük East Mound to mean that “these structures [houses] were not self contained functional units, but instead served part of the needs of a larger group occupying several structures” (Cessford 2007:541).
While #83 refers to a larger scale of communal storage, indicators #84–#87 were mentioned as evidence for the sharing of resources in a medium-sized group within the community, such as a neighbourhood or larger kin group. Düring (2006:214) sees the fact that some of the already mentioned ‘twin buildings’ (#74) at Çatalhöyük shared storage space (#84) as further evidence for their close social and economic cooperation. Cutting also mentions shared storage facilities at Bademağacı, however without specifying which storage spaces she interpreted as being shared: “Each building appeared capable of functioning as an independent living unit. However, similarities in construction techniques [#70] and the internal configuration of the buildings [#69], together with the possibility that some storage was shared [#84], suggest the presence of a strong communal tradition” (Cutting
To sum up the discussion of storage, the notorious problem with archaeologically invisible storage that was discussed in greater detail with Theme 1 also applies to indicators #83–#87, which is why they are accepted with precaution. In principle, the resource sharing implied by the absence of household-owned storage facilities (#83) or by the sharing of storage space between two or more households (#84– #85, #87), and the social storage necessitated by relatively 194
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration moderate household-owned food resources (#86) does imply suprahousehold ties if all the necessary parts of the equation can be securely evidenced archaeologically. In practice, an application of #83–#87 in an architectural analysis would necessitate that researchers are able to identify all available storage space, attribute it to particular households or verify that it was not household-owned, and in the case of #86–#87 also determine how much food was stored and how large the household was. The latter is especially challenging, but the former (the correct identification of storage space per household) is also not trivial at the sites in question. It follows that an application of these indicators must proceed with utmost caution and might often not be possible based on the available data.
discussion around ritual elaboration, household autonomy and suprahousehold integration. Indicator #88 records that even when the leading research opinion was that symbolic elaboration of the house supported household identity (#19 in Theme 3), there were already suggestions to (also) connect it at the community scale, and sometimes the two interpretations are juxtaposed in the same publication, for example when Hodder (2005c:9, 11) saw symbolism as controlled by households, but also playing a role in building shared ancestry and memory that regulated alliances between households. Hodder (2005c:9, 2006:57– 58) observed a tension in this context whereby individual Çatalhöyük households tried to gain or maintain ritual autonomy, but also social and economic independence from the overall close-knit, communal system at the site. At least partially, this seems to be based on the content of some of the paintings, which clearly show groups of people involved in activities such as hunting or teasing of wild animals, thus displaying what seems to be ritually and/or socially important collective action (Hodder 2005g:15, 29).
8.3.6. Theme 14: Symbols of community Theme 3 introduced the role of ritual elaboration of buildings in the identification of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration. Items of ritual elaboration named in this discussion are mostly burials, wall paintings, mouldings and building continuity – all will be further explained in the following. The discussion of Theme 3 contested the notion that ritual items should be associated with household identity by default since they are located in the house (#19, #23) and introduced the fact that newer research has concentrated on studying the synchronic and diachronic distribution of symbolic items across the settlement space and thereby has increasingly found evidence that ritual elaboration functioned to a large degree on the suprahousehold scale – at least at Çatalhöyük East. The number of text passages coded for Theme 14 show the great significance of ritual elaboration in newer research on the social geography of the central Anatolian Neolithic. However, as with Theme 3, the discussion of Theme 14 mainly builds on evidence from Çatalhöyük East as the central Anatolian Neolithic site that features the highest intensity of ritual elaboration of architecture. This Çatalhöyük-focus in Theme 14 means that it remains unclear to what degree the mechanisms described with the indicators of the theme— several of which (#90–#94) refer specifically to the uneven distribution of particular ritual motifs (#90) or of ritual items more generally (#91–#94) across the settlement—apply only to this site, or whether they might also be found at others. Therefore, a stronger integration of evidence from other sites into the discussion of the indicators in Theme 14 seems desirable for future research.
Another artefact of the beginnings of the symbolism discussion was Hodder’s opinion that at sites without prominent symbolic house elaboration, ritual was organised and controlled at a communal level (#89). This opinion, too, is related to the notion documented with indicator #19: It formed part of the general picture that Hodder (2006:58) reconstructed for the central Anatolian Neolithic whereby the earliest settlements, like Aşıklı Höyük, had a strong collective identity that is evidenced, for example, by the fact that ritual was bundled in large communal facilities (#103) and individual houses were not ritually elaborated (#89). At later sites like Çatalhöyük, the individual household grew more independent and households controlled ritual to a significant degree (#19). During the Early Chalcolithic, at Çatalhöyük West and Hacılar, symbolic house elaboration disappears again and instead pottery is elaborated by painting, which signifies a return to more communal forms of ritual at the loss of independence by the individual household (#89; Hodder 1987:54–55, 2005b:13, 2006:177): “In fact these later walls seem not to be painted except perhaps in one-colour washes. The pottery, however, becomes elaborately decorated. These changes suggest a gradual wresting of history away from the house. The symbols that refer to myth and history now come to be used to create and exchange relationships between houses” (Hodder 2006:168). This reconstruction, too, can be seen as outdated in light of more recent research which has adjusted and nuanced these interpretations (see #30 in Theme 5, #115 in Theme 18). Indicators #88 and #89 are here dismissed because they derive from outdated explanatory models about the role of symbolism in relation to the household vs. suprahousehold balance in the central Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic.
Beginnings of the ‘symbols of community’ discussion (#88–#89) Indicator #88 collects text passages that connect symbolism at Çatalhöyük with a suprahousehold sphere without offering a more detailed reasoning for this connection. Most of the text passages coded for indicator #88 are from older sources published up to and including 2006 and loose relevance in light of the much more detailed, nuanced and data-rich discussions associated with indicators #90–#93. Therefore, this indicator is mostly of relevance for understanding the intellectual history of the
Shared motifs and secret societies (#90) For the remainder of this section, I will discuss several principles in the creation of suprahousehold connections through ritual elaboration that have been identified in 195
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 8.3. Terraces, radial divisions as well as ritual ties connecting contemporary houses in the Çatalhöyük South excavation area (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Hodder 2014d:Figure 10.1)16.
newer research and mostly at Çatalhöyük. These are: shared motifs (#90); asymmetric distribution of burials (co-burial groups, #91) and other ritual items (#92), building continuity (#93), and the history house concept (#94) which combines asymmetric distribution and building continuity. As outlined in 6.2.3, these different ritual networks at Çatalhöyük were not mutually exclusive or in competition, but households and individuals probably had ritual alliances with several groups simultaneously. The different types of shared ritual created a complex web of criss-crossing relationships by which individuals and households were integrated tightly into subcommunities and finally a larger community. As also outlined in 6.2.3, the Çatalhöyük team reconstructs these ritual ties as also having social and economic importance and together forming a social security system within which households and individuals could solicit the help of others when
needed: “The implication is that a person or house could get food (or obsidian or wood or clay) from people on their terrace, in their sector [#57], in their burial group [#91], in the group of people that have bears or leopards on the walls [#90], in their bull-feasting group, in their neighborhood [#57] and so on” (Hodder 2014d:153). The first type of ritual connection is the displaying of similar motifs in religious imagery (#90). The interior of many Çatalhöyük houses feature wall paintings displaying a number of things, such as hands, geometric patterns, and scenes including people and animals; and/or moulded features on walls, and installations that were composites of moulded clay and animal bones or horns. Observing distribution patterns of different motifs and building on a suggestion about the existence of religious sodalities at Çatalhöyük by Mills (2014), Hodder postulated the existence of cross-ties between individual households that were displayed in the form of shared images, with contemporary, non-adjacent houses displaying the same or similar motifs, especially animals (#90, Figure 8.3): “if we connect buildings with leopard reliefs, bear (splayed figure) reliefs, painted hands, horned benches
reprinted from I. Hodder 2014 Mosaics and Networks: The Social Geography of Çatalhöyük, in I. Hodder (ed.), Integrating Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 2000‐2008 Seasons (Çatalhöyük Research Project 10; British Institute at Ankara Monograph 49; Monumenta Archaeologica 32) London and Los Angeles, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 16
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Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration and so on, we find complex cross-cutting relationships” (Hodder 2014b:8). Hodder reconstructs this in terms of “medicine societies, secret societies or clans” (Hodder 2014d:160) based around the identification with a specific (wild) animal connecting different households that were dispersed over the site (Hodder 2013a:25, 2014d:160, 161, 2014f:174, 182).
enumerate several examples of buildings exhibiting idiosyncratic interpretations of ritual elaboration (#21) that still display an overall shared canon of ritual motifs and then conclude that “[t]his symbolic repertoire thus seems to express individual household identities as well as broader community ritual and symbolic concerns” (Baird et al. 2017:761). It is interesting that in this example, ritual elaboration is interpreted as supporting both householdspecific identity creation as well as a suprahousehold ritual sphere. The second text passage coded for #90 that refers to Boncuklu is a tentative suggestion by Baird et al. about the existence—not yet conclusively proven—of the practice of embedding bones or horns from the same animal into different houses to create suprahousehold ties: “Animal parts too, especially aurochs’ skull elements, may well have been shared between houses; the single aurochs horn next to the entry of B6 suggests the other horn was elsewhere. The right and left sides of the two bucrania in the B4 installation (Figs 5 and 6) had been chopped off in fitting the skulls into the wall foundation; one horn was removed from each skull, possibly as part of the artifice of creating a massive bucranium or double head. This would have yielded two horns that could have been shared with other houses or people, perhaps some of those who participated in the aurochsen kill or to cement relationships between households in a transfer of ritual power or animal spirit agency. This implicates these animals in sharing in interhousehold ritual practices” (Baird et al. 2017:770). This suggested scenario is closer to the secret societies at Çatalhöyük suggested by Hodder in that the sharing of parts from the same animal at Boncuklu would have created very concrete relationships between a small number of households. More research is needed to verify the existence of such a practice at Boncuklu.
In her study of communities of practice at Çatalhöyük (see #57 in Theme 10 and especially #73 in Theme 12), Mazzucato (2019:21) found additional evidence for this interpretation by showing that in some cases motif sharing was part of a wider context of shared practices among a group of neighbouring houses. However, the type of suprahousehold grouping documented by Mazzucato, a group of mostly neighbouring houses sharing similar practices, is not entirely congruent with the “secret societies” suggested by Hodder because the latter often concern geographically dispersed houses (Figure 8.3). Therefore, Mazzucato’s study can only partly verify Hodder’s reconstruction of suprahousehold groupings based on shared ritual motifs. There is also some evidence for the social and ritual significance of the animals included in Hodder’s reconstruction of secret societies in the form of hunting taboos (Hodder 2014d:167) and an overall rarity of these animals—e.g. bears, wolfs and leopards—in the imagery (Hodder 2014d:151). In general, though, there is not a sufficient amount of evidence to verify Hodder’s claim of secret societies – different from the indicators discussed in the remainder of this section, which are more securely evidenced. Indicator #90 is still tentatively accepted because the overall context of this theme, in which there is a lot of evidence for of ritual sharing on a suprahousehold scale at Çatalhöyük, renders credibility to this indicator. There should be, however, more research in the future on indicator #90.
Asymmetric distribution of ritual, building continuity, and history houses (#92–#94)
The suggestion of religious solidarities based on identification with a particular motif, often an animal, represents a refinement of an earlier notion also documented with indicator #90. This notion refers to suggestions by Forest (1993:15) and Hodder (2006:56) pointing out the existence of a common symbolic repertoire at the Çatalhöyük, along with a high degree of motif repetition, and connected this observation to communally shared identity of beliefs or shared rules/conventions respectively. In this reconstruction, shared symbolism was more generally an expression of a shared belief system within the Çatalhöyük village community. This is different from Hodder’s newer interpretation of ‘secret societies’, where shared symbolism is at the same time more exclusive (these subcommunities do not encompass the entire village) and also much stronger and more concrete than the more diffuse shared belief system which, including all hundreds or thousands of inhabitants of the site, might not have had the same force of suprahousehold integration. A similar more general principle of site-wide sharing of religious motifs was also more recently proposed by Baird et al. for Boncuklu Höyük. In one of only two text passages coded for #90 that do not refer to Çatalhöyük, Baird et al.
Indicators #91 and #92 describe an interpretation of the asymmetric synchronic distribution of features with symbolic charge (burials, paintings, mouldings) across the village of Çatalhöyük as evidence for cross-ties creating ritual subcommunities. Burials (#91) were divided here from other ritual items (#92) as a separate indicator because the discussion around the distribution of burials is—as opposed to other items—influenced by nonarchitectural evidence on diet and genetics. For this reason, in this section indicator #91 is discussed first and separate from the others. However, the reconstruction of both #91 and #92 are closely related and also connect to the third indicator in this group, building continuity (#93). Although all three are in some ways separate principles of creating ritual cross-ties, the spatial distribution of burials, other ritual items, and instances of building continuity across the sites shows that all these items of ritual elaboration cluster in particular buildings. In the latter part of this section, all three indicators are therefore discussed together also including the final indicator in this group, which refers to houses with a particularly intense ritual elaboration (#94, history houses). 197
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Co-burial groups at Çatalhöyük and beyond (#91)
biological kinship between co-buried people only in one case. Taken altogether, this evidence indicates that coburial groups were composed mostly of individuals that were not related (Hodder 2021a:27; Yaka, Doğu et al. 2021:403, 405; Yaka, Mapelli et al. 2021:7–8). Isotopes indicate that people who were buried together shared the same diet, but diets vary between different co-burial groups (Hillson et al. 2013:246–250; Hodder 2014b:6, 8–9, 2021a:23–24; Pearson 2013:291–296; Pearson, Bogaard, et al. 2015; Pearson, Haddow, et al. 2015). This indicates that co-burial groups did have socioeconomic significance since these groups regularly shared food with each other but not with other co-burial groups. Based on this evidence of food sharing, it is possible to hypothesise that co-burial groups also shared other social and economic activities such as food production or cooperation on daily tasks (Hodder 2021a:24).
A large number of human burials have been excavated at Çatalhöyük East: 685 individuals in the 1960s (Düring 2011c:107), and at least 816 individuals—an exact number cannot be determined due to poor preservation in secondary and tertiary burials—by the Hodder team between 1993 and 2017 (Haddow et al. 2021:282). Most burials constitute subfloor burials, interred during the use of a building into pits cut through floors and platforms and then re-patched with plaster (Boz and Hager 2013:413). The distribution of burials among houses is extremely variable, from none to 64 burials per building (Düring 2003, 2008b, 2011c:110; Hodder 2014b:5). Using data derived from excavations up until 2006, Düring found that only around 20% of the houses contain burials (Düring 2008b:607). Newer evidence seems to have updated that number to about half of the buildings (Figure 8.3; Düring 2011c:110). However, burials are clearly clustered in particular buildings. When a large number of burials are present, it is especially likely that not every buried person had been a resident of the building prior to death (Düring 2008b:607, 2011c:110; Hodder 2014b:5; Hodder and Pels 2010:178). Hodder (2014b:5; Hodder and Pels 2010:167) defines houses with more than 10–15 burials as “multipleburial houses”, interpreting that if a higher number of individuals are buried in one house, it is likely that this coburial group collected the deceased from a suprahousehold group. The asymmetric distribution of burials between houses (#91) at Çatalhöyük is therefore interpreted as a ritual practice that created ties between households (Düring 2002, 2006:201–211, 2008b, 2011c:110; Hodder 2014b:5, 9; Hodder and Cessford 2004:30–31, 36; Hodder and Pels 2010:164).
Interpreting the combination of isotope and genetic evidence in the context of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration presents issues that are not yet fully resolved. Using only the genetic evidence, it would be possible to interpret that Çatalhöyük households mainly consisted of biological relatives but that household members got separated after death and interred in different buildings with non-biological kin. This would constitute strong evidence for the interpretation of co-burial groups as suprahousehold groupings, which was first suggested based solely on the spatial distribution of burials (see above). However, the diet evidence which shows that co-burial groups were also “co-eating” groups (Hodder 2014b:9) casts a different light on the matter. Based on the definition of households in 6.2.3 and Theme 1, groups that regularly, maybe daily, shared food should be interpreted as households. Co-burial groups would then be households that at least in some cases consisted of people living in different buildings, but not suprahousehold groupings in a strict sense. This interpretational conundrum has not yet been clearly named and addressed in the literature surrounding the Çatalhöyük co-burial groups. The term “kin” can be found in many recent interpretations of the co-burial groups (“larger kin-groups”, Chyleński et al. 2019:10; “adoptive, foster or fictive kin” Hodder 2014b:8– 9, also Yaka, Doğu et al. 2021: 405; Yaka, Mapelli et al. 2021:8) but cannot be mapped onto the household vs. suprahousehold debate. Hodder’s (2014b:8–9, 2021a:27) statements about the combined kinship and diet evidence also express the lack of clarity over co-burial groups as either households or suprahousehold groups, for example, “To some degree those that were buried in houses were ‘practical’ rather than official biological kin – that is they were people brought together on the basis of a wide range of factors including the need to cooperate and share in joint labour. The people buried in a particular building may have included adoptive, foster or fictive kin held together by memory- and history-making and by the various types of network described in this paper. It is also possible that those buried in a building did not live within the ‘house’ of that building: it is possible that burial location was part of the negotiation of social and economic relations between
As already partly discussed in 6.2.3, there is additional evidence for the significance of co-burial groups in the form of evidence pertaining to diet (isotopes) and biological kinship (dental morphology, aDNA). Biodistance studies based on dental morphology have shown that people who were buried together were in most cases not closely related (Hodder 2014b:8–9; Knüsel et al. 2021:335–336; Pilloud and Larsen 2011:39–41). More recently, aDNA studies have confirmed this – despite overall poor aDNA preservation at the site (Chyleński et al. 2019:6; Yaka, Doğu et al. 2021:402; Yaka, Mapelli et al. 2021:7). Chyleński et al. (2019) studied ten individuals from neighbouring buildings in Levels South N-O and demonstrated that their mitochrondrial DNA lineages, which derive from the maternal line, were different. In one case, four individuals from the same building could be successfully sampled and all four had different maternal lineages. This means either that individuals buried in the same building were not closely biologically related, or that they were related through the paternal line (Chyleński et al. 2019:9–10; Hodder 2021a:27; Yaka, Doğu et al. 2021:403). Yaka, Mapelli et al. (2021) were able to extract full genomes from 14 individuals from different levels (South K, M, N, North G and the TP and TPC excavation areas) and found close 198
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration households after the death of one of its members. On the other hand, the evidence for some degree of distinct diet associated with those buried in buildings at least suggests that the group that ate together also was buried together. Often this co-eating, co burying group was larger than an individual building – thus a social ‘house’ consisted of more than one building. The important result from the work by M. Pilloud and C. Larsen is that links between those buried in buildings were not simply biological; and correspondingly the complex links between buildings included the separation of children from biological parents at some point soon after birth” (Hodder 2014b:8– 9). In absence of a clear definition of the Çatalhöyük co-burial groups as either households or suprahousehold groupings—or possibly a yet to be defined third category somewhere in between—they do not provide clear evidence for the present discussion of indicator #91, which as a reminder, refers to the asymmetric distribution of burials between houses at Çatalhöyük. In light of this ambiguity, indicator #91 is tentatively accepted as a potential marker of suprahousehold groupings until future research is able to more definitively identify the Çatalhöyük co-burial groups as either household or suprahousehold groups.
marked asymmetric distribution of burials at Çatalhöyük, which is not evidenced at other sites to the same degree. At Aşıklı Höyük Level 2, some amount of clustering was observed and tentatively interpreted by Düring and Marciniak (Düring and Marciniak 2005:175; Marciniak 2008:96) as similar to the asymmetric distribution at Çatalhöyük: as evidence for suprahousehold management of the question over who was buried where. However, evidence on burial distribution in Level 2 is incomplete because the subfloor area of most buildings was not excavated and some context information attached to excavated burials is unreliable (Düring 2006:87–89; also see #23 in Theme 3). At the more recently excavated Aşıklı Levels 5–3, subfloor burials were found in nearly every building (Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019:100) but there is as of yet a very limited number of excavated buildings from these levels. The same is true for Boncuklu Höyük: there is a limited sample of excavated buildings, but most buildings seem to have featured burials, although the burials and their location are not yet systematically published (Baird et al. 2017). More evidence on the spatiotemporal distribution of burials is needed at both sites – neither Aşıklı nor Boncuklu features the same robust dataset on burial distribution as Çatalhöyük. However, the currently available, combined evidence from spatial distribution and aDNA seems to show a difference between Boncuklu and Aşıklı on the one hand, where burials were more evenly distributed between buildings and co-burial groups were composed mostly of biological relatives, and Çatalhöyük on the other hand, where distribution was strongly asymmetric and co-burial groups were not biologically related. At all sites, it remains difficult to determine in what way coburial groups were also co-residential groups; in other words, whether people buried together also lived together prior to their deaths in the building where they were buried. However, the relatively small number of burials per building observed at Aşıklı and Boncuklu, together with the evidence that they were genetically related seems to point more towards the direction of householdbased burial, while the Çatalhöyük evidence, with burial clusters that are very numerous in some cases (#91), and the evidence for an absence of biological relatedness seems to point more in the direction of suprahousehold groupings. My interpretation here is tentative and should be researched further in the future.
Some additional support for #91 as indicator for suprahousehold groupings comes from tentative evidence for a correlation of symmetric burial distribution with biological relatedness of co-burial groups in the central Anatolian Neolithic on the one hand, and asymmetric burial distribution with non-biological relatedness of co-burial groups on the other hand. Sites other than Çatalhöyük barely feature in the discussion around the spatial distribution of burials across contemporary houses that was documented by my coding of indicator #91 – I found only two text passages that do not refer to Çatalhöyük, but to Aşıklı Höyük (Düring and Marciniak 2005:175; Marciniak 2008:96). However, a comparison with Aşıklı and Boncuklu Höyük in particular is useful for contextualising indicator #91 – and here this will build onto the discussion of #23 in Theme 3. Yaka, Mapelli, et al.’s (2021) aDNA study also included three other sites from the central Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic along with Çatalhöyük. It showed that at Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu Höyük, in many cases individuals buried in the same or neighbouring buildings were related. Evidence from Tepecik proved inconclusive due to a small sample, but might have included at least one parent-child pairing buried in the same building of Level 4 (dated 6650– 6400 BC, 5.13.1). This evidence indicates variability throughout the central Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic (Yaka, Mapelli, et al. 2021:6–7). Taking only the three more fully researched sites and leaving Tepecik aside, it is possible to hypothesise that there was change over time from biological relatives being buried together in the first millennium of the Early Neolithic (Boncuklu, Aşıklı) to co-burial groups composed of non-relatives at the later site of Çatalhöyük. This can be cross-referenced with changes in the symmetric vs. asymmetric distribution of burials. Indicator #91 refers specifically to the very
As already noted in Theme 3, at Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük and other sites, it might be the relatively even distribution of burials across houses rather than their location under floors that can be used as evidence to argue that burials at these sites were administered on a household level. This symmetric distribution of burials would represent the counterpart to indicator #91, but appears yet to have been explicitly suggested in the literature, or at least it was not documented in my content analysis. Finally, I would like to remark that based on the above outlined possible evidence for change in the composition of co-burial groups over the course of the Neolithic, it seems desirable that future research should more strongly 199
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia focus on potential change over time in the composition of co-burial at Çatalhöyük itself as well – by including more aDNA samples from the Early Neolithic levels at the site. So far, with the exception of the two individuals from South K researched by Yaka, Mapelli et al. (2021), all individuals from Çatalhöyük successfully sampled for aDNA were from the middle and late levels, dating from 6700 BC onwards. Studying more aDNA from earlier levels could help determine the point in time when coburial practices changed in the central Anatolian Neolithic.
complexity was devised by Hodder and Pels (2010) and it simply sums, for any one phase of a building, the numbers of floor segments [platforms], basins, benches, installations (protuberances on walls, including bucrania and other animal fixtures), pillars and paintings in the main room of the building. It could be objected that this measure mixes mundane architectural features such as floor segments and wall pillars on the one hand, and symbolic features such as paintings and bucrania. However, it is difficult to discern which features are more or less symbolic – for example floor segments seem to have played an important symbolic role in differentiating areas of activity. The simple sum of features does seem to provide a measure that correlates with other variables such as numbers of burials (see Hodder 2016)” (Hodder 2021a:11). As stated by Hodder himself, the degree to which basins, benches, platforms and posts/ pillars should be seen as ritual is debatable – but since they are being used by Hodder and also Kay (2020:460–461) to measure the elaboration of houses, they form part of #91.
The suprahousehold pooling of ritual charge: elaborate buildings, multiple-burial buildings and history houses (#91-#94) Not only burials (#91), but also other items with ritual charge (#92) and building continuity (#93) are irregularly distributed at Çatalhöyük. I will here first summarise the evidence on asymmetrically distributed ritual images and building continuity and then discuss #91–#94 in combination as evidence for the suprahousehold pooling of ritual items.
Building continuity (Figures 8.4, 8.5) was introduced in Theme 4 (#28) and is a practice whereby houses were abandoned through a planned process, with the upper part removed and the lower part stabilised and filled in; and then a new house was constructed on top that mirrored the footprint of the old house (Düring 2007, 2009, 2011c:114; Farid 2014:91–92) and sometimes also continued certain features, for example a particular animal image in a specific location (Düring 2011c:114; Hodder and Cessford 2004:35). Building continuity as documented with indicator #93 forms part of the history house concept, but it has also been related with community integration for other reasons that will be discussed below following the history houses. Indicator #93 incorporates a certain degree of ambiguity because text passages coded for this indicator argue in favour of building continuity in general as a practice supporting suprahousehold integration, but it also includes text passages that additionally refer to the fact that history houses were rebuilt particularly often and therefore to the asymmetric distribution of building continuity at Çatalhöyük. I tried to create two separate codes—one for building continuity generally, and one for asymmetric building continuity— but found that these two concepts are not clearly separated in the literature; for example, when building continuity is named as evidence for history houses without any mention that other nonhistory houses were also continued and that history houses are in fact marked by having particularly many instances of building continuity compared to others (e.g. Baird et al. 2017:755; Düring 2011c). In the end, it was a better solution to bundle all discussions of building continuity as evidence for suprahousehold integration into one indicator because it facilitated a better understanding of the different reasons why building continuity has been associated with suprahousehold ties.
Indicator #91 refers to the asymmetric distribution of ritually charged items across the Çatalhöyük houses. This indicator collects several features that have been interpreted as items with ritual charge. Because Hodder especially, as a prominent voice in the discussion around indicators #91–#94, writes often of ‘elaboration’ without enumerating specifically what items are meant (e.g. Hodder 2021a:25; Hodder and Cessford 2004:36), all mentions of elaboration were collected together in indicator #91. The features named most prominently (most often and by many authors) in the text passages coded for #91 are images: mouldings and paintings. As introduced above, wall paintings as well as moulded clay features on walls, and installations that were composites of moulded clay and animal bones, bones or teeth such as the well-known bucrania installations, are interpreted as ritually charged imagery at Çatalhöyük. Moulded features are irregularly distributed between contemporary houses as well as from a diachronic perspective. Using data excavated at the site from up until 2006, Düring found that only about a quarter of houses had moulded features (Düring 2006:195–201, 217, 2011c:99–107). This has been confirmed in newer research (Hodder 2014b:4, 2021a:2; Hodder and Pels 2010). The distribution of wall paintings is more difficult to determine, as discussed in greater length with indicator #22 in Theme 3. While the paintings that have actually been excavated cluster in only some portion of buildings, it is likely that a large number of paintings have remained undiscovered because they were later painted over. Düring (2006:217, 2011c:102–103) as well as Hodder (2014e:9, 2017:11) thus think it likely that nearly every building featured paintings and that these are therefore not as asymmetrically distributed as mouldings. Wall paintings are still regularly named as ritual items in the discussion around indicator #91, though. Apart from mouldings and paintings, Hodder also counts basins, benches, platforms and posts/pillars as items that add to ritual charge: “… an elaboration index. The latter measure of architectural
It was noticed early in the research history of Çatalhöyük that not every house had an equal share of symbolism (#92), and although in-house symbolism was traditionally connected to household identity (#19), its asymmetric 200
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration
Figure 8.4. Building continuity documented in the deep sounding at Aşıklı Höyük (reprinted with permission from Deutsches Archäologisches Institut Istanbul from: Düring 2009:Figure 1).
distribution became the basis for the first suggestions that it was also part of ties and negotiations between households. The concentration of ritual images in certain buildings had led Mellaart (1967:77) to interpret a substantial number of houses as ‘shrines’, but in newer research, all Çatalhöyük buildings are regarded as houses in the sense that they were residences (see Düring 2011c:111–112 with a summary of evidence refuting the existence of ‘shrines’ at Çatalhöyük, also Hodder and Cessford 2004:21). Mellaart (1967:78) reconstructed ‘shrines’ as part of a hierarchically organised, yet community-integrating ritual system (#133 in Theme 19.5, Chapter 9). Last suggested that although “the principal significance of the images lay within the household”, the images might have displayed the household’s acquired status in the community and therefore ritual imagery “also implies something about social relations between households. If the acquisition of images depended on communal acts, then their presence would contribute to the cohesion of the community” (Last 1998a:371–372). Likewise, the asymmetric distribution of subfloor burials (#91) became apparent soon after the start of the Hodder excavations, which documented them in greater detail than Mellaart had (see Düring 2003:4–7 for issues with the Mellaart burial data): “There are too many individuals buried in Building 1 to have been produced by deaths within a small nuclear family in this time period. We assume that a larger, extended group had rights of burial in this building” (Hodder 1999a:161). More recently, these observations have been confirmed through work mapping the synchronic and diachronic distribution of symbolic items and burials across Çatalhöyük more systematically, which clearly shows that they are often concentrated in particular houses (see especially Düring 2006; Hodder and Pels 2010). As a consequence, the dominant interpretation
of ritual items at Çatalhöyük has shifted during the last 10 years nearly completely towards their interpretation as important features creating community cohesion, rendering the earlier notion that ritual house elaboration and subfloor burials at Çatalhöyük support household identity (#19, #23) outdated. The asymmetric distribution of burials (#91, Figure 8.3) and other ritual items (#92) at Çatalhöyük is now interpreted as evidence for a system whereby some houses served as the ritual focus for a group consisting of several households. The number of burials (#91), of other ritual items (#92), and the number of times a house was rebuilt over time (#93) are all used as measures of ritual importance, and there are often correlations whereby these different types of ritual elaboration coincide within particular buildings, as will be shown below. However, the picture is more complex since not all houses with many burials also feature many ritual images, not all buildings with many burials and images are rebuilt, and so on (Hodder 2021a:2). This has led Hodder to define different types of elaborate houses: “We have identified four types of building: history houses, multiple-burial houses, elaborate houses and other houses. History houses (Hodder, Pels 2010) are defined as having at least three phases of rebuilding and in at least one phase there are large numbers of burials (over 10–15). They are often more elaborate than other houses, but multiple-burial and elaborate houses exist for which we do not have any evidence that they were repeatedly rebuilt” (Hodder 2014b:5; also 2021a:2). The reasons why elaborate houses, multiple-burial houses and history houses are interpreted as fostering suprahousehold ties are best discussed with a focus on ‘history houses’, which have come to dominate the discussion around irregularly 201
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia for suprahousehold groupings without naming the items that make a house a history house, a separate indicator (#94) was created to collect all text passages—those that name specific architecture features in connection with history houses and those that do not—that use the term history house or lineage house (see below) and name these as evidence for suprahousehold groupings. This indicator is also useful for tracking the history of the emergence of history or lineage houses as a concept in the research landscape. The following discussion will draw on text coded with indicators #91–#94. The term ‘history house’ was coined by Hodder and Pels (2010) to identify houses with particular ritual charge, which by their interpretation were created through the pooling of ritual resources of several households within a single building (see Carleton et al. 2013 with a critique of the history house concept and Hodder 2016 with a reply; also see Kujit 2018:571 with a critique). The ‘history house’ reconstruction was long in the making, as evidenced by the many remarks by the Çatalhöyük research team coded for #91–#93 in publications from ca. 10–15 years ago, when symbolism was still in a majority of cases attributed to the household level (Themes 3–4), but the asymmetric distribution of symbolism and burial was already recognised as being related with the suprahousehold sphere (Baird 2005:71; Hodder 2005g:29, 2006:161; also see above on the research history of #91–#92), for example: “Thus domestic houses used for large numbers of burials, and those houses which are more elaborate, may have been more closely tied to continuity and the preservation of a collective memory” (Hodder 2005h:136). Furthermore, before the definition of history houses by Hodder, Düring had already offered a similar interpretation, but with a different term. Düring (2005:22, 2011c:115–116) suggested that symbolically charged houses were ‘lineage houses’ that concentrated status and prestige and served as a ritual focal point for a group of households that defined themselves in relation to lineage houses. Basing his interpretation mostly on the asymmetric distribution of burials (#91), Düring (2006:303, 313) suggests that the groups centring on one focal ritual house might have comprised six or seven households. Likely, these were the residents of the houses clustered around the history house: physical proximity might have been important for households to assert their membership in a particular lineage or history house group, and also vice versa the sense of shared identity and history might then have led to a desire for households to remain close to their history house (Düring 2001:2, 15; Hodder 2012:309). Düring (2007a:141) suggested that membership in a lineage house group was not exclusive, but households might have had loyalties with a number of lineage house groups. By contrast, Hodder (e.g. Hodder and Pels 2010) seems to envisage that individuals and households belonged to only one history houses. Although much of the original reasoning for the identification of such ritual focus houses as important suprahousehold institutions were based on ethnographic analogies and anthropological models (e.g. Düring 2006:210, 225–226,
Figure 8.5. Building continuity within a house cluster in the South excavation area at Çatalhöyük (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 6.27)17.
distributed ritual charge at Çatalhöyük (#91–#93) in recent years. The history house concept, and by association the asymmetric distribution of burials and elaboration across Çatalhöyük, has received a lot of scholarly attention over the last years, as evidenced in the large number of text passages coded for #91–#94, and also the fairly extensive discussion of these indicators here, which still only represents a brief summary of the matter. Because newer literature has started to refer to history houses as evidence reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 17
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Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration 300, 2007a, 2009:33, 2011c:115–116; Hodder 2006:161– 162), they have since been verified in the archaeological record of Çatalhöyük in ways that will be discussed in the following.
and events. Ritual events that took place in houses included burial, but also the removal and circulation of body parts from burials (Hodder 2014f:182) and parts of wild animals (Hodder 2013a:25); creating paintings with ritual meaning on house walls and then hiding paintings under new white plaster; creating mouldings and scouring them out (see #28, #29); and probably feasting (Hodder 2013a:25, 2014f:182). Although they were also residences (Hodder 2014b:4), the fact that history houses were places where rituals took place makes it likely that they were at least on some occasions used for congregations combining several households: “It would be implausible to suggest that only the inhabitants of those buildings containing burials and mouldings performed the rituals of burials and those with which the mouldings were connected” (Düring 2001:11; also Düring 2006:225). Sharing such meaningful, powerful events with each other on a probably regular basis would have created bonds within history house groups. And the inclusive force of shared ritual events would have projected past the conclusion of the event itself as the collective memory of them endured, especially if its physical traces were archived and displayed in the house itself in the form of visible and invisible deposits (Hodder 2005h:136, 2006:161–162). The pooling of ritual items, and the memories attached to these material traces, bonded different households to each other by creating a shared identity when households defined themselves in relation to particular history/lineage houses. The house itself, the physical structure and all the ritual charge weaved into it in form of images and burials, developed an authority that was able to bond households into larger groups. It visualised and thus reinforced this mutual ritual, social, and economic commitment and shared identity (Düring 2006:300, 2011c:115–116; Hodder 2012:309; Hodder and Pels 2010:178, 183; Marciniak 2015a:96).
In the following, I would like to discuss the mechanisms by which—according to the text passages coded with #91– #94—history houses and other ritually elaborate houses created suprahousehold ties. Three separate yet related arguments can be extracted from the discussion of history houses or lineage houses for how the practice of pooling ritual in one place, or a few places, would have integrated households. First, if ritual, memory, and ancestry are seen as resources (e.g. Hodder and Pels 2010:183), then the fact that the ritual resources of several households were bundled in one place also means a sharing of resources across household boundaries and an investment—of physical items such as animal horns or the dead, and of the time it took to create ritual items—of a suprahousehold group into one house. As reconstructed by Hodder, ritual resources were part of an exchange system that bound a group of households together, and in which items or services of ritual as well as socioeconomic value were passed forth and back: “It is possible that these history houses came to provide or control ancestors and rituals for a larger kin or other group or ‘house’ (some larger collection of buildings in a ‘house society’). The central history houses may have had less productive and storage space because others in the kin, ancestral or ‘house’ group provided resources and food for them” (Hodder and Pels 2010:178, similarly 183). In such an exchange system, individual households needed to rely on history houses to obtain a resource that seems to have been vital to life at Çatalhöyük: history, ritual, memory, or ancestry. Here it is relevant to remember that, as discussed in 6.2.3, Hodder views ritual cross-ties between households as also having social and economic connotations – and history house groupings are no exception. It is also relevant to remember that per Hodder’s definition of history houses as featuring at least 10–15 burials in at least one of the rebuilding phases (Hodder 2014b:5), many history houses would have featured large co-burial groups that, based on the isotope evidence discussed above with indicator #91, also regularly shared food. This supports an interpretation of history houses as nodal points in an exchange system that included ritual items and practices, but also food and possibly other items. In addition, Hodder (2012:309) and Marciniak (2015a:96) tentatively suggest that “access to rights and resources” (Hodder 2012:309) might have been organised through history house groups. In particular Hodder and Pels (2010:183) point out that, already within the overall egalitarian Early Neolithic, a degree of inequality might have characterised the history house system because history house residents would have been able to exert influence over the associated households relatively easily – as they very probably did after 6500 BC (see Theme 19.5 in Chapter 9).
Third and importantly, the sharing of ritual through history houses incorporated an element of shared history (Hodder 2014f:182). The ‘history’ element of history houses is created not only by the burials often clustered in history houses (#91), but also the abundance of other ritual items present in history houses (#92) which, as discussed in the previous paragraph, are reminders of past ritual events. Also, and in particular, the ‘history’ element of history houses is created by the fact that they had particularly long rebuilding histories (#93; Hodder 2021a:25; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Hodder and Pels 2010:178). This leads to the conclusion that continuity was an important element in how the history houses gained their ritual charge: “An interesting pattern at Çatalhöyük for continuous buildings is an increase of their ritual elaborateness over time. Put simply, we can follow buildings that started out as more or less average domestic units and see how they gradually became invested with symbolism. This can be done by tabulating the occurrence and frequency of mouldings, wall paintings, and burials. In this manner, we can note a clear increase in these ‘ritual features’” (Düring 2011c:114– 115). This marks history houses, and the groupings they represent, as entities with a history (Hodder and Farid 2014:33, Hodder and Pels 2010:178). The history of
Second, the suprahousehold group connected to a history house would have been held together by sharing practices 203
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia history houses added to the shared identity discussed in the previous paragraph by giving legitimacy to the social relationships attached to the history house: “I have suggested that buildings may have been deliberately kept the same as a strategy in which the present was legitimised by presenting is as an immutable timeless past” (Düring 2006:300). Düring (2011c:115) states that the origin of history houses might have become mystically clouded, and the very long duration of some of these houses certainly makes that likely. Some continuous houses lasted several hundred years (see #28 in Theme 4), which is long enough for the origins of a history house to be beyond reliable human memory. Although there was only limited evidence at the time, this principle was already suggested in 1969 by Heinrich and Seidl (1969:118), who reconstructed the elaborate houses of the middle levels as the continuation of the “Stammhäuser [ancestral buildings]” founded by the first settlers at Çatalhöyük, which were continued upwards through building continuity as the mound grew (#91, #93) and also became the focus of a kin group that clustered around them (#55). Hodder (2012:309) has more recently suggested a very similar scenario and sees a sense of shared history as one main component for the integration of history house groups. If a group of households perceived themselves as having a long, shared history, this sense of history would have functioned as a strong cohesive binder, and the terms chosen by Hodder (‘history houses’) and Düring (‘lineage houses’) show how integral the idea of a historic component was to the way these social institutions functioned, at least in the eyes of archaeologists (Düring 2011c:116; Hodder and Pels 2010:171–172).
we have to imagine the social relationships that evolved around elaborate, multiple-burial and history houses as much more fluid and changeable than previously indicated by the model of history houses especially as successively accumulating more ritual power over time. Indicators #91–#94 are here accepted for two reasons. First, on an epistemological level, the above named three arguments for why asymmetric distribution signifies suprahousehold integration are convincing. I would, however, like to point out that all three arguments are based on the assumption that all or most people who lived at the site participated in more or less similar ritual practices, and to roughly equal degrees. Theoretically, the irregular distribution of ritual imagery (#91) could also alternatively be seen as evidence that not all households subscribed to the same beliefs as others, or that ritual was more important to some households than to others. Second, the evidence for demonstrating #91–#94 in the archaeological record is sound. In the case of co-burial (#91), there is evidence on diet that provides an independent line of evidence that co-burial groups shared resources prior to death. Also, the correlation, whereby incidences of particularly high numbers of burials (#91), other ritual items (#92) and/or re-building events (#93) overlap, renders credibility to all three indicators. And although this correlation is relevant, the mechanisms discussed above by which asymmetrically distributed burials and ritual images create relationships between households would also work when occurring independently from each other. And for building continuity specifically, there is a line of argument that is completely independent from the history houses concept and that will be discussed next. Another topic worth discussing here is that the discussion around indicators #91–#94 is heavily focused on Çatalhöyük. While this might be representative of a verifiable reality wherein Çatalhöyük not only had particularly intense ritual elaboration but also a particularly marked asymmetric distribution of ritual, future research should attempt to systematically test for asymmetries in the distribution of ritual at other sites as well – even though in many cases this will be hampered because of a much smaller dataset of contemporary, excavated houses.
A final thing to discuss in relation to the amassing of ritual charge over time by history houses, and history houses as social focal points more generally, is that a study by Kay (2020) demonstrated that houses—including history houses—underwent more changes over their lifetime in relation to the installations and activities present in a building than previously realised. Two outcomes of his work that are relevant here are first, that some history houses stopped or paused accumulating ritual charge. He documented, for example, that the elaborate house B.77 ceased to invite burials before the end of its use-life; the end of the burial phase was marked by the construction of a large bucrania installation (Kay 2020:458, 461, 462; see Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2 for a classification of B.77 as ‘elaborate house’). The history house B.59 saw ritual items removed towards the end of its use-life and “Building 59 thus ended its life more plainly decorated” than it had previously been (Kay 2020:458; see Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2 for a classification of B.59 as ‘history house’). And second, that changes in the provision of individual houses with cooking and storage installations are indicative of adjustments in the relationships between housesholds as already discussed in Theme 13 (#81, #85) – and this also included the relationship between ritual focal houses and other households given that three out of the four buildings studied by Kay were history, multipleburial, or elaborate houses (B.49, B.59, B.77; compare with Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2). This means that
Building continuity beyond history houses (#93) There is a line of argumentation connecting building continuity (#93) with suprahousehold integration that is independent from any asymmetric distribution of building continuity among different houses, and therefore also independent from the ‘history house’ principle. The argument outlined in the following has been made about Çatalhöyük, but also about Aşıklı Höyük where building continuity was an important characteristic of the built environment and a deep section has identified up to eight rebuilding episodes (Figure 8.4; Düring 2006:97, 2011c:65; Özbaşaran 2011:108, 2012:139). The location of the hearth and possibly also other interior features was also continued through the various phases (Düring 2011c:66). At both sites, building continuity has been described as the outcome of suprahousehold control over 204
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration built space (Cutting 2005c:131, 135). Düring (2005:21, 24, 2006:235, 246, 298, 313, 2011c:65–66; Düring and Marciniak 2005:179) argues that if households been at liberty to adjust their residences according to their own wishes and needs, archaeologists would observe more modifications to the house over time (#45), and especially across the different rebuilding episodes – even in the tightly clustered conditions at Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük. At Çatalhöyük, this line of argumentation does not essentially contradict the role of building continuity in the history house context, and indeed Düring (2005:24, 2006:92–93, 97, 228–229, 298–299; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175, 179, 181; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:118) reconstructs a system at Çatalhöyük and also Aşıklı whereby an intermediate social group, neighbourhood or ‘lineage group’ collectively owned a group of houses or rooms and distributed them amongst households, or distributed people between the houses. Households moved between houses over the years, and at Catralhöyük households might have been in competition to acquire residence in one of the high-status history houses with a long history, i.e. long building continuity. It also served to create group identity by binding a suprahousehold group to a place, to their collectively shared houses and the history of those houses, and at Çatalhöyük especially, the long-lasting high-status house (Düring 2005:24, 2006:246, 2007b:169).
general with cross-household use and interaction, such as alleys, streets or courts. To a significant degree, the text passages collected with #95 express an assumed rather than an argued interpretation of unroofed as communal space, for example, “At Hacılar 2, the construction of buildings with thick party walls grouped around communal open spaces and enclosed by substantial settlement walls testified to a strong sense of collective purpose and shared labour” (Cutting 2005b:136). As in this statement, many other statements coded for #95 contain phrasings such as, “communal open spaces” (e.g. Düring 2011c:62), or variations thereof such as, “public, open areas” (Hodder 2012:306), “outdoor, communal areas” (Baird et al. 2017:770), “common outside areas” (Bıcakçı et al. 2012:93) or “communal yards” (Brami 2017:113), which name ‘unroofed’ and ‘communal’ in the same breath, indicating an automatic or default connection between the two. And indeed, the connection seems to a large degree to be a default because the statements coded for #95 rarely ever, as previously stated, contain a reasoning for why outdoor spaces are interpreted as communal. Indicator #95 therefore captures the notion— which is apparently widespread in the research community as evidenced by the number of text passages, sources, authors and sites connected to #95—that unroofed should by default be seen as communal ground unless proven otherwise, i.e. unless it can be proven that they were owned by a specific household (for household-owned outdoor space see #54 in Theme 8). Together with the notion wherein ritual items located in houses were also by default interpreted as belonging to the household sphere—as documented in Theme 3 for example—#95 documents an overall conception present in parts of the research community whereby houses and objects in them are by default associated with the household sphere, while objects and installations located outside of houses are also by default seen as communal. This dichotomy, however, is clearly too simplistic. Not only do Themes 13 and 14 in particular show that elements of individual houses, such as cooking installations or ritual images, may very well have been managed or used on a suprahousehold level, but also in the case of outdoor areas, this default interpretation should be questioned. Chapter 5 has shown that at the absolute majority of Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia, there is a regrettable lack of dedicated research of unroofed areas because research is focused on buildings. Ironically, the more outdoor space there is, the less it appears to get researched: Many Lake District sites feature substantially more unroofed space than Konya plain or Cappadocian sites, and as documented with indicators #38 in Theme 6, #58–#59 in Theme 10, and #95 itself, the mere existence of this more substantial outdoor space is considered by some researchers as very relevant to an understanding of the social structure of sites and indeed as indicative of important cultural differences in comparison with the denser sites of the Konya plain especially. However, not a single Lake District site has seen more than a very cursory investigation of unroofed areas (Chapter 5).
A final point worth discussing here is that Boncuklu Höyük also features building continuity, but at this site the practice has so far only been interpreted as supporting household identity (#28 in Theme 3). Future research should attempt to work out whether this is an interpretational bias, with different sets of authors dominating the discussion of building continuity at the three sites (Baird et al. at Boncuklu, Hodder and Düring at Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük) or whether it was actually the case and represents a cultural difference between Boncuklu on the one hand and Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük on the other. 8.3.7. Theme 15: On common ground With Theme 15, indicators were combined that express the widespread opinion within central Anatolian archaeology that unroofed areas inside the village were shared communal ground. The title of this theme is derived from various publications by different authors, in which unroofed space is called ‘common ground’ (Düring 2006:238; Issavi et al. 2020). With Themes 15 and 16, we move beyond a discussion focused on houses: Theme 15 is concerned with unroofed space and Theme 16 with communally used buildings. This theme is structured into three parts: The first (#95–#97) discusses outdoor areas generally, while the second refers specifically to outdoor cooking and storage installations (#98–#99) and the third to ritual depositions in outdoor areas (#100–#101). Unroofed and midden areas (#95–#97) The first indicator, #95, collects all opinions that connect the existence of substantial unroofed settlement spaces in 205
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia The lack of real research into archaeological deposits in unroofed areas to determine what activities were actually carried out there, and how regularly, could be both cause for and result of the default assumption that unroofed areas were communal traffic and activity areas (#95). It however cannot be discounted that unroofed spaces in Neolithic/ Chalcolithic villages were structured by a complex set of rules, and that not every community member was free to use unroofed space at liberty. Several other indicators in this chapter have documented the existence of communal rules, and communal influence on built space that might have determined the inner layout of houses (#69) or the location of symbols and burials (#91, #92). In such a regulated village environment, we cannot assume that space was rule-less simply because it did not have a roof. It should also be remembered that unroofed space played a role in spatially separating different social groups (‘neighbourhoods’) from each other in many or most of the sites discussed here (Theme 10), and if the settlement space as a whole is thus reconstructed as a carefully negotiated mosaic of socially discrete territories, it seems questionable why this should not be the case for unroofed areas.
in which Cutting (2005b:99) and Steadman (2000b:190) have argued that if the doors of individual houses opened directly from the main living room onto open spaces, this should be associated with a lack of privacy and therefore with collective identity. Indicator #97, which interprets middens as spaces used by more than one household, was separated from #95 because the arguments behind it are different: For both, their position as unroofed space between different buildings was one argument for their identification as communal space, but the argument for #97 also rests on the deposits found inside midden areas. Middens have been identified and studied intensely at Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East and Boncuklu Höyük. Looking at the research landscape as a whole, there seems to be an interesting pattern whereby ‘middens’ were only identified at sites where outdoor areas were also studied more intensely; while at other sites where unroofed areas are not systematically studied, these are not named middens, but differently (e.g. courts or courtyards, Duru 2008:25, 43, 213; streets and squares, Öztan 2012:33). At Çatalhöyük (e.g. Hodder 2021a:9; Issavi et al. 2020; Shillito 2011) and at Boncuklu Höyük (Baird et al. 2017:768), nearly all unroofed areas are called middens. This observation indicates the possibility that ‘middens’ were in fact not necessarily different types of unroofed spaces compared to ‘courtyards’, etc. – only that the term ‘midden’ appeared most suitable to researchers when and where these spaces were actually researched. Shillito (2011:106) has pointed out that ‘midden’ as a denomination of the large open areas at Aşıklı Level 2, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük could be incorrect insofar as that what archaeologists see (mainly layers of refuse) does not constitute the entirety of the significance that these places had to people in the past – and in fact Issavi has recently suggested changing the denomination of the Çatalhöyük unroofed areas from ‘middens’ to ‘open areas’ (Hodder 2021a:9, 26; Issavi et al. 2020:112–113). At Aşıklı Höyük, the current team categorises unroofed spaces differently by activity, with middens more strictly defined as refuse disposal areas and therefore different from unroofed spaces such as “activity areas, stables or pens” (Mentzer 2019:113, also Mentzer 2019:Table 1; Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019:61, 97, 103). The bottom line of this terminology discussion is that ‘middens’ were not necessarily used differently from otherly named outdoor spaces, and that what is discussed in the following could very well also apply to unroofed spaces not categorised as middens – but this requires systematic research of unroofed areas.
Very few passages coded for #95 explain the reasoning behind this indicator. Hodder names the rarity of unroofed spaces at Çatalhöyük as evidence for their collective use: “Given that there are many fewer open spaces than individual houses, their use for burial and a range of activities suggests some form of collectivity, however loosely defined” (Hodder 2021a:26). Düring (2006:110– 111, 126–127) used access analysis, reconstructing movement patterns through the settlements, to argue that at Aşıklı, Canhasan III and Çatalhöyük, people inhabiting different houses and areas/neighbourhoods in the settlement would have often met informally in the larger unroofed areas between house clusters: “It is likely that these large open areas would have served a range of activities and would have been a place where people from different houses could meet on ‘common’ ground” (Düring 2006:238). I have reservations towards the validity of access or syntax analysis when used on the settlements studied here, which consisted of a dense maze of (possibly multistoried) houses, roofs, unroofed spaces, and sometimes alleys or terraces which were moreover always excavated or preserved only partially. And even if deemed reliable, space syntax or access analysis reconstructs only possible movement through space, not actual movement – it seems to be founded on the assumption that the only thing keeping people from using a place are physical access restrictions, for example, having to pass through many doors (Cutting 2003; Düring 2006:32–33). This does not account for the possibility of social rules and taboos around movement in unroofed spaces as suggested by me above. In conclusion, indicator #95 is here dismissed because it either refers to default interpretations of unroofed as communal spaces that are not based on actual analyses; or to results of space syntax analyses, which also assume an absence of social regulation of unroofed spaces unless they were enclosed by walls or other physical barriers. Discounting #95 by association also discounts the validity of indicator #96,
Midden studies have identified these areas as important suprahousehold socialising and production places. Drawing on text coded for #97, midden areas played a role in the creation and negotiation of suprahousehold ties in three ways. First, middens very likely required management on a suprahousehold scale. One of the main purposes of middens was refuse disposal. At Çatalhöyük East, small and medium-sized midden areas were regularly interspersed between the houses. They were often used 206
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration for long periods of time (Hodder and Farid 2014:30) and are mainly made up from thin, ashy layers of domestic refuse (Issavi et al. 2020:113–114; Yeomans 2014a:524, 2014b:532, 536) attesting that houses, hearths, and ovens were cleaned regularly, and the middens used often. The Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 settlement included a number of large midden areas (the largest of which was ‘JA’, see Figure 6.2) characterised by accumulated domestic refuse such as animal bones and charred botanical remains (Düring and Marciniak 2005:171; Özbaşaran 2012:139). The renewed excavations at Aşıklı Höyük, which concentrate on Levels 3–5, have also identified a series of refuse disposal (midden) spaces. They were created by many individual dumping events and contain a wide range of refuse from plants, bone, and obsidian to dung and construction debris (Mentzer 2019:122–124, Table 1; Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019:61, 97, 103). At Boncuklu Höyük, the more open, unclustered settlement included a significant amount of midden space between houses, which was used for regular refuse disposal (Baird et al. 2012:223–224). It is likely that within the dense central Anatolian settlements, waste management, as well as (in the case of clustered sites) access to the middens via paths on the roofs, necessitated the negotiation of rules involving the entire community (Martin and Russell 2000:67–68). Further, the middens were probably managed and levelled intentionally (Hodder and Farid 2014:29). Particularly in the upper levels of Çatalhöyük, stability also became an issue and middens needed to be managed so as to not destabilise the neighbouring buildings (Issavi et al. 2020:117).
Çatalhöyük team reconstructs middens as places to perform important daily activities (Shillito et al. 2011:1035–1036) and meet others while doing so (see Regan 2011:21 with a suggestion of children playing in midden areas). Similarly, at Boncuklu Höyük, midden areas feature fire spots and also a number of constructed features: stone hearths, a plaster container, clay surfaces and a wattle-and-daub structure that is interpreted as a—probably roofed— workshop (Baird et al. 2017:768; Baird et al. 2012:223– 224). Primary debris in Boncuklu middens attest to their use for butchery and knapping (Baird et al. 2017:768). The midden areas at Aşıklı Höyük also contained primary refuse from the processing of bone, antler, obsidian, plant and animal foods, attesting to their use as production areas (Düring and Marciniak 2005:171; Özbaşaran 2012:139). In the latest research from Aşıklı Höyük, external spaces that contain primarily dung or clearly recognisable production debris in primary position were categorised not as middens, but as pens or activity areas respectively (Mentzer 2019:119–120, Table 1). However, some primary deposits were still found in middens and attest to their use as activity areas also: “In addition to being places for the secondary discard of materials, middens were locations of primary activities. Layers of intact dung indicate that people occasionally confined herbivores on midden areas. Constructed plaster floors are also present in some areas of Level 3 (Area 4GH) that were identified as middens in earlier excavation campaigns. These constructed floors and overlying deposits share similarities with the open-air activity spaces exposed in Level 4 during the 2010–2012 excavations. Stabling deposits and prepared floors suggest that these areas, although possibly functioning as middens throughout much of their use-life, were more dynamic than previously thought” (Mentzer 2019:123, also Table 2). The regular use of midden spaces for a whole range of vital activities makes it very likely that at least informal interaction across household borders took place. With people moving to, from, and across midden areas several times during the day for different purposes, informal encounters between members of different households were unavoidable, and people were able to observe each other, fostering the mixture of social control and informal socialising that has already been argued as encouraging suprahousehold integration when discussing indicator #55 (clustering). In fact, at clustered sites, middens might have functioned very similarly to the communal roofscape – an extension of the roofscape that was suitable for some activities that were not convenient on house roofs, such as defecation, pottery firing and animal penning (Hodder 2014c:18).
Second, regular production activities are attested in the Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük middens that would have fostered the daily, informal forging of social ties across neighbourhood and household boundaries. Contrary to Düring’s (2011c:97) statement that middens “were not used much for domestic or group activities”, research has shown that the Çatalhöyük midden areas were used for a range of activities other than disposal or storage (for an overview see Issavi et al. 2020), including defecation (Matthews 2005b:381, Shillito 2011:102–103; Shillito et al. 2011a), plant food processing (Hodder 2014c:17; Ryan 2013:185), butchery and tool production (Issavi et al. 2020:115). They were also used to light fires (Shillito et al. 2011:1035; Shillito and Ryan 2013:692) to burn lime (Matthews 2005b:381, 387–389; Matthews et al. 2013:125), parch plants (Matthews 2005b:381, 384), and fire pottery (Hodder 2013a:19; Shillito 2011:Table 8.1). Furthermore, they were used for animal penning (Issavi et al. 2020:114; Matthews 2005b:381, 389–391; Portillo et al. 2020; Portillo et al. 2019; Shillito 2011:107–110, Table 8.1; Shillito and Ryan 2013:692). Postholes attest to the construction of some, but infrequent, light superstructures to limited areas of middens (Issavi et al. 2020:112; Matthews 2005b:387, 391), just as some of the compacted surfaces observed in the middens might have been created on purpose (Shillito and Matthews 2013:43– 45; Shillito and Ryan 2013:688), giving the activities in middens a more than ephemeral character. In sum, the
Third, there is evidence that middens held symbolic and economic value. While that is not in itself evidence for suprahousehold integration, the above outlined evidence that middens were very likely used by more than one household also puts the symbolic-economic value of middens in the suprahousehold sphere. Yeomans (2005:548) points out that rubbish accumulation so close to living quarters would have increased nuisance from odours, scavenging animals and pests, which she 207
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia interprets as an indication that keeping the refuse close was considered socially important, potentially signifying wealth and continuity of occupation. The materials that enter the site often did not leave it again, but became part of the village organism, where they are used and recycled and finally find their place in the midden. Not only domestic refuse, but items of symbolic value were also deposited in middens, such as burials at Boncuklu Höyük (Baird et al. 2012:223–224), and at Çatalhöyük figurines that might also have been made out of sediment from middens (Nakamura and Meskell 2013:210–211, 220). These ritual depositions in midden spaces will be discussed further below (#100, #101), but are also more generally indicative of a potential symbolic value of middens. Middens might thus constitute physical archives of household or community activities, displaying past and present affluence (Martin and Russell 2000:67–68). And at Ҫatalhöyük especially, refuse areas overlap with built space, when middens were placed over the remains of abandoned houses, and houses were built on top of middens (Farid 2014; Martin and Russell 2000) despite this causing structural challenges (Stevanović 2012a:174–175). Middens were sometimes mined for building materials, and thus used to make houses (Issavi et al. 2020:113; Love 2013a:82; Shillito 2011:107; Stevanović 2012a:176; Tung 2013:74). This has also been attested at Aşıklı Höyük (Mentzer 2019:113, Table 2). They were therefore not only a resource, but also were interwoven with—and not a clearly separate category from—built space. Accumulating waste inside the settlement would also have aided the building of a höyük, and it has been repeatedly suggested that living on mounds, raised above the landscape, had practical as well as symbolic value in the Neolithic (Rosenstock 2005:255; Yeomans 2005:548).
Farid 2014:31). However, middens could alternatively be reconstructed as important for suprahousehold interaction precisely because of their informal nature, which fostered the meeting of people across household borders, as I argued above. The only rules and regulations around midden use attested at Çatalhöyük concern the type of activities carried out there. Hodder observes that middens were used in different ways: “Some show little evidence of traffic and activity and contain fresh human and ovicaprid fecal remains. Others have more fire spots, extensive areas of burning and a range of specific activities and have evidence of trampling; these are closer to what Mellaart called courtyards. Many middens seem to have been managed by dumping clay and ash, by leveling and perhaps burning. Overall, it is clear that middens are very diverse at the site” (Hodder and Farid 2014:29; also Hodder 2014d:163–165). The differential use of the Çatalhöyük middens is evidence for the existence of rules or conventions around the use of outdoor spaces, which in this case however might be more of a practical nature, e.g. separating latrines from production areas, and less due to social segregation or compartmentalisation. Overall, there is therefore sufficient evidence to accept that middens fostered, and are indicative of, suprahousehold integration (#97). Outdoor cooking and storage installations (#98–#99) In keeping with the general trend of associating unroofed spaces with communal use, cooking and storage installations located outside of residences (#98, #99) are also commonly associated with sharing of space and/or resources between households. The text passages coded for #98 and #99 reveal that this association rests on the assumption that outdoor cooking and storage installations were used by more than one household (e.g. Cutting 2005b:95, 103, 135–136 for Bademağacı and Hacılar II; Hodder 1987:54 for Hacılar II; Steadman 2004:534 for Aceramic Hacılar). They also reveal that besides location— outside and not directly attached to the outer wall of a residence—it is especially the large size of an installation that is cited as an argument for their suprahousehold use (e.g. Bogaard et al. 2014:145, 147; Cutting 2005a:161, 2005b:46). For example, Umurtak hypothesises that “Due to the fact that the silos of Bademağacı EN II/ 3 are found in the open areas between the houses, it may be conjectured that they were meant for common use” (Umurtak 2007:7). The context in which Umurtak (2007:7–8) discusses the Bademağacı silos, in which she calculates their capacity and how many people could have been supported with the contents, makes it seem likely that her interpretation is also supported by the fact that these were larger than needed for a single nuclear household. At Aşıklı Höyük, a large oven was found close to the large community buildings T and HV, which indeed makes it appear more likely that it was connected to the communal activities taking place in those large courtyard buildings (Özbaşaran 2011:108). At Hacılar II, the only two ovens found were large and located outside (Figure 5.3, 5.4) and accordingly connected to “some form of communal cooking” by
The three mechanisms outlined here for how middens fostered suprahousehold ties are only valid if middens were actually used by a group of different households. Returning to the above proposed possibility that unroofed space in Neolithic/Chalcolithic settlements might have been regulated by social rules just as roofed space was, a final matter of discussion is, therefore, the degree to which middens were really communal and integrative. The Çatalhöyük team has tried to investigate whether the use of middens was restricted to certain houses (households) or neighbourhoods by comparing distinct patterns of material culture use between houses and nearby middens, but found no evidence that the use of specific middens was restricted to specific houses – other than that is seems likely that houses used the closest midden for convenience (Hodder 2014d:165; Hodder and Farid 2014:30–31; Issavi et al. 2020:117). Hodder and Farid state that this opportunistic use of middens detracts from the collective nature of these places: “If we can thus accept that the refuse from houses was largely deposited in neighboring middens, then the social collective nature of middens might be seen as diminished. Perhaps people just dumped refuse into open areas and there was no sense of collective access or organization of the open areas” (Hodder and 208
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration Cutting (2005b:103; also Hodder 1987:54). At Çatalhöyük, Fuchs-Khakhar interprets that a particular outdoor oven was first used communally because it was large, but later used only by a reduced number of households as it was replaced by a smaller oven: “The largest oven is installed outside in S333 phase 2a–b, allowing access by adjoining households. In contrast, indoor ovens are smaller, as they are used by only one household in a limited space. […] [T] he external oven in S333, which in phase 3 was replaced by an oven half its size, implying reduced quantities of items to be heated, perhaps because individual households rather than larger communities used this communally accessible oven” (Fuchs-Khakar 2019:3).
of multiple households, suggesting that the negotiation of individual household versus wider group obligation was an intricate process” (Bogaard et al. 2014:147, also 133). These examples serve to illustrate that outdoor cooking and storage facilities are difficult to interpret within the context of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration, even if there is additional evidence for their use. They also illustrate that faunal and botanical evidence from outdoor facilities and their surroundings should be consulted in order to have actual data for interpreting them as household vs. suprahousehold facilities – since the fact of their outdoor location alone is not sufficient evidence for suprahousehold use. It is also relevant to note that— with the exception of Aşıklı and Boncuklu Höyük—many of the example sites named in the discussion of #99, and all of the examples coded for #98, post-date 6500 BC. In light of a potential decrease in community integration after 6500 BC, which is evidenced at Çatalhöyük and might also have taken place at other sites (6.3.3), this chronological position of the examples provides even more evidence for viewing a default interpretation of outdoor cooking or storage as communal with scepticism. To conclude, a careful investigation of the context of each cooking or storage installation in unroofed space is necessary to ascertain the scale of their use – the spatial context, the faunal and botanical evidence, and also the cultural context.
For reasons already discussed for indicator #95, the default interpretation of outdoor facilities as communal cannot be accepted – even if their large size might provide some additional weight. I will illustrate this point by discussing two examples that are named in the discussion of outdoor cooking (#99) where there is additional evidence to indicate the household vs. suprahousehold scale of the use of these facilities. The first example is EC Köşk Höyük, where Arbuckle was able to determine that outdoor “roasting pits” there were regularly used for meat-feasting events that had a competitive aspect based on the amount and types of animal bones found in and around them. During these feasts, individual households sought to demonstrate and improve their social status (Arbuckle 2012a:307–308; also Furholt 2017:192–193). In this case, faunal evidence supports a suprahousehold scale of the use of outdoor cooking facilities – at the same time, this suprahousehold activity had an ambiguous function, both fostering socialisation across household boundaries but also asserting social differentiation between households (Arbuckle 2012a:310). The second example is Çatalhöyük. Many of the text passages coded with #99 actually refer to Çatalhöyük East, where relatively large ovens were found in the upper levels of the site. The Çatalhöyük outdoor ovens have undergone a number of interpretive changes that show just how difficult it is to interpret these features as either household-specific or communal. Initially seen as communal facilities (Cutting 2005a:161, 2005b:136; Düring 2006:240; Hodder 2006:99, 182; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:88), newer research has shown that most of the outdoor ovens are found in post-6500 BC levels (Issavi et al. 2020:114), and many of them in the newly developing private ‘yards’ (Bogaard et al. 2014:133, 147), a phenomenon linked with increased household autonomy and socioeconomic competition (#54 in Theme 8). Trying to reconcile the traditional view of outdoor ovens as communal (most recently maintained by e.g. Bogaard et al. 2014:133, 145, 146; Fuchs-Khakar 2019:3, 12; Hodder 2014d:18; Issavi et al. 2020:114) with their location in private yards, Bogaard et al. have tried to identify the juxtaposition of private (yard) and communal (oven) as a feature of the delicate and changing balancing of household independence and communal ties: “An enclosed yard, however, might contain a large outdoor oven to accommodate the baking requirements
Despite the lack of clarity about #98–#99, they are tentatively accepted as potential indicators of suprahousehold integration for two reasons: First, to foster future research into the role of outdoor installations within the context of the household autonomy vs. communal integration balance, which is currently poorly understood. And second, it could be argued that even if the use of outdoor facilities was not shared between households, the performance of activities in an unroofed space by itself must have resulted in a degree of social control and possibly informal socialising between households. Cooking or tending to their stores in an open area, members of the household that owned these facilities would have been visible to other households. As has been discussed at greater length for indicator #55 (clustering), the ability to monitor each other’s activities and resources introduces an element of social control between households and can foster informal exchange and socialising across household borders. Ritual depositions in unroofed spaces (#100–#101) The remaining two indicators in Theme 15 refer to ritual depositions in unroofed spaces. Indicator #100 refers to burials in unroofed spaces at Boncuklu, Çatalhöyük and Tepecik. At Tepecik Level 3, burials in houses were rare and mostly represented by neonate subfloor burials, while there were frequent burials in unroofed spaces (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:93; Büyükkarakaya et al. 2019:2–3; Byrnes and Anvari 2022), a practice understood by Bıçakçı et al. (2012:93) to indicate communal social ties. Tentatively, 209
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Hodder mentions burials in unroofed spaces at Çatalhöyük as related to “some form of collectivity” (Hodder 2021a:26). In these two cases, due to a lack of more extensive discussion of #100 or any evidence that outdoor burials were administered on a suprahousehold scale other than their location outdoors, these interpretations evoke the default attribution of features located outdoors with a communal scale of practice, as I criticised at the beginning of this theme. The most systematic research so far on outdoor burials was done at Boncuklu Höyük, where it was demonstrated that the diet of individuals who were buried outside was different from those buried under houses. One possible interpretation is that these were “individuals who derived from the typical household groups as so far excavated, but who belonged to corporate groups, with whom they shared in regular communal food consumption of rather different sets of food from those buried in the houses. This would then support a view that there were some aspects of communal groups institutionalized by regular food consumption activities, regular and long term enough to be indicated in C and N stable isotopes in bone collagen, and thus averaged over several years. These groups were also marked and given identity by distinctive communal rituals in open spaces between the houses” (Baird et al. 2017:770). In this case, the diet evidence provides additional support to an interpretation of outdoor burials as suprahousehold ritual. Also at Boncuklu Höyük, Mills interprets ritual depositions of objects as evidence for suprahousehold practices (#101): “The placement of symbolic objects at Boncuklu between houses suggests that there were already practices that were shared among households as opposed to being restricted to a single house” (Mills 2014:165). Although it is never expressed in way that could be coded for #101, Baird et al. (2017) also interpret the deposition of objects with symbolic value outside in a similar way. Not only do they generally associate all outdoor depositions and activities at Boncuklu as evidence for suprahousehold practices (Baird et al. 2017:768–773), but writing specifically about stone objects with geometric decorations, they state, “They are not found deposited or abandoned in houses, probably indicating their use around the settlement and beyond, likely in supra-household group contexts” (Baird et al. 2017:770). Although this text passage requires careful reading, if the stone objects were not found in houses, that means that they must have been found outside of houses – and this, along with other considerations, is here interpreted as evidence that these symbolic items had meaning on a suprahousehold scale.
supporting household identity and objects outside houses are ascribed to a suprahousehold sphere (especially Baird et al. 2017; also see discussion of Themes 3–4 and 14). I have critiqued this dichotomy in the discussion of this theme, therefore the interpretations at Boncuklu should also be seen as tentative until there is a broader basis of data. In the end, there is not enough evidence to either accept or dismiss indicators #100 and #101. In order to foster further research into the topic of outdoor ritual depositions and their relation to the household vs. suprahousehold sphere, I decided not to discount them. 8.3.8. Theme 16: Constructing community space Theme 16 collects indicators that describe how communal integration at central Anatolian settlements was architecturally expressed by constructing buildings not owned by a household, but meant for shared use. The first indicator (#102) is a headline node that collects general mentions of non-residential buildings without a specified use, such as “corporate groups indicated by the presence of large non-domestic structures were just one element in, and facet of, a range of such suprahousehold entities that were neither a direct correlate of, nor counter-balance to, the increasing economic autonomy of the household” (Baird et al. 2017:773). It is relevant to note that most text passages coded for #102 (those by Baird et al. 2017:753, 773, 774; Bernadini and Schachner 2018:656, 658) are hypothetical statements that discuss non-residential buildings in the manner expressed in the statement by Baird et al. cited above: as an architectural feature that indicates suprahousehold integration but is not actually present at the central Anatolian sites in question. The remaining indicators in this theme name examples of non-residential buildings: buildings for (probably ritual) congregation (#103); for workshops (#104) and storage (#105); and settlement enclosure walls (#106). Another reason to gather these indicators into one theme, and to list it as the last under the suprahousehold integration headline, is that the sites and evidence discussed for these indicators are, with the exception of Aşıklı Höyük, chronologically late, starting with the Late Neolithic and incorporating—the only theme is this chapter to do so—a substantial proportion of Early Bronze Age examples in particular. Theme 16 therefore characterises communally built and used space as a possibly chronologically late form of architecturally fostered communal integration within the context of Anatolian prehistory. (Ritual) congregation buildings (#103)
The fact that indicators #100 and #101 have only been mentioned very few times in the coded literature, along with the rather tentative nature of the text passages associated with these two indicators, shows that this particular use of outdoor spaces is still relatively undiscussed territory around the question of household vs. suprahousehold scale. The best support for both indicators currently seems to come from Boncuklu Höyük, but interpretations by the Boncuklu team betray a relatively clear dichotomy by which objects located inside houses are interpreted as
All text passages coded for indicator #103 with one exception—a statement referring to EBA Bademağacı that will be discussed below at the end of the section about #104–#105—refer to two large buildings at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2: Building HV and Building MI, located at opposite ends of the excavated part of Level 2, with HV located in the southwest and MI located in the northeast (Düring 2006:101–107). These are large multi-roomed built complexes arranged around courtyards; Building 210
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration and Özbaşaran 2005; Özbaşaran 2011:110; Özbaşaran et al. 2012). Indicator #103 documents that the two large ritual buildings at Aşıklı are widely regarded as additional evidence for the strongly communal organisation of the site, which is also recognised through many other architectural indicators, with clustering (#55, Theme 9), subdivision into neighbourhoods (#57, Theme 10) and ‘incomplete houses’ (Theme 13) as prominent examples. An important difference between indicator #103 and the shared ritual documented in Theme 14 is that #103 refers to buildings that were non-residential, but instead only used for group rituals. The difference between suprahousehold ritual being located within household residences (Theme 14) or in communal buildings (#103) is portrayed in the literature as a mixture between a regional difference, whereby central Anatolia is different from Northern Mesopotamia where many Neolithic sites featured communal ritual buildings (Baird et al. 2017:755; Düring 2011c:72–73; Hodder 2006:58, 2014c:6), and possibly a chronological difference within central Anatolia itself. As already discussed in Theme 3, Hodder (2005f:186, 2005h:131, 133, 2006:58; also Asouti 2005a:81) sees Aşıklı as part of a wider development whereby ritual was first controlled and managed on a community level during the first half of the central Anatolian Early Neolithic, but then appropriated into the household sphere by the time Çatalhöyük was occupied. Similarly, Düring (2005:23, 2006:300, 305) sees the Çatalhöyük lineage or history houses taking over much of the suprahousehold function that had been supported by the separate ritual buildings at Aşıklı Höyük.
Figure 8.6. Building HV at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (reprinted with permission from the Netherlands Institute for the Near East from: Düring 2006:Figure 4.11)18.
Three mechanisms by which shared congregation buildings fostered suprahousehold cohesion can be identified in the literature coded for #103. First, Asouti (2005a:79) sees the regular performance of ritual in a larger group as a regular reminder of the dominant collective ideology that is reconstructed for Aşıklı. She mentions in this context that Building HV was spatially set apart from residential areas, from which it is separated by a wide, stone-paved street (Figures 6.2, 8.6; Düring 2006:102). Related to this argument, Düring (Düring and Marciniak 2005:181) seems to point out that also at times when no ritual performance was actually underway, the building itself was a visual manifestation and display of communal spirit. It is relevant here to mention again that, as described above, these buildings are distinguished by their size, layout and use of special materials and building techniques.
MI incorporates courtyards MH and MI, Building HV incorporates courtyards HV and T (Figures 6.2, 8.6; Düring 2006:Figures 4.1, 4.12; see Düring 2006:101–107 with a summary of the evidence). These buildings were indicated as special through their size and the inclusion of large courtyards, and through the use of stone and special earth building techniques, as well as painted floors and walls (Düring 2006:105–106, 2011c:62, 71–72; Özbaşaran 2011:108, 2012:140). It is unclear whether the two buildings are contemporaneous or not (Düring 2011c:72). The courtyard buildings are interpreted as places for meetings, religious or non-religious, that crossed household or even neighbourhood borders and integrated the greater village community, for example through feasting (Düring 2011c:72–73; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50). The largest court, HV, could have accommodated around 340 people by Düring’s (2011c:72) estimates. During its later occupation, Aşıklı further had a satellite site at 400 m distance across the river, Musular (7600–6600 BC, Thissen 2002a:324), which is interpreted as a special-purpose site for the large-scale processing of wild cattle carcasses for feasts (Düring 2011c:78; Duru
Second, Özbaşaran and Duru have most recently interpreted the communal congregation and feasting that is reconstructed as having happened in Buildings MI and HV as a mechanism for alleviating tensions arising during daily social and economic interactions in close living conditions. In this reconstruction, the large size of Aşıklı Höyük combined with the sheer newness of sedentary life for central Anatolians caused social tensions. Special festive community events might have been one way to alleviate social tensions: “This image suggests a community turning inwards on itself, perhaps in an effort to overcome the increasing social tensions
reprinted from B.S. Düring, Constructing Communities. Clustered Neighbourhood Settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500– 5500 Cal. BC (PIHANS, Vol. 105). Leiden, The Netherlands Institute for the Near East, 2006, with permission from The Netherlands Institute for the Near East. 18
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia brought on by the new ways of living. If that is the case, then the special-purpose public buildings (fig. 13), distinguishable by their larger dimensions, may very well have represented the tangible means of releasing such tensions of holding together this community. These special buildings were used for social events like feasting, as is indicated by the evidence for the communal consumption of cattle. Such collective ceremonies could have reinforced the collaborative way of living by easing some of the many stresses that inevitably came with a sedentary lifestyle” (Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50). It should be noted in this context that Aşıklı Höyük is the earliest site known so far of this size, and thus living together permanently in such large numbers did indeed constitute an experiment without precursor: Level 2 was probably occupied from between 8110–7300 BC (Quade et al. 2019:54) and is estimated at 1500–3000 people by Düring (2011c:71).
as architectural markers of suprahousehold integration? The text passages coded for #104 and #105 do not make any explicit arguments for their interpretations, but the choice of wording can be used to extract some of the underlying notions and assumptions. First, Cutting (2005b:46, 130) mentions “supra-household activities” associated with the Aşıklı and Hacılar II storage and workshop buildings. This might refer to the construction and maintenance of the buildings themselves, as well as to the fact that the workshops allowed members of different households to conduct daily work activities in a place shared with others. This might also be what Hodder (1987:54) means when mentioning “socialised production” occurring around the Hacılar II storage building and pottery workshop. And indeed, similar to what was argued for unroofed areas in Theme 15, members of different households processing food and making pottery either collaboratively or at least in each other’s company would have enabled much socialising and informal sharing of knowledge that fostered social cohesion, as well as social control.
And third, Cutting (2005b:46) and Düring (2006:309) think that the courtyard buildings were most likely built collaboratively. This assumption is probably based on the fact that the buildings were used communally. That alone, however, is not sufficient evidence that buildings were also built communally. If they were, however, the large communal construction project would have fostered social ties across household and neighbourhood boundaries through the mechanisms discussed at length with Themes 2 and 11: shared informal socialising time, shared meaningful experiences, as well as the investment—of knowledge, time, and in this case especially elaborate materials and techniques (Düring 2006:305)—into what was probably shared property.
Second, the Tepecik storage and food processing buildings have been interpreted by Bıçakçı et al. (2012:93) as evidence for “common activities and pooling of food supplies”. It would, however, require further contextualisation and evidence to equate shared storage with shared ownership of the stored items: it cannot be excluded that while a storage building was used collectively, its contents were owned by individuals or individual households. The multiple problems with the safekeeping of especially plant staple foods—evidenced by the Çatalhöyük microfauna studies that recorded mouse infestations in many storage contexts (e.g. Bogaard et al. 2013:101, 117, 119)—show that it was a constant challenge to the inhabitants of the villages studied here. It is not impossible to imagine a solution whereby several households shared one storage facility and the caretaking work of the stored items, but not actually shared the ownership of these items. In such a scenario, the ownership of food might not actually be shared, but suprahousehold integration would still be fostered by the shared work and knowledge that went into storage, while the sharing of storage facilities also indicates an element of trust between households.
Workshop and storage buildings (#104–#105) At Tepecik Level 3 and Hacılar Level II, the excavators identified non-residential buildings interpreted as a food processing building (Tepecik, Bıçakçı et al. 2012:93) and pottery workshop respectively (Hacılar, Mellaart 1970c:31) that are interpreted as having been used collectively (#104) because they were detached from houses. Apart from these workshop buildings, Tepecik Level 3 and Hacılar II also both had what was identified as large shared storage buildings (#105; Bıçakçı et al. 2012:93; Mellaart 1970c:28; Schachner 1999:48), which were also found at LC Kuruçay 6 (Schachner 1999:60) and EBA Bademağacı (Bachhuber 2015:79) and possibly Aşıklı Höyük (Cutting 2005b:46). We will leave aside here the question of whether or not these buildings can indeed be identified as workshops or storage facilities, and whether or not they were shared between households; these identifications are by no means uncontested, for example Düring (2006) and Bartl (2004:447) doubt the identification of the storage building at Aşıklı Höyük, and the Hacılar II pottery workshops are based on problematic interpretations of the building infills, which might not be primary refuse (5.1.5). Instead, assuming that communal workshop and storage buildings did exist in Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia, can they be identified
In conclusion, while collectively used storage or workshop buildings (#104, #105) do not necessarily imply the shared ownership of resources, they do indicate the suprahousehold sharing of socialising time, knowledge and work. The mere fact that such shared-use buildings existed speaks for some collective investment in a place where shared production or storage activity could be carried out. They are therefore integrated on my list of architectural markers of suprahousehold integration, with the reservation that the shared use by several households first needs to be established archaeologically. To contextualise the discussion of #103, #104 and #105, it is worth noting that large buildings and large plazas or courtyards inside settlements where congregations and 212
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration feasts could be held, as well as large shared granaries, are discussed by Bachhuber (2015:33, 67, 81–82, 114) as being of central importance to the cohesion of EBA villages and citadel towns, albeit here in a hierarchical context, whereby elites sought to integrate the residents of settlements as well as the more dispersed rural population into a community that could be more easily administered. For example, Bachhuber (2015:79, 114, coded with #103 and #104) interprets the large multiroomed building (‘palace’, Duru 2008:146) located in the centre of EBA Bademağacı as one example of such a central institution, including storage space, with the following function: “There was a centre, whether in the form of buildings, court areas or arena-like spaces. These were ‘high-level’ integrative spaces where activities with commemorative or administrative significance were held. These could be places of community-wide feasting as part of celebratory occasions like marriages or harvest. They were also places of governance, where a specific kind of authority could be negotiated that was directly related to the production, circulation and consumption of farming products.” It is tempting to interpret the Early Chalcolithic examples (Hacılar II, Kuruçay Level 11, Tepecik Level 3) mentioned in the discussion of #103–#105 as the first intimations of such collective social-ritual-economic building complexes as found on EBA citadels, but at the same time it is possible that the knowledge of such EBA contexts has influenced the way Early Chalcolithic buildings are interpreted. This issue of potential pre-EBA incarnations of EBA elite-making strategies will be discussed in greater depth in Theme 21.
Second, for Hacılar II Cutting (2005b:132) mentions that its “sense of a strong community organisation […] is reinforced by the extent to which this fortified settlement was inaccessible to outsiders”. This very interesting statement brings into focus one aspect of Neolithic and Chalcolithic suprahousehold integration that has not so far been discussed here: The research landscape as portrayed in this chapter until now clearly shows that the research community is focused on discovering the mechanisms that held Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities together against the centrifugal forces that are presumed to have existed through the ingrained desire of households and individuals to be independent. Less attention is paid to the issue of how communities living in different villages related to each other, and whether and how they differentiated themselves from each other. There is clear evidence of contacts between the contemporary villages so far excavated, e.g. through the distribution of Cappadocian obsidian (6.2.2). Further, the Hacılar II mentioned by Cutting co-existed with Kuruçay (Levels 13–7, Figure 3.3) which was located only 10 km away, a distance that makes it seem impossible that they did not know of each other (see Duru 1994c:110–111 and Umurtak 2011:6 for thoughts on a relationship of collaboration between Kuruçay and Hacılar). Indeed it is likely that once the cultural landscapes became more densely settled and diverse in the LN and EC (6.3.4), ‘community’ was defined from the outside as much as from the inside, and in this context a display of community boundaries as inferred by Cutting might indeed have become meaningful for community cohesion. From this perspective, the scholarly debate of the EBA and its enclosure walls again becomes interesting. Besides fortification (#181 in Theme 26) and the support of hierarchical structures (#145 in Theme 20), EBA enclosure walls have also been interpreted as having a function with “socio-ideological benefits, reinforcing a group identity within the settlement and simultaneously demarcating a social boundary of residents and nonresidents” (Düring 2011a:79).
Enclosure walls (#106) The enclosure walls identified by the excavators of Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (Schachner 1999:48, 50), Hacılar II (Cutting 2005b:132, 137; Hodder 1987:54), Hacılar I (Cutting 2005b:103) and Kuruçay 11 (Duru 2007:336, 2012:2) have likewise been associated with suprahousehold collaboration, as have those of EBA Acemhöyük and Bademağacı (Düring 2011a:79–80) and many other EBA places outside the study area, where they were a fairly regular feature (#106). Again, the identification of such walls is in many cases not secure by any means (see 5.1.2, 5.6.2, 5.10.2).
To sum up, all indicators in Theme 16 are accepted because storage, workshop, or ritual buildings used by more than one household would all have fostered suprahousehold relationships. It is important to caution, however, that it is first necessary to demonstrate that a building was indeed used by more than one household, and that is often difficult. The difficulties of really identifying the group that used a certain facility were already discussed for outdoor storage and cooking installations (#98, #99 in Theme 15) and also especially for storage installations more generally (Themes 1 and 13). If the discussion of this theme of communal buildings has seemed somewhat brief and lacking depth, then this is a reflection of the treatment of this topic in the literature – and further, probably of the base of evidence. Communal buildings simply do not appear to be a regular feature of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia, or possibly no feature at all. Of the examples named for #102–#105, only the communal buildings of EN Aşıklı Höyük and the EBA sites are widely accepted in
Enclosure walls might indicate suprahousehold integration in some specific ways: First, there is a notion that enclosure walls were built in communal collaboration (Cutting 2005b:103, 137). While I would object that this cannot simply be assumed, it seems difficult to imagine such a wall being built around the settlement without at least a process of consultation and decision-making that involved all of, or a large part of, the settlement community. This acknowledgement of at least some degree of suprahousehold planning seems to be inherent in Duru’s (2012:6) statement that, “the fact that the settlement [of Kuruçay 11] was surrounded by thick walls highly suggests pre-planned organization”, and Cutting’s (2005b:137) “strong sense of collective purpose”, evidenced by the Hacılar II wall. 213
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia the research community, while the possible communal buildings at the two LN/EC sites, Tepecik Level 3 and Hacılar II, are either not accepted as communal buildings by some researchers (see e.g. 5.1.5 for Hacılar II) or simply not prominently discussed in considerations of the social organisation of these periods. The same seems to be true for the role of enclosure walls (#106) in community-making.
When symbolic house elaboration was still seen as evidence for household autonomy (Theme 3–4), these developments were seen as evidence for a decrease of household autonomy and increase of suprahousehold control over ritual: “First, stamp seals take the wall designs into a new mobile context, and then, right at the end of the occupation of the East mound and in the following Chalcolithic West mound, the designs that had graced walls within houses are found on pottery. In fact these later walls seem not to be painted except perhaps in one-colour washes. These changes suggest a gradual wresting of memory away from the house. The symbols that refer to myth and history now come to be used to create alliances and exchange relationships between houses” (Hodder 2005h:138; also Hodder 2005f:191, 195, 2006:167–168). Now, it is instead seen as evidence for the contrary, the increase of household autonomy in the ritual sphere. The Çatalhöyük team has suggested that the decrease of house elaboration post6500 BC is interpreted as part of a “shift in emphasis” (Hodder 2014b:15) whereby symbolic imagery increasingly took mobile form, on pottery and stamp seals that might indicate body or textile decoration (e.g. Hodder 2014b:15, 2014d:167; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:173). This change from stationary to mobile display is further interpreted as part of a wider change towards more autonomous and competitive households: “Rather than placed on walls, the motifs are now on small mobile objects, perhaps transferred to skin and cloth. They perhaps became part of the new emphasis on building relations between independent productive units. Much the same can be said of the through time increase in the diversity of pottery forms and fabrics […] and by the time of the West Mound, the symbols that had earlier occurred on house walls and had then been transferred to stamp seals, occur in abundance on an ebullient painted Chalcolithic pottery” (Hodder 2013a:23; also Hodder 2014f:182). Competitive hospitality was one feature of the 6500 BC change towards greater household autonomy and social competition, as discussed in 6.3.3. The decreased concern for house elaboration is seen in the context of this development: In mobile form, it is argued (e.g. Hodder 2013a:23), imagery now was used, or was used more pronouncedly, to assert household status during commensal events and thus it gradually lost its role in suprahousehold integration. Themes 8, 17–18 will discuss more architectural evidence for increased social display and competition post-6500 BC, which provide the context in which #30 is seen by the Çatalhöyük team.
8.4. Post-6500 BC household autonomy Themes 5–8 are specifically about architectural changes at sites and levels dating to after 6500 BC that have been connected to an increased household autonomy in the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. They thus describe the extension of autonomy past the ‘baseline’ Early Neolithic household autonomy described in section 8.2., and partially a departure from the community-integrating mechanisms described in section 8.3. A substantial proportion of the evidence and interpretation documented in this section relies on Çatalhöyük, which is not the only central Anatolian site that spans the EN-LN transition, but the one where the 6500 BC change has become a research focus in recent years (6.3.3). Some aspects of the discussions of Themes 5–8 lay the groundwork for the discussion of household competition in Chapter 9. 8.4.1. Theme 5: Ritually breaking with the past Theme 5 collects Çatalhöyük-specific architectural changes occurring after 6500 BC, i.e. in the upper levels of the East Mound and on the West Mound, that constitute a breaking with the rituals of the past – or, in the case of the last indicator #35 (house burning), possibly a case of ritually breaking with the past. In particular, Theme 5 describes a number of interrelated changes that together suggest an abandonment or weakening of the strong ritual ties between households that had been so effective at integrating the Early Neolithic community at Çatalhöyük (Theme 14). Here I will first describe #30– #34 (decreasing house elaboration, intramural burial and building continuity) as portrayed in the literature, and then discuss their validity; and end by discussing #35, the ritual burning of houses. Decreasing symbolic house elaboration (#30) Indicator #30 refers to an interpretation of the decrease in ritual house elaboration after 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük, i.e. a decrease in the number of ritual images displayed in houses. Parts of the discussion around #30 refer specifically to the abandonment of history houses, which connects this indicator with #32–#33, and which will also be discussed in subsequent sections. Indicator #30 is understood as further proof for the abandonment of history houses as suprahousehold institutions (Hodder and Pels 2010:184), but also beyond that as evidence for a decrease in the intensity of history-making and of the various ritual ties between households described in Theme 14 more generally.
Decreasing subfloor burials and burial clustering (#32) A decrease in the practice of clustering burials in a few houses (#32; see #91 for a description of this practice), and finally a complete abandonment of subfloor burial (#31) has been observed for the upper (Late Neolithic) levels of Çatalhöyük and the Early Chalcolithic West Mound. More specifically, during the LN levels of Çatalhöyük East, burials were increasingly found in locations other 214
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration than under the platforms that had been the preferred burial places in the EN. Burials are increasingly placed in different parts of the house and eventually outside of houses altogether. At some point around 6000 BC (latest levels of the East Mound and start of the West Mound), no adult burials are found inside or under houses any more (Byrnes and Anvari 2022).
households came to independently own their residences after 6500 BC. Decreasing building continuity (#33–#34) Further evidence for the decline of history-making, and thereby increasing household autonomy, comes from the decrease in building continuity (#33) and building lifespans (#34) which can be observed in post-6500 BC houses at Çatalhöyük in general (Hodder 2005f:190, 2006:254, 2014b:15, 17; Marciniak 2015a:96) as well as in history houses in particular (Düring 2011c:132, 2013c:88; Hodder 2014c:19; Hodder and Pels 2010:184). Kuijt (2018:583) portrays this possibly as a deliberate decision to discontinue a particular suprahousehold grouping by deciding not to continue a particular house stack. There is a second argument besides the decline in history-making for interpreting indicator #33 as evidence for increasing household autonomy: Düring (2006:229, 298, 313) sees decreasing building continuity as evidence that households now came to actually own the houses they lived in, whereas previously houses might have been owned by a group encompassing several households. This argument can be cross-referenced with Theme 7, which shows that as households grew more independent, they were able to modify their houses more freely and more regularly according to their changing needs (#45). Using the opportunity to more substantially remodel a house while constructing it newly, instead of replicating the previous house’s footprint, can be seen as an extension of this freedom of households to alter their residences.
The text passages coded for #32–#31 do not explain very clearly the reasons why the decrease in subfloor burials (#31) as well as the practice of pooling burials (#32) are interpreted in terms of increasing household autonomy. However, some of the underlying notion can be extracted from the context in which these indicators are discussed. Hodder interprets #31 as part of an overall decreasing concern with constructing social relations through ancestry and memory (Hodder 2005c:12, 2006:58, 2013a:21, 2013b:21, 2014c:19): “The longterm trend is that the prevalence of house burial and ancestry-making declined and transformed in the upper levels: in TP multiple burials and a ‘tomb’ have been found, and by the West Mound adult burial in buildings seems to have ceased. One possible interpretation is that this overall trend is linked to the decreasing emphasis on house-based history-making in the upper levels” (Hodder 2014f:179). Since history-making is interpreted by Hodder and others as an important feature of the ritual suprahousehold connections of the EN (Theme 14), a decrease in history-making shows a decrease of suprahousehold ties. Hodder also names #31 in the same paragraph where he discusses a range of changes to house size and layout that together are interpreted by him as evidence for increasing household autonomy and social competition between households. The paragraph concludes by stating that, “All this suggests a greater economic independence of houses, less focus on continuity, and in TP and the West Mound, less focus on burial and more on social display around consumption in main rooms of houses” (Hodder 2014c:19). Although it is not very clearly expressed, the move of burials away from the central room of houses seems to be interpreted here as part of several changes that decreased ritual expression in central rooms to make more room for social display (Theme 18). Hodder (2013a:21, 2013b:21) also mentions #31 in the context of a “sense of self that emerged in the upper levels” (Hodder 2013a:21), and seems to imply that the diversification of burial location was part of an increased expression of individuality by specific individuals (Hodder 2013a:21, 2013b:21). Düring interprets the abandonment of burial clustering (#32) as evidence for the abandonment or decrease in importance of the lineage or history houses (Düring 2011c:132) and neighbourhoods (Düring 2006:229) as suprahousehold institutions, and has suggested that post-6500 BC burial location might have become influenced by people seeking to be buried near important personalities (Düring 2006:229, 313). Further, Düring (2006:228–229) seems to see the abandonment of burial clustering (#32) and thereby lineage or history houses as additional evidence, alongside #33, for the fact that
In sum, a decrease in symbolic house elaboration (#30), subfloor burials (#31) and burial clustering (#32), building continuity (#33), as well as the lifespan of buildings (#34) together indicate a general weakening of ritually constructed cross-household ties; and specifically an abandonment or weakening of history houses as suprahousehold institutions – and/or a change in the social role of such houses towards a more socioeconomically dominant position, as will be further explored in Theme 19.5 in Chapter 9 (Düring 2006:247; Hodder 2013a:25, 2014f:175, 182; Hodder and Pels 2010:184). The relatively low number of text passages coded for each of indicators #30–#34, as well as my difficulty in extracting concrete arguments for these indicators from the coded text, shows a lack of in-depth discussion of these indicators in the literature. Indicators #30–#34 as essentially based on the much more extensively discussed Theme 14 by describing an abandonment of the community-creating rituals described in Theme 14. It appears that with the indicators of Theme 14 widely accepted, those researchers that discuss the decrease in elaboration post-6500 BC do not seem to find there is much need to present extensive arguments about why this decrease signifies a weakening of community ties and a strengthening of household autonomy. Because indicators #30–#34 can be cross-referenced with other themes, Themes 8, 15 and 17–18 in particular, they are all accepted here, although more research specifically about #30–#34 is desirable for the future. 215
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia and that third, many or most of the burnt buildings were not replicated through building continuity after they had been burnt. To this end, I tabulated all buildings that were reported as burnt by the Mellaart and Hodder teams, as well as their date (level), elaboration status and building continuity status, i.e. whether they followed the footprint of a predecessor building and/or were renewed after the burning (Table 8.3). This tabulation represents only an initial testing of the hypothesis that house burnings could have been aimed at ritually severing suprahousehold connections. A more comprehensive analysis of the topic matter would require more in-depth scrutiny, especially of the Mellaart data and on the building continuity status of buildings excavated by Mellaart in particular, whose reporting of stratigraphy is not always reliable. It would also require taking into account taphonomic processes that might distort these results, for example the fact that many more buildings were excavated from the middle and upper levels than from the lower ones, and also that burnt buildings are better preserved and might therefore be more easily recognised as ‘elaborate’ (Hodder 2014f:177). Nevertheless, the table displays clearly that house burning is restricted to the middle and upper levels of the site, was particularly prevalent in the centuries around 6500 BC (Mellaart Level VI, Hodder Levels South N-O), and that a majority of burnt buildings can be classified as elaborate. It also shows that while several of the 28 burnt buildings had predecessors that they replicated, only four appear to have been rebuilt after their burning. The table therefore gives some initial support to the hypothesis that the many house burnings that occur around 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük represent a way of ritually terminating elaborate houses that had previously supported suprahousehold groupings. The table also indicates that the relation between house burning, elaboration and the 6500 BC social change is an interesting subject for further, more holistic research that could also, for example, include studying the ways in which houses were prepared for abandonment prior to the fire; the re-organisation of the local settlement fabric after the fire; and the ways in which they were burned, of which a variety was recorded by Harrison et al. (2013). Because my discussion here resulted in some initial support for indicator #35, and to foster further research, #35 is accepted.
Ritual house burning (#35) The final indicator in Theme 5 relates to remarks by Pels and Hodder about the increased rate of intentional house burning (#35) that can be observed in the middle and upper levels of Çatalhöyük. Pels stated that “it seems that no burning was applied in the ceremonial erasure of buildings pre-Level VI [= Level South M and older; Hodder 2014b:Table 1], while it did occur more regularly in the upper levels of the mound […] the evidence supports an interpretation of burning as a ceremonial act used by increasingly ‘individual’ households to terminate their occupancy and clear the way for a new start” (Pels 2010:246). In this reconstruction, ritual house burning is a feature of the 6500 BC change and interpreted as the decision by individual households to terminate their history by burning its physical manifestation, the house. However, I would like to focus on the remarks by Hodder, who tentatively connected the 6500 BC change at Çatalhöyük with an increase in the rate of house burnings: “Whether the change at 6500 BC was sudden or drawn out needs to be substantiated by new excavation of the South N and O levels. These levels are associated with a horizon of burning of individual houses that seems to have been controlled and managed, rather than the result of largescale violence. Debate remains as to whether the burning could have been accidental (Cessford, Near 2005; Twiss et al. 2008), but, given its restriction in occurrence in the sequence, some link to changing rituals and to the tensions in South N and O and North G seems possible” (Hodder 2014b:17; also Hodder 2013b:22, 2014c:19). This statement can be linked with an observation by Düring: “The richest assemblages of moulded features and installations are found in burned buildings. An interesting question is whether these buildings are so rich in these features because they were burned, or whether these buildings had to be burned because they had been charged with so many of these features” (Düring 2011c:103). By combining these two suggestions, I would like to suggest the possibility that house burning was intended as a ritual shedding of the suprahousehold ties that had evolved around elaborate houses prior to 6500 BC (Theme 14). More clearly, I suggest that the burning of elaborate houses or history houses, which had come to signify the ritual relations between a group of households, was a particularly drastic way to cut suprahousehold ties.
8.4.2. Theme 6: Giving each other space Theme 6 combines three indicators that describe a spatial disassociation of houses and connect it with a high or increased household autonomy. Indicators #36 and #37 describe the breaking-up of clustering and neighbourhoods/ sectors at Çatalhöyük East after 6500 BC. The somewhat independent indicator #38 refers to never-clustered sites like Tepecik or Bademağacı.
A connection of houseburning to the 6500 BC change as suggested here can be tested by showing that first, intentional houseburning was indeed limited to, or particularly frequent in, the middle levels of the site that date to around 6500 BC (i.e. Mellaart levels VI–V, equalling South N-P and North G-H; Hodder 2014b:Table 1), as observed by the Çatalhöyük team (Haddow et al. 2015:22; Hodder 2014d:159, 2014c:19, 2014f:170); that second, many or most of the burnt buildings had previously been distinguished by having particularly many burials (#91), especially abundant elaboration (#92) and/or a long rebuilding history (#93), as also observed by the Çatalhöyük team (Hodder 2013a:18–19, 2014d:159);
De-clustering Çatalhöyük (#36–#37) At Çatalhöyük, Theme 6 is set within a larger development after 6500 BC, when the settlement’s population shrank substantially and there was a local and regional trend 216
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration Table 8.3. Burnt buildings at Çatalhöyük, their date and elaboration/building continuity status. Information from Cessford and Near 2005; Düring 2006; Farid 2014; Harrison et al. 2013; Hodder 2014d, 2021a; Hodder and Farid 2014; Hodder and Pels 2010; Mellaart 1962b, 1963e, 1964, 1966b, 1967. Also note Düring 2006:Table 6.1 for the concordance of different numbers used by Mellaart for the same building Building number
Level (Hodder)
Building category after Hodder or Mellaart
Building continuity status
Rebuilt after the burning event?
VII.23
South M
shrine (Mellaart 1967:126, 203, no information Table 13)
no information
VII.32
South M
no shrine status mentioned
part of a sequence with two rebuilds in Levels VII-VIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
yes, in Level IVB (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
VII.24
South M
shrine (Mellaart 1967:203)
part of a sequence with three rebuilds in Levels VIII-VIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
yes, in Level IVB (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
VI.31
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:102, Table 13)
part of a sequence with at least three rebuilds in Levels VIIIVIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
VI.44
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:108, Table 13)
predecessor VII.44, both with leopard reliefs (Düring 2006:199)
no information
VI.61
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:102, 118, no information Table 13)
no information
VIB.1 = VIA.1 = E.VI.1
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:Table 13) part of a sequence with three rebuilds in Levels VIIIVIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14), predecessors with similar painted motifs (Düring 2006:193-194, 2011c:102)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
E.VI.5 = E.VI.6 = VIA.6
South N-O
house (Mellaart 1963e:54)
no information
no information
E.VI.7 = E.VI.5 = VIB.5 = VIA.5
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:102, Table 13)
unclear due to confusion of building numbering E.VI.5, E.VI.6, E.VI.7 (Düring 2006:Table 6.1)
unclear due to confusion of building numbering E.VI.5, E.VI.6, E.VI.7 (Düring 2006:Table 6.1)
E.VI.8 = VIB.8 = VIA.8
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:125, Table 13)
part of a sequence with three rebuilds in Levels VIIIVIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14), predecessors with similar painted motifs and reliefs (Düring 2006:193-194, 2011c:102, 106)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
E.VI.10
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:110, Table 13)
part of a sequence with three rebuilds in Levels VIII-VIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
E.VI.14 = South N-O VIB.14 = VIA.14
shrine (Mellaart 1967:121, Table 13)
part of a sequence with three rebuilds in Levels VIII-VIA (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
E.VI.25 = South N-O VIA.25
shrine (Mellaart 1967:Table 13) a possible predecessor in Level VIII (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
no (Düring 2006:Figure 6.27, 2011c:Figure 4.14)
E.VIA.50
South N-O
shrine (Mellaart 1967:Table 13) no information
no information
B.76
South O
no special status mentioned
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
(Continued)
217
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Table 8.3. Burnt buildings at Çatalhöyük, their date and elaboration/building continuity status. Information from Cessford and Near 2005; Düring 2006; Farid 2014; Harrison et al. 2013; Hodder 2014d, 2021a; Hodder and Farid 2014; Hodder and Pels 2010; Mellaart 1962b, 1963e, 1964, 1966b, 1967. Also note Düring 2006:Table 6.1 for the concordance of different numbers used by Mellaart for the same building (Continued) Building number
Level (Hodder)
Building category after Hodder or Mellaart
Building continuity status
Rebuilt after the burning event?
B.79
South O
no special status mentioned
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.80
South O
elaborate, elaboration index 25 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.97 = E.VIB.28
South O
fairly elaborate, elaboration index 9 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B1.2c
North ?G
history house, elaboration index 33 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4; Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2)
part of the history house sequence B1.2b-B 1.2c-B.5 (Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2)
yes (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.52
North G
elaborate, elaboration index 42 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4; Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.77
North G
elaborate, elaboration index 20 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4; Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2)
one predecessor, B.12 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.113
North G
no special status mentioned
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.131
North G
elaborate, elaboration index 18 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
part of the sequence B.129B.131-B.139 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
yes (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.45
North H
elaborate, elaboration index 10 (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4; Hodder and Farid 2014:Table 1.2)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
no known rebuilds (Hodder 2021a:Table 1.4)
B.63
IST (Late Neolithic)
no special status mentioned
no information
no information
A.III.1
TP6
shrine (Mellart 1967:Table 13)
no information
no information
A.II.1
TP6
shrine (Mellart 1967:Table 13)
no information
no information
A.III.8
TP6
shrine (Mellart 1967:Table 13)
no information
no information
toward greater population dispersal within the landscape (see 6.3.4; Düring 2011c:155–156, 199, 2013c:88; Hodder 2013a:21, 2014f:183). Concurrently, the remaining population also dispersed across the mound of Çatalhöyük East, with large gaps forming between houses and house clusters (#36; Düring 2011c:132; Farid 2014:110–112; Hodder 2014b:12, 2014f:183; Hodder and Farid 2014:32, Figure 4.2). This re-organisation of society and settlement space also included a diffusion of the spatial subdivisions (sectors or neighbourhoods, #57) that had existed before 6500 BC (#37). The decrease or abandonment of spatial clustering and sectoring described by #36 and #37 can be related to the decrease or abandonment of ritual ties (Theme 5). In 6.2.3, both were identified as strong suprahousehold integrative factors at Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük. The population dispersal and settlement shrinking at post-6500 Çatalhöyük is portrayed in current research as a result of the trends captured in Themes 5 and 6: Düring (2007b:176–177) has suggested that the population dispersal might have been caused by the
breakdown of the various cohesive ties at Çatalhöyük, after which living in such a large agglomeration might not have been viable any more: “The size of the community at this site began to decline when the social filter of the neighbourhood community disappeared” (Düring 2007b:177). In a somewhat different portrayal of the same process, Hodder formulated that people were free to leave—neighbourhoods or the site altogether—after households had become more independent: “Because the focus was more on individual house production, the dependence on large cohesive populations to provide a safety net declined: population decreased and dispersed” (Hodder 2014b:11; also Hodder 2014b:16, 2014d:167, 2014f:179). The text passages coded for #36 and #37 never provide in-depth arguments for these indicators, but some of the underlying notions can be extracted. From an examination of the coded text passages, it appears that the reason why researchers have interpreted the decrease of clustering and 218
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration sectoring as indications for the increasing autonomy of individual households or small groupings of households is quite simply that these developments would have meant a dissolution of the mechanisms that have been explored in Themes 9 and 10 about how clustering and sectoring bring about social cohesion. In this way, #36–#37 in Theme 6 are similar to Theme 5, whose indicators were also not discussed in depth in the literature. In both cases, the abandonment of pre-6500 BC practices seems to serve as sufficient proof for the interpretations regarding post-6500 BC practices (Theme 5 being the counterpart to Theme 14, Theme 6 to Themes 9–10). Similarly, text passages coded for #36 and #37 describe that the integrative mechanisms discussed in Themes 9–10 increasingly weaken as houses moved further away from each other. Informal daily interaction decreased as well as social control: “The demise of the clustered neighbourhoods meant that social interaction became less intense and monitoring the behaviour of others more difficult” (Düring 2011c:132). The decrease of social control is especially interesting in the context of increasing social competition and the ‘hiding’ of household property that will be discussed with Theme 8 and especially in Chapter 9 (Theme 17). And while households might still have been part of larger groupings, this was no longer expressed and reinforced by co-residence in a house cluster (Düring 2006:234; Gérard 2002:107). Hodder (2006:254) further points out that de-clustering also meant that households spatially disassociated themselves from their ‘history house’: In Theme 14 it was argued that the desire to be spatially close to the ancestry and memory deposited in history houses was one incentive for the clustering. Together with the abandonment of building continuity and the ‘history house’ concept (Theme 5), the de-clustering and breakup of neighbourhoods is seen by Düring (2006:247, 298) as an indication that households now came to own the house they inhabited. The abandonment of clustering has further been connected (e.g. Hodder 2013a:21; Marciniak 2015a:91) with the increased spatial needs, including of unroofed space around the house, that households had once they became more economically independent and increased their independent productivity (Theme 8). Households thus became “literally and productively more isolated from one another” (Bogaard et al. 2014:123). In this reconstruction, the physical distancing would have developed alongside less sharing of resources and labour (Hodder 2013a:24, 2013b:26, 2014c:6, 2014d:150).
area] was broken by the construction of B.52, to be followed by a reinstating of the radial division during the construction of the following B.51. It is also of interest that we have evidence in the 4040 Area for the movement of radial divisions” (Hodder and Farid 2014:29). These developments suggest an adjustment period during which the change or abandonment of sectoring was negotiated, possibly reflecting an adjustment period in the dissolution of the previous neighbourhood groups, or changing affiliations of individual households with such groups. Non-clustered sites (#38) Whether or not the appearance of Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites that were never clustered can be seen as evidence for a lower level of suprahousehold integration (#38) as compared to clustered sites is another issue in question. By ‘non-clustered’ I mean settlements where some houses might still be located directly next to each other, but where there are also regular intervals of a few meters of unroofed spaces between houses (e.g. see Figure 5.20 for Bademağacı). Indicator #38 forms part of an overall theme of interpreting non-clustered settlement layouts, but importantly describes a different cultural context as well as a wider chronological and geographical radius as compared to #36 and #37, which are specifically in reference to LN Çatalhöyük. Different from Çatalhöyük, the village communities named as examples for #38 did not abandon clustering as they had never been clustered. The reasons behind the choice of a non-clustered settlement layout are therefore likely to have been different. Although several researchers have associated the nonclustered appearance of some central Anatolian sites with household autonomy, the reasons behind this interpretation are never well explained. One important factor behind #38 seems to be a dichotomy based on the contrasting with clustered sites, whereby clustering is equated with strong communal integration, and non-clustering with a less intense communal integration. This notion is noticeable, for example, in Schoop’s (2005b:49, Table 1; “conglomerate“ vs. “segregate“) contrasting of Lake District and Konya plain settlement layouts, or in Bıçakçı et al.’s characterisation of Tepecik Level 3 in comparison to EN Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük: “It is clear that the Early Chalcolithic architectural layout does not follow the static honeycomb organization of households that characterized the aceramic period in Aşıklı (Esin et al. 1991) and later on at Çatalhöyük (Mellaart 1967). On the contrary, here the layout of buildings is much more dispersed and much less rigid with separated households” (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:91). In turn, such comparisons and interpretations seem often to be founded on researchers’ perceptions of overall patterns whereby some regions (e.g. Lake District vs. central Anatolia, Schoop 2005b) or time periods (earlier prehistory vs. later prehistory, Bıçakçı et al. 2012:92; Düring and Marciniak 2005:178; Steadman 2000b:190) are primarily characterised by clustering and others not. For example, in the above cited statement, Bıçakçı et al. (2012:91) contrast the Neolithic
The fact that #36 and #37 can be cross-referenced with so many other developments and indicators that together show a breakup or weakening of subcommunities at Çatalhöyük after 6500 BC, prominently those of Theme 5 and Theme 8, makes it possible to confidently see them as indicators of increasing household autonomy. That the de-clustering and de-sectoring was not necessarily a straightforward process is indicated by an interesting case from Level North G, dated exactly to the time of the large social change between 6500–6400 BC (Hodder 2014b:Table 1). In North G, “one of the most distinctive of these radial lines in the 4040 Area [the North excavation 219
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük) with the Early Chalcolithic (Tepecik). Such thoughts can be easily disqualified since it has already been shown that the occurrence of clustering is not clearly chronologically or regionally patterned (Düring 2006:281, 2011c:77; Rosenstock 2014:237, Figure 12). For example, Boncuklu Hӧyük (dated 8300–7800 BC, Baird 2014:8703, 2019b:72; Baird et al. 2018:E3078), was not clustered while contemporary Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 (dated 8110–7300 BC, Quade et al. 2019:54) was. In the above cited statement, Bıçakçı et al. overlook that Tepecik Level 3’s contemporaries Erbaba and Canhasan (5.4, 5.5) were clustered, as was the Early Chalcolithic Çatalhöyük West (5.3).
house? And that they would no longer have had to cooperate or at least communicate when one of them wished to build, modify or dismantle a house? And especially if a study of outdoor spaces shows the area between houses to be busy production areas as indicated by the existence of storage and cooking installations in unroofed spaces e.g. at Hacılar VI, Hacılar II and Bademağacı ENII4–3 (5.1.3, 5.1.5, 5.10.2; also see discussion of #95 and #98–#99 in Theme 15), villagers might not gain much privacy from detached house walls. In conclusion, while spatial closeness can be associated with social closeness for reasons discussed in Theme 9, the mere fact that house walls are detached from each other, or that buildings had a few meters of space between might not make a substantial difference regarding household autonomy (cf. Steadman 2000b:190). Indicator #38 is therefore discounted here, specifically because the settlements within the study region that are typically described as non-clustered were still very dense.
Setting aside such potential research biases, based on the material already collected in this chapter, and especially Theme 9, a number of reasons can be found for why the existence of unroofed spaces separating individual houses from one another could indicate a weaker suprahousehold integration: social control, and informal socialising and sharing would be weakened if people did not spend their days in close proximity to each other, and inadvertently meet members of other households regularly while going about their daily tasks. The physical detachment could also symbolically signify a greater socioeconomic detachment. At this point, however, it is possible to argue that clustered/non-clustered are not absolute categories. All settlements in Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia were relatively dense. Also, ‘clustering’ appears to work rather on a gradient, and the clustered vs. nonclustered distinction might have been exaggerated in previous research. For example, the buildings of Kuruçay Level 7 stand very close together without substantial space between them (Figure 5.16). Similarly, the buildings excavated from the Höyücek Shrine phase cluster densely (Figure 5.18). However, both sites along with the other Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Lake District sites are generally not described as clustered. Instead, the dominant narratives stress the existence of open space between houses at Lake District sites, e.g. “Buildings from the monochrome phase [Hacılar IX–VI, Höyücek ESP and ShP, Bademağacı EN 1–4; Düring 2011c:Table 5.2] are rectangular and border on open spaces. […] In some cases buildings share a party wall, but free-standings buildings also occur” (Düring 2011c:163) or, “Free space within the settlements seems plentiful, and the freestanding oneroom house is easily recognizable (cf. Umurtak 2000). Entrances are at ground level. Many domestic tasks took place in front of the dwellings as is clear from ceramic vessels, ovens, storage facilities and other remnants found there” (Schoop 2005b:49). But how much independence would households really have gained through the 2–4 m between houses at Bademağacı ENII3 (Duru 2008:Figure 45), or the between 1 m and 3 m that separated individual houses at Tepecik Level 3 (Bıçakçı et al. 2012:Figure 5)? Or asked differently: At what point are houses far enough apart to assume that their inhabitants were not able to monitor what and who came and went from the other household’s residence, or to informally socialise while walking to and from their houses or sitting in front of the
8.4.3. Theme 7: Building independently Theme 7 describes attempts at Çatalhöyük to discern changes in house building and modification between the EN and LN alongside social changes towards more household autonomy. Two subgroups of indicators were identified: those dealing with building materials and techniques (#39–#43), and those describing changes to house layouts (#44–#45). Material changes (#39–#43) Hodder (2006:252–253) has related the fact that average brick sizes shrink over time at Çatalhöyük to greater household independence (#39): “The bricks get gradually smaller through time until in the upper part of the sequence there are small rectangular bricks that can be held in one hand. Placing them on the wall with mortar could be done more quickly and with just one person. This is just one small example of how houses became more independent and self-sufficient” (Hodder 2006:252–253). Also in the realm of bricks, Pels has equated the appearance of mould-made bricks with increasing household autonomy (#40): “An increase in the independence of households also seems to appear from the evidence of bricklaying and building, although here the major shift (from wetlaid, in situ bricklaying to mold-made bricks probably dried in the sun outside the settlement) takes place between Levels VIII and VI [Levels South L-O, 6700– 6500 BC; Hodder 2014b:Table 1, 2021a:Table 1.2]” (Pels 2010:241). Moving from bricks to wood, Hodder (2013a:25, 2013b:28, 2014f:175) observed that as houses grew in size in relation to increasing household autonomy (see #46 in Theme 8), they needed more durable wood to support the roof and therefore the preferential choice of wood changed from oak to juniper (#41), even though the latter required more effort in processing. Marciniak et al. (Marciniak 2015a:94; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:159, 163) further point out that the Late Neolithic levels at Çatalhöyük also show a shift towards a preference for the local riparian woodlands, located at the banks of the 220
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration Çarşamba river next to the site, over more distant sources – despite the more distant sources providing better-quality timber. They interpret that this change to a use of local forests supported household autonomy: “Assuming that distant procurement of oak and juniper timber was by logistical necessity a communal undertaking, there are thus grounds to suggest that this was probably less of a need towards the end of the Neolithic habitation on the East Mound. Households could undertake these tasks independently. This may corroborate a shift away from broadly defined kin- or clan-based systems to a pattern focusing on the household sensu stricto” (Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163). In addition to the change to local woods, Marciniak et al. discerned “changes in architectural practices and construction techniques which, unrelated to wood availability, were less timber-dependent compared to earlier periods” (Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163). Both changes, that to nearer sources and to less wood used in buildings overall (#43), are interpreted by Marciniak as a possible shift from construction practices that needed a larger group of people to more independent building by the individual household: “In more general terms, changes in clay and wood procurement strategies between Early and Late Neolithic can best be characterized as a shift from exploiting high-quality resources derived from selected parts of the landscape and requiring joint communal efforts at the expense of a wide range of poorer quality resources closer to the settlement as a means of meeting the needs of smaller groups” (Marciniak 2015b:94).
abandoned this interpretation. Finally, #41–#43 are to a certain extent in contradiction: Hodder’s suggestion of more and harder wood (juniper) needed to roof larger houses (#41) seems to contradict the claim of less timberdependent construction techniques in the Late Neolithic (#43) for which local, lesser-quality wood was sufficient (#42). However, putting aside the contradictions in the evidence base and assuming that these changes did indeed take place, #39–#43 still do not hold up to a scrutiny of their epistemology. None of the indicators is well explored or argued in the literature, but they all seem to rest on a (never directly acknowledged) notion that is flawed as already pointed out in the discussion of Theme 11: large building projects, or large building components (timber, bricks), cannot be automatically equated with the involvement of a suprahousehold group, just as more easy-to-handle projects or construction components cannot be equated with household-independent building. Just because a large piece of wood might require several people to transport, that does not mean that these people were from different households (also see discussion of #65 in Theme 11). Another possibility is that individuals might choose to share the labour of building with others (possibly from other households) even if they would be able to carry the smaller bricks characteristic of the middle levels at Çatalhöyük without help. Just because it would have been easier and faster to build a house with a large group of people (Stevanović 2012b:201–202, 2013:112), does not mean that this is what people chose to do. Love (2012:140–141, 2013b:747, 2013c:264–265) repeatedly points out that builders have a high degree of agency when choosing how to build, as shown in ethnographic work, and her work on Çatalhöyük has also revealed that Neolithic builders chose to exert that agency in ways that show that efficiency was not what mattered most. For example, she suggested (Love 2013c, discussed with Theme 2) that household-specific mudbrick recipes played a role in displaying household identity during construction. In this scenario, the construction process becomes a stage for the demonstration of an independent household identity – and that necessitates the involvement of other households in the process, precisely to create an audience. Such opportunities for performing household independence might have remained important or even increased in importance after 6500 BC, especially taking into account the increasing economic and social competition (Chapter 9) that also arose between Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic households; conducting house building activities completely independently might therefore have not even been desirable to a household wanting to assert itself.
Although it is interesting to consider how house-building techniques might have changed in the wake of households becoming economically more independent, the evidence base for #39–#43 seems thin. Without wanting to discuss this in detail, the above mentioned trends and changes might not have been as clear-cut. Indicator #39 is called into question for example by Love’s (2013a:Table 5.3) tabulation of brick sizes that indeed shows shrinking sizes between the lower and middle levels, but also shows a clear increase in brick size in the late levels (after South O). The evidence base for #40 is particularly insecure: Due to the lack of a reference, it is unclear from what source Pels derived information about a change towards mould-made bricks, but because he thanks Serena Love for conversations about brick-making during the 2007– 2008 excavation seasons in a footnote (Pels 2010:243), it is likely that these conversations were the source of this information. However, in Love’s final publications of her work at Çatalhöyük (Love 2012, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c), there is no mention of this supposed change in brickmaking during the middle levels. There is also only a passing mention of the use of moulds in the later levels, without an interpretation in terms of household autonomy (Hodder 2013a:19, 2014d:161) in all of Hodder’s publications from 2013–2014 where the 6500 BC change is prominently discussed (Hodder 2013a, 2013b, 2014b, 2014c, 2014d, 2014f). It is therefore possible that the Çatalhöyük team discussed the change to moulds as evidence for increasing household autonomy during several field seasons, when these conversations were witnessed by Pels, but eventually
To further illustrate that indicators #39–#43 are poorly explored in the literature, I would like to demonstrate that the same evidence could also be interpreted as showing greater suprahousehold control over building processes: Sourcing wood from the Çarşamba river close to the settlement can be seen as a way to render the involvement 221
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia of a large working group unnecessary as by Marciniak et al., but alternatively it could be argued this this might have required more coordination between different households and subcommunities to ensure the stability of the local environment. As mentioned while discussing #14 in Theme 2, a communal organisation of access to the local woodlands has been suggested by Asouti (2013:161) and is further supported by additional evidence—also outlined during the discussion of #14—that the use of the surrounding landscape (wetlands, fields) was organised on a collective scale. The increasing brick sizes after Level South O observed by Love (2013a:Table 5.3) could be seen as a return to a suprahousehold scale of construction if following the same logic that equates the small bricks of the middle levels with household independence. Finally, by the same logic that equates large building projects with suprahousehold involvement, the increased effort in house building that would have gone along with building the larger and more structurally complex (multi-roomed) houses of the post-6500 BC phases of Çatalhöyük (see #46 and #48 in Theme 8) would be evidence for the involvement of a suprahousehold group in the construction. Without wanting to claim that these ideas are any more likely that the suggestions by Hodder, Pels and Marciniak et al. documented in #39–#43, I wanted to make the point that changes in construction techniques after 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük, and their meaning in relation to the changing household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration balance, are insufficiently explored and understood. For this reason, indicators #39–#43 will be discounted here. Nevertheless, this brief discussion has shown that the change of construction techniques in the context of household competition is a topic that deserves more research in the future.
developed only as households grew more independent around 6500 BC. Stevanović connects idiosyncratic layouts with household autonomy because she understands it as a household’s ability to shape the house to its needs and also to express its individuality – or even as the impact of particular individuals within the household: “The Çatalhöyük houses have many formal commonalities and articulate shared traditions of the community. It is conceivable, however, that ‘irregularities’ in a house, its spatial arrangements, and its positioning of the furniture, could be a reflection – intentional or not – of the occupant’s/builder’s personality [#44]. We should not exclude the possibility that they also reflected demographic diversity within a household – for example, perhaps young individuals joined the work force as they came of age and took their turn in the production activities of the house, or a household was supplemented by the adoption of individuals coming from slightly different traditions who would introduce changes to the features. Novelties introduced in this way might have been applied in a house renovation [#45]” (Stevanović 2012c:67). Hodder does not explicitly state his reasons for #44, but he often discusses indicator #44 in combination with the idiosyncratic use of building materials (#14 in Theme 2) as well as idiosyncrasies being shared by a number of neighbouring buildings, which are then interpreted as forming a subcommunity (#73 in Theme 12, e.g. Hodder 2014d:156; Hodder and Farid 2014:27). In addition to indicator #73 and Theme 2 (#14–#16), #44 can be cross-referenced with #21 and #27 in Themes 3–4, which interpret idiosyncratic ritual expression as indicative of household autonomy. Although the few text passages coded for #44 do not provide much basis for discussing this indicator, being able to compare it against several other indicators and themes provides a basis for accepting indicator #44 since there seems to be a general pattern at Çatalhöyük whereby households—or a small subcommunity, in the case of #73—expressed autonomy through small idiosyncrasies in their house structure. Idiosyncrasies would have fostered an independent household identity through household-specific knowledge, practices and also the display of idiosyncrasies to others who visited the house.
House idiosyncrasies and idiosyncratic use-lives (#44–#45) An increasing idiosyncrasy of house layouts (#44) and increasing rate of modifications to individual houses (#45) in the Late Neolithic at Çatalhöyük was potentially related to increasing household autonomy. Hodder (2005g:29, 2013b:25, 2014d:156; Hodder and Farid 2014:27) interpreted the way that houses at Çatalhöyük have very similar layouts (#69), yet differ in small details of their internal arrangement or furnishing (#44), as an expression of household autonomy that existed in balance with the tight communal integration: “overall, we see at Çatalhöyük a tension between the individual and the group, seen most clearly in the standardization of house layout, while at the same time each house is slightly different in its internal arrangement” (Hodder 2006:232). Since the examples given by Hodder for #44 all date to the middle and later levels of Çatalhöyük East (e.g. Hodder 2014d:156; Hodder and Farid 2014:27), I put this indicator in the Late Neolithic section of this chapter, even though Hodder describes #44 rather as a general feature of the site, not as a particular change after 6500 BC. My observation about the dating of the examples listed with #44 might however indicate that this particular way of expressing household autonomy
A number of researchers have suggested that regular small-scale modifications to the house indicate household autonomy (#45). As with #44, all concrete examples named for #45 post-date 6500 BC (the BACH area at Çatalhöyük: Matthews 2012:215; Stevanović 2012c:67; LN Tepecik and Köşk Höyük, Düring 2011c:156); the EN site of Aşıklı Höyük is named only as an example for a site where houses were not frequently modified (e.g. Düring 2005:21; Düring and Marciniak 2005:179). I therefore placed #45 into the Late Neolithic section of this chapter. In particular, Düring—the researcher who has written most about #45—explicitly records that an adjustment of house space to household needs is generally absent at Early Neolithic sites (Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük, Düring 2005:21, 2006:228, 313), but recognisable at post-6500 222
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration BC sites (Çatalhöyük, Tepecik and Köşk Höyük, Düring 2006:298, 2011c:156).
household composition. One issue with these examples is that there seems to be little evidence other than the modifications themselves to prove that they were initiated by changes within the resident household. Another issue is that the modifications that B.3 and its neighbours underwent during their use-lives have also been used as a prominent example in support of the interpretation that this group of households must have been connected by close socioeconomic bonds, because some houses lacked important features such as a hearth or storage for periods of time (Stevanović 2012c:79–80; see #81 and #85 in Theme 13). And in fact, Kay (2020) has documented frequent modifications to houses in a number of examples dating to 6700–6500 BC, and for the same reasons as in the case of B.3, these modifications that led to a lack of vital features in some houses over certain periods of time, are interpreted as strong evidence for suprahousehold relationships (#81 and #85 in Theme 13). There seems therefore to be a contradiction between #45 and the indicators of Theme 13. Or possibly, modifications to an individual house were indeed caused by events within the household itself, but then in some cases resulted in that household needing to draw on its relationships with other households in order to remain functional. This scenario, in which modifications to the house can be read as indicative of household autonomy and of suprahousehold ties at the same time, was suggested by Stevanović for B.3 and its neighbours: “The need to use or share another building might have occurred at the time when burial ceremonies were being performed in Building 3, when the Building 3 inhabitants would likely have had to evacuate the house for a short period while the grave pit was being dug, while the body was being prepared and then burned, and until the grave pit was closed. Their temporary evacuation would have been prolonged if the ceremony also included wall painting, followed by an application of a new floor and possibly some other changes in the interior configuration of the house. It is equally plausible that other events, such as the delivery of a child, the illness of a household member, or group ceremonies such as marriage or its equivalent, would have required the majority of its occupants to temporarily evacuate the house and relocate to a different building” (Stevanović 2012c:80). While this is plausible, my discussion here of #44 has demonstrated that the issue of house modifications is incompletely explored in the context of the household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration balance. Especially since house modifications could be related to household-specific events but at the same time also have fostered suprahousehold cooperation, more research on this issue is needed in the future.
Analysing the coded text passages, the reason why researchers have interpreted #44 as supporting household autonomy is that, in an interpretation similar to #44, modifications are seen as a response to changing needs of the household. Düring arrived at this interpretation by contrasting frequent modifications to the house (#45) with the practice of building continuity, which in his and others’ opinion indicates suprahousehold control over built space (#93). He accordingly argues that independent, idiosyncratic changes to a house indicate the ability of households to maintain and change their residential space (Düring 2006:97, 112, 228, 298, 313; Düring and Marciniak 2005:179). This understanding is based on ethnographic analogies, since “in virtually every ethnographic study it is demonstrated that households are very dynamic units when analysed diachronically, expanding and shrinking in size and adapting their houses accordingly” (Düring 2009:31; similarly Asouti 2005a:87). By contrasting the Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük building continuity with the ethnographic evidence, Düring arrives at the interpretation that households at these two sites were not free to alter their residences according to their needs: “On the basis of the extraordinary continuity of buildings at Çatalhöyük over time, in which buildings were generally reproduced with exactly the same dimensions and interior configurations over centuries, it can be argued that the households living in these neighbourhoods probably did not own their residences, in which case we would expect more modifications of buildings in conjunction with changes in household fortunes. It seems more likely that households were assigned their houses by the larger neighbourhood community according to their demands, needs, and status” (Düring 2006:313). Different from Matthew and Stevanovic, whose statements about #45 are discussed below, Düring focuses here on modifications to buildings that could have happened in the course of abandonment and rebuilding events, not modifications that happened over the use-life of a particular building. The contrasting of idiosyncratic (#44) or idiosyncratically timed (#45) modifications of a house with building continuity (#93) is interesting, although it could be argued that the two do not need to be mutually exclusive, since they could constitute independent processes working on different timescales: it is perceivable that the larger cycles of abandonment and rebuilding of houses was seen as a very different matter as compared to the rearranging of internal space in between rebuilding episodes; one might have been administered by a (sub)community, the other by the resident household. This observation does not, however, essentially contradict an interpretation of #45 as supporting household autonomy.
8.4.4. Theme 8: More productive space Theme 8 describes how, when households became economically more independent in the Late Neolithic, their residences changed alongside this development in order to facilitate the higher household-specific productivity that characterised the Late Neolithic (6.3.3). Theme 8 is to a large degree, but not entirely, based on Çatalhöyük. The indicators of Theme 8 describe changes in house size
Speaking of changes to individual buildings over their uselife, Matthews (2012:215) attributes changes in the use of different areas in B.3 as evidenced in micromorphology to “different rhythms of the household”. Similarly, Stevanović (2012c:67, cited above) attributes changes to the furnishing of B.3 and its neighbours to changes in 223
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (#46, #47), internal structuring (#48, #50, #53), the size or amount of storage and cooking installations (#49, #52, #51), as well as a more intensive use of unroofed areas adjacent to houses (#54). As the following discussion with show, Theme 8 already has some connotations of social competition that connect it to the discussion of the next chapter (Themes 17, 18). In fact, some architectural indicators (e.g. increasing house size #46 and number of rooms #48) have been connected in the literature to increasing household autonomy as well as increasing social competition; they will therefore be discussed here and in Chapter 9 as well.
substantial self-contained domestic buildings that required time and effort to build, decorate and maintain” (Cutting 2005b:137). Düring (2006:314) tentatively remarks that the increase in house size could be due to an increase in the average household size. He does not portray this as a contradiction to an interpretation in terms of increasing household autonomy, and I want to reinforce that it is not. The two explanations are not mutually exclusive since households could have grown in size and become more autonomous, or possibly grew in size because they became more autonomous. My latter suggestion, that of a causal relationship between increasing autonomy and increasing household size, is derived from the Çatalhöyük team’s suggestion, to be discussed below, that increasing household autonomy was fuelled by greater economic productivity. In this context, households could have sought to increase their number of members to achieve greater productivity.
Expanding and rearranging the house (#46–#50) That houses increase in size (#46) on average after 6500 BC was noticed as a general trend in central Anatolia by comparing sites from different periods (Cutting 2005b:137; Düring 2006:314, 317; Hodder 2014b:10; Steadman 2000b:178, 182). This trend was noted as well at Çatalhöyük in particular (Hodder 2014c:12, 2014f:175), which therefore provides the opportunity to observe this development at a single site. As houses at Çatalhöyük and other sites grew in size (#46), they also became more complexly structured by including second stories and by including a larger number of rooms than they typically had before 6500 BC (#48). Two text passages were coded that stated the opposite of #46, instead relating smaller houses to increased household autonomy (#47). However, Marciniak’s remark that, “This typically Neolithic system came to an end some time after the middle of the 7th millennium cal. BC and were [sic] gradually replaced by smaller, less permanent and more self-sufficient houses” (Marciniak 2015a:96; also Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163) can probably be seen as a typing error because in the same sources he describes larger houses as being connected to increasing household independence (e.g. Marciniak 2015a:91). Indicator #47 can therefore easily be discounted.
At Çatalhöyük specifically, both increasing house size and increasing number of rooms (#46, #48) have been related to increased household autonomy by attributing both to the fact that the now more autonomous households needed more space, as well as functional subdivision, to accommodate increased independent productivity (Hodder 2006:58, 256, 2013b:21, 2014b:10, 12, 2014c:19). Increased household productivity became necessary when the social security net provided by membership in the various subcommunities—prominently neighbourhoods and ritual subcommunities (Themes 9–10, 15) that had allowed individual households to rely on help from others in times of hardship—came to an end around 6500 BC; but also became possible or attractive when households were able to work for their own benefit (Hodder 2013a:21, 22, 25, 2013b:28). The Çatalhöyük team has presented a narrative that connects #46 and #48 with the other indicators in this theme through an overall interpretation of the entire Theme 8 as changes that allowed households to increase their productivity to become more autonomous. Another trend observable at LN Çatalhöyük is that the average architecturally visible storage space per house also increased, which is interpreted by Hodder (2013a:2, 24, 25, 2014b:10; Hodder and Farid 2014:34) as part of the increase in independent household productivity as well, which in turn supported increased household autonomy (#49): “Houses invested less in ritual ties between clustered neighbourhoods and focused more on independent production and the build-up of their own surpluses. The numbers of rooms [#48] and storage areas [#49] in houses increased” (Hodder 2014f:182). Within the broader discussion about increased householdspecific productivity at Çatalhöyük after 6500 BC, it is of particular interest to consider the relationship between increasing house size, compartmentalisation (#46, #48) as well as storage capacity (#49) with two kinds of economic activities that were of major importance to enabling the new household autonomy and competition between households (6.3.3): sheep herding and meat production,
I have divided my discussion of the reasoning behind #46 and #48 into first, the small handful of text passages that refer to central Anatolia in general or to sites other than Çatalhöyük (Cutting 2005b:137; Düring 2006:314, 314, 317); and second, the many more passages that focus on only Çatalhöyük. The text passages that refer to central Anatolia in general do not provide much basis for discussing the reasoning behind connecting increasing house sizes and number of rooms (#46, #48) with household autonomy, but some of the underlying notions can be extracted. Düring’s statement that “the individual buildings expanded considerably in size, suggesting that there too, households took on a more prominent role in the fabric of the local community” (Düring 2006:314), seems to read the larger houses as a visual statement about the greater importance of households as social institutions. Cutting seems to suggest that larger houses show a greater investment by households into their residence: “There is a general trend over time towards larger buildings and towards a greater articulation of the household with 224
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration and craft specialisation. Hodder (2013a:21, 2013b:28) has considered an association of the Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük house size and room increase (#46, #48) with the increased reliance on animals as a regular subsistence source and wealth marker: “The final processing of sheep bones for meat, marrow and grease took place inside the house associated with hearths and cooking pots. The house became an increasingly active location for the processing of sheep and cattle meat and protein. This may be one reason that the sizes of houses gradually increase through time” (Hodder 2013b:18, 2014b:14). The evidence base for this correlation of increasing house size and increased pastoral productivity will be scrutinised in Theme 24 (#176). This discussion will show that there is tentative evidence that the large houses of LN Çatalhöyük really were used for meat processing. Moreover, increased productivity at LN Çatalhöyük also included some craft specialisation whereby individual households appear to have specialised in antler tool, bead, chipped and ground stone production (Hodder 2013a:19–20, 2013b:22, 24, 2014b:14), and probably exchanged these items with other households (Hodder 2014b:17, 2014c:19). Such increased production of quantities of tools or beads beyond the household needs might have further increased the need for larger houses as well as more functional subdivision (Hodder 2014d:167; Steadman 2000b:178) if, again, it can be shown that this production was actually carried out in the houses which seems to be evidenced in at least some cases where workshop assemblages were found in houses (Hodder 2013a:19). While the degree to which increased productivity in general—and increased meat processing and craft specialisation specifically—were responsible for expansion of houses, room number and storage (#46, #48–#49) remains unclear, there is therefore at least some initial support for their correlation.
these changes to the house, productivity, and household autonomy would be beneficial in future. Changes to fire installations (#51–#53) The next three indicators describe a range of changes to fire installations that have also been connected to increasing household autonomy. However, all three represent outdated interpretations and can be discounted. Indicator #51 refers to tentative suggestions by Hodder (2005b:19, 2006:214) to see the appearance of large ovens in the upper levels in the context of specialisation by individual households: “But in the upper levels of Çatalhöyük the increasing importance of the house and domestic and agricultural production led to gradual change. As part of these changes pottery becomes more central to domestic life and there is other evidence of specialization of domestic production (very large ovens, for example)” (Hodder 2006:214). This idea is no longer mentioned in the newer research on specialisation at LN Çatalhöyük (as summarised e g. in Hodder 2013a). Further, many of these large new ovens that appear in the LN seem to be located outside of houses (see #99, #54 and Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:12). This outdoor location complicates their interpretation because it is difficult to determine whether outdoor fire installations were used by one or more households (see #99, #54). Indicator #51 is therefore discounted. Indicator #52 refers to a single text passage in which Fuchs-Khakhar mentions and then immediately discounts— along with some other potential changes to fire installations—the possibility that the more autonomous households of LN Çatalhöyük might have needed more cooking facilities than households of earlier levels: “But do these changes confirm the ‘(a) brupt change in the middle of the sequence’ (South O/P and North G/H) from an egalitarian, communal society to one of greater independence and differentiation between households, that Hodder (2014b, 171) sees in Çatalhöyük? My study does not substantiate such a trend for the period 6700–6100 BC. It does not show more cooking facilities for increasingly independent households in later levels [#52], there is no observable trend from round to more space-saving rectangular hearths that would fit more compartmentalised houses in later levels [#53], I see no tendency to more centrally situated hearths and more marginally located ovens [#117, #118] that would suggest that ‘the central room of the house became more associated with commensalism, display and social exchange’ (Hodder 2014b, 179)” (Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:14).
The final indicator in this group (#50) refers to the fact that the multiple changes to house size and layout at Çatalhöyük that have been described in this theme, as well as others that will be discussed with Themes 17–19 in Chapter 9, essentially meant an abandonment of the fairly standardised house layout observed at the site prior to 6500 BC (#69 in Theme 12). These changes include, for example, the movement of hearths to the centre of the main room, and of wall paintings across all house walls. This abandonment of the traditional house layout (#50) is therefore also interpreted in the context of increasing household autonomy (Düring 2006:313, 2011c:132, 136; Hodder 2014b:15). This interpretation can be further supported by cross-referencing it with the meaning of idiosyncratic house design for independent household identity discussed with Theme 2, and the supposed role of house standardisation in enforcing community-wide rules (Theme 12). To conclude, because indicators #46 and #48–#50 can be cross-referenced with each other as well as substantial non-architectural evidence for increasing household-specific productivity at LN Çatalhöyük (6.3.3), they are all accepted here. At the same time, the overall low number of text passages coded for these indicators means that more in-depth research into the relationship between
As mentioned in the just cited statement by Fuchs-Khakhar, indicator #53 describes a potential “trend from round to more space-saving rectangular hearths that would fit more compartmentalised houses in later levels” (Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:14). This indicator is discussed by Fuchs-Khakhar (2019), who refers to an earlier suggestion by Hodder: “Another shift perhaps related to increased activity and production in the house was that hearths became more rectangular through time, with the main shift from rounded oval hearths occurring between South M and N (Figure 11.2). Why should hearths change shape in this way? 225
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia One interpretation is that […] as more and more activities took place in the house, there was a more careful ordering and compartmentalization of space” (Hodder 2014f:173; also see Hodder 2014f:171, Figure 11.2). Although an interpretation of rectangular hearths as indicative of increasing household autonomy is never directly suggested by Hodder, his cited statement connects rectangular hearths with the increased compartmentalisation of house space (#48), and this compartmentalisation is interpreted by Hodder as evidence for household autonomy (e.g. Hodder 2014f:175, 182). Fuchs-Khakhar (2019:14) investigated this suggestion by Hodder in a systematic study of cooking installations at Çatalhöyük and was not able to substantiate the supposed trend towards rectangular hearths. Indicator #53 is therefore discounted.
of the evidence base for this scenario can be critiqued; for example, in Theme 15 I discussed the possibility that unroofed outdoor spaces in Neolithic central Anatolia might already have been socially regulated rather freely usable communal areas even if that is not immediately archaeologically visible e.g. through fences. With so much to discount of Schoop’s reconstruction, this particular example for #54 does not hold up to scrutiny. The remaining text passages coded for #54 refer to Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Through the de-clustering (#36) of the settlements, houses had more open areas around them, and according to reconstructions by Bogaard et al. and Hodder, these became—more intensely than before 6500 BC—used for activities other than refuse disposal as indicated by the increased frequency of fire spots and constructed features found near buildings such as hearths, ovens, and a mudbrick platform in unroofed areas (Bogaard et al. 2014; Hodder 2014b:12; see #97 for a description of the use of unroofed spaces at Çatalhöyük also before 6500 BC). The primary refuse of charred botanical debris from these fire spots indicates de-husking, sieving and handsorting of grains and legumes as well as woodworking. Other artefacts in primary position show bead, figurine and chipped stone manufacturing (Bogaard et al. 2014:133, 144). Bogaard et al. (Bogaard et al. 2021:112; Bogaard et al. 2014) also noticed that outdoor spaces termed ‘yards’ became increasingly common in the Late Neolithic. Yards are differentiated from middens (#97) because they are less focused on refuse disposal and more on other types of activities: “Yards were maintained as open activity areas, with only sporadic dumping of rubbish, and become increasingly common in the mid-late Neolithic sequence (Mellaart 1967, 63, 69; Volume 7, Chapter 1; Marciniak in prep; this volume, Chapter 8). Yards can thus be contrasted with middens, areas of rubbish deposition and intermittent activity that occur throughout the occupation sequence (Volume 7, Chapter 1). The difference between yards and middens can be a subtle one, however, particularly among spaces of the mid-later sequence, where middens were often important activity spaces as well” (Bogaard et al. 2014:123). As pointed out by Bogaard et al., distinguishing between yards and middens can be difficult. However, this functional subdivision might not be highly relevant here, since both yards and middens demonstrate an increasing use of unroofed spaces for the processing of food and artefacts. Most recently, Issavi et al. (2020:116) have, based on a more comprehensive study of outdoor spaces, called into question the reliability of some aspects of Bogaard and Hodder’s reconstruction that outdoor areas were increasingly used for production activities in the Late Neolithic, but do not directly discount it.
Private unroofed spaces? (#54) The remaining indicator in this theme is #54, which describes the increasing use of outdoor spaces around the house for production activities. This has been connected with household autonomy at different sites for different reasons. Here, I will first discuss the only coded text passage that does not refer to Çatalhöyük. At Hacılar II and Bademağacı ENII3, Schoop understands the outdoor activity areas evidenced by ovens and storage facilities with “a pronounced tendency to invade and appropriate public space” (Schoop 2005b:49), especially at Hacılar II, where he interprets the wattle-and-daub/wooden walls found around some oven and hearth arrangements (Figure 5.3) as screen walls by which these outdoor areas became “fenced off against intruding neighbors until passage within the settlements became virtually impossible. It is easy enough to imagine what this must have meant in terms of intra-community conflict. Thus what we see here is a focus upon the single independent household with a pronounced claim for private space” (Schoop 2005b:49). Putting aside the question of whether or not this is a viable reconstruction of the Hacılar IIa settlement (e.g. Mellaart reconstructed the structures in question as houses, 5.1.5 and Figure 11.1), there are other reasons to scrutinise Schoop’s interpretation. It is important to note that other researchers have interpreted outdoor cooking and storage installations, including at Hacılar and Bademağacı, as evidence for communal ties because they were large and located in unroofed areas (#97, #98 in Theme 15). Different from these reconstructions, Schoop interprets outdoor installations as owned by specific households, showing once more the lack of real archaeological evidence as to who used these unroofed areas, as discussed in Theme 15. By contrasting the LN Lake District sites with the supposed region of origin of the Lake District Neolithic—the Konya plain and Cappadocia, where no private outdoor areas had existed in his reconstruction—Schoop then reconstructs a chronological development, or regional contrast, whereby the decision to create privately owned outdoor areas in Lake District settlements becomes a deliberate and visible appropriation of once-communal property (the unroofed space inside the settlement) by individual households (Schoop 2005b:49, partly cited above). Much
Indicator #54 thus refers to the increasing occurrence of fire places and constructions in unroofed spaces at LN Çatalhöyük and its interpretation as evidence for increasing household autonomy. Instead of creating different indicators for different outdoor features (e.g. mudbrick platform, fence, hearth, oven), I combined all into one indicator together with text passages that just refer to yards without 226
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration naming the features that define a yard. This facilitates focusing this discussion more strongly on the principle that increased outdoor productivity could be indicative of household autonomy. The Çatalhöyük team interprets #54 as evidence for increasing household autonomy because they see it, along with the other indicators in this theme, as indicative of increasing economic productivity by increasingly autonomous households: “As houses became larger [#46] and more concerned with social display so other functional features such as ovens were pushed outside [#54] or into side rooms [#117], and the numbers of side rooms increased [#48] as did the number of activities out in yards [#54]. All this suggests a greater economic independence of houses” (Hodder 2014c:19) or “Thus not only did houses get larger [#46], but they also became part of productive complexes that included yards, outside ovens and hearths, and middens on which activities took place [#54]” (Hodder 2014b:12; also Hodder 2013b:24, 28). This reconstruction could be countered by pointing out that during the Early Neolithic, roofs were already used for many of the outdoor activities reconstructed for the newly productive outdoor spaces of the Late Neolithic (see #55 in Theme 9). It is possible that the movement—or extension, since roofs might still have been used even if yards were available—of this outdoor activity area to the ground next to the house did not actually represent such a large change in the functioning of the house, or in the amount of productive space available to the household.
house(s) is generally unclear due to the limited extent of excavation” (Bogaard et al. 2021:112). As already mentioned when discussing #97, there is evidence from artefact distribution patterns throughout the sequence of Çatalhöyük that households preferably used nearby outdoor areas for convenience. With the de-clustering that occurred at LN Çatalhöyük, doors as ground level entrances began appearing in the later Çatalhöyük houses (Düring 2006:159), and some of these opened directly onto yards (Bogaard et al. 2014:123– 127). In this spatial arrangement, it seems likely that the household living in the house preferentially used this area directly in front of their door (Bogaard et al. 2014:127, 133). However, the fact that households preferred the use of the nearby open spaces cannot be equated with exclusive ownership (Issavi et al. 2020:117). Bogaard et al. approached the question of privacy by observing the scale of plant food processing around fire spots in LN outdoor spaces and found that in several cases, the scale was small and therefore probably does not represent the processing of food for a large (suprahousehold) group of people (Bogaard et al. 2014:133). The possibly clearest evidence for private unroofed space consists in yards enclosed by walls, of which a small number of examples were identified at LN Çatalhöyük (Bogaard et al. 2014:123; Hodder 2014b:12). However, newer evidence by Issavi et al. contradicts both the identification of these walls as yard-fences and a pattern whereby they became more frequent in the later levels: “The distribution of walls in open spaces does not seem to have a meaningful temporal pattern, despite previous allusions to an increase of ‘enclosing’ walls in the Late and Final periods. Investigating these Late and Final period walls shows that most of the external walls found functioned as retaining, or support, walls (Issavi forthcoming, table 4)” (Issavi et al. 2020:116)
Moreover, one important aspect regarding the LN outdoor production areas remains unresolved: were these private yards owned by particular households, or were they used by more than one household? On the one hand, this question is possibly not of central importance to the present discussion since the connection between an increase in outdoor productive installations with increased productivity, and further with household autonomy, works whether these new outdoor production areas were private or not. On the other hand, there seems to be an unresolved epistemological contradiction if unroofed areas at Çatalhöyük and beyond are generally interpreted as communal space, including by Hodder and Bogaard et al. (#97, #99 in Theme 15), but an increased use of outdoor areas for a greater variety of purposes is taken as evidence for household autonomy (#54). In Theme 15, I discussed how the meeting of members from different households in unroofed spaces would have fostered informal suprahousehold relationships and allowed for social control between households – so should this not have intensified if outdoor activities increased after 6500 BC? Considering this, there would be stronger support for #54 if it could be demonstrated that at least some of the new LN outdoor production areas were privately owned. That, however, remains unclear. While earlier publications from 2013–2014 appeared more confident in the existence of private yards at LN Çatalhöyük (Bogaard et al. 2014:147; Hodder 2013b:24), the newest publications from 2020– 2021 stress a lack of clear evidence for private ownership (e.g. Hodder 2021a:26; Issavi et al. 2020:116–117): “The extent to which these yards were ‘private’ to a particular
To conclude, outdoor areas remain an interesting, but unresolved point in the discussion of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration (see also Theme 15). Much more research is needed to resolve their role in the negotiation of social relationships between households, including at Çatalhöyük which has seen more research on unroofed areas than any of the other sites. In particular, the role of the Late Neolithic ‘yards’ at Çatalhöyük deserves continued scrutiny. Indicator #54 is here tentatively accepted to promote future research into the role of outdoor areas as fostering either household autonomy, or suprahousehold ties, or both in different settings. 8.5. Summary and reflections The discussion of Themes 1–16 has discounted 21 of the initially documented 54 indicators of household autonomy, and 13 of the 52 indicators of suprahousehold integration, because they were either not founded in sufficient archaeological data or actually contradicted by archaeological data. A further four indicators (#1, #2, #63, #78) function more as headlines or guidelines than as concrete criteria for architectural analysis. This leaves 227
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia 33 indicators of household autonomy, and 39 indicators of suprahousehold integration that can be applied in an analysis of architectural data (Appendices 1–2).
shift towards greater household autonomy was at the heart of this transition (6.3.3). Possibly because of the newness of the household autonomy debate, and the centrality of the issue for understanding the 6500 BC change, it can currently be characterised as lively, but somewhat disordered. The large number of architectural indicators (n = 106) collected in my study that describe household autonomy and suprahousehold integration was a surprise. This number, and especially the fact that several indicators were only mentioned once, by one author in one publication (e.g. #24, #40, #59, #68, #72), show that a range of researchers have been exploring, across a wide range of themes related to architecture and in a trial-and-error fashion, the question of how we can recognise household autonomy or suprahousehold integration in the architecture. What I mean by ‘disordered’ is that indicators suggested by one author are seldom systematically addressed, discussed, and either verified or refuted by others; as a result, a number of research opinions float in the literature without clear discussion of their validity (see also 12.3). In particular, there are a number of indicators that directly contradict each other, and that too is very rarely explicitly discussed in the literature. Different authors ascribe conflicting—or at least seemingly conflicting— social meaning to architectural features, for example when subfloor burials (#23, #91) or building continuity (#28, #93) are interpreted by some as strengthening the identity of an autonomous household, and by others as signals of suprahousehold control over built space. While it is of course theoretically possible that the same architectural expression had different social meanings in different chronological or geographical settings, or that meanings overlap and e.g. burial practices do in fact strengthen several levels of social integration at the same time, such inconsistencies need to at least be explicitly addressed and debated in the archaeological research process. This somewhat disordered state of the current debate supports the relevance of this book as stated in 1.1: the significance of improving the archaeological tools needed to understand major cultural changes during Anatolian prehistory.
A look at the publication dates of the sources coded in the household autonomy discussion (Appendix 1) shows clearly that this is a relatively new discussion within the archaeology of Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia. Moreover, many of the comparatively few older sources (e.g. Hodder 1996a; Mellaart 1967) that contain text passages on household autonomy mention household autonomy or identity rather in passing, instead of devoting a more detailed discussion to it. An explicit scholarly debate around the balance of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration, which newer research (6.3.3) has found to be of such fundamental importance to the understanding of socioeconomic change during the LN and EC, has only evolved during the last approximately 15 years as demonstrated by the dates of the text passages coded for this chapter (Appendices 1–2). Reasons for this can be found in statements made by Düring (2006:41; Düring and Marciniak 2005:166– 167), who stated that the existence of household—in the sense of relatively autonomous socioeconomic units—in the Anatolian Neolithic was simply assumed by researchers, and therefore not explicitly discussed and scrutinised; neither were the exact mechanisms by which individuals and households are integrated into larger communal structures. Düring ascribes this lack of research to an uncritical use of Flannery’s (1972b) model which portrayed household autonomy as a core feature of Neolithic economy since neolithisation is seen by Flannery as facilitated by the emergence of economically autonomous households, a hypothesis that might not fit the central Anatolian trajectory because households might not have been fully autonomous in the earliest Neolithic (6.2.3). The first sources to dedicate longer discussions to untangling the household vs. community balance for the central Anatolian Neolithic were published approximately 15 years ago (Düring 2005, 2006; Düring and Marciniak 2005; Hodder 2006). Subsequently, this research problem was increasingly incorporated into new studies, of nonarchitectural materials as well (e.g. 6.3.3). As a result of a new and improved understanding of the ways and degrees to which Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic households were autonomous or integrated into subcommunities, Early Neolithic households are now seen as less autonomous, and more bound to a web of suprahousehold dependencies than previously. For example, in 2005–2006 Hodder (e.g. Hodder 2005f, 2005g, 2005h, 2006) saw the Çatalhöyük (Early Neolithic) household as more autonomous than he sees them in more current publications (e.g. Hodder 2013b, 2014b). As another result, the nature and significance of the 6500 BC change at Çatalhöyük has also become more fully understood as part of this inquiry: Previously, architectural changes and wider cultural changes around Çatalhöyük Level V were routinely noted in the literature (e.g. Düring 2006:159–160, 190, 228– 229; Hodder 2006:249–255), but still appeared somewhat unarticulated. Newer research has been able to show that a
Although the coding has documented a lively and wideranging academic debate around the household autonomy vs. community integration balance, there is only a limited range of researchers partaking in this discussion. In particular, there is only a limited range of researchers who explicitly and at length address this question in their research of architecture; such more substantial contributions become visible in Appendices 1–2 when many text passages by the same researcher were coded. Compared to Chapters 9 and 11 about social stratification and warfare especially, the household autonomy/ suprahousehold integration discussion is dominated by Düring and the Çatalhöyük team. As a related issue, the debate is clearly focused on Çatalhöyük East, and the 6500 BC change observed at this site. Only a small number of indicators discussed in this chapter are not drawn mainly 228
Household Autonomy and Suprahousehold Integration or entirely from Çatalhöyük East studies: 52 indicators (49%) are based only on Çatalhöyük, and for many more indicators the evidence available to discuss their validity comes mainly or entirely from Çatalhöyük (see also 12.3 on this being an issue more generally with the research discourse documented in this book). This represents a real research dilemma: The overpowering interpretive dominance of Çatalhöyük in this chapter might simply be a reflection of the possibility that the process of increasing household autonomy was not present, or not pronounced, at other sites (6.3.3). On the other hand, a lack of dedicated research at other sites, and of debate about architectural indicators valid for other sites that allow for the detection of household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration, hinders an understanding of the degree to which this process also affected sites other than Çatalhöyük. In particular, it would be desirable to better understand the weighting of household autonomy vs. community integration at the Lake District sites newly established around 6500 BC, in order to better understand the ways in which the Lake District Neolithic continued the legacy of the Konya plain (6.3.1). A more diverse research discourse, including further sites and research voices, would be advantageous for moving the debate forward in future research.
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9 Social Competition and Social Stratification [T]he built environment can be used not only to demonstrate power but also to establish positions of power, control the freedoms and actions of others, and indicate shifts in power. (Steadman 2015:221) 9.1. Introduction
statements’: They express that a certain architectural feature could indicate status differences, but that no direct evidence was found at a given site or occupational level. For example, Hodder (2005c:13, 2013a:18, 2014b:5) reports various attempts at Çatalhöyük to statistically correlate potential markers of social differentiation such as house size, furnishing or symbolic elaboration, and concludes that no clear patterns could be found. Another example is the following statement: “Differences in building size can also signal unequal household wealth and the growth of hierarchical organisations. This seems unlikely to have been the case at Çatalhöyük, where building size differentials were perpetuated through many generations” (Cutting 2005b:128). ‘Hypothetical’ text passages were still coded because they document expectations and opinions that prevail in the research community (7.3); but they do not contain evidence that could be discussed here in order to debate the validity of such opinions. This means that the evidence base for the discussion of some indicators is minor.
Chapter 6 has described household autonomy, social competition and social stratification as subsequent segments of a gradual process, and this is reflected in this analysis. For example, some architectural features named in the household autonomy discussion (Chapter 8) also appear in the discussion around competition and stratification in this chapter. Competition starts where the autonomy (Theme 8) discussion left off, and the first theme in this chapter, Theme 17, actually purposefully collects indicators that have been associated with household autonomy and with competition. For the analysis in this chapter, I separated indicators that were mentioned only or mostly in connection with LN/EC social competition and LN/EC examples (Themes 17–18) from indicators that were mentioned in connection with examples from the Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age and in some, but not all cases, refer to established social hierarchies, i.e. social stratification, rather than social competition (Themes 19–21). Themes 17–18 were also separated from the remaining indicators in this chapter because they draw attention to a strategy that seems to have been relevant during LN/EC social competition and which was identified through my content analysis: a careful balance of concealing and displaying household resources.
9.2. Social competition 9.2.1. Themes 17 and 18: Concealing and displaying Theme 17 describes archaeological indicators for increased privacy whereby households sought to shield some of their activities and resources from social control, whereas Theme 18 describes architectural changes that went along with the increased competitive hospitality that is reconstructed for the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic (6.3.3). Both themes are discussed here together since they describe a complex balance of concealing and displaying. The content analysis has identified this balance as an important feature of early social competition in central Anatolia.
The content analysis has identified 13 architectural indicators of social competition, and 42 indicators of social stratification (Appendix 3) that can be separated into five themes (Table 9.1). The largest, Theme 19, which describes indicators for recognising an elite residence, is further subdivided into five subthemes. A substantial number of the text passages coded for Themes 19–21, i.e. the discussion of social stratification, refer to ‘hypothetical
Table 9.1. Themes identified in the social competition and social stratification debate Social competition
Theme 17 Concealing Theme 18 Displaying
Social stratification
Theme 19 The elite residence
Theme 19.1 The large house Theme 19.2 Building materials Theme 19.3 Installations Theme 19.4 Artefact distribution Theme 19.5 Ritual house elaboration
Elite influence on settlement layout
Theme 20 Ruling the settlement Theme 21 The pre-citadel
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (#120) and especially Theme 21 will discuss evidence that status was sometimes communicated through visual dominance of houses in prehistoric central Anatolia. The present discussion will, however, concentrate on notions actually contained in the text passages coded for #108– #110. A second argument in favour of connecting #108– #110 with social competition is that the increased size and functional subdivision would have supported an increased productivity of the household, and this productivity could be used for competitive purposes. For example, Steadman (2000b:187, 188) points out that adding a second storey nearly doubled the space available inside the house, and connects this with increased space requirements in the context of specialisation and competition. Düring (2006:314, 317) also tentatively connected the larger (two-storied) houses at Erbaba and Canhasan with social competition. Chapter 6 has identified increased household-specific productivity as an important driver of LN/EC social competition, and Theme 8 has already discussed at length the connection between larger (#108) and more partitioned (#109, #110) houses and increasing productivity; this argument can therefore be accepted here.
Concealing The discussion of Theme 17 and architecturally created privacy is dominated by Steadman’s (2000b) study of increasing social competition and stratification in central Anatolia around the Early Chalcolithic. Steadman’s study had a focus on the increasing ‘privacy’ that will be discussed in this theme. Indicator #107 is a headline node; it refers to Steadman’s hypothesis that increased depth of residences evolved between the Early Neolithic and Late Chalcolithic in central Anatolia and the Lake District as a result of economic inequality. ‘Depth’ refers to internal layouts that create divisions between a more public part of the house, and a private part whose use is presumed to have been exclusive to household members. Steadman (2000b:189–191) reconstructed that it became increasingly important to limit access possibilities for nonhousehold members as socio-economic differences grew: the increasing ‘depth’ of the house shielded some parts of it, and some of the resources kept in the house, from the view of others. How was ‘depth’ created architecturally? As Steadman (2000b) outlines, houses became larger on average (#108) in the LN/EC with more internal partitioning. The division of the house into several rooms or compartments screened off by walls (#110) had the effect of hiding parts of the residence from the viewpoint of the entrance and also from the ‘living’ areas that are presumed to have seen visits from members of other households. A similar effect was caused by the construction of two-storied houses (#109), whereby the storey that had the door to the outside is reconstructed as a publicly accessible area, and the other storey as a more private one. Additionally, privacy was increased when, progressively, doors were located in places where they did not allow immediate line of sight into the entire house (#111), by not sharing party walls (#112) or even by detaching the walls of adjacent houses from each other, creating a less dense settlement layout (#113). Cutting (2005b:29, 31, 122) used Steadman’s markers of social complexity in her study, but concluded that the trends observed by Steadman were not consistently present in her dataset which was larger than Steadman’s. However, she does not seem to, in principle, disagree with Steadman’s model, since she detects such ‘privacy measures’ in the offset entrances (#111) of houses at Hacılar II (Cutting 2005b:130) or the abandonment of clustering at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük (#113, Cutting 2006b:99), for example.
The third argument, and the one that the title of this theme alludes to, is that large (#108), multiroomed (#110) and/ or two-storied (#109) houses allowed households to ‘hide’ resources and activities from the eyes of non-household members behind several barriers (doors, walls, partitions, ladders), and control more easily who had access to or knowledge of these resources (Steadman 2000b:189– 191). For example, the lower storeys at the clustered sites of Çatalhöyük West or Canhasan 2b are reconstructed as basement storage/working spaces under an upper storey used for living (Biehl et al. 2012a:55; Düring 2006:273– 274). At these sites, the entrance to the house would have been through the roof into the living room, and the basement could only be reached through another entrance and another ladder. In these basements, and also in ‘back rooms’ e.g. at Hacılar VI, things could be stored securely out of sight away from the more public, socialising area of the house (Steadman 2000b:190): “living space [at Canhasan 2] was available on the upper storey, while storage of movables such as tools, small objects and grain was possible on the ground-floor to which, of course, access was limited to members of the household” (French 1998:66). Baird seems to say that the storage-basements also increased the storage space available to households, and connects this with “households show[ing] a new interest in aggrandizement” (Baird 2012a:452). In principle, the argument is convincing that large storage facilities, at relatively inaccessible locations inside the residence (either in a basement, or a back room), might become important when LN/EC households started accumulating more property than they had needed during the Early Neolithic when they relied on a tight-knit social security system; and began to compete for resources and social influence. The possibility to ‘hide’ resources in the house might have been important during the emergence of economic inequalities, when displaying economic
Indicators #108–#110 describe interrelated changes that will be discussed together here. Apart from Steadman, they have also been mentioned by other researchers in relation to social competition. Four mechanisms can be extracted from the literature for arguing that larger (#108) houses with several rooms or stories (#109, #110) played a role in social competition. First, both house size and the addition of an upper storey might have had a connotation of visually demonstrating status. This was not actually suggested in any text passages coded for #108 or #109, but Theme 19.1 232
Social Competition and Social Stratification differences was not (yet) deemed feasible. It is plausible that house layouts changed to facilitate this strategy. Since storage capacities are notoriously difficult to reconstruct archaeologically (see Themes 1, 8), it is however possible that the impression that larger and more hidden storage developed in the LN/EC is incorrect. For example, Early Neolithic houses at Çatalhöyük already had side rooms used for storage (Düring 2006:171). Also, the assumption that the basements at Çatalhöyük West, Canhasan 2b and Erbaba were storage rooms is based mainly on the fact that they seem poorly suited to other uses (Anvari 2020:461; Biehl et al. 2012a:55; Düring 2006:273–274), but is not directly proven through e.g. studies of microdebris. It is therefore essentially unclear whether storage was really located in the more hidden areas of the larger (#108) and more subdivided (#109, #110) residences, not least also because the upper stories are preserved only in exceptional cases, essentially leaving it to the imagination what was done and stored in them. Both observations call into question how much larger, and how much more private, average storage spaces really grew after 6500 BC. Nevertheless, the arguments connecting #108–#110 with social competition through household productivity and a strategic concealing of resources make sense in principle.
little evidence to corroborate these interpretations. In the context of Theme 17, however, which has identified the concealing of resources as a likely strategy employed by households during LN/EC social competition, Indicators #111–#113 can be tentatively accepted. Displaying So far, I have discussed three different arguments for why indicators #108–#110 can be connected with social competition. With the fourth argument, this discussion transitions into Theme 18, Social Display. While Steadman and Cutting associated #108–#110 with social competition through the aspect of increased concealment of household resources, Hodder connected #108 and #110 with social competition through the aspect of social display. This aspect of social display is captured in Theme 18, which—different from Theme 17—refers only to evidence from Çatalhöyük and mostly to interpretations by Hodder. In his reconstruction, the new focus on social display in the LN/EC necessitated changes mainly to the main room, the ‘living’ room of the house, but side rooms were also transformed as a result of changes to the main room. Hodder (2014b:15, 2014c:19, 2014f:179) reports, apart from size increase (#108), the following changes that he links with social display: production activities were relocated out of the living room and into an increasing number of side rooms (#109) and outdoor production areas (yards). Architectural features associated with production, for example ovens, also moved into side rooms or outside (#117): “As houses became larger [#108] and more concerned with social display so other functional features such as ovens were pushed outside or into side rooms [#117], and the numbers of side rooms [#110] increased as did the number of activities out in yards” (Hodder 2014c:19). This freed up space in the main room to accommodate social display in the context of hospitality. In some houses, the hearth came to be located in a central position in the main room (#118), which facilitated social exchange during commensality: “Central hearths [#118] are found in the late levels of TP [dated Late Neolithic] and on the west Mound (in B.25) [dated Early Chalcolithic]. Ovens increasingly seem to occur in marginal areas in houses or in external areas [#117]. It is as if the central room of the house became more associated with commensalism, display and social exchange” (Hodder 2014f:179). Other categories of material culture also changed to facilitate competitive hospitality, such as the increasingly varied and decorated ceramic and stone vessels (Hodder 2014f:179; see 6.3.3). A recent systematic study of hearths and ovens at Çatalhöyük was not able to confirm that the LN levels saw a trend towards “more centrally situated hearths and more marginally located ovens” (Fuchs-Khakar 2019:14). Indicators #117 and #118 should therefore be seen as hypotheses that require further research, for example at other LN/EC sites in central Anatolia.
The remaining three indicators in Theme 17 describe the relationship between household residences and their surroundings. As summarised above, Steadman and Cutting posited that privacy in the context of social competition was increased by doors so that they did not allow immediate line of sight into the entire house (#111), by not sharing party walls between houses (#112), or even by detaching the walls of adjacent houses from each other, creating a less dense settlement layout (#113). The text passages coded for #112 and #113 show that these indicators are associated primarily with a desire by residents to visually demonstrate their autonomy in a competitive context: “In addition, the desire to have detached and individuals [sic] house walls [#112, #113] appears to be of some import. This may reflect residents’ desire for increased privacy, whether it is in the form of a lessened transmission of household noise or smells or an attempt to mark the territory of personal space by establishing individual walls for the dwelling. Whatever the motivation, it is a notable effort, particularly on the part of the Canhasan I residents, in order to achieve independent, detached housing in an environment with extremely limited available space” (Steadman 2000b:188). Indicator #111 is strongly associated with the desire by higher-status households to hide their resources from view: “Inhabitants of the more ‘wealthy’ western quarter [at Hacılar II] rearranged doorways. No longer were homes entered by doors centered in the long wall, but rather by doors placed at one end of the rectangular houses (see Fig. 5). These doors were often located at a corner so that one entered facing a wall rather than the entire household interior, which served to obscure lineof-sight views straight into the heart of the domicile” (Steadman 2000b:190). Different from #108–#110, which can be connected with household productivity, there is
The here described restructuring of houses also went along with a loosening or abandonment of the clear social/ 233
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia ritual subdivision of Çatalhöyük houses (#114) that was described in Theme 12: “Overall, it seems clear that the earlier strict divisions in the house between secular (south) and sacred (north) break down in the upper levels and the main rooms of houses come to have a more open character, a trend seen in the large central rooms in the TP Area houses and in B.25 on the West Mound” (Hodder 2014b:15). The restructure further included a change in the location of wall paintings, which had tended to concentrate in the corner of the house where platforms and burials were located, but in the upper levels could be found on all walls of the house (#115). This might signify a change in meaning of such wall paintings, from ritual (associated with burial) to a role in social display during commensal events in the living rooms, as seems to be tentatively suggested by Hodder (2014b:15, 2014c:19). Also in relation to wall paintings, Clare and Weninger have associated “the depiction of hunting and baiting scenes in paintings applied to house walls, perhaps showing the acquisition of spiritual power from wild animals [#116]” (Clare and Weninger 2018:43) at LN Çatalhöyük with social competition. A survey of the literature (Czeszewska 2014; Düring 2006:193, Table 19.2; Russell and Meece 2005) shows that there seem to be only three wall paintings excavated at Çatalhöyük depicting hunting scenes, and all of them indeed date to the Late Neolithic (Mellaart Levels V and III; see 5.2.1). While this lends some support to Clare and Weninger’s suggestion, the number of only three hunting scenes also means that there is not a very broad evidence base for the interpretation of hunting scenes as indicating social competition. However, in connection with #115 and Hodder’s tentative suggestion that wall paintings during the LN might have taken on a function of competitive social display (rather than functioning in the context of fostering suprahousehold connections as in the EN, Theme 14), #116 can tentatively be accepted.
function of living room storage must remain a hypothesis; indicator #119 is accepted in order to foster further research of the concealing/displaying dynamic. Concealing and displaying: a conclusion Combining the ‘concealing’ aspect of LN/EC social competition mostly pointed out by Steadman with the ‘displaying’ aspect mostly pointed out by Hodder, I can suggest that LN/EC social competition might have been marked by a dual strategy in which household resources were hidden from the eyes of externals during most of daily life, but during particular—often commensal— events, displayed to other households. This strategy might have developed in a social world where a constant overt status display was not (yet) feasible, as suggested by Arbuckle (2012a:310) for the Early Chalcolithic. Chapter 6.3.3 has already discussed evidence for the fact that LN/EC social competition included the display of the results of household productivity during commensal events (competitive hospitality). However, the combination of concealing and displaying as a carefully balanced dual strategy of status assertion is a new result of my content analysis and should be explored further in future research. At the moment, the ways in which the concealing/displaying strategy manifested itself in architectural changes is not fully understood, but it is hoped that that will change by applying indicators #107–#119 in future research. Based on the current state of research, it appears that certain parts of the house became more ‘hidden’ as households began to compete for status and resources, while others were readied for competitive hospitality. As display and concealment became more important, the house might have become ‘layered’ as suggested by Steadman (2000b). The increased size (#108) and number of rooms/stories (#109, #110) of LN/EC buildings is often associated with functional subdivision (Theme 8), but could also have translated into a social subdivision of the house interior that allowed households to open some parts of their house to others, but keep some others hidden. It is interesting to consider the function of the new private or semi-private yards (#54), or unroofed space in general, in this scenario. In Theme 8, I have already discussed the possibility that outdoor areas might have been used deliberately to display household resources in a non-overt fashion. Steadman (2000b) suggests a division of the ‘deep’ LN/EC houses into two parts, named by her as ‘front/back’. Including the outdoor spaces, though, there might have been three parts: the outdoor areas where people, activities and resources were, or near-public display; a living room for controlled socialising between households; and a back area that was for use only by the household. Households could have used these different levels to display and conceal whatever they chose. But again, it is worth questioning whether this was really a novel development after 6500 BC: for example, Early Neolithic houses at Çatalhöyük already had a roofscape, main room and side room, thus also three levels of privacy. It is problematic that much of the
As the last indicator of Theme 18, Asouti (2005a:88) stated that in some Çatalhöyük houses, storage containers were found in the living rooms (#119) which “seems to suggest that in some cases they might have been used as a vehicle for the display of household wealth, by being appropriately placed in those spaces most likely to be accessed by nonhousehold members”. Asouti’s observation of storage display is very interesting to consider in combination with Theme 17, the tendency to construct more private storage areas. Rather than being a contradiction, this could indicate a dual strategy developing in the Later Neolithic whereby households chose to hide some resources, but display others – a strategy also suggested in general by the concurrently observed architectural trends towards greater access control (Theme 17) but greater commensal display (Theme 18). Düring’s (2006:186–187) systematic compilation of the location of storage installations at Çatalhöyük East actually shows that a majority were located in living rooms. Because it unfortunately was not separated by levels, it cannot be asserted whether the preferential location of storage bins changed after 6500 BC towards either greater display (#119) or greater concealment. At the moment, a possible ‘displaying’ 234
Social Competition and Social Stratification concealing/displaying discussion evolves around storage and other features that remain archaeologically difficult to pin down. For example, it would be fascinating to research whether a concealing/displaying differentiation can be asserted between the two stories of houses at Canhasan 2b or Çatalhöyük West, but without the upper storey preserved, this remains impossible.
Late Neolithic beginnings to the clearly stratified societies of the EBA. Theme 19.1 The elite residence: the large house One of the most commonly mentioned indicators of status assertion through architecture is the size of residences (#120): the notion prevails in the literature that early elites had larger houses than the non-elites, and several researchers claim to have recognised status differences indicated by house sizes at a number of sites from the Early Neolithic to the Late Chalcolithic. To identify why researchers equate larger houses with a higher social or economic status requires looking at the context in which the indicator is mentioned, since the connection of house size and status is not explicitly discussed. That in itself is problematic – given that house size is one of few indicators of status differences that the central Anatolian research community seems to be relatively confident of, one would expect there to be a clearer definition of why. The discussion of indicator #121, large buildings with many rooms that have been identified as elite residences, is closely related to the discussion of #120, house size. In fact, in the examples documented in my content analysis, overall house size and number of rooms were often mentioned together (e.g. “large complex with multiple rooms”, Duru 2008:150). Based on the context in which house size and room number are mentioned in the passages coded for #120 and #121, there appears to be mainly one reason why elite residences could have been larger than others, with more rooms.
9.3. Social stratification The themes identified through content analysis show that archaeologists have concentrated on identifying an economic, social and/or ritual elite from the architectural record by identifying elite residences (Theme 19), or ways in which an elite was able to reshape the settlement as a whole (Themes 20–21). 9.3.1. Theme 19: The elite residence Theme 19 differs from Themes 17–18 insofar as the latter describe changes that transformed all or many houses in a settlement as a result of household competition, while Theme 19 describes one or two houses in the settlement that were distinct from all others: the elite residence. This fits well with the understanding of archaeologists (Chapter 6) whereby LN/EC social competition engulfed many households within a settlement, whereas once social stratification was established later in the Chalcolithic, or latest by the EBA, there were only a small number of people that formed the elite. The content analysis for Theme 19 identified that the research community expects that elite residences between the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age were in several ways distinct from, and better than, the houses on the non-elite. There is a common perception that uniformity of residential architecture within a village means the absence of status differences (e.g. Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:48 for Aşıklı Höyük; French 1998:68 for Canhasan 2; Eslick 1988:37 for Hacılar; Hodder 2014c:2 for Çatalhöyük; Schachner 1999:47, 49 for Çatalhöyük and Hacılar II). In turn, many indicators in Theme 19 display the notion that differences between residences could indicate social differentiation; that the emerging elites would have sought to provide themselves with, and maybe distinguish themselves through, better living space. This thought is most clearly expressed by Eslick (1988:38), who stated, “it is its distinction relative to the other houses in that settlement that is important” in creating an elite residence. Theme 19 has been divided into subthemes describing different ways in which an elite residence might differentiate itself from others: a visually dominant, central location in the settlement (19.1), better building materials (19.2), more installations (19.3), mobile items (19.5) and ritual elaboration (19.5). Chronologically, Theme 19 is diverse since it combines indicators that seem to refer mainly to the Late Neolithic (e.g. #133) but also examples all the way up to the Early Bronze Age. I have attempted to incorporate the chronological component into the discussion by showing potential developments in the architectural expression of status leading from the incipient status differences of the
First, house size seems to have a connection with economic status, since it is most often associated with differences in wealth, i.e. material possessions. Arbuckle (2012a:303) mentions the large houses and potential elite residences at MC Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası in connection with wealth, as does Steadman (2000b:182–183) at Hacılar II. Hodder (2013a:18, 2013b:26, 2014b:5, 2014d:156, 160) reports about attempts to correlate house size at Çatalhöyük East with other indicators such as the distribution of obsidian, plant foods, storage capacity, diet markers in subfloor burials, burial goods, and ritual elaboration, therefore putting it in the context of economic disparity as well as differentiation of ritual power. Similar to #120, the main reasons for connecting multiroomed buildings (#121) with status revolve around socioeconomic productivity: Hodder (2013b:27, 2014d:160) describes that some former ‘history houses’ might have acquired higher socioeconomic status at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük (see discussion of Theme 19.4) by being productively more competitive than others, and this is architecturally visible through a larger number of rooms, including yards, which allowed functional subdivision of house space. The probable elite residence at Güvercinkayası had several rooms with different furnishing and therefore probably different function (Arbuckle 2012a:304; Gülçur and Firat 2005:43). Duru (2008:150, Figure 304) identifies a large building with at least 17 rooms and a courtyard at EBA Bademağacı as a combination of elite residence and social and economic 235
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia administrative centre: “Probably the complex served both as a residence for the ruling persons or groups of the settlement and as a public building, i.e. a palace, serving the administration of the settlement” (Duru 2008:150). EBA elite residences did indeed take the form of large buildings with many rooms and functional subdivision that included residential quarters as well as public areas for the ritual, social, and/or economic use of a larger group (Bachhuber 2015:75–77, 107, 148–149). In this context, it would be tempting to reconstruct a gradual development from the LN/EC large, multiroomed houses that evolved as a result of household autonomy and then competition (Themes 8, 17, 18) all the way to large, multiroomed elite residences at MC Güvercinkayası and EBA Bademağacı that also served as administrative, productive and storage centres.
Another point worth mentioning here is household size: Düring (2006:213, 214, 278) and Cutting (2005a:167, 2005b:127) state that larger houses can point to either larger, or higher-status households. In the context of household productivity being linked with status it would be interesting to consider whether the emerging elite households might not have differentiated themselves through both: a larger number of members and higher status, or maybe higher status through a larger number of members. Here it is relevant to remember Hodder’s (2014b:11) reconstruction that leading up to 6500 BC, Çatalhöyük households increased their fertility levels in order to be more socially and economically productive. As of yet, it has not been studied whether there might be differences in household sizes during the LN and EC – and such a study would be very difficult (see 6.2.3 on household composition). In the future, it might however be interesting to research whether the competitive households of the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic might also have chosen to increase their productivity by birthing or recruiting more members; and this maybe being an additional reason for the development of larger houses, and differences in house sizes.
On the other hand, the knowledge that Middle Chalcolithic and Bronze Age elite residences took the form of large, multi-roomed and multi-functional buildings can influence the interpretation of large, multi-roomed buildings found at Late Neolithic or Chalcolithic settlements. As a consequence, I suggest that the interpretation of differences in house size (#120) and number of rooms (#121), if observed at Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites, be cross-referenced and verified with other potential status markers to confirm that the size of the house was actually related to social status. Exactly this was done at Çatalhöyük, where house size was eventually not found to be a clear status marker in the LN (e.g. Hodder 2014b:5, 2014d:156). At least at Çatalhöyük, then—the LN/EC site where potential differences in social status have been most thoroughly researched—house size differences do not mark social status. Against the background of evidence discussed in Chapter 6 as well as Themes 8, 17 and 18 linking economic productivity with high status and with large house size and number of rooms makes sense at least in theory:
Although this was not yet suggested explicitly in the literature consulted for this analysis, it could tentatively be suggested that the relative size of houses (#120), in addition to accommodating the higher economic productivity that marked high status, functioned as a visualisation of status: the large house, visually dominating over others, demonstrated high status. Such an aspect of visual status communication is—although not very explicitly— contained in one text passage coded for #120, when Steadman (2010:38), while discussing social status at Hacılar II, names house size in context with several indicators (#152–#156) that will be discussed in Theme 21 and that imply that the size and location of the elite residence conveys “messages of power” (Steadman 2010:38). Since other themes in this chapter describe status communication through visual properties (Theme 19.2) and visual dominance (Theme 21) of elite residences, suggesting that house size might have supported this relationship makes sense.
Chapter 6 described how LN/EC households competed by increasing their (mostly agricultural) productivity. The possibly emergent socioeconomically more powerful households living in Late Neolithic ‘history houses’ at Çatalhöyük (see Theme 19.5 for a discussion of post6500 BC history house-groups as potential elites) seem to have been more productive than others; their residences contained stone workshops (Hodder 2013a:19–20, 2014d:161) and their members might have been more mobile (Hodder 2013b:27, 2014d:159–160). In Theme 8, it was established in the context of household autonomy that, and why, more productive households require larger houses that might have greater subdivision so that they can accommodate different production activities. With Themes 17–18, house size was discussed in the context of social competition. In theory, then, it makes sense that to accommodate the higher amount of production activities, storage and hospitality that marked their status, high-status households would have needed larger houses than less productive, lower-status households. Indicators #120 and #121 are therefore accepted here as potential indicators of social status differences.
Theme 19.2 The elite residence: building materials The discussion of Theme 19.1 has identified economic productivity and visual dominance as two important elements of status assertion in the study region. Theme 19.2, consisting of only one indicator, is strongly associated with the latter: a visualisation of status differences. A number of authors have hypothesised that the residences of people with higher status in Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolia might be differentiated by having different (better) building materials (#122). At Çatalhöyük East, this hypothesis was investigated by systematically plotting material types by building, and although Love (2013a:86, 94–95, 2013c), Tung (2013:79–80) and Hodder (2013a:18, 2014d:159) conclude that no status differences can be read from the different use of mudbrick or plaster at the site, these publications discuss how in principle differential 236
Social Competition and Social Stratification social status might have translated into differential use of building materials: Tung (2013:67; also Love 2013a:81) hypothesised that possibly “dominant groups had preferential access to certain building materials”. Love (2013c:274, based on ethnographic studies) further points out that building materials can communicate social status to onlookers: “When all the architecture is the same size and shape and made from the same materials, subtle differences represent variants on a common theme and can be used as a social expression, of status, independence, inclusion or wealth”. Such a possibility for a subtle expression of status differences might have been important during the formation of socioeconomic differences when a more overt status assertion might not yet have been socially accepted, as suggested by Arbuckle (2012a:310) and also by the concealing/displaying strategy captured in Themes 17/18. Depending on where in the house they were used, different building materials might have communicated status in different fashion or intensity: materials that become hidden once the house is finished (like mudbrick) were only visible during the construction process, but even after they were hidden the knowledge of their presence might have continued to be of relevance (Love 2013c:274, also see Theme 2). If the high-status materials were visible on the outside of buildings (e.g. external plaster), this would have been a constant visual reminder of the household status to all onlookers; and if high-status materials were located on the inside (e.g. plaster, large timbers), they would have surrounded the daily routines of the elite households themselves and thus have been a status reminder to the elite and to all visitors to the house. These observations are relevant in relation to the concealing/displaying strategy that has been discussed above (Themes 17–18) as an important feature of the construction of early status differences in central Anatolia.
buildings, posts may have been placed along the east and north wall for non-structural reasons, for instance because to do so was prestigious”. Mellaart as well regarded the many wooden posts in building P.1+3 in Hacılar II as markers of a special (ritual) status of the building: “With its sixteen columns, which may have been carved and painted, this building must have been the most impressive in the settlement” (Mellaart 1970c:36). Large pieces of timber are also seen as a potential high-status material by Stevanović (2013:98), who suggests, “that the sizeable presence of timber in house construction may indicate a difference in the status of buildings, since the procurement of timber implies a large labour investment”. Since rarity, or the degree of difficulty of obtaining something can be one factor that makes materials desirable, there is some basis to support this view that large pieces of wood—difficult to obtain in the Konya plain (see discussion of #65 in Theme 11 and #41–#43 in Theme 7) and laborious to obtain in any case—could have been seen as valuable and therefore used as status indicators. Stevanović also mentions that “wild plants may have been more highly ranked resources for construction materials” (Stevanović 2013:105), wood being one of the wild plants in question. This suggestion that wild plant materials might have conveyed status at Çatalhöyük can be backed up by e.g. observing that wild animals were important in ritual imagery and commemorative deposits as well as in feasting (Hodder 2006:19, 24; Last 2005:201– 202; Russell et al. 2009). Also at Çatalhöyük, Matthews (2005b:368) hypothesised based on ethnographic parallels that “variation in the type, thickness and frequency of plastering may also relate in part to availability of vegetal stabilizers and, thereby, individual wealth”. This suggestion that vegetal temper for plaster—which would have been, e.g. in form of chaff, a rather ubiquitous material at a Neolithic farming site—might count as a valuable material can probably be dismissed.
And what were high-status building materials at the sites studied here? Since value is always socially constructed, including the ‘value’ of building materials (Love 2013a:94–95), it would require careful cross-referencing of architectural and other evidence to identify high status building materials during central Anatolian prehistory. However, the suggestions made in the literature are not always based on such careful deliberation. Mellaart (1970c:34; also Steadman 2000b:184) interpreted the wattle-and-daub buildings at Hacılar II as being of lower status than the ones with walls built from mudbrick: “this entire sector should be regarded as being the quarter of the poorer section of the population, who constructed their buildings with simpler materials but no less neatly” (also Eslick 1988:32, 36 about LC Bağbaşı south of the Lake District). However, in Chapter 10 (Theme 22), I will discuss at some length that there is no reason to view wattle-and-daub architecture as lower in quality than mudbrick architecture, and that a disregard for wattle-anddaub seems to be a particular bias of central Anatolian researchers. Next, timber is mentioned a few times as a potential high-status building material, for example by Düring (2006:190), who observed that in Çatalhöyük houses, “we should not exclude the possibility that in some
This discussion has shown foremost that there is as yet no certainty which building materials in central Anatolian prehistory had higher status than others. Also, all the examples—plaster, wild plants, large timbers—are only mentioned in a handful of text passages and in rather tentative fashion. However, I conclude that in principle social status might have been expressed through the preferential use of high-status building materials at the sites studied here, but that it is not (yet) possible to determine how and what materials might have been used to mark status differences in the context of Neolithic/Chalcolithic central Anatolia. Indicator #122 will be tentatively included to foster further research into the matter, but its application to the architectural record is difficult since it remains unclear what ‘high status’ materials to look for in an architectural analysis. Theme 19.3 The elite residence: installations Theme 19.3 describes the notion that elite residences might have distinguished themselves through different internal furnishing. The headline indicator #111 codes general remarks about status differences being expressed through 237
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia different internal installations, for example Mellaart’s (1967:225) conclusion that at Çatalhöyük, “Social inequality is suggested by sizes of buildings, equipment and burial gifts, but this is never a glaring one”. Indicators #112–#116 describe examples of installations that have been connected with higher status. Indicator #116 refers to a tentative suggestion by Hodder (2005g:26) and Yakar (2011b:176) about Çatalhöyük platforms, saying that, “The question as to whether differentiation in the size of houses or spatial details (such as the orientation, size, and height of platforms) could also be reflections of a social stratification presumed to have existed in a ranked cosmos is difficult to answer” (Yakar 2011b:176). This indicator can be discounted because it is mentioned only twice in passing in the literature, in a hypothetical manner, and although there is a high degree of variation in the orientation and size of platforms at Çatalhöyük (Düring 2006:180–183), there is currently no evidence to connect this with social competition. Except for #116, the indicators all refer to facilities for production and/or storage: the coded text passages suggest that houses with more storage capacity (#112), more or larger ovens (#113), or more private/semi-private unroofed space (#114) can be identified as residences of households with a higher status. This reinforces a conclusion already noted in this chapter: that early central Anatolian elites differentiated themselves through higher productivity, and the display of productivity.
passages coded for #112 that refer to Çatalhöyük, because different sources make different statements as to whether history houses had larger storage spaces. In most cases, text passages stating that history houses did not command larger storage do, however, not state which time period of the occupation sequence of Çatalhöyük they refer to (e.g. Hodder 2021a:24, 25; Hodder and Farid 2014:33–34). Since the two statements cited above clearly refer to the upper levels, I conclude that in the upper (LN) levels, there indeed seem to be differences in storage capacity that correlate with differences in ritual elaboration insofar as history houses possess more of both. Interestingly, prior to 6500 BC, when they functioned as the central nodes in an egalitarian suprahousehold exchange system, “The central history houses may have had less productive and storage space because others in the kin, ancestral or ‘house’ group provided resources and food for them” (Hodder and Pels 2010:178). This suggests that at least in theory, socioeconomically more powerful households in central Anatolian prehistory might have commanded less storage or productive space because they were able to rely on provisioning by others. Middle Chalcolithic Güvercinkayası comes to mind, where Arbuckle (2012a:309) reconstructs that the elite were provisioned with already butchered meat from the main settlement. However, the building complex that is reconstructed as an elite residence at the site did in fact have substantially larger storage than other houses: “The upper settlement at Güvercinkayası seems to have functioned as a specialized storage complex [#112] and Çaylı (2009, p. iii) has suggested that the site may represent a type of small chiefly estate. The elaborate enclosure wall protecting this area from both internal and external intrusion [#147], along with concentrations of prestige objects [#129], suggests the presence of a surprisingly complex and hierarchical political economy at MC Güvercinkayası characterized by the presence of emergent managerial elites with the ability to control significant agricultural surpluses” (Arbuckle 2012a:304). In sum, the examples of LN Çatalhöyük and especially MC Güvercinkayası indicate that larger storage space (#112) could have been a status marker at Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in central Anatolia.
The asymmetric distribution of storage capacity between houses (#112) is mentioned particularly often: There have been suggestions of reconstructing the few houses that had storage bins at Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 as elite residences (Cutting 2005b:41; Esin and Harmankaya 1999:126), although newer research favours an interpretation of Aşıklı as egalitarian (6.2.4). Eslick (1988) as well relies strongly on this indicator to identify socioeconomic differences, for example stating that “In [Kuruçay] level 4 one building, the XVI–XVII complex, appears to be different from the other buildings of the level. It had more floor area [#120] and evidence that some of this was devoted to storage [#112]. The large number of ovens and hearths may also be significant [#113]. This complex may indicate emerging economic differentiation within the community (Eslick 1988:30).
The other indicators in Theme 19.3 can also be seen in the context of early central Anatolian elites establishing their status by producing and commanding larger amounts of (agricultural) resources: it has been suggested that building complexes that included more (semi-)private outdoor space (#114) and more ovens (#113) than others might have been elite residences. The previous paragraph already mentioned that Hodder (2013a:21, 24, 2013b:27, 2014d:160) observed Late Neolithic, socioeconomically dominant ‘history houses’ with more yard space (#114) than other houses. The text passages coded for #113 mention ovens located inside residences (Kuruçay 4, Eslick 1988:30; Hacılar II, Steadman 2000b:184) and, at Çatalhöyük, ovens located outside of houses. Hodder (e.g. Hodder 2006:182–183) suggested that the newly emerging large ovens located in yards (#113) could identify more productive and powerful households: “large ovens in open
Looking for examples where storage capacity as potential status indicators can be corroborated with other (architectural and non-architecture) evidence for status differences brings us to Çatalhöyük and Güvercinkayası. Hodder (2013a:24, 2014d:160) reports that at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük, the post-6500 BC history houses that probably became socioeconomically more powerful than others (Theme 19.5) had more productive facilities than others: “Some history houses in the upper levels now had more evidence of storage and external yards [#112, #114]” (Hodder 2013a:24) and “In the upper levels, the history houses do seem to be able to convert ritual status into storage and productive advantage [#112]” (Hodder and Farid 2014:34). There is some ambiguity in the text 238
Social Competition and Social Stratification areas that couId have served several houses were found by Mellaart (1967, 63) in Levels IV and V. Thus some houses may have become dominant over others partly through an ability to provide more food” (Hodder 2005b:14–15). Although there is some disagreement in the literature as to how outdoor ovens are to be interpreted in terms of social relations (compare #99 with #51, #54), the discussions of Theme 8 and Theme 15 concluded that after 6500 BC they probably became items of socioeconomic competition that displayed productivity and also might have been used in competitive hospitality. Themes 8 and 17–18 also discussed the connection between increased household productivity and social competition, and larger yard (#114) and oven space (#113) can be put in this context. The connection between indicators #113 and #114 and social competition is thus validated. The fact that it is nearly exclusively ovens that have so far been mentioned as examples for #113 (Eslick 1988:30 is the only one to mention hearths in a Kuruçay 4 building) is especially interesting, since it could indicate that a certain type of food—food that was prepared in ovens rather than hearths—was preferentially consumed during competitive hospitality. Whether the large oven facilities were used by a number of households to come together to cook, pooling resources for the meal (as Bogaard et al. 2014:146–147 seem to suggest for the Çatalhöyük outdoor ovens), or whether households sought to demonstrate their productivity by providing meals to others (as reconstructed for the outdoor ‘roasting pits’ at EC Köşk Höyük by Arbuckle 2012a:307, 310) cannot be determined through architectural research alone. However, this distinction might not actually be that important because the large cooking facilities still indicate that at least part of the commensal event (meal preparation) took place at the residence of the powerful household, and that alone might have increased its socioeconomic status.
evidence that these were only semi-private buildings that were also at least periodically visited by non-household members. For example, Chapter 6 (6.3.3) described that LN/EC households at Çatalhöyük probably competed for status during commensal events that took place in houses; these events were opportunities to show off the house itself and its furnishing as part of the concealing/ displaying strategy of social status creation (Themes 17– 18). The powerful households residing in Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük history houses (Theme 19.5) inhabited what is reconstructed as ritual centres for a number of households (Theme 14), which makes it likely that others would have convened there for ritual occasions. The Güvercinkayası ‘upper settlement’ is reconstructed as an elite residence as much as also a busy administrative, productive and feasting facility and the already mentioned large ovens and storage facilities were not meant for the exclusive use of the elite household (Arbuckle 2012a:304, 310– 311). These observations make it likely that differences in furnishing were at least sometimes meant to be seen, although not all parts of the residential complex might have been open to public access at all times. To conclude, indicators #112–#114 can be related with elite-making through higher productivity and the competitive display of this productivity. The interpretation of elite residences as semi-public places will be discussed at length in Theme 21. Theme 19.4 The elite residence: artefact distribution Artefacts and prestige items (#128–#130) Differences between houses in the number of mobile items found in them have also been discussed in the context of differences in social status. With indicator #128, I coded text that discusses artefacts in general, positing that houses with many artefacts housed higher-status households. Indicator #129 collects statements that the differential distribution of objects with high socioeconomic prestige can identify status differences. Indicator #130, which will be discussed later, refers to microdebris found on floors. Which artefact categories might have carried socioeconomic prestige is not for architectural research to decide; however, indicators #128–#129 refer to the distribution of items across the settlement, and this aspect of spatial distribution qualified them for inclusion into my analysis.
The mention of competitive hospitality taking place at elite residences leads to another question: whether it is possible that large storage (#112) and oven facilities (#113), and large yards (#114) not only allowed the elite to increase their productivity, but also to visually communicate their wealth to others. It is of special interest that two (#113, #114) of the three indicators refer to outdoor locations since several of the examples of ovens coded for indicator #113 were also located outside. If outdoor areas and outdoor ovens became the object or the stage for status negotiations, such negotiations would have been set in a relatively highly visible forum. Stronger than status assertion through features located inside houses, these might have been associated with the displaying component of the concealing/displaying strategy identified in Themes 17 and 18.
The range of items named in the text coded for #128 and #129 can be used to draw out some reasons why researchers might associate them with differences in social status. The items named in the text passages coded for #128 and #129 can be distinguished into five categories. First, items of ritual nature: At Early Chalcolithic Hacılar II, Mellaart (1970c:38, 115, 149) and Steadman (2000b:183–184) claim that a differential distribution of elaborate ceramic vessels or marble vessels indicate status differences. Some of these differentially distributed vessels at Hacılar II are interpreted as ritual by Mellaart (1970c:29–30). The Çatalhöyük team mapped the distribution of figurines
More generally, in the context of status being asserted by differential furnishing in and around houses, it is worth considering who would have seen the inside of elite houses or yards. It might never be possible to fully reconstruct who, under what circumstances, would have entered the residences or courtyards of powerful Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic households, but there is some 239
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia without finding that they concentrated in ritually elaborate (#133–#135) houses (Hodder and Farid 2014:27 cf. Asouti 2005a:86; Hodder 1996b:362, 2005g:26, 2005h:127, 2006:152, 182–183; Pels 2010:253). The differential distribution of ritual items will be explored more fully in Theme 19.5.
the settlement was associated with a unique range of potentially high status activities” (Arbuckle 2012a:304). Finally, fifth are items that indicate direct control over resources, such as the above-mentioned Güvercinkayası stamp seals, which were probably used for managing the flow of agricultural resources (Arbuckle 2012a:304). Some LN Çatalhöyük seals or small clay objects are also interpreted as accounting devices (Bennison-Chapman 2013:273–274; Hodder 2013b:22). Other stamp seals are interpreted as tools to decorate textiles, so that their differential distribution might also indicate that some households specialised in textile production (Türkcan 2013:245), thus linking back to the examples of specialised workshops discussed above. It is of interest that many of the activities connected with these five categories of items also characterised EBA elite-making, in which elites built their status from administering agricultural products (Bachhuber 2015:130–138) by obtaining and conspicuously consuming difficult-to-obtain goods such as metal (Bachhuber 2015:50–51, 105–106); and through sponsoring commensal events during which ceramic and metal tableware was displayed (Bachhuber 2015:63, 138–143).
Second are items related to higher economic productivity. This category can be further subdivided into either agricultural productivity or items related to higher productivity of non-food items. Items related to agricultural productivity are, for example, represented by the Çatalhöyük team’s unsuccessful attempt to find differences in the distribution of botanical remains that correlate with other potential status markers (Hodder 2013a:18, 2014b:5). Wright’s (2014:25, 28) tentative suggestion that an unequal distribution of querns between Çatalhöyük houses could signify differences in social status can also maybe be put in this category, because querns are described by her as “food preparation facilities” (Wright 2014:1). They were also, however, difficult to procure (Wright 2014:1), which might have added to their socioeconomic value (see below on difficult-toprocure items). An example of status being indicated by an uneven distribution of artefacts related to economic (non-agricultural) productivity is the observation by the Çatalhöyük team that in the post-6500 BC levels, there are workshops for the production of beads, figurines, or stone tools in some houses (Hodder 2013a:19–20, 2014d:160– 161). These workshops have been connected to household autonomy (Hodder 2013a:19) and because of their uneven distribution, they also can probably be tentatively connected to emerging competition, since there seems to be a correlation between ritual house elaboration (Theme 19.5) and such workshops, for example, “there is some evidence that some later elaborate houses also controlled some ground stone production” (Hodder 2014d:161; similarly Hodder 2014b:14).
The themes identified as related to these five categories of items—economic productivity and/or control over resources, including difficult-to-obtain items; hospitality; ritual elaboration—fit well with status-making strategies identified in Chapter 6 as well as other sections in this present chapter. Indicators #128 and #129 are therefore accepted. However, actually applying these indicators in an analysis of status requires a very good understanding of formation processes at the given site (see Chapter 5 for my suggestion that the formation of building infill has not been appropriately understood at many LN/EC sites in central Anatolia, e.g. Hacılar); and a thorough analysis that cross-references many different categories of artefacts, as for example done at Çatalhöyük (e.g. Hodder 2014b:5).
Third are items connected to hospitality; for example, stone and elaborately painted pottery vessels, such as the ones that Mellaart (1970c:29–30, 38, 115) found differently distributed at Hacılar II, were in newer research connected to competitive hospitality, meant to communicate status during commensal events (Hodder 2013a:23; Last 1998a:272–275). Fourth are items that were for some reason difficult to procure, for example because they, or the raw material used to make them, had to be brought from some distance to the site. For example, the Çatalhöyük team mapped the distribution of obsidian caches, obsidian projectile points, and obsidian processing debris. Whereas the older literature did find a correlation between the distribution of obsidian and items of ritual elaboration (e.g. Hodder 1996:361, 2005g:26, 2005h:127), newer research has not found such a correlation (e.g. Hodder 2013b:26, 2014b:5). A second example are imported ceramics that, among other items, demonstrate the status of the Güvercinkayası elite residence: “stamp seals with stylistic links to the Ubaid tradition, copper tools, and imported painted ceramics indicate that this portion of
Interestingly, one indicator in this theme—the differential distribution of microdebris in floors (#130)—seems to contradict the narrative of more productive elite households: Hodder (2013a:18, 2014d:159) reports that some tentative evidence points to houses with less ritual elaboration (#133–#135) having been used more for work and production activities than elaborate houses: “Mitrović and Vasić [2013] find some evidence of variation in heavyresidue densities in different house types. There is a slightly lower diversity and density of material in floors [#130] in the more complex categories than in other houses. Such evidence fits some of the evidence from the analysis of human remains (Volume 8, Chapters 17 and 18 [Hillson et al. 2013; Larsen et al. 2013]): that those buried beneath the floors in less complex houses had undertaken more work and labour, although other evidence contradicts this pattern (ibid). A difficulty here is that the heavy residue densities from floors are partly the result of use and of cleaning, but they are also the result of the adding of micromaterials into floors and plasters during construction. Thus densities of 240
Social Competition and Social Stratification materials on floors are not a direct indication of the amount of activity that took place on floors.” This interesting observation could either indicate status differences marked by a differential distribution of workloads, evidenced by microdebris (#130), or a differential use of building materials (#122). Another example comes to mind: the evidence already mentioned in Theme 19.3 that the Güvercinkayası elite, whose residence otherwise carries many indications of agricultural productivity (6.4.3, Theme 19.3), did not butcher their own meat, but were provided with already butchered meat from the main settlement (Arbuckle 2012a:309). In some cases then, elites could have differentiated themselves by not performing certain production activities in their residences.
the ritual-social-economic exchange system that created intense ties between households and upheld a tightknit, egalitarian system (Theme 14; Hodder 2013b:28, 2014b:9, 11). After 6500 BC, however, feasting might have transformed into a more competitive practice, and Hodder (2013b:25; similarly Russell et al. 2014:121) suggests that feasting remains deposited in or under houses functioned as displays of differential household status: “In Levels South P-Q and in 4040 [North] G-H and BACH, some houses have large collections suggesting a certain differentiation and build-up of competitive display, feasting, and memorialization. So at least in the mid to upper levels, sharing through feasting seems to become associated with differentiation − with keeping rather than with giving. The pile of 13 horn cores in a niche in B.52 is a good example” (Hodder 2013b:25).
Commemorative deposits (#131) In Theme 19.4 I included two other categories of prestigious items that have been related to status negotiation in the literature. Indicators #131 and #132 vary from #128 and #129 insofar as they refer to artefacts embedded in the house structure itself: foundation and commemorative deposits (#131) and high-status burials (#132). Their deposition in the house fabric makes these items different to research. For example, there is less doubt as to their correct attribution to a house; and their placement probably also means that these items functioned differently in the negotiation of social relations. Indicators #131 and #132 both have a ritual element. This discussion will, however, show that the arguments behind connecting them with social status are more about economic status than their ritual nature.
The connection of commemorative deposits (items embedded into the house structure) with social status is thus currently a tentative one: no clear results were found to suggest that obsidian caches are related to status at Çatalhöyük, and a competitive build-up of feasting remains after 6500 BC has only recently been suggested and needs to be further researched. However, in combination with the above discussion of prestige items in general, there is grounds to accept #131 as an indicator of social status: that prestigious items should be weaved into the house fabric, and revealed at specific times, is congruent with the concealing/displaying strategy for status construction observed so far in this chapter. Indicator #131 can thus tentatively be accepted. Burials (#132)
‘Commemorative deposits’ (#131) is a term used by Russell et al. (2009:103) to describe animal parts that were embedded into the fabric of Çatalhöyük houses as caches, foundation deposits, in retrieval pits (#29), and in moulded clay features. The term is used here more generally for all items found in such deposits, for example also obsidian. In earlier publications, Hodder (2006:170) suggested that such prestigious items hidden in the fabric of the house would have played some role in the negotiation of social status: “much of the status and prestige of individuals and families may have been linked to their ability to reveal what has hidden behind walls, or buried beneath floors”. For example, the ritual-social-economic importance of obsidian might have been enhanced by hiding it in caches inside houses, and “when the obsidian returned it may have had special meanings, which may have added to the authority of those that hid and revealed it” (Hodder 2005b:13). There were also attempts to map obsidian caches and thus determine high-status residences, but the results were ambiguous (Hodder 2005f:189, 2005g:26; Hodder and Cessford 2004:31; also see above for obsidian distribution at Çatalhöyük more generally).
Differences in burial form or burial goods (#132) feature relatively prominently in the discussion of the emergence of social stratification in prehistoric Asia Minor. Indicator #132 refers to the expectation that Neolithic or Chalcolithic houses featuring high-status burials could be the residences of high-status households. However, many text passages coded for #132—and especially those from the newer literature—are hypothetical, meaning that the discussed research did not actually find evidence for burial differences between buildings as status markers. Two different characteristics of burials are mentioned in the text passages coded for #132: the overwhelming majority refer to the number and type of burial goods, but a much smaller number also to the treatment of the body. Examples mentioned for the latter are “the way that bodies are laid out in graves” (Hodder 2006:179) and the presence of headless burials in a building (Hodder 2005f:193). Discussions around skull removal as status marker in Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia go beyond what could be coded for this book. There is a relatively widespread notion that the removal and/or plastering of skulls marks high-status individuals (e.g. Hodder 2005f:188, 193, 2005g:27, 2006:179, 224; Öztan 2003:74). However, since in most cases these text passages do not make a clear connection between burial treatment and architecture or spatial distribution, by indicating
There were clearer results, however, for commemorative deposits interpreted as feasting remains. Feasting deposits occur all throughout the sequence of the East Mound, and Early Neolithic feasting has been identified as part of 241
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia for example that either the houses where burials with head removed were found—or the houses where those disembodied heads were found buried under floors— should be identified as high-status residences, they cannot be included in this analysis. Because a clear majority of statements coded for #132 refer to artefacts found in burials, the indicator was included in Theme 19.4.
established a link between burial goods, their deposition in houses, and the social status of the resident household for the context of Neolithic and Chalcolithic Anatolia specifically. Theme 19.5 The elite residence: ritual house elaboration Theme 19.5 refers nearly entirely to Çatalhöyük East, where ever since the first uncovering of particularly ritually elaborated houses, there have been suggestions to connect differences between houses regarding the amount of such elaboration with status differences (e.g. Becks and Jakob 1996:68; Mellaart 1967:80, 82, 207; Yakar 1991:209, 210; for summaries of research history see Düring 2013a:30– 31; Love 2013a:94). Soon after its start, the Çatalhöyük Research Project as well began testing this idea by crossreferencing ritual elaboration with other status markers (e.g. Hodder 1996b:361, 363–364), and the debate around the interpretation of differences in ritual status has continued until the present. Currently, the discussion has progressed to the conclusion that pre-6500 BC, ritual elaboration probably did not translate into socioeconomic status (Hodder 2013a:18, 2013b:26, 2014b:5, 2014d:160), but after 6500 BC the ‘history house’-households in particular seem to have been among the first to distinguish themselves in the emerging competition, translating their long-accumulated ritual status into socioeconomic advantages. Importantly, this distinction between the status of history houses pre- and post-6500 BC shows that the newer literature on Çatalhöyük connects social hierarchies with socioeconomic differences between households; differences in ritual authority only—as pre-6500 BC—are not classified as social stratification or hierarchies (Hodder 2014b:15), for example: “the inhabitants of some houses seem to have been ‘successful’ in that they lasted longer (were rebuilt more times [#136]), had more burials [#134] (perhaps largely as a by-product of longevity [#137]) and collected many bull and other animal parts that were installed in houses as part of architectural elaboration [#133] (again perhaps as a by-product of longevity [#137]). But these houses did not seem able to convert their roles in relation to ancestors into other forms of social power and status. There seems to have been a fierce egalitarianism” (Hodder 2014d:160). It is interesting that there is also some ambiguity in the newer sources as to the degree to which history houses had higher status post6500 BC, as well as about the question of whether they really did not have higher status prior to 6500 BC. Some of these interpretational nuances will be integrated within the following discussion.
The overwhelming majority of statements coded for #132 refer to Çatalhöyük evidence. Newer research at Çatalhöyük has not found evidence for status assertion via burial goods (e.g. Hodder 2014b:5, 2021a:24). Nevertheless, similar to indicators #128 and #129, an overview of the types of items mentioned in the discussion could help to try and understand the reasons why researchers have assumed a (potential or real) connection between the presence of well-appointed burials under houses and the social status of the household. Items mentioned are personal adornments (Asouti 2005a:88; Hodder 2006:191, 2021a:24; Mellaart 1966b:182), pigment lumps or scatters (Asouti 2005a:88; Hodder 2006:191, 2021a:24), flint daggers (Asouti 2005a:88) and maceheads (Mellaart 1966b:182). However, a majority of coded statements simply refer to the number of burial goods without indicating specific types that are connected to status. The same can be said for the following statement, which simply lists nearly all types of burial goods encountered at Çatalhöyük (albeit in terminology no longer used in newer publications): “Highstatus burials also occur, usually in shrines, accompanied by precious objects, such as stone vessels, ceremonial daggers, cosmetic sets and obsidian mirrors, fine bone belt fasteners (for leopard skins?), polished maceheads and quivers of arrows; also wooden vessels and boxes, baskets, metal beads, rings, etc., as funerary offerings of food, which included boars’ jaws” (Mellaart 1975:102). An analysis of the text coded for #132 therefore shows that it is more the overall number, rather than particular type of burial goods, that have been associated with high status. The analysis also shows a remarkable—given how widespread this notion is—lack of deeper discussion as to why a high number of burial goods should indicate the high status of individuals and the house they are buried in. The connection is apparently seen as evident, and therefore not worth discussing – maybe because burial goods are a standard archaeological trope for the analysis of status differences. My evaluation here therefore did not have much to go by. The newer Çatalhöyük literature has quite clearly demonstrated that differences in burial goods do not appear to be involved in status negotiation in Neolithic/EC central Anatolia. Although, theoretically, burial goods could be associated with the display of higher productivity, a theme discussed so far in this chapter, I have chosen to discount #132. My evaluation of #132 has noted an excess of unquestioned acceptance of a potential link between burial goods and status, which was presumably influenced by the existence of status differences indicated by burial goods in other areas and time periods within archaeological research. Indicator #132 should therefore be discounted until future research has more clearly
As mentioned, the overwhelming majority of text passages coded for Theme 19.5 relate to Çatalhöyük, so that further research is required to determine whether ritual elaboration was also a means of status construction at other sites. The only exception is a statement by Mellaart (1970c:36) about Hacılar II, where a ‘shrine’ is also reconstructed as elite residence, suggesting that the ritual elaboration of the building gave special status to its residents. In the following, discussion will focus on the role of history 242
Social Competition and Social Stratification houses around 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük and use this as an example to illustrate how socioeconomic status and ritual house elaboration could be related in LN/EC central Anatolia. The ‘history house’ concept, as defined first in Theme 14, combines the indicators of asymmetric distribution of symbolic imagery (#133), asymmetric distribution of subfloor burials (#134), as well as building continuity (#136) and house longevity (long use-lives of houses, #137), which add the ‘history’ component to the ritual power of these institutions. Therefore, these indicators from Theme 19.5 will be discussed together here. It is important to stress that indicator #134 refers exclusively to the number of burials per house; not potential status differences that relate to the manner of burial, which was captured in this analysis with another indicator (#132). Indicator #135 will also be subsumed here as part of ‘ritual house elaboration’, since it refers to Hodder and Cessford’s (2004:31; Hodder 2005f:189, 195) hypothesis that ritually elaborate houses adhered particularly closely to the standardised house layout (#69 in Theme 12) that divided Çatalhöyük houses into parts with more ritual elaboration and parts with less elaboration. The authors portray this division as one aspect of ritual elaboration (e.g. Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2005f:189, 195). The remaining two indicators in this theme (#138, #139) can also be discussed in relation to the changing role of history houses around 6500 BC; they will be integrated into the discussion later in the section.
(#133–#136) played a role in this development, and that history-households were able to convert their ritual authority, into socioeconomic advantages. The current prevailing hypothesis among the Çatalhöyük team is that ritual house elaboration (#133–#136) only became intertwined with social and economic status after 6500 BC. In the Early Neolithic, some people might have been more strongly involved in ritual activities than others, for example in a form of labour division whereby some people focused on tending to fields and animals while others tended to ritual concerns (see e.g. Hodder and Pels 2010:183 with suggestions that ritual specialists existed at the site); but their special ritual authority did not translate into socioeconomic advantages. While there is some anecdotal evidence for a socioeconomically distinct role of some history houses before 6500 BC as well—for example, Hodder (2014b:160) reports that the elaborate house B.77, dated to between 6700 and 6500 BC (Hodder 2021a:Tables 1.2, 1.4) had particularly large storage spaces—the evidence overall speaks very clearly against a correlation of ritual elaboration with economic advantages before 6500 BC (see Hodder 2021a:24–25 with the newest summary). It could perhaps be argued that the post-6500 BC development is proof that at least in principle ritual elaboration also constituted a status marker before 6500 BC, even if that ritual status did not translate into other spheres of life overtly, and in archaeologically visible ways (see Hodder and Pels 2010 who seem to reconstruct some status differences related to ritual already during the Early Neolithic). In other words, ritual authority might always have been an important way for households and individuals at Çatalhöyük to acquire social status, even if it might not have been feasible during the EN to display that status in ways related to economic advantages and that would be recognisable for archaeologists, for example through better diet, burial goods, or access to obsidian (some of the possible socioeconomic status markers suggested by Hodder 2014b:5, 2021a:24).
Evidence for a higher socioeconomic status of history houses at Çatalhöyük after and before 6500 BC As already mentioned in Chapter 6, Themes 19.1, 19.3 and 19.4, there is relatively robust evidence at Çatalhöyük for a higher status of history house-households after 6500 BC. This has been identified by cross-referencing indicators of Theme 19.5 with other potential status markers coded for Themes 19.1, 19.3 and 19.4. This has demonstrated that some of the history houses that post-date 6500 BC were larger (#120), with more rooms (#121), yards (#114) and storage space (#112) than other houses (Hodder 2013a:21, 24, 2013b:26; Hodder and Farid 2014:34). Many of the post-6500 BC buildings that Hodder (2013a:19) describes as containing specialised bead or ground stone workshops (#128) were also history or elaborate houses (B.18, B.49, B.52, B.65 with yard, B.77: Hodder 2014c:Table 1.1), and elaborate houses might have specialised in, or even controlled, the production of stone tools (Hodder 2013a:19, 2014b:14, 2014d:161). ‘Elaborate houses’ are another category of house at Çatalhöyük that contained a concentration of symbols but were not repeatedly rebuilt (building continuity), and therefore do not qualify as history houses (Hodder 2014b:3). Hodder (2013a:25, 2013b:22, 26; Hodder and Farid 2014:34) understands this pattern of a concurrent concentration of ritual as well as economic resources in some post-6500 BC houses as evidence that when socioeconomic competition between households developed in the LN, some of the history houses were among the first to become more socioeconomically powerful than others. It is likely that their ritual power
The last two indicators in Theme 19.5 require further research, mostly about chronological patterns, to better grasp their potential relationship with socioeconomic status. Indicator #138 describes observations by Düring (2006:247, 301, 317) and Hodder (2014b:17) that remark on the decreasing significance of building continuity at Çatalhöyük after 6500 BC that has already been discussed in relation to increasing household autonomy (#33), and in the text passages coded for #138 is also related to increasing social competition. The coded text passages do not contain clear or detailed arguments for this connection, but Düring suggested that, “It could be argued that the status of buildings became linked to that of people in this period: that high status houses were the residences of lineage elders rather than lineage elders moving into building [sic] of proper pedigree” (Düring 2006:247). In other words: building continuity was no longer significant in marking the residence of high-status households. In order to reconcile this suggestion with the evidence outlined above for an elevated socioeconomic status of history 243
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia houses after 6500 BC, it would be necessary to conduct more specific research into the spatial and chronological patterns related to the various status markers at LN Çatalhöyük. Indicator #138 does not necessarily need to contradict the observation that some post-6500 BC history houses became economically powerful (#133–#137). It is possible, for example, that only some history houses survived the 6500 BC change and then were successful in the emerging socioeconomic competition, while other history houses were abandoned around 6500 BC. There is also anecdotal evidence that non-history, non-elaborate houses acquired higher socioeconomic status post-6500 BC, for example the residents of the non-elaborate B.54 (dated 6500–6300 BC, Hodder 2021a:Tables 1.2, 1.4) might have had preferential access to meat (Hodder 2013b:25). Ritual elaboration (#133–#137) might therefore only have been one of several possible strategies at LN Çatalhöyük for acquiring socioeconomic status. It would also be interesting to research whether the socioeconomically powerful history houses might all date to only a short period after 6500 BC, in which case it would be possible to suggest that ritual elaboration was the (or a) chosen means of establishing status at Çatalhöyük for only a short adjustment period in the centuries after 6500 BC, after which this particular form of status assertion went out of fashion and maybe made way for others. Speculatively, cloaking socioeconomic differences in already existing architectural ‘vocabulary’ that prior to 6500 BC had supported egalitarian community integration (Theme 5) was particularly opportune during those first few centuries of the newly competitive social reality of the LN (see Theme 20 and 9.4 with further discussion of this principle of cloaking differences in social status in the architectural language of community). This would reconcile indicators #133–#137 with the fact that history-making in general, and the history houses as a social institution in particular, started to decrease after 6500 BC (Theme 5).
#133–#137 are therefore accepted here as potential architectural indicators of social hierarchies. Indicators #138 and #139 are also accepted, but more tentatively. Translating ritual into socioeconomic status Drawing on the text passages coded for indicators #133– #136 and on the discussion of ritual house elaboration in Chapter 8 (Themes 3, 4, 5, 14), it is possible to identify ways in which ritual status might have been translated into socioeconomic power in the LN/EC of central Anatolia. This translation essentially seems to be based on ritual charge (history, memory, ancestry) being a resource, as identified in the discussion of Theme 14. Those who controlled it might have been able to exchange it for social or economic resources: food is mentioned by Hodder (2014d:151, 153), other imaginable options are non-food items, labour, or social resources such as having one’s opinion respected in group decision-making. Control over ritual, or preferential access to ritual, was probably achieved by control over the built space that contained the items that supported rituals (burials, images, history #133– #136; Hodder 2016:2; Hodder and Cessford 2004:31, 36; Hodder and Pels 2010:178). Being resident of a history house or an elaborate house would have provided individuals and groups with particularly many ritual resources that they were able to exchange for many social and economic resources. For example, Hodder and Pels (2010:183) seem to suggest that the primary caretakers of history houses and ritual would have been groups or individuals that can be described as ‘elders’ that were also respected as social authorities. Conversely, social and economic resources were needed to create ritual items. Hodder and Pels (2010:175, 178) in particular portray ritually elaborated houses also as archives of productive success. Contributing to the creation of ritual items therefore was one opportunity for households to show off their socioeconomic productivity; in this chapter (e.g. Theme 18, 19.3), displaying socioeconomic success has been described as a strategy for obtaining status. The various activities connected with the creation of ritual elaboration might have provided a particularly conspicuous stage for such display. For example, clay mouldings containing parts of wild animals were one of the ritual items that were irregularly distributed between houses (#92, #133); and making these necessitated obtaining the bones or horns of wild animals: “Access to the wild animals from which these parts were taken may have been obtained by scavenging and hunting […] We also know that feasting remains on-site include a disproportionate number of wild bulls. The provision of installations in houses thus suggests an ability to provide significant economic and social resources in the form of feasts” (Hodder and Pels 2010:175). The installation then also worked as a continuous visual reminder of the contribution made by the household or individual that provided the animal piece, and therefore displays their ability and skill in, for example, leading or participating in a wild bull hunt. If feasts were involved in the chain
Additional research is also needed for the last remaining indicator in Theme 19.5: There have been suggestions that house burning (#139) might have been in some way an attempt to assert social status, maybe marking the control over powers such as fire, or a particular form of conspicuous consumption in the destruction of an elaborate house (Cessford and Near 2005:182; Russell et al. 2014:121). Speculatively it could be suggested that the horizon of house burning marked a time when those who sought to amass ritual power organised spectacles such as the burning of a ritually charged house, as Russell et al. (2014:121) seem to suggest; or similar to what was suggested in Theme 5, the house burning might have been a counter-reaction against attempts to gain power by amassing ritual charge and history. My suggestions here about #138 and #139 reconcile those two indicators with the newest evidence from Çatalhöyük, but further dedicated research is required to check whether these suggestions are valid. In conclusion, there is sufficient evidence at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük that the ritual elaboration of residences might have become part of a strategy of asserting socioeconomic status, and indicators 244
Social Competition and Social Stratification of events that lead from the hunt to animal bones and horns becoming part of house installations, as suggested by Hodder and Pels (and also Russell et al. 2009; Russell et al. 2014), this was yet another event for social display. Both hunts and feasts are high-arousal group events (Hodder 2006:92, 165, 197, 203; Russell et al. 2014:117, 119, 121) during which households could show off their success.
isolated remark that at Çatalhöyük “signs of authority abound—standard-size bricks, measurements, […]” can be discounted because standardised or similar brick sizes (#140) have not been connected to elite influence by other researchers (e.g. see Love 2013a:93; Stevanović 2013:98–99 discussing brick standardisation). Also, there probably was no such standardisation at Çatalhöyük (Love 2013a:94, 96). Further, the hypothetical remarks in older publications by Hodder (1996a:46, 2006:99; Hodder and Cessford 2004:36) that either the agglomeration of a large number of people into a densely clustered settlement (#141) or the standardised layout of houses (#143) could be related to the attempt of an elite to control a large number of people can relatively easily be discounted since the newer research has instead collected reliable evidence to place these two indicators in the context of an egalitarian communal integration (#80, #91).
There might have been some competition around the acquisition of ritual elaboration as observed in particular by Düring. In the case of Düring’s research cited here, but also other and especially older research coded within Theme 19.5, there is no clear distinction between researching patterns pre- and post-6500 BC separately from one another. Only since 2013 has this distinction been increasingly made by the Çatalhöyük team, after the significance of the 6500 BC change was recognised. Düring’s suggestion, cited here, cannot therefore be attached to a specific time period in the occupation of Çatalhöyük. He noted that the different elements that mark Çatalhöyük houses as ritually elaborate—burials, mouldings, wall paintings, and building continuity—are not distributed in clear patterns whereby some houses have all and others none. For example, some buildings that lack symbolic imagery still have many burials and some buildings that are rich in symbols are not continued through rebuilding (Düring 2006:225–226, 2011c:115; Hodder 2014b:5, 2014c:3). This can be interpreted to mean that the status of ‘history’ or ‘lineage houses’ was subject to constant social negotiation and competition (Düring 2005:20, 22, 2007a:141; Hodder and Pels 2010:178). Especially the ability to continue the house through building continuity might have been important within this competition, since demonstrating a long history of houses—termed ‘history making’ or ‘amassing history’ by Hodder (2014b; Hodder and Pels 2010)— was apparently an important part of accumulating status (Düring 2007a:148, 2009, 2011c:114–116). Düring (2007a:141) points out that households might have entertained ties with multiple different ‘history house’ groups. Taking this idea further, the competitive element of accumulating ritual charge might have been fuelled by either various households competing for the opportunity to contribute towards the charge of a particular history house, for example in the opportunity to be buried there or to contribute animal parts for mouldings; or by competing history houses trying to acquire as much of the available ritual resources as possible, or by both.
Interestingly, contrary to indicator #141, Eslick (1988:37, 39) has tentatively connected the de-clustering of settlements (#142) at MC Canhasan and LC Kuruçay with emerging socioeconomic differences, however without explicitly discussing the reasons for this assumption. The reason might simply be that MC/LC settlements, which often feature some evidence for social stratification (as also described by Eslick 1988 herself) were often not densely clustered, so that de-clustering was somehow connected with stratification by Eslick. This assumed connection is, for example, contained in the following statement which however concludes that at Canhasan, declustering did not indicate a stratified society: “The only central Anatolian site of the period that has been excavated over any area – Late Chalcolithic Can Hasan [Level 1, here dated MC] – does not demonstrate any move from egalitarian structures, although there, too, the integrated, dense settlement plan of the Middle Chalcolithic period [Level 2, here dated EC] had given way to a less dense, less integrated plan” (Eslick 1988:39). Since there is so little discussion of #142 by Eslick herself, this indicator is here discounted. That leaves two indicators in this theme: the regular layout of settlements (#144) and the existence of enclosure walls (#145), which are normally interpreted as fortification systems (see #181). Unfortunately, none of the text passages coded with #144 or #145 discuss exactly how elites would have asserted status by regulating settlement space or building fortifications; but material already collected throughout Chapters 6 and 8 can be used to discuss these indicators. In the coded text passages, a regular settlement layout (#144) is understood as not having grown organically, but instead as evidence that a central authority planned or monitored the settlement layout (Arbuckle 2012a:310; Duru 1996c:118, 138). This interpretation is expressed by Duru (2008:9), for example: “Consequently it is certain that Kuruçay [6] town was ruled by a strong authority able to implement plans and execute them in a way that determined the form of the whole settlement in this period”. Similarly, Mellaart (1970c:77) found that “the extensive levelling operations conducted with such
9.3.2. Theme 20: Ruling the settlement Theme 20 collects indicators that have been interpreted as indicating the presence of an elite group that exerted influence on the spatial arrangement or construction of a settlement. Theme 20 is not very prominent in the discussion, since its indicators are each only represented by a small handful of text passages, sometimes only one – and in two cases (#141, #143) all text passages referring to an indicator are hypothetical. Mellaart’s (1979:27) 245
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia precision that over a length of 70 m the variation is a mere 15 cm, and the intricate layout of the buildings erected by the Hacılar I people, show conclusively that this was not a village of individual houses sheltering behind a defensive wall, but probably a fortress of a ruler who had command of considerable human resources”. Here, it is assumed that the level of coordination recognisable in the competent execution of a large-scale construction necessitated a central power. The existence of enclosure walls (#145) has been connected to the presence of a central authority as well based on the amount of coordinated labour it took to erect such constructions (Brami 2017:93; Duru 1996c:118; Mellaart 1970c:77 as cited above).
event (as in the case of Hacılar I as portrayed by Mellaart 1970c:75–76), a possible coordination of such an event by an elite would have constituted a very conspicuous performance and display of their control over human as well as non-human (stones, mudbrick, wood) resources (see Love 2013c and Themes 2 and 16 for a discussion of construction as performance). The same could be said about the elite-controlled construction of an enclosure wall (#145). To conclude, coordination and cooperation of construction activities in a settlement community alone cannot be seen as unequivocal evidence for the existence of an elite, although it is possible that elites chose to regulate and initiate building activities as a way to demonstrate their power over human and non-human resources. Communal construction events and enclosure walls might also have functioned in creating community cohesion that facilitated governance: Bachhuber cites several examples of EBA governance strategies that included fostering a communal identity among non-elites, or sometimes only selected groups among the non-elites in an inclusion/ exclusion strategy (details see Bachhuber 2015:53, 77–78, 114–115). Bachhuber focuses on discussions of feasting and celebrating, but it seems possible at least in principle that elites also employed the community-creating effects of shared construction activities that have been explored in Themes 2 and 16 for their own purposes. Indicators #144 and #145 are therefore very tentatively included on the indicator list. They need to, however, be thoroughly cross-referenced with other indicators of the presence of elites and status differences; a regular settlement layout or enclosure wall alone cannot prove the presence of a central authority.
These notions can be contrasted with the discussion of clustering (#55, Theme 9) and Theme 16, where indications for the coordination and cooperation around house construction were interpreted rather as signs for suprahousehold cooperation in an egalitarian society. Also in Theme 16, enclosure walls (#106) were interpreted as a sign of the construction of a communal identity through differentiation from the ‘outside’ and other communities. The two interpretations—regulation of the settlement layout and construction of an enclosure wall either as an egalitarian collective project or an elite-mandated collective project—are not directly in contradiction: both assume some level of coordination between households regulated on a level above individual households, and this could have taken place in egalitarian as well as in socially stratified settings. However, it is noteworthy that the sites that dominate the Theme 16 discussion tend to be older than those coded with #144 and #145: examples named for #144 and #145 are Early to Late Chalcolithic, while the discussion of clustering (#55) focused on Early Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic sites, which are also the most prominent in the discussion of Theme 16. There are also two different sets of researchers that can be found in the Theme 16/#55 vs. the #144 and #145 discussions, with mostly Mellaart, Eslick, Duru and Arbuckle arguing for the interpretation of regulated settlement layouts (#144) and enclosure walls (#145) as evidence for social stratification and foremost Düring, Cutting, Hodder and other members of the Çatalhöyük team arguing for an interpretation of clustering (#55) and communal building projects (Theme 16) as evidence for egalitarian suprahousehold cooperation. This suggests that the interpretation of building coordination in either a community/egalitarian direction or an elite/centralised direction is often personal preference by researchers. It also seems to be influenced by the chronological position of the site, with later sites more likely to be interpreted in terms of an elite regulation of settlement space.
That none of the indicators of Theme 20 can actually be securely associated with the influence of an elite on settlement arrangements could mean a number of things: First, that emerging socioeconomic status differences in Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia did not (yet) have an impact on settlement layout; though this is however somewhat contradicted by a few examples from Theme 21 (especially #146–#147), with which Theme 20 partially overlaps. Or second, that status differences were articulated in the conceptualisation of settlement space in ways that are not yet, or maybe never will be, known to archaeology. For example, with Theme 15 I have discussed the possibility that the movement of people through the settlement would have been regulated by many rules that did not translate into archaeological evidence; this is also imaginable for a compartmentalisation of settlement space by social status. An interesting third possibility is that the archaeological difficulty of adequately proving a relationship of the indicators in Theme 20 with socioeconomic status differences, and the fact that many indicators of Theme 20 were also coded for Themes 16, 10 or 12, result from an attempt of Neolithic/Chalcolithic elites to cloak their influence on communal construction activities into the architectural ‘language’ that had previously been used to build suprahousehold ties in an egalitarian setting (see also Theme 19.5). These thoughts should be explored in further research.
That said, it is actually possible that coordinated construction first functioned in an inclusive way, and later became appropriated by emerging elites as a means to establish influence over settlement space, as well as influence over people. Further, if the regularity of the settlement (#144) is seen as evidence that the entire village was constructed in one large-scale construction 246
Social Competition and Social Stratification 9.3.3. Theme 21: The pre-citadel
a building complex located at the highest point in the settlement terrain (#148), with walls separating it from the rest of the settlement (#147), is reconstructed as the residence of an elite (Arbuckle 2012b:304, 2014:217). At Hacılar II, Steadman cites the fact that building Q.1–4 was located in a slightly raised location: “One house in the southwest corner, the highest area of the mound [#148], is notable due to its larger size (three rooms) [#120], the presence of a bread oven [#113], clay seals, a painted figure [#128], and a courtyard [#114] with a raised platform (Mellaart 1970:29). The excavator’s inclination is to identify this structure as a shrine, but it can just as easily have been the residence of a personage of some importance in the Hacılar community” (Steadman 2000b:184). Several authors have suggested that the small walled settlement of Hacılar II might have been only the centre—inhabited by high-status people— of a larger settlement (#147): “Is it possible that the welldefended Hacılar II settlement could have been a nucleus centre where the more privileged people lived? It can be assumed that the people involved in farming, animal rearing and pottery making would have lived outside of this defence wall in an area around 300–400 m in diameter” (Umurtak 2011:7; similarly Acar 2001:17). Cutting (2005b:131) cites this as Mellaart’s idea: “Mellaart’s view (Mellaart, pers. comm.) that it may have been the citadel of a much larger settlement cannot be discounted”. I also added to Theme 21 the interpretation by Cutting (2005b:131) that two buildings at the Hacılar II settlement (Q.1–4, Q.5–7) can be, among other reasons, identified as residences of higher status households because of “their dominant location within the settlement” (#149). Cutting does not explain what exactly she means by ‘dominant location’. Nevertheless, indicator #149 seems to express a notion similar to #146–#147.
Theme 21 is an experiment in trying to discern, at Neolithic/ Chalcolithic settlements, features that later came to characterise EBA citadels. Citadels have been identified as important places for the construction of social stratification during the EBA by Bachhuber (2015). Theme 21 is similar to Theme 20 insofar as it describes potential elite influence on settlement layout. Theme 21 has two parts that capture two features of EBA citadel settlements: the first indicators (#146– #147) describe how settlements were divided into two parts, while the second set of indicators describes how a central location of elite residences is employed in the construction of social station (#158–#160). Especially through indicators #158–#160, I explore potential Neolithic/Chalcolithic roots of the status-making strategies connected with EBA ‘central complexes’. As discussed in 6.6.3, EBA citadels and also non-citadel settlements had what Bachhuber (2015:55, 77, 107–129) terms ‘central complexes’ that combined elite residences, large storage facilities, temples and large open areas, and functioned as administrative centres and places for gatherings. The social inclusion and integration that took place in central complexes was instrumentalised and transformed by EBA elites into part of their power-assertion strategy. Although the contextual approach adopted in this book (2.2) cautions against attempts at projecting Bronze Age concepts onto Neolithic or Chalcolithic evidence, if done carefully it is a useful research issue to try and discern the origins and development of architectural arrangements that came to mark socioeconomic inequalities during the EBA. Theme 21 represents my contained experiment in contributing to such a long-term perspective. Dividing the settlement (#146–#147) Indicator #146 collects statements that connect a division of the settlement into two parts—a residential area and an area that was elite residence and/or public congregation space— with social stratification. For example, Mellaart (1970c:34; also Cutting 2005b:131–132; Steadman 2000b:184), saw Hacılar II divided into two parts, with wealthier residents on one side and a “poorer” area on the other. The western, wealthy part was distinguished by large and regular houses with solid mudbrick walls, and it also had more “public buildings”: a shrine and granary (Figures 5.3, 5.4). Mellaart (1967:71; cf. Hodder 1996a:46; Schachner 1999:47) had also postulated such segregation at Çatalhöyük Level V, of which he had excavated particularly richly elaborated houses that he identified as the quarter of a priestly elite, segregated from lower-status residents elsewhere in the unexcavated parts of the level. Suggestions have also been made that the division of Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 into a residential area and one with larger buildings for public use represents the presence of an elite at the site (Schachner 1999:46, 109; cf. Cutting 2005b:33).
Leaving aside the discussion of the validity of these reconstructions of Hacılar II (5.1.5): What could have induced early central Anatolian elites to spatially segregate themselves inside the settlement? It is possible to recognise two elite-making strategies. First, spatial segregation (#146) and especially walls (#147) could have been employed in a concealing/displaying strategy. The physical segregation would have removed the elite from some of the naturally ensuing social control generated by close living conditions that was probably an important instrument for regulating egalitarian communities in the Early Neolithic (see especially Theme 10). It is possible that access to the higher-status part of the settlement was controlled, as it likely was at Güvercinkayası, with solid walls around the upper town. At the same time, this upper settlement is also reconstructed as a ‘central complex’ (see below) and thus was probably at least periodically open to access by nonresidents. In sum, being spatially separated, elites were able to hide more of their activities and resources from the eyes of others, and regulate access to them as suited their status-reinforcing strategy of concealing/displaying.
There are also examples where the subdivision of the settlement was further solidified through dividing walls (#147) or differential heights, with the elite residing in an elevated part of the site (#148): At Güvercinkayası,
Second, such a spatial subdivision would work as a visual manifestation of status differences: it would visualise that the community was divided into people with higher and lower statuses. Height elevations between a higher and 247
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia lower settlement would make this even more obvious. It is thus possible that at LN/Chalcolithic sites, making elite residence highly visible might have been a strategy of asserting social status. This theme will be further explored below in relation to centrality. By the EBA, visual dominance became a regular and important feature of elitemaking: Bachhuber (2015:107–111, 128) describes how EBA citadels, located on elevated terrain and reinforced with walls and glacis, became a visualisation of EBA elite status, displaying a permanent message about the presence of such elites and built “to encode information related to the permanence, solidity and strength of the edifice, and, ultimately, the power of the people who quarried, transported, finished and set the many thousands of tons of stone invested in the façade” (Bachhuber 2015:111). This is a reminder that certainly by the EBA, the dominance communicated by walled and elevated elite areas was meant to project beyond the settlement itself. Güvercinkayası is also reconstructed at the centre of a larger economic unit that incorporated pastoral groups in its surroundings as well (Arbuckle 2012a). In conclusion, the spatial separation of elite residences (#146), especially if reinforced by walls (#147) or elevation differences (#148) in prehistoric central Anatolia can probably be accepted as indicators of social stratification.
the commonfolk inhabiting the houses in the ring” (Duru 1996c:116). The following set of indicators comprises examples of what ‘central’ can mean other than elite residences being located literally in the centre of the settlement, as in the example of Kuruçay 6. This set of indicators describe the location close to presumed public facilities as an identifying characteristic of elite residences: close to (#152) and maybe even on the same axis (#151) as a religious building (shrine); close to a granary (#153), an outdoor oven (#154), a well (#155) or a gate (#156). The indicators in this set, stated by mostly by Steadman, all refer to Hacılar II and to a lesser degree to Höyücek ShP. In trying to understand why researchers have interpreted centrality as a characteristic of elite references, it is mostly the following statement by Steadman about building Q.5–7 in Hacılar II that explains the reasoning behind the indicators: “This largest house in the settlement, and its orientation and placement within the village, may have conveyed a great deal about its residents: the walls of the house literally granted access to the village [#156]; in contrast to the more neutral access to the eastern quarter shrine, the sharing of the wall with the western quarter shrine, and the virtual mingling of doorways [#152] would seem to send a powerful message regarding this resident’s position vis-à-vis village rituals and religious practice. Finally, the residents of this house had a direct view and easy access to the bread ovens [#154] and granary [#153], perhaps implying some Ievel of control over those areas as well. The architectural layout of the Hacılar IIa village offers some insight into the messages of power conveyed by the arrangement of the architecture in the western quarter” (Steadman 2010:38). In this statement, the proximity of the elite to granary, oven, and gate are interpreted as potential signs of control over these communal facilities; and the proximity to the ‘shrine’ potentially as a sign of control over religious practices as well. Also at Hacılar II, Mellaart reconstructs building P.1+3 as the residence of a religious elite, but also a building for use in communal ritual: “it is extremely unlikely that this elaborately constructed edifice was just another private house. Its position, controlling the access to the only well [#155], its size and its graves suggest a public building of major importance” (Mellaart 1970c:36). Here, also, proximity is equated with control. And finally, at Höyücek Steadman also recognises physical proximity as an attempt by the elite to harness religious power: “Though the remnants of the Neolithic Shrine Phase at Höyücek are minimal, they are significant. The two smaller residences, buildings 1–2, are built on a north/south axis and are far smaller than the other two structures. Buildings 3 and 4, identified as shrine and house of either a shrine personage or some other type of personage (Duru and Umurtak 2005:171), are both oriented on an east/west axis [#151] and are in close proximity to one another [#152]. […] Although minimal at best, the architecture at Höyücek suggests that residents placed an importance on consistency of orientation (east/west for important buildings) and adjacency to demonstrate a correlation between power and religion” (Steadman 2010:39).
Centrality (#150–#156) With indicator #150, I coded statements that refer to the central location of houses as evidence for their identification as elite residences: Most of the text passages coded for #150 are from Duru and refer to Kuruçay 6 (Figure 9.1), e.g., “Two of the central structures (Houses 5 and 6) may well have served as dignitaries’ residences,
Figure 9.1. Kuruçay: plan of excavated structures in Level 6A2 (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008: Figure 231).
248
Social Competition and Social Stratification The arguments that physical proximity of the elite residence to public facilities signifies control, or attempted control, over activities within the community including religious practice is very close to Bachhuber’s portrayal of elite-making in the central complexes of EBA citadels. As has been explored in more detail in 6.6.3, in central complexes, communal activities such as the storage or processing of agricultural materials or religious congregations took place in a spatial forum created by the elite and located close to the elite residence. This allowed the elite to exert control over these communal activities as well as to instrumentalise the social integration for their own purposes. There is also a second aspect: By placing the elite residence in the centre of the village (#150) and/or close to communally used facilities (#151–#156), it would quite literally have been the centre of attention and could have been used as a stage for display – for example the strategic display of the elite’s resources. The role of display in the context of status negotiation was already discussed in this chapter, especially for Themes 18 and 19.3. In this context it is also significant that some indicators in Theme 21 refer to outdoor facilities, such as wells (#155) or ovens (#154). People meeting in these unroofed areas for obtaining water or processing food would have been visible from the elite residence (the aspect of control) and would have seen the elite residence for the duration of their work (the aspect of display).
First, communal ritual buildings (#158) especially have been connected to control by an elite over the people, labour, and resources it took to build such structures; and/ or to control over ritual itself. Some researchers have interpreted the Aşıklı Höyük large ritual/ congregation buildings as evidence for a powerful elite that controlled the labour necessary to erect such structures (Asouti 2005a:79; Schachner 1999:46, 51, 109; Steadman 2004:539). Similarly, Schachner (1999:47) cites the absence of such ritual buildings as evidence for the absence of social hierarchies at Çatalhöyük. Erdoğu and Ulubey (2011:9) seem to reconstruct a ritually constructed elite at Çatalhöyük West, where they identified B.78 as a ritual building: “Ritual buildings can be seen as an instrument of power, used to create and maintain inequalities within society, possibly by control of ritual authority and access to the supernatural”. These arguments relate to two elitemaking strategies already encountered in Themes 20, 19.5 and above in this theme, Theme 21: construction as a performance that displayed elite influence over people and resources; and ritual itself as a resource that can be monopolised and be translated into socioeconomic advantages. Storage buildings (#160) have also been connected with the control of an elite over agricultural products and possibly also the labour around their production and processing (see Bachhuber 2015:79, 130–131 about EBA Bademağacı). One example is Güvercinkayası, where Arbuckle’s (2012a, 2014) descriptions of the storage facilities in the ‘upper settlement’ vary between indicating that these were part of the elite residence (in which case they were coded for #112) and descriptions that sound more like descriptions of a separate storage building (#160), such as “In particular, the specialized storage area at Güvercinkayası suggests that a new class of MC elites […] were able to control a significant amount of surplus agricultural production” (Arbuckle 2014:221). In the end, it might not matter much whether the storage facility in the upper settlement of Güvercinkayası is portrayed as part of the elite residence, or as a separate building next to the elite residence, because both #112 and #160 have been connected with control over agricultural resources.
Public spaces (#157–#161) The final set of indicators in Theme 21 refers more generally to the existence of communal (‘public’) spaces within the settlement as evidence for the existence of an elite. Indicator #157 functions as a headline node. The following indicators name ritual buildings (#158), workshop buildings (#159) and storage buildings (#160) as related to elites. The final indicator in Theme 21 (#161) refers to a single, hypothetical remark by Der and Issavi about Çatalhöyük, stating that, “Despite a relatively high population and an agglutinated settlement plan, there is little evidence for distinct social or economic hierarchy at the site. There is no indication of any sort of political centralization, nor are there public spaces [#157] or monumental architecture [#161]” (Der and Issavi 2017:196). Since the term ‘monumental architecture’ is vague as to what architectural feature exactly is meant here, indicator #161 is dismissed.
Second, as already discussed above in Theme 21, the centrality created when several communally-used buildings and the elite residence are concentrated in one place could have been instrumental in a concealing/ displaying strategy of elite making. At Late Chalcolithic Kuruçay 6 (Figure 9.1), Duru (2008:124, 127) reconstructs a central complex comprising a ‘shrine’ (#158), elite residence, and a large storage facility (#160) attached to the shrine. He (Duru 1996c:16, 2001d:45, 2008:124, 127) described the settlement as follows: “Of the approximately 25 structures, several buildings which were very probably the residences of the ruling class, a temple and a temple storage facility were found in the centre of the settlement encircled by a series of houses. The structures in the outer circle must have been housing for the subjects. […] A separate system of several gates was made for entrance
The existence of buildings specifically intended for ritual (#158), production (#159) or storage (#160) at Neolithic or Chalcolithic sites has been connected to the existence of a socioeconomic elite. Although not all coded text passages explain the reason for interpreting communally used buildings as evidence for socioeconomic differences, two main arguments can be extracted from the discussion of these indicators for relating non-residential buildings with socioeconomic hierarchies. They relate to strategies of status assertion that have already been discussed in this chapter. 249
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia to the temple and the residences of the rulers” (Duru 1996b:56). It remains somewhat unclear from Duru’s discussions how these houses were recognised as elite residences because “Buildings nos. 5 and 6, […] thought to be the ‘Lord’s House Mansion’ are no different from regular houses” (Duru 2008:127). This suggests that their location in the centre of the site (#150) and close to the ‘shrine’ and ‘temple storeroom’ (#158, #160) was in fact the main reason for their identification as highstatus houses – if this had been expressed more explicitly, I would have coded these text passages for indicators #152 and #153. This shows that these two indicator sets partly overlap as concerning the underlying arguments for their interpretation in terms of social status differences. Returning to a discussion of Kuruçay 6 (Figure 9.1), many details of Duru’s reconstruction of the settlement have been found rather conjectural (Düring 2011b:803, 2011c:227– 228; Schachner 1999:160). However, accepting for the moment Duru’s reconstruction, contrasting LC Kuruçay 6 with MC Güvercinkayası allows the identification of two different strategies of status assertion in the context of centrality and display: The Kuruçay elite, surrounded by the houses of the lower-status people and without any visual barriers, would have been much more visible than the elite residence at Güvercinkayası, which was spatially segregated. This could attest to the existence of different strategies of elite-making in Chalcolithic central Anatolia, some relying more strongly on a strategy of display while other elites preferred a stronger element of resource concealment and segregation.
clearly recognisable whether or not they were related to social hierarchies: “The meaning behind an architectural hierarchy in a settlement can also be ambiguous. Does a large building that likely served public functions reveal a socially integrative, corporate institution consistent with a village social logic, or a socially exclusive one that is consistent with a citadel social logic? Or some combination of both?” (Bachhuber 2015:107). For these EBA examples as well, it is interesting to consider in this respect whether such ambiguity was not intended by elites who created central complexes. To summarise: There are issues with the evidence bases for the indicators in Theme 21, because there is disagreement about two (Hacılar II, Kuruçay 6) of the three sites (including also Güvercinkayası) that were named most prominently as examples in the coded text passages. Nevertheless, the discussion has identified a number of elite-making strategies also identified through the other themes in this chapter, which seem to be bundled in ‘pre-citadel’ settlement arrangements: elite control over communal resources and activities, harnessing ritual to assert status, making elite residences highly visible as to allow for the displaying of status through the residence itself and activities happening in connection to it, and the visualisation of power structures in settlement layouts. How these strategies functioned in the context of elitemaking have been discussed at length by Bachhuber (2015). On the one hand, this provides additional support to the indicators in Theme 21. On the other hand, the parallelism between Neolithic and Chalcolithic examples coded for Theme 21 and EBA elite-making strategies is partly problematic because it raises the possibility that Bronze Age elite-making strategies were simply projected onto earlier periods without sufficient rigour. The use of EBA templates to interpret Neolithic and Chalcolithic evidence is palpable, for example, in some writing about Hacılar II, especially text passages that call it a citadel (Acar 2001:17; Cutting 2005b:131). Nevertheless, most indicators in Theme 21 should tentatively be accepted to foster further evidence as to the degree to which some of the mechanisms that made EBA citadels into central places of elite-making can possibly already be observed at Chalcolithic sites.
It is possible to contrast interpretations discussed in this theme with those collected for Theme 16 in Chapter 8, where communally used ritual, storage and workshop facilities were identified as facilities for suprahousehold integration. The suprahousehold integration and social hierarchies are not mutually exclusive, because suprahousehold integration can be instrumentalised by an elite, as discussed here, e.g. in the idea that elites orchestrated communal building efforts (Theme 20). However, it is noteworthy that the same sites and examples are often mentioned in both Theme 16 and Theme 21. For example, in the case of Aşıklı’s large ritual buildings, the field is divided with some researchers preferring to see a socially inclusive function (e.g. Cutting 2005b:28, 46; Düring 2006:304– 305; Özbaşaran 2011:108; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50), while others—and especially older sources— recognise an elite (Asouti 2005a:79; Esin and Harmankaya 1999:128; Schachner 1999:46, 51, 109; Steadman 2004:539), or are undecided (Asouti 2005a:79; Düring 2011c:72–73). It is possible that the ambiguity over the archaeological interpretation of ‘central complexes’ could be a result of an intentional architectural ambiguity as part of elitemaking: the masking of socioeconomic differences into the costume of kinship by choosing architectural forms that had originally, in the earlier Neolithic, been associated with egalitarian community integration. Interestingly, Bachhuber (2015:23, 55, 77, 114–122) also states that some EBA central complexes were architecturally and archaeologically ambiguous in that it is not always
9.4. Summary and reflections In summary, of the 13 potential indicators of social competition and 42 indicators of social stratification documented in the content analysis, most have been accepted as probable indicators of socioeconomic differences (Appendix 3). Six indicators (#116, #140– #143, #161) were discounted because they could not sufficiently be verified with archaeological evidence. Fewer indicators overall have been identified in the content analysis for this chapter (55 indicators) as compared to Chapter 8 about household autonomy and suprahousehold integration (106 indicators). Also, of the 55 indicators identified in the discussion around social competition and 250
Social Competition and Social Stratification stratification, 17 were only mentioned by a single author or author group, and another 14 by only two authors or author groups. 28 indicators are based on only one site each. Further, a significant number of the text passages coded for this chapter refer to hypothetical statements. Together, the lower number of indicators, of authors and sites supporting certain indicators, and the higher number of hypothetical statements can be interpreted to mean that there is less knowledge of the process of elite formation in Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia as compared to the household autonomy vs. suprahousehold integration balance and that the discussion often remains hypothetical with little firm evidence to draw upon. For this book, the high number of hypothetical statements meant fewer possibilities to cross-reference evidence, to compare and contrast opinions, and therefore fewer opportunities to either completely verify or completely exclude possible indicators. A lot of the indicators that were eventually accepted can only very tentatively be seen as possible indicators of increasing socioeconomic differences in Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia.
(2014:133) stated that in Neolithic Anatolia, “houses as manifestations of social groups made it possible to have profound power differences between people cloaked in a vocabulary of kinship and belonging” (similarly Arbuckle 2012a:310 about the Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası elite residences). Düring (2014:133) suggests that the architectural appearance of these early villages could have deliberately concealed status differences – from past people living in these built environments, but also from the archaeologist. Architecture might thus not always display existing status differences. This is an interesting possibility that should always be considered when studying Neolithic and Chalcolithic social organisation. Discussing social stratification, it could have been expected that more examples from the EBA would be found on the coding list (Appendix 3), but the EBA is curiously underrepresented on that list. One reason is certainly my choice of literature to code, which is geared heavily towards the Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic. Another important reason is the low number of excavated EBA sites in central Anatolia compared to other areas in Asia Minor (6.6.1). For example, while coding Bachhuber (2015), I came across many relevant examples and discussions, but these were almost never based on central Anatolian evidence. The few excavated EBA settlements from within the study region are only mentioned sporadically in Bachhuber (2015); his main storyline and research opinions are clearly based on other sites. This might be partially due to the fact that most of the central Anatolian EBA settlement excavations are comparatively recent: Acemhöyük is still being excavated, the final Bademağacı publication is not yet available, and the new EBA excavations at Hacılar Büyük Höyük only started very recently. Instead, EBA sites outside of central Anatolia have become foundational because they were excavated to a larger degree several decades ago (Demircihöyük, Karataş, Troy, Alacahöyük, Poliochni), and they dominate the discussion. As more EBA research is being done and published in central Anatolia, it might become possible to study the development of regional elite-making strategies; at the moment, one needs to look outside of the study region in order to gain a long-term perspective from the Neolithic to the Bronze Age.
The relatively high number of hypothetical statements detected by the content analysis for this chapter also have a positive side: They show that the literature contains a relatively high degree of overt debate over architectural indicators of social competition and social stratification. Since hypothetical statements typically name a particular indicator and then conclude that there is insufficient evidence to support this indicator for the given case study (site), this shows a direct engagement with the evidence and its potential interpretations in terms of social status, much more so than in Chapter 8 regarding household autonomy and community-making. On the other hand, in this chapter I have also noted a regrettable lack of reflection about the deeper epistemological assumptions behind most indicators. This also includes indicators supported widely in the literature, such as the assumption that high-status households had larger houses than lowstatus households (#120). To discuss the validity of this indicator, I had to draw on my own thoughts as well as ‘external’ evidence drawn from outside the coded sections, since the coded text passages did not discuss their reasons for connecting large houses with social status. The large degree of apparently unconscious and unquestioned assumptions made in the discussion around architecture and social status is worrying. I would like to discuss one other possible interpretation for the low degree of certainty within the researching community about architectural indicators of social status, which is expressed mostly through the many hypothetical statements, but also the fact that many indicators are supported by only one or two authors and case studies (sites). This other possibility is that although architecture plays an important role in the discussion of status differences throughout central Anatolian prehistory and seems to be regarded as one of the most important categories of material culture for studying social status differences, this might not actually be the case. Düring 251
10 Mobility A house without people in it is not a proper house. […] Houses that are abandoned decay surprisingly rapidly and may be a source of anxiety, just as the people without houses […] give rise to another kind of alarm. (Carsten and Hugh-Jones 1995:44) 10.1. Introduction
Themes 22 and 25 describe seasonally used campsites; Themes 23 and 24 describe permanently inhabited sites from which groups of people left periodically for weeks or months to perform certain activities in the landscape: ‘base settlements’ (Table 10.1). Examples and case studies related to Themes 22 and 25 are from different periods in Anatolian prehistory, while Themes 23 and 24 are more specific to the Late Neolithic (Table 10.2).
Based on Chapter 6, the types of mobility, and types of sites related to mobility, that most likely existed in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Anatolia are: First, the mobility model whereby people are based in a permanently inhabited site, but some members of the community leave for parts of the year during which they roam the landscape in order to perform economic and possibly also ritual activities and live in campsites that were likely regularly re-visited. This type of mobility was identified at LN Çatalhöyük (Hodder 2013b, 2014b) and a connected campsite at Pınarbaşı B (Figures 10.1, 10.2; Baird et al. 2011). In this model we would expect to find campsites and also possibly an architectural signature of mobility at the main site, which I will henceforth call the ‘base settlement’ as a modification of the term ‘base camp’ suggested by Wendrich and Barnard (2008:5, Figure 1.2) for this type of mobility. Second is the model whereby fully sedentary and fully mobile peoples live parallel in the same landscape, but do not live together at the same site. This type of mobility was identified MC Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası (Arbuckle 2012a). In this case we would expect to find campsites, but no architectural signature of mobility at the permanently settled sites. Lastly, there are also prevailing suggestions as to the existence of entirely nomadic landscapes in central Anatolian prehistory. For example, the lack or scarcity of sites in the Lake District and Konya plain for much of the Middle and Late Chalcolithic periods can possibly be interpreted in terms of an entirely mobile, probably pastoral, landscape (see 6.4.2, 6.5.1, and especially DeCupere et al. 2015; Duru 2008:8–9, 186; Vandam 2015). In that case we would expect to find campsites, and no permanently inhabited settlements. Such temporally inhabited and regularly revisited campsites were identified at MC Canhasan I Level 1 (Düring 2011b:800–801, 2011c:246) and LC Bademağacı (Duru 2008:19, 122).
10.2.1. Theme 22: Living light Theme 22 describes architectural indicators for recognising that a site represents a campsite. Indicators #163–#164 function as headlines to this theme, and summarise the notions underlying the other indicators in this theme. Indicator #163 collects text passages stating that mobile peoples would be “building slighter and archaeologically less visible structures” (Gérard 2002:106; similarly Baird in Gérard 2002:112; Özbaşaran 2011:114; Yakar 2011b:81). Indicators #164 and #165 refer to Düring’s recent re-interpretation of Canhasan Level 1 as a Late Chalcolithic campsite. Among other pieces of evidence that will be discussed in the following, he stated that, “The buildings of level 1 at Canhasan are transient in nature. They were poorly constructed and were modified on a more or less constant basis. As a result, no comprehensive plans were obtained in the excavations. […] [T]he poor quality of construction [#164] and the frequent modification and alteration of buildings [#165] could suggest that occupation at the site was episodic rather than permanent. One model that springs to mind is that of pastoral nomads who might have used the site Table 10.1. Themes identified in the mobility debate listed by site types
10.2. The architecture of mobility in prehistoric Anatolia
The campsite
Theme 22 Living light Theme 25 Ritual in the landscape
The base settlement
Theme 23 Shortening house histories Theme 24 Pastoral homes
Table 10.2. Chronological relevance of themes identified in the mobility debate
Based on Chapter 6, it thus appears two types of sites related to mobility existed in the study region—the campsite and the ‘base settlement’—and both might have specific architectural signatures attesting to mobility. And indeed, the content analysis identified indicators for both types of sites. It has documented 19 architectural indicators for mobility, which can be divided into four themes (Appendix 4). 253
Early Neolithic to Early Bronze Age
Theme 22 Living light Theme 25 Ritual in the Landscape
Late Neolithic
Theme 23 Shortening House Histories Theme 24 Pastoral homes
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia for a short period during seasonal movements” (Düring 2011c:246). The author does not specify what is meant by ‘poor’ construction (#164), but it can be surmised that this term refers to the frequently altered (#165) thin walls (#166) characteristic of Canhasan Level 1. It also remains open in what way exactly the regular modifications (#165)—described by French (1998:50) as replastering of floors, ‘strengthening’ of walls and changing of building layouts by breaking down walls and re-erecting new walls elsewhere—were the result of residential mobility. It could be suggested that they were the result of repairs necessitated by the ‘low quality’ of the construction combined with the fact that the structures were often left alone and without maintenance and care for months at a time. Frequent renewal or repair of structures was also observed at the campsites of Pınarbaşı A and B (Baird et al. 2011:381; Özbaşaran 2011:114).
It makes sense that mobile peoples would not erect shelters that leave an archaeological signature at sites where they only stayed for a short time. Indicator #162 goes beyond architectural analysis, though, since it requires the accurate dating of pottery and other small finds, and a good understanding of formation processes at the site as well as an adequate coverage area during excavation to make sure that buildings from the period in question might not have been missed during excavation or destroyed through formation processes. Accepting #162 as an indicator of mobility, I would also like to point out that the observation of Chalcolithic nomadic peoples choosing the mounds and ruins of then-already-ancient settlement places as campsites probably deserves a closer examination (that is however beyond the scope of this present discussion) as an interesting feature of LN/Chalcolithic landscape use. It would be interesting to consider, for example, how the mound of Bademağacı would have been perceived by EC or LC nomads camping there several hundred years after the end of the Neolithic settlement.
Together, these three indicators (#163, #164, #165) attest that overall campsite architecture is seen in the literature as non-permanent. The prevailing idea seems to be that because campsite habitations were not meant for yearround use, less effort was invested in their construction (#163) and they were less solid than permanent residences (#164); this ‘lightness’ of construction resulted in regular need for repair (#165). Both the ‘light’ construction and the frequent modification in essence capture what is often referred to as the ‘ephemerality’ or ‘transience’ of mobile campsites (e.g. Düring 2011c:246). The following discussion will specify how exactly such transient architecture could have looked: Summarised, the remaining indicators in this theme describe campsites as having no architecture (#162) or non-solid architecture (#166–#168) that might be round/and or semi-subterranean (#169– #170) and contain large storage capacities (#171) to store items during the temporary absence of the inhabitants.
Living light (#163–#170) Drawing on the text passages coded for #165–#170 as well as the headline nodes #163–#164, it is possible to summarise the thought process often driving the interpretation of ‘light’ structures as used only seasonally as follows: Light structures are easier and/or faster to construct, and people would have chosen to build light— i.e. faster and with less effort—precisely because these structures were not meant for permanent use, or for use over a longer period of time. But also, the non-substantial structures could easily be renewed and repaired, therefore they did not have to be well-built, e.g. “A mass of reed phytoliths and carbonised reed stems suggest an easily refurbishable light superstructure of reeds [at Pınarbaşı B]” (Baird et al. 2011:381). Indicators #166–#168 specify what architectural ‘lightness’ might have looked like: thin earthen walls (#166) as at Canhasan 1 (Düring 2011b:800– 801, 2011c:246; Yakar 2011b:283), organic building materials (#167) as at Pınarbaşı B (Baird et al. 2011:386; Özbaşaran 2011:114), or a mixture of organic materials with earthen rendering, i.e. wattle-and-daub (#168), as at Pınarbaşı A and possibly Gelveri (5.9.2; Schachner 1999:61; Yakar 2011b:81).
Living houseless (#162) Most text passages coded for indicator #162 refer to the interpretation made by the Bademağacı excavators that the mound was used as a campsite during the Late Chalcolithic based on the observation that Late Chalcolithic sherds were present in a stratigraphical level with no architecture (Umurtak 2005d:66; also Clare and Weninger 2014:17): “The fact that no architectural evidence has been found at [LC] Bademağacı that can be linked to these new arrivals can be understood to indicate that these newcomers were either nomads or that they only lived here for a very short period of time” (Duru 2008:122). Umurtak (2005d:66) cites other sites south of the Lake District with a similar pattern of LC sherds without architecture to postulate a generally mobile pastoral lifestyle for the region during the Late Chalcolithic. More recently, Duru (2019b:164) also suggested a similar interpretation for the EC period at Bademağacı, characterised by sherds but no architecture (5.10.2). One possible interpretation of the EC layer is “nomadic communities that came to the höyük from time to time to set up camp for a temporary period” (Duru 2019b:164).
Trying to extract from the coded text passages why previous researchers have connected thin and/or organic walls with seasonal use and mobile living, the essence of the argument seems to be that these buildings are reconstructed as not having a solid roof. For example, Düring (2011b:800–801, 2011c:246) postulates that the thin walls of Canhasan Level 1 would not have been able to carry roof beams of the size needed to span the rather large buildings. Using analogies to sub-modern pastoral camps, he suggests reconstructing these structures as consisting “of moderate height walls of stone or loam bricks, above which a tent or a temporary roof is raised, thus creating a hybrid building” (Düring 2011b:801). The Pınarbaşı buildings (Figures 10.1, 10.2), a prime 254
Mobility example cited in the discussion of #163–#170, is also reconstructed with a light superstructure (see #167–#170). Unfortunately, there is no further discussion attached to the coded text passages as to why mobile peoples should not need solid roofs, so that it remains unclear why exactly researchers link the absence of solid roofs with mobility. Possibly they envisage a seasonal use of these buildings during the warmer months and think it unlikely that structures without solid roofs were used during the cold and heavy snowfalls that characterise the winter months in the Anatolian interior (Düring 2011c:12; Kuzucuoğlu 2002:33). While this is a possible scenario for Pınarbaşı B, a site occasionally used by people who otherwise resided in a permanent settlement (Çatalhöyük), the explanation does not work quite as well for Canhasan Level 1, which is connected to a mobility pattern whereby people were entirely mobile. While nomadic people living in central Anatolia during prehistory might have been content with non-solid roofs during winter, the possibility that they also sometimes built more solid shelters should not be excluded. In fact, it would be possible to counter the entire rationale of ‘light architecture’ signifying mobility by arguing the contrary: that mobile peoples re-visiting certain sites regularly needed to build especially sturdy shelters precisely because they were not there to care for the buildings, and to monitor and maintain them throughout the year. For example, how well would the Canhasan 1 structures, and the wall plaster and installations in their interior (Düring 2011c:246; French 1998:52–53), have survived an Anatolian winter without a roof? It follows that while ‘light’ architecture might be an indicator for mobility, the existence of sturdy buildings with solid roof does not automatically preclude that these buildings were used by mobile peoples.
The lack of a rational basis for an equation of wattle-anddaub villages with mobility is called out by Bachhuber who stated that, “wattle-and-daub architecture was almost certainly more prevalent in prehistoric contexts than what is preserved in the archaeological record. Nevertheless, the architectural differences between wattle-and-daub structures versus mudbrick ‘longhouse’ structures have been exaggerated in the literature on Karataş [an EBA site south of the Lake District]. The purported impermanence of wattle and daub, for example, has supported reconstructions of transhumant pastoralism among the inhabitants of the Karataş village (Yakar 1998), even though a well-constructed and maintained wattle-and-daub hut can be expected to last for 20 to 30 years (Ammerman et al. 1988)” (Bachhuber 2015:75; but also note that he himself describes wattle-and-daub architecture as “impermanent” and “insubstantial” in other parts of the book, Bachhuber 2015:39, 42, 71, 74). Not only does a survey of Bachhuber’s (2015) book attest that wattle-and-daub architecture was the main construction technique at several EBA sites in western, central and southern Anatolia, but also wattle-and-daub was the most common building method used at Neolithic sites in western Turkey, where they are reconstructed as permanent habitations with solid roofs, sometimes carried by posts, and use-lives of substantial lengths (Çilingiroğlu and Çakirlar 2013; Çilingiroğlu et al. 2012; Düring 2011c:175–176, 184, 186). There is a difference in climate between central and western Anatolia, with winters in western Anatolia being rainy with an average temperature between 4–9°C (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019a:55) and winters in central Anatolia experiencing quite a bit of snow and average temperatures around -2°C (Kuzucuoğlu et al. 2019a:95). This difference in climate might have contributed to the outlined regional preferences for building materials. Still, the regular occurrence of wattleand-daub architecture in western Turkey as well as the occasional occurrence in central Anatolia calls into question the position noticeable in some writings by central Anatolian Neolithic archaeologists that mudbrick or stone architecture is somehow the default construction style for permanent, year-round residences in the central Anatolia and wattle-and-daub a strange exception that requires explanation. Possibly some of this regionspecific research bias against thin or organic/daub walls is based on explicit or implicit comparisons of sites like Canhasan 1 and Pınarbaşı with the visually solid stone and mudbrick architecture characteristic of the sites that are typically chosen for excavation, for example: “The structures at Pınarbaşı [B] contrast with the substantial mud-brick buildings at Çatalhöyük and, with the strong seasonality indicated in the fauna, suggest that Pınarbaşı was a seasonal campsite” (Baird et al. 2011:387). Such statements also disregard the fact that Neolithic mudbrick building was not always stable, for example see Hodder’s (2012b:65–68) description of structural problems and leaning or collapsing walls at Çatalhöyük. In short, some architecture research in central Anatolia works with
A word about wattle-and-daub A degree of disregard can clearly be detected in some of the adjectives used in the text passages codes for #163–#168, for example when the architecture of Pınarbaşı A is described as “flimsy” (Yakar 2011b:81), that of Canhasan Level 1 as “poor” (Düring 2011c:246), or the possible wattleand-daub buildings at Gelveri as “not substantial houses” (Schachner 1999:61, translated by me). Wattle-and-daub construction especially is often treated with a noticeable degree of disapproval by central Anatolian architecture researchers. One example is Schachner’s interpretation that the Gelveri wattle-and-daub buildings were “only seasonally used huts” (Schachner 1999:61, translated by me) based solely on their method of construction (not e.g. archaeobotanical or -zoological evidence for seasonality). Other examples that are not related to the mobility debate, but display the same sentiment, are Mellaart’s (1970c:34) belief that the residents of the Hacılar II wattle-and-daub buildings must have been poorer than those residing in the solid mudbrick houses of the same settlement level (5.1.5.), and also Düring’s (2011c:164) suggestion that the wattle-and-daub structures of Hacılar VI (Figure 5.1) could not have carried their own roofs despite having thick posts (#77). 255
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia
Figure 10.1. Pınarbaşı B: plan of the built structure (reprinted with permission from D. Baird from: Baird et al. 2011: Figure 4).
the false dichotomy of stone or mudbrick architecture being stable and permanent, and organic or wattle-anddaub architecture being impermanent. Returning to the relevance of solid roofs in the mobility debate, as outlined in the previous section: There is no reason to expect that wattle-and-daub architecture should not be able to carry a roof – unless the walls are very thin, which would fall under indicator #166. Indicator #168 is therefore discounted.
Round and semi-subterranean buildings: re-creating the tent (#169–#170) Indicators #169 and #170 describe the notion that structures that are oval (#169) and/or partially sunk into the ground (semi-subterranean, #170) should be interpreted as seasonally or non-permanently used habitations. For example, Özbaşaran (2011:107) has considered that the oval structures (#169) excavated at Aşıklı Höyük in Levels 256
Mobility
Figure 10.2. Pınarbaşı B: photo of the built structure (reprinted with permission from D. Baird from: Baird et al. 2011: Figure 3).
4–3 “may have been seasonal in nature; this hypothesis will be tested by future work at the site”. She goes on to state that, “Subsistence may have been similar between the early [Levels 4–3] and later [Levels 2–1] occupations of the mound that have been excavated”, therefore clearly indicating that it is not archaeobotanical and -zoological evidence driving the interpretation of Levels 4–3 as a seasonally used site, but mainly the architecture. Together with the other indicators in Theme 22, which describe architectural ‘lightness’, indicators #169 and #170 in some cases describe structures that might have resembled tents visually, which probably fuelled their interpretation as indicative of mobility. For example, Baird describes the
semi-subterranean buildings at Pınarbaşı B (Figures 10.1, 10.2) as tent-like: “In Trench B at Pınarbaşı there were fragments of Neolithic structures that are very slight in character. They are basically cuts into underlying deposits lined with stone uprights. They look exactly what you might expect for tent foundations and that sort of thing. We see a very similar thing on nomadic pastoralist sites in the Southern Levant, for example” (Baird cited in Gérard 2002:12). The coded text passages do not offer any further explanation for why the round shape and/or semi-subterranean nature of buildings should indicate mobility. It is possible that one 257
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia (unacknowledged) reason for interpretations of oval, semisubterranean residences as indicating mobility is that the round shape especially is reminiscent of hunter-gatherer tent sites. Be that as it may, the connection between round and/or semi-subterranean buildings and mobility does not hold up to scrutiny. Until a few years ago, it could have been argued that while oval dwellings do not directly indicate mobility, such architecture was only found at sites in the study area that are otherwise (e.g. through their plant and animal remains) established to have been campsites. However new excavations at Early Neolithic sites have now also discounted this argument. All three of the oldest sites with oval houses seem to have been entirely or nearly entirely sedentary: Pınarbaşı A was a nearly year-round occupied hunter-gatherer site (Baird et al. 2012:220–221; Fairbairn et al. 2014), and Boncuklu Höyük a year-round occupied Early Neolithic site (Baird et al. 2012:232). At Aşıklı Höyük, the oldest Level 5 was semi-sedentary but the following Levels 4–3 were permanent Early Neolithic villages (Stiner, Özbaşaran et al. 2019:438). All three levels feature oval and semi-subterranean buildings (Özbaşaran, Duru and Uzdurum 2019). The only two examples of seasonal settlements with round and semi-subterranean huts are chronologically rather late: a Late Neolithic camp of mobile pastoralists (Pınarbaşı B, Baird et al. 2011:387), and a seasonal EBA settlement of tin miners in Cappadocia (Göltepe, Bachhuber 2015:38–39, 42). It can be concluded that among the five central Anatolian examples of prehistoric villages so far excavated made up of oval dwellings, about as many are seasonal as are permanently occupied. There is thus no unequivocal correlation between mobility and oval/semi-subterranean structures, and indicators #166 and #167 are discounted.
members were mobile for parts of the year while others lived there permanently (base settlements). Theme 23 specifically collects three indicators that link the already discussed (Theme 5) decreasing investment in ritually maintained house continuity and history-making during the Late Neolithic with increasing mobility. In Theme 5, these same architectural changes as coded for Theme 23 were already interpreted as indicating increasing household autonomy and competition; Theme 23 now adds mobility as an additional explanation for these changes. Hodder portrays the connection between mobility and indicators #172–#174 as follows: “[T]his wider use of the landscape was associated with and perhaps facilitated by a shift in social organization. […] Bucrania installations and reliefs of bears and leopards were less common in the upper levels, but bull heads appeared as reliefs on pottery and bulls are shown in paintings. Leopards and bears appeared on mobile stamp seals. There seems to be a change from the stable fabric of the house to the mobile elements of material culture [#172]. A possibly related shift is seen very clearly in a decreased focus on house continuity. Düring (2006) has noted that there is less continuity of buildings in the upper levels [#173], and Cessford (Volume 5, Chapter 4 [Cessford 2005]) has shown that the use-lives of houses decreased [#174]” (Hodder 2014f:178; also Hodder 2014b:15). In this reconstruction (outlined also in 6.3), Late Neolithic mobility as well as a gradual abandonment of the ritual cross-ties that had made Early Neolithic Çatalhöyük a tightly integrated community (Themes 5–6) are interrelated processes, both characterised by decreased investment in the construction of suprahousehold relationships via ritual house elaboration. Because so much evidence from Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük can be cross-referenced to verify this reconstruction, #172–#174 can be seen with some confidence as indicators of increasing mobility and economic use of the wider landscape at least at Çatalhöyük. At other sites, the social context of decreasing ritual and history-building investment in houses would need to be scrutinised before postulating a link to mobility. At Çatalhöyük itself, Theme 23 is of interest because it draws attention to the close interrelation of three of the social processes researched in this book: increasing household autonomy, emerging social competition, and mobility.
Storing for absence (#171) The final and somewhat isolated indicator in this theme (#171) refers to Düring’s suggestion that the particularly large storage facilities found at Canhasan Level 1 support its identification as a non-permanent settlement: “the large storage bins at the site could also have functioned for keeping goods in this location while absent” (Düring 2011b:801; also Düring 2011c:246–247). While this argument makes sense in principle, large storage facilities (#171) can only, as also in Düring’s discussion, be seen as an additional factor supporting an interpretation as mobile camp if other mobility indicators are present. In a different architectural and social context, large storage facilities have instead been understood as communal storage (#87) or as storage marking an autonomous and competitive household (#49) or an elite household (#112).
10.2.3. Theme 24: The pastoral home With Theme 24, I bundled indicators that might describe how architecture at base settlements changed when pastoral mobility became increasingly important during the Late Neolithic. Developing this into a separate theme seemed important given the social and economic significance of the new reliance on sheep for increasing household autonomy and emerging social competition. The indicators of Theme 24 describe the pastoral home as large with several rooms (#175, #176) and unroofed spaces (#177–#178) that could be used to care for animals and process animal products. Nearly all indicators in this theme are based entirely on Hodder’s writing about LN Çatalhöyük.
10.2.2. Theme 23: Shortening house histories Themes 23 and 24 refer to recent thoughts by Hodder on connections between the increasing mobility of Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük residents and changes in architecture at this site. Both themes thus describe architectural signatures of mobility not at campsites, but at permanently occupied settlements, where only some community 258
Mobility Theme 24 connects closely to Theme 8, which already described architectural changes that went along with increasing household-specific productivity at Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Hodder (2013b:21, 24, 2013a:21, 25, 2014b:14, 2014f:177) suggested that part of this increased productivity might have been around the pastoral sector. Specifically, he describes that houses became larger (#175) and more subdivided (#176) as more meat was processed there more frequently, as well as in unroofed areas adjacent to the house, which were created by the de-clustering of the village (#177). Interestingly, a similar process has also been tentatively suggested by Gérard (2002:106) for Aşıklı Höyük, where according to him a use of courtyards for sheep penning precedes the eventual abandonment of this and other settlements in the region, which signals the onset of a nomadic, pastoral period in Neolithic Cappadocia (#178, the only indicator in this theme that does not relate to Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük).
complex. There is evidence of cooking in yards in the form of firespots, ovens and hearths. Botanical debris from these areas attest that at least plant foods were processed in yards (Bogaard et al. 2013:114, 117; Bogaard et al. 2014:133; Demirergi et al. 2014:102, 107). The evidence from post-6500 BC ‘yard’ animal bone assemblages is less conclusive at present, but Bogaard et al. (2014:144) see a possibility that larger amounts of meat were prepared and possibly consumed in yards. While there is thus tentative evidence that the large houses and increased outdoor spaces of LN Çatalhöyük really were used for meat processing, they were probably not extensively used for animal penning. The newest report on the micromorphology of unroofed areas concludes that “Much of the settlement during the Middle and Late periods, however, does not appear to have been used for penning animals, particularly ruminants, suggesting that for a variety of reasons – ecological, social and cultural, as well as perhaps sanitary – animals were penned away from the community” (García-Suárez et al 2021:277). Penning is evidenced in a few midden spaces as well as some abandoned houses of the post-6500 BC levels (Bogaard et al. 2014:144; García-Suárez et al 2021:277–278, Table 14.1; Matthews et al. 2013:135–136). However, these instances do not, as concluded by García-Suárez et al. (2021:277, 279), indicate penning to be a very common use of unroofed areas at LN Çatalhöyük. This fits with the skeletal and isotope evidence for human and sheep mobility which indicates that LN herds must have spent much of their time outside the village, roaming the landscape (Pearson, Bogaard, et al. 2015; Pearson et al. 2007; Pearson, Haddow, et al. 2015; Pearson et al. 2021; also see 6.3.4). Animals might have only periodically been kept inside the settlements when they were sick, giving birth, or about to be slaughtered or exchanged. For example, there is evidence of lambing in pens at the settlement edge from different points within the Çatalhöyük sequence (Charles et al. 2014:79)
To demonstrate that the Late Neolithic development towards larger houses with more outdoor production areas was indeed (partially) caused by increased pastoral mobility requires evidence that animals were really penned in yards, middens or courtyards (#177, #178), and that their products were really processed in yards or in houses (#175, #176, #177). Given the typical formation processes of most sites in the study region, where houses were kept clean and macro-refuse deposited in secondary and tertiary locations (e.g. Çatalhöyük: Hodder 2013b:22, 2014d:156, 165; Russell and Martin 2005:35), such evidence comes mostly from micromorphological studies of inside and outside floor areas (see e.g. Matthews 2005b; Matthews et al. 2013; Shillito et al. 2013 for discussions of micromorphological signatures of animal penning or meat processing). At Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük, there is at least indirect evidence that meat was processed in the house. Studies of microdebris have, not surprisingly, shown food-processing taking place in Çatalhöyük houses in general (Bogaard et al. 2014:132; Demirergi et al. 2014:101, 107; Matthews 2005b:370, 372, 391), but there is currently no information published proving that the intensified meat processing of the upper levels specifically also took place inside houses. A combination of pottery and faunal evidence shows that meat processing and consumption became more intense after 6500 BC, but also smaller in scale (Hodder 2013a:23, 2014b:10, 14, 2014c:19, 20, 24,25; citing Demirergi et al. 2014:102–103, 107, Figures 7.10a, 7.10b; Pitter et al. 2013; Russell et al. 2013:242; Yalman et al. 2013). While these changes do not actually clearly prove that the meat processing activities were carried out in the house, they at least make it likely that processing and consumption of meat after 6500 BC at Çatalhöyük was done in small groups, possibly households, and therefore that it might have taken place in (#175, #176) or around (#177) houses. There is also evidence for meat processing in unroofed areas. Bogaard et al. (2014:145) envisage ‘yards’ as rather clean production areas that were not used for animal penning; but they might have been used for meat processing and thus have been part of the pastoral house-
In sum, there is tentative evidence that among other factors, the architectural changes in Theme 24 might have been influenced by increasing pastoral mobility at LN Çatalhöyük and the necessity to change houses and their surroundings into places where meat could be more easily processed. The expectation that the more abundant unroofed areas at LN Çatalhöyük were routinely used to keep animals inside the settlement does not seem to be true, however. Indicators #175–#178 are therefore accepted as potential indicators of pastoral mobility. More research into micromorphological traces of the use of houses and yards is desirable in the future in order to fine-tune the evidence at Çatalhöyük East, and to check for similar processes at other Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in the study area. 10.2.4. Theme 25: Ritual in the landscape Theme 25 is similar to Theme 24 in the way that it relates to a particular reason for mobility, i.e. a reason for people 259
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia to use specific places in the landscape outside of their main settlement seasonally. The theme title ‘Ritual in the landscape’ is borrowed from a paper by Baird et al. (2011) on Late Neolithic Pınarbaşı at the foot of Karadağ mountain in the Konya plain, the example for the first indicator (#179) in this theme. They interpret the site as a seasonally used campsite occupied by groups travelling from Çatalhöyük (ca. 25 km to the north of Pınarbaşı) to Karadağ in order to herd sheep, hunt, obtain stone and wood, and perform ritual activities that included the plastering of the bones of domestic and wild animals. These bones are not reconstructed as ever having been fixed parts of architecture (Baird et al. 2011:390) and they were found deposited in clusters outside of the structures (Baird et al. 2011:387). Indicator #179 is therefore similar to #162 in Theme 22 in that it refers to artefacts not found attached to architecture. It might therefore be a stretch to code this as an architecture indicator; however, the Pınarbaşı B example is important to consider in relation to Thissen’s interpretation of Musular. Together, these examples suggest that apart from economic activities, it was also ritual that motivated people’s movement around the landscape. In Baird et al.’s (2011) Pınarbaşı B reconstruction, ritual was a main purpose that attracted people to spend time in this locale away from the main settlement. The archaeological signature (#179) at Pınarbaşı consists of seasonally used residences (with architecture as described in Theme 22; Figures 10.1, 10.2) within a site that also contained evidence for ritual performances. This differs from indicator #180 which refers to a site supposedly only or mostly used for ritual (Musular).
and Umurtak (2005:171–172; also see critique of this reconstruction 5.8.2), but they interpret that otherwise sedentary populations living in nearby settlements visited occasionally and for short periods of time to perform rituals. In conclusion, indicator #180 might not testify to the type of landscape-wide nomadism envisaged by Thissen; but it could attest to some kind of, maybe quite limited, mobility whereby people travelled to perform ritual and is therefore tentatively accepted here. Importantly, applying indicator #180 to a settlement analysis necessitates integrating architectural research with survey data that show the settlement pattern around the supposed non-residential ritual site. 10.3. Summary and reflections In summary, of the 19 indicators documented in the content analysis for architectural markers of mobility, 16 have been accepted as probable indicators of an architecture of mobility; of these 16, two (#163, #164) function as headline indicators (Appendix 4). Three indicators (#168– #170) have been discounted since there was not enough evidence to connect them with mobility. The content analysis has identified architectural signatures of both campsites and base settlements, therefore at least theoretically encompassing the entire breadth of site types related to mobility defined in the introduction to this chapter. The content analysis foremost attested that research into the architecture of mobility is not a primary concern of central Anatolian prehistoric research. The indicator discussion showed that our current understanding of architectural signatures of mobility in prehistoric central Anatolia cannot be characterised as very thorough or certain. There are only a small handful of researchers, sites and publications involved in this debate. Only a small number of text passages—small compared to the topics in Chapters 8, 9 and 11—describe the architecture of mobility, and the topic has not yet been subject to targeted research e.g. in form of a thesis or paper. Based on the literature review in Chapter 6 as well as this chapter, I believe that there are two reasons for this: architecture is not the most suitable category of material culture to research mobility. But also, current archaeological research is not well equipped to recognise the architectural signatures of the various kinds of mobility practised in the study region, which is partially due to a lack of research into the topic and especially due to a lack of excavated sites established by mobile or partially mobile peoples. This assessment is discussed further in the following.
Theme 25’s second indicator (#180) refers to a tentative suggestion by Thissen (2002b:25) that Musular was the ritual meeting place for nomadic pastoral groups that lived in the area after the end of permanent Early Neolithic settlements such as Aşıklı Höyük in ca. 7400 BC. It is not entirely clear from the text which phase at Musular this interpretation refers to (see 5.12 for a summary of the phasing at Musular), and this complicates the discussion of indicator #180. However, the comparison with Göbekli Tepe clearly seems to indicate that the architectural signature of #180 consists of the existence of structures for ritual use, but a lack of residential structures. In this reconstruction, Musular became a spatial reference point for otherwise mobile peoples to return to for rituals. Thissen’s interpretation of Musular as the ritual centre of a nomadic people is not shared by many other researchers (for the EN phase see e.g. Düring 2011c:78–80; Özbaşaran 2011:111; for the LN/EC phase see 5.12.2). These different opinions are based on different understandings of the dating of Musular relative to Aşıklı; and of the function of the Musular buildings.
Quite in contrast to the other social factors or processes researched in this book (household autonomy, suprahousehold integration, social stratification, warfare), architectural evidence takes a side role in the mobility debate. Instead it is mostly other items of material culture that are used to investigate mobility in central Anatolia. Mobility has been recognised from isotopes in human and animal bones, and the range of nutrition indicated by them (Arbuckle 2012a:308; Bachhuber 2015:39; Hodder
Discussing the indicator in theory, however, I would like to point out that a site comprising a ritual building and none or few residential buildings does not necessarily need to indicate the presence of nomadic peoples. In fact, the Höyücek ‘Shrine phase’ is reconstructed as a site mostly consisting of ritual buildings by Duru 260
Mobility 2013a:21, 2013b:18, 21, 2014b:12; Larsen et al. 2015; Pearson et al. 2007); animal age group and sex distribution (Arbuckle 2012a:309, Baird et al. 2011:383–386), and human skeletal evidence (femoral midshaft index; Hodder 2014b:15; 2013b:21; Larsen et al. 2013:400–402; Larsen et al. 2019:12619, Table 1; Knüsel et al. 2021:336–339; Sadvari et al. 2015). Further, faunal and botanical evidence have been studied to assert whether sites were used seasonally or year-round (Baird et al. 2011:383; Düring 2011c:36; Hodder 2006:72). Even more common are mobility claims based on settlement distribution reconstructed from survey data: The absence of sites in a certain region or period is often interpreted as evidence for mobility (Duru 2008:8–9, 188; Gérard 2002:106, 109; Hodder 2005g:14; Mellaart 1971a:681; 1971b:407; Steadman 2004:545; Yakar 1985:378, 2011b:103). Site location also plays a role, with sites located in environmentally remote or upland regions more readily being interpreted as seasonal camps (e.g. Bachhuber 2015:39, 103; Mellaart 1972:280; Vandam 2015:294). Small sites and/or sites with thin cultural deposits (Baird 2005:64; Düring 2011c:254; Todd 1980:23; Yakar 1991:6), and human occupation in caves or rock shelters postdating neolithisation (e.g. Bachhuber 2015:38; Baird 2002:148; Duru 1996c:140; French 2008; Rosenstock 2014:227; Schachner 1999:72; Yakar 2011b:331) is also routinely attributed to temporal/seasonal occupation. To a lesser degree, abiotic resources sourced from a wide radius in the landscape (e.g. stone, obsidian, shell; Hodder 2013a:212, 2014b:14, 16; Mellaart 1972:281; Ostaptchouk 2020; Özbaşaran 2011:106) can be evidence for mobility, although they can also reach sites by trade and exchange, i.e. very small-scale mobility where theoretically only individual people migrated between sites.
newer publications prove that mobility was a very relevant factor that drove transitions throughout the prehistory of central Anatolia. Now that mobility has become a newly relevant topic, architecture research in the study area should strive to refine its toolkit for recognising the signatures of mobility in the architectural record. To some degree, a lack of suitable sites for such research is probably partially responsible for the present lack of insight, especially a lack of excavations at seasonal or short-term sites (campsites). Central Anatolian archaeology is traditionally geared towards excavating large höyük sites that were formed by permanent occupation over a long period of time (Allcock and Roberts 2014:37; Düring 2011b:200; Rosenstock 2014:225–226). As a result, seasonal and/or short-term sites are neglected. Among the examples of seasonal/ short-term Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites documented in Chapter 6 and in the content analysis for this chapter, none seem to have been excavated with the purpose of researching Neolithic and Chalcolithic mobility: LC Canhasan and EC/LC Bademağacı happened to be excavated because they were parts of larger mounds that were attractive for excavation because of the substantial remains from other periods. Musular was chosen because of its relation to Aşıklı Höyük (Özbaşaran 1999:49). Pınarbaşı B was a small trench dug at a site where the Epipalaeolithic Pınarbaşı A and its contribution to the study of sedentarisation was the main target (Watkins 1996:47). While a better understanding of campsite architecture might thus have to wait until more seasonal/short-term sites are excavated, architecture research of the near future could focus on discerning architectural signatures of mobility at permanent sites, trying to identify base settlements. Recognising signatures of mobility in permanently occupied sites is clearly a very new development given that, with one exception (Gérard 2002), all text passages coded for Theme 23 and 24 are from 2013, 2014 and 2020. And nearly all passages refer to Late Neolithic Çatalhöyük, where research first identified mobility signatures in other items of material culture (e.g. human and animal bones), and only subsequently recognised potential signs of mobility in the architecture also. Similar research is here suggested for other Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites, especially those that have already been connected to a pastoral mobile sector, such as MC Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası. Such future research could build on the indicators collected here in Themes 23 and 24, but also go beyond that to look for architectural indicators for mobility in base settlements other than those found at Çatalhöyük.
However limited the contribution of architecture to mobility research might be, it still has the potential for improvement. In central Anatolia specifically, it is also relevant that an understanding of the architectural signatures of mobility be improved. Researching mobility seems to not have been a main concern of Anatolian prehistoric archaeology previously, possibly because Neolithic and Chalcolithic mobility did not seem pertinent and did not seem to fit expectations of how the development towards the ‘complexity’ of the Bronze Age should have unfolded. However, newer publications have started to draw more attention to the fact that, to different degrees and in different varieties, mobility was a very important factor driving socioeconomic processes in central Anatolian prehistory (see also Chapter 6). For example, Düring (2011b, 2011c:254–255) recently drew more attention to the relative frequency of seasonal sites and pastoralism in Chalcolithic Asia Minor. The newer Çatalhöyük publications have integrated the newly recognised Late Neolithic mobility into the official storyline of this site (see especially Hodder 2013a, 2013b). The Pınarbaşı project published its final results a series of papers (Baird 2012b; Baird et al. 2011; Fairbairn et al. 2014). Arbuckle (2012a, 2014) recognised the importance of pastoral mobility in Chalcolithic Cappadocia. These 261
11 Warfare Is history the conflict-ridden surface covering a deep, peaceful prehistoric [European] continent? Or have warfare and violence always been with us in some form? (Armit et al. 2006:7) 11.1. Introduction
in prehistoric Anatolia fall into two broad categories: First, preparations for war, which includes the creation of weapons and armoury, and of defences in form of built settlement fortifications as well as the selection of specific locations in the landscape for settlements that enhance their defensibility. And second, results of warfare in form of skeletal trauma; destruction of and sometimes abandonment of settlements; and sometimes imagery recounting the events (Bachhuber 2015:55, 68; Clare et al. 2008:71; Selover 2015:9). It follows for this present analysis that architectural structures labelled in the literature with the word ‘defence’ were also counted as indicators of warfare. Defensive structures do not prove that warfare took place, but they demonstrate that it was an expected possibility and therefore that warfare was present on the social stage.
In Chapter 6, warfare has been discussed as one possible important transformation, or social novelty, that might have emerged in central Anatolia since the Late Neolithic and become more prevalent in the Early Bronze Age. There is, however, disagreement as to whether warfare existed in LN/EC central Anatolia. Reviewing the epistemological basis for detecting evidence for warfare in the architectural record of central Anatolia is the main objective of this chapter. To a much larger degree than the other three factors of social organisation studied here, early Anatolian warfare is in the public sphere of interest. As mentioned in Chapter 1, recent overviews on the history and origins of European and Southwest Asian warfare (Ferguson 2013:218–220; Hamblin 2006:24–27) routinely refer to the very sites studied here—citing some of the academic publications included in my analysis—to assert that warfare started with or even before neolithisation. I suggest that these sources are evidence that, different from other social processes discussed in this book (e.g. increasing household autonomy) that are of interest mainly to specialised Anatolian archaeologists, potential evidence for warfare in prehistory is of interest to a greater public because of an expectation that it reveals greater truths about human nature. At the same time, events outside of archaeology might influence archaeological research: Armit et al. (2006; Gilchrist 2003; O’Brien 2013) have demonstrated that archaeological research on warfare has undergone changes during the last few decades in reaction to events in the present. Specifically, they state that, influenced by wars and civil wars since the 1990s, archaeologists rediscovered early warfare as a topic of research, and seem more ready to recognise it in the available evidence. Selover’s (2015) recent thesis on The Archaeology of Conflict in Early Chalcolithic to Early Bronze III central and southeastern Anatolia, as well as Clare et al.’s (2008) paper on Warfare in Late Neolithic/ Early Chalcolithic Pisidia and Düring’s (2011a) critical discussion of fortifications attest to the fact that central Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic archaeology is also currently rediscovering warfare as a potential factor transforming Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic societies in the study region.
11.2. Architectural indicators of warfare The content analysis has identified 20 architectural indicators of warfare, which can be separated into the two broader categories outlined in the previous section: preparation for warfare, and results of warfare (Appendix 5). The indicators can further be separated into three themes; Themes 26 with two subthemes describes a variety of architectural means for fortifying settlements against attacks, Theme 27 the less widely discussed possibility of fortifying individual houses, and Theme 28 describes results of warfare (Table 11.1). 11.2.1. Theme 26: Fortifying the settlement Architectural means of protecting a settlement against hostile attacks as named in the analysed literature can be described as falling into two categories: enclosing the settlement with a wall or with different architectural variations of the enclosure wall (Theme 26.1); and/or protecting the entrances to the settlement (Theme 26.2). Table 11.1. Themes identified in the warfare debate Preparing for warfare Theme 26 Fortifying the settlement Theme 26.1 Settlement perimeter fortifications Theme 26.2 Entrance protection
The archaeological research of warfare relies on various categories of material culture, of which architecture is one of the more important ones. Material traces of warfare
Theme 27 Fortifying houses The results of warfare Theme 28 The results of warfare
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia clustered houses had a defensive aspect in addition to the gapless outer façade, an argument also made by some other authors about Çatalhöyük and Aşıklı Höyük (see citations in Baird 2012a:448; Düring 2006:289, 2011a:70). In fact, Düring (2001:2) uses the often large size of the central Anatolian clustered settlements as an argument against a defensive function of clustering, writing, “one is left with the question; who could have threatened the inhabitants of Çatalhöyük? The site measures 17ha, and even if only part of it was occupied at one point in time the population probably numbered in the thousands rather than the hundreds”. A variation of indicator #183 observed at less densely clustered sites is a continuous façade formed by a ring of houses around the perimeter of the settlement (#184). Such house rings have been identified, and interpreted as defensive architecture, at Hacılar I, Kuruçay 6 and EBA Bademağacı. Kuruçay 6 is actually reconstructed by Duru (1996b:56, 1996c:114) as a mixture of house ring (#184) and enclosure wall (#181), featuring short free-standing wall fragments wherever there was a gap in the outer ring of houses.
Theme 26.1: Settlement perimeter fortifications The content analysis identified several architectural variations of the enclosure wall. Enclosure walls (#181), sometimes built as casemates (#182), as well as stonebuilt slopes (‘glacis’, #185) or ditches (#186) are all structures, standing separate from residential architecture, that encircle the settlement. Another variation of perimeter defence is represented by cases where it has been argued that the house walls themselves represent a perimeter fortification (#183, #184). All variations are discussed here together since the main arguments for their identification as defensive structures are the same. Two main arguments can be identified. First, for all variations of the enclosure wall, an important argument for their identification as defensive structures seems to be that they limited access to the settlement. Second, two variations of either the enclosure wall (wall with towers, #187) or the house wall perimeter (saw-toothed perimeter, #188) were separated here because there is a second argument in favour of their being defensive: they provide advantages during a battle as discussed below. This section will start with a description of the different architectural variations of the enclosure wall, and then discuss the two arguments for their identification as defences: access limitations and advantages for defenders during battle.
The only possible example of a glacis (#185), i.e. a sloping surface built with or strengthened with stones, that exists in central Anatolia was excavated at EBA Bademağacı and has unanimously been found to not be a defensive structure. The settlement was surrounded by a 4–7 m wide, and only slightly sloping paving of loose stones (Duru 2008:Figure 45, 2012:Figure 54; Duru and Umurtak 2011:Resim 1) that the excavator Duru (also Düring 2011a:77, 81, 2011c:281) interpreted as a protection against spring floods: “This sloping pavement could not have been built as a defence measure as in medieval castles because the inclination of the slope varies from 10–15 degrees on the east slope to almost none in other places. That is, the inclination of the pavement is not steep enough to discourage intruders, nor is it steep enough to make it more difficult to approach the town. Consequently, it must have been built for some other purpose. Our opinion is that this pavement was made in order to protect the settlement from flooding” (Duru 2008:154; cf. Duru 2012:7, where he seems to describe the glacis as part of the Bademağacı defence system). Indicator #185 is mentioned in the coded text passages as a hypothetical interpretation of the Bademağacı stone paving since glacis were regularly used as defensive architecture in EBA Asia Minor (Bachhuber 2015:107– 111). Therefore, indicator #185 will still be accepted here because defensive glacis must be seen at least as a theoretical possibility in central Anatolia as well, even if no example was uncovered yet. By contrast, no example of settlement enclosure by ditches (#186) was actually observed in the study region: this indicator is only mentioned once by Hodder in a hypothetical manner, stating that none was found at Çatalhöyük (Hodder 2006:206). Ditches as defensive structures do not seem to have been a feature in prehistoric Anatolia at all (also compare Bachhuber 2015), but will still be included here since they, in principle, can be argued as defensive for the same reasons as the other structures.
Architectural variations of settlement perimeter fortifications As a variation from the settlement enclosure by means of a free-standing wall (#181, #182), indicators #183, #184 and #188 all refer to settlement layouts where the settlement edge represents a near-gapless façade formed by a series of house walls that restricts access to the settlement. In other words, they represent an architectural variation of the enclosure wall whereby the enclosure is not formed by a separate, free-standing wall, but by the body of houses themselves. Such an argument has been made multiple times about clustered sites (#183), first by Mellaart who stated that, “To the outside the city of Çatal Hüyük presented a blank wall, not specially designed as a fortification, but acting as such against enemies as well as floods” (Mellaart 1975:101, similarly Joukowksy 1996:96; Mellaart 1978:17; tentatively suggested also by French 1972b:232–233 for other clustered sites). And indeed he outlined that house clustering might even have had a defensive advantage over the free-standing enclosure wall, since “[e]ven if an enemy succeeded in breaching the wall he found himself in a closed room from which the ladder had no doubt been removed with the defenders waiting for him on the roof. To take the settlement would involve close fighting from house to house in a maze of dwellings which would be enough to discourage the attacker. The efficacy of the defence system is obvious and, whatever discomfort it involved for the inhabitants of the city, there is no evidence for any sack or massacre during the 800 years of the existence of Çatal Hüyük” (Mellaart 1967:68–69). In this scenario, the sheer mass of densely 264
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the EBA, many fortifications would also have served to consolidate the flanks of sizeable höyüks (Bachhuber 2015:55, 111; also see Düring 2011a:69–70; Ivanova 2007, 2008; Rosenstock 2009:217–220 with discussions of interpretations of fortification walls in European and Southwest Asian archaeology more generally). These might have been secondary functions of walls built as defences; but it cannot be excluded that sometimes these secondary social uses might actually have been the primary reason to build settlement enclosures. Bachhuber (2015:107–108, 111, 128) in particular ascribes great importance to the secondary function of EBA fortification walls (#181) and glacis (#185) in elite-making (6.6.3).
Two main arguments for a connection of settlement enclosures and warfare can be identified from the coded literature, the first of which is that they limit access to the settlement. The content analysis (Appendix 5) has identified the enclosure wall (#181) and its variations as the most mentioned architectural indicator of warfare, and similarly Clare et al. (2008:75) observed that, “The erection of fortifications around settlements has often been regarded as one of the most reliable indicators for the occurrence of warfare in prehistoric societies”. Enclosure walls, and the variations thereof included in Theme 26.1, are interpreted as signs that warfare was a feature of social reality and that assaults were expected (Clare et al. 2008:75), for “[during the Chalcolithic,] [d]eliberately planned fortification walls are constructed at a few sites, enclosing the settlements and broken only by stout gates. This development signals the introduction of the cultural ethic of community defense from invasion, e.g., at Hacılar and Mersin XVI. A heightened need for protection against aggression as manifested in such city walls is worth noting” (Joukowsky 1996:116). The other way around, the lack of such walls is sometimes taken to mean that there was no need for defence, hence no threat of warfare, and these statements account for some of the hypothetical statements (Appendix 5). For example, Öztan stated about Köşk Höyük that, “Furthermore, there is no evidence regarding the existence of a fortification wall in the settlement. This could be explained by the fact that the place of the settlement is partially a secure area, and, since there was not any outside danger, such a wall was found unnecessary” (Öztan 2012:45; similarly French 1998:68 about Canhasan; Hodder 1996a:46 about Çatalhöyük).
Similarly, the house ring (#184) and clustering (#183) variations of the enclosure are also, or foremost, interpreted by a majority of authors to have had different social functions. Düring (2001, 2007b:160, 2011a:70, 71), as many other current researchers (Hodder 2005g:15, 2006:95; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:78), prefers a social, suprahousehold-integrative significance of clustering (#55) over an interpretation as defensive measure. However, the two do not exclude each other and Rosenstock (2009:220, 2010a:24, 2014:237, 239) continues to consider a defensive function of clustering as possible. Similar to the discussion of enclosure walls in general (#181), it can thus be concluded that the protective aspect of clustering and house ring could have constituted a defence against non-human intruders (weather, floods; Todd 1976:25), a means for creating communal cohesion (#55), or an expression of the wish by the inhabitants to clearly delineate the settlement from the outside (Brami 2017:98; Eslick 1988:14). An interpretation of clustering (#183) or the house ring (#184) as defensive appears to be favoured by researchers who did not extensively explore other social interpretations of this settlement layout and who in some cases might even have assumed that such a dense clustering of either the entire settlement or only the perimeter buildings would also have obstructed the resident’s daily business and therefore there must have been a compelling reason—here: safety—for why they sacrificed some comfort and ease of access in order to be protected. The clearest example for such a notion is Mellaart’s (1967:68–69) statement about clustering (#183), saying, “The efficacy of the defence system is obvious and, whatever discomfort it involved for the inhabitants of the city, there is no evidence for any sack or massacre during the 800 years of the existence of Çatal Hüyük”. A somewhat similar statement was made by Eslick (1988:26) about Kuruçay 6: “In phase 6A1 the settlement plan remained essentially the same as in A2, although the small unit IV was replaced by a unit with three small rooms (XI). The lanes between the houses were blocked with cross-walls and the doorway in XXII was also blocked. According to the excavator, this was to increase the defensive qualities of the settlement. It would certainly have made it difficult for people to move around the settlement and impossible for animals to do so (if sheep and goats were indeed domesticated and kept in the village at this stage).”
Enclosure walls and other settlement perimeter constructions are perceived in the research landscape as defensive features because they fortify the settlement perimeter in a way that facilitated the deterring of hostile parties from entering the settlement (e.g. Bachhuber 2015:113, 127; Mellaart 1964:40, 1970c:25; Yakar 1991:178). While that is a convincing argument for a defensive function, several authors have pointed out that the function of this access limitation might not (always) have been necessarily to keep hostile groups out. Instead, the enclosure might have been a protection against wild animals, adverse weather (storms) or flooding (Bachhuber 2015:55; Clare et al. 2008:75; Düring 2011a:79; Duru 1996c:119; Eslick 1988:14; Mellaart 1975:101; Schoop 2005b:50). Further, the access limitation would have also applied to outbound traffic, and enclosures of any sort (#181–#188) might therefore have functioned to keep domestic animals or children inside the settlement (Baird 2012a:448; Clare et al. 2008:75; Düring 2011a:79; Eslick 1988:14). Moreover, the previous chapters discussed that settlement enclosure walls have also been interpreted as communal building projects and visualisations of community identity (#106; Baird 2012a:448; Düring 2011a:79; Hodder 2005g:16, 2006:106) or a visual representation of elite status (#145, #147). At least by 265
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia As difficult as it is to exclude the possibility that Neolithic and Chalcolithic perimeter fortifications (#181–#188) might (also) have had any of the non-defensive functions listed here, this does not in itself exclude the possibly of a defensive function and it also would be difficult to argue that a wall built e.g. to keep animals from straying, would not also have worked as a defence against potential human aggressors. As pointed out by Baird (2012a:449; similarly Schoop 2005b:50), enclosure walls might in fact have fulfilled multiple purposes at the same time. This observation also devalues critique such as Düring’s (2011a:72–73) argument that the Kuruçay 11 walls were not defensive because they were used for domestic activities. Acknowledging the multiple different interpretations of settlement enclosures, it is possible to identify four features of such enclosures based on the text passages collected in the content analysis that make them more likely to be more widely accepted as a defensive structure; or in other words, four features that made a settlement enclosure suitable as a defensive structure.
Kastenbauweise without specifying whether rubble was found as fill inside the wall; and Duru’s impression (Duru 1996c:114, 2012:17; Umurtak 2011:5) that the rather thin parallel walls described as casemates at Kuruçay 6 and Bademağacı ENII3 were fit for defence suggests that he might envisage them with rubble in between as well, i.e. not casemates in a strict sense. This terminology is important insofar as the thickness of an enclosure wall was above identified as a main criterion for verifying its defensive function; in that respect, Kastenbauweise-walls seem to have an advantage over casemate walls. Overall, however, it is probable that their enhanced thickness, whether created by several parallel thin walls, or additionally by rubble fill between parallel walls, has been seen as an argument in favour of ‘casemates’ (#182) as defensive—even if that is never actually expressed in the text passages coded here. In all cases of possible casemate walls listed here, we deal with rather short stretches of wall that hardly quality for the title of ‘enclosure’ wall; it might therefore be indeed the particular nature of their construction that particularly qualifies them as defence structures in the eyes of some researchers. For Aşıklı Höyük, Esin (1993b) also evoked comparisons with Hittite casemate fortification walls as an argument for identifying them as defensive. These parallels are, however, rejected by Düring (2006:102, 2011a:71) because of the large time gap between the Early Neolithic and Hittite period, which makes it uncertain whether the one had anything to do with the other. It is important to note that Esin never clearly describes either the Aşıklı Höyük casemate walls that form part of a building complex, or the free-standing stretch of wall referred to as a perimeter wall, as defensive in the publications (Esin 1993b, 1996) that Düring cites when critiquing the Aşıklı Höyük defensive structures. These text passages by Esin were therefore not coded by me. I however agree that a defensive function is clearly evoked by Esin’s comparison with the wall and tower at Jericho (Esin 1996:42), and defensive structures at Mersin and Hittite sites (Esin 1993b:128) respectively. This example illustrates an issue I sometimes encountered during the content analysis for this book, whereby a statement is not actually clear about a particular interpretation of an architectural feature, but still influences the research debate.
First, in the literature enclosure walls are more readily accepted as defence structure if they are particularly thick (e.g. Kuruçay 11: Duru 1996b:57, 2012:12; LN Bademağacı: Duru 2019a:181; Kuruçay 4: Duru 1996c:116, 2008:130; EBA Bademağacı: Duru 2008:154– 155; Hacılar II: Cutting 2005b:101; Düring 2011a:73; Eslick 1988:22) or—in a mostly mudbrick settlement— built from stone, or with stone foundations (Hacılar I: Clare et al. 2008:76) or stone buttresses (Hacılar II: Clare et al. 2008:75); in sum, if they are perceived as particularly sturdy. The underlying notion here must be that defence walls need to be thick and stable walls so that they cannot easily be breached; for instance, see Eslick (1988:31) stating that an enclosure wall in Kuruçay 6 is too narrow to have had a defensive function. And further, that the thickness was not actually needed for any of the other possible, non-defensive functions of enclosure walls, for example: “Enclosure walls are not always designed to protect a settlement from hostile human actions. They may simply mark the settlement area, keep in domestic animals or keep out wild ones. For these purposes, however, the wall does not need to be very thick, so that we can be confident that a substantial wall with limited or especially protected entrances [#189] probably served as a fortification wall” (Eslick 1988:14).
Second, enclosures that actually go around the entire perimeter of the settlement are more likely to be accepted as fortifications (Hacılar I: Clare et al. 2008:76); or, the other way around, those that do not encircle a substantial part of the site perimeter are more often re-interpreted as unlikely to be fortifications. For example, Düring (2006:104, 2011a:71) doubts that a free-standing wall at the edge of Aşıklı Höyük Level 2 was a defensive wall because “[t]he stretch of wall excavated is short and isolated, and does not form a clear and coherent defensive line” (Düring 2006:104; similarly Eslick 1988:31 about Kuruçay 4, and Rosenstock 2014:239 about Hacılar II). In other examples, supposed fortification walls are found within a settlement, surrounded by residential areas, which in Düring’s (2011ca73, 80; also Rosenstock 2014:239) eyes makes them more likely social boundaries between social
Thickness and sturdiness are one reason why casemate walls (#182) in particular are sometimes singled out in the literature. ‘Casemate’ describes a wall feature created by two parallel walls, with small perpendicular walls in between that form a series of small compartments (Selover 2015:251). Such walls have been tentatively identified at Bademağacı ENII3 (Duru 2012:17, Umurtak 2011:5), and Kuruçay 6 (Duru 1996c:114). In the research area, the term casemate sometimes seems to also be used for a variation called Kastenbauweise, where the small compartments between the two parallel walls are filled in with rubble and stones (Selover 2015:251). For example, Esin (1993b) refers to the Aşıklı Höyük walls as both casemates and 266
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Figure 11.1. Hacılar: reconstruction of the Level IIa settlement by Mellaart (reprinted with permission from the British Institute at Ankara from: Mellaart 1970c:Figure 22)19.
groups rather than defensive structures. On the other hand, these two functions are not necessarily mutually exclusive, for example Arbuckle (2012a:304) stated of the walls surrounding a supposed elite residence in Güvercinkayası, that, “The elaborate enclosure wall protect[ed] this area from both internal and external intrusion”, i.e. that it represented a defence against potential hostilities from non-elites within the settlement as much as from outsiders. By the EBA, that is a very likely function of fortifications, as pointed out by Düring (2011a:79–80).
Fighting advantages Two variations of the settlement enclosure—free-standing walls with towers (#187) and saw-toothed defence rings (#188)—were separated here because in addition to the argument of access limitations, another argument can be made for their interpretation as defence structures: they offer advantages for the fighters that defend the settlement during an actual attack. At both Hacılar I and Kuruçay 6, the site perimeter was formed by offset house walls creating a saw-tooth pattern (#188; Duru 1996c:114; see for a critique: Düring 2011a:75, 2011c:227–228; Rosenstock 2010a:24). Enclosure walls with towers (#187) have been identified at Hacılar II (Figure 11.1), Kuruçay 11 (Figure 11.2), and Bademağacı ENII3. In all three cases, the existence of such towers or their defensive function is contested (Chapter 5); but leaving that aside, I will here discuss the defensive function of such protrusions in theory. Interestingly, reading the text passages coded for #187, it appears that enclosure walls with towers are relatively readily accepted as defensive architecture, possibly more so than the other architectural variations documented here (for example, DeCupere et al. 2015:Table 1 single out the Kuruçay 11 towered wall while ignoring other possible defensive structures at Hacılar, Bademağacı, or other occupations levels of Kuruçay), but without a real explanation of how the towers enhance defensibility.
Third, settlement enclosures are more likely accepted as defensive structures if the enclosure has particular features that would have given defenders an advantage in a possible battle: saw-toothed construction pattern (#188) or towers (#187). And fourth, if the wall feature is combined with protected entrances (#189–#191). For example, both Rosenstock (2014:239) and Düring (2011a:71) point out that a defensive function of the Aşıklı Höyük perimeter wall is also unlikely because this feature contrasts with the wide street entrances into the settlement. The relevance of protected entrances is further discussed in Theme 26.2. reprinted from J. Mellaart 1970 Excavations at Hacılar (British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Occasional Publication 10) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara/ Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, with permission from the British Institute at Ankara. 19
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Figure 11.2. Kuruçay: reconstruction of the Level 11 fortification walls by Duru (reprinted with permission from R. Duru from: Duru 2008:Figure 82).
Reading between the lines of the coded passages, a key argument for towers or saw-toothed perimeters as defensive features is that these give defenders standing on the wall a variety of angles from which to fight attackers by shooting or the like (Bachhuber 2015:111 for the EBA). This notion seems to be expressed, for example, in Duru’s comparison of towers and saw-tooth walls (#188): “Without towers or bastions, the community [at Kuruçay 6] must have depended on the sawtooth plan of the residences for defence. This protruding and retreating outline of the settlement may perhaps be regarded as an early prototype of the fortification wall with bastion, a forerunner of the encircling walls with towers, revetments and other architectural features seen in later Anatolian prehistory. This is to say that the deep recesses at the corners may have served as a tower/bastion in reverse” (Duru 1996c:114). This text passage, citing ‘later’ parallels as support for the interpretation, highlights that Neolithic/Chalcolithic structures might be more easily interpreted as defensive if they resemble later defensive architecture, as already pointed out for the casemate walls above. Similarly, the saw-toothed house-ring defence has parallels in the Early Bronze Age (Demircihöyük: Selover 2015:252; Hacılar Büyük Höyük: Umurtak 2020; Umurtak and Duru 2014), which might have influenced the readiness to recognise a similar function at Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites. However, the observation that these architectural features later, in the Bronze or Iron Age, became used in defensive architecture—which is sometimes overtly used as an argument for the supposed defence function of a Neolithic or Chalcolithic structure (e.g. Duru 1996c:114; Esin 1993b), and might in other cases also have had influence on the interpretation—cannot serve as an argument that they were defensive in the Neolithic and EC.
(DeCupere et al. 2015:Table 1; similarly Sagona and Zimanksy 2009:99). And indeed, a strong and impressive physical appearance of defensive architecture should certainly not be underestimated as a factor to ward off potential aggressors; although in some of these statements about the Kuruçay 11 towered wall it remains unclear whether they mean that the wall had a daunting effect on enemies, or whether it is impressive to archaeologists. Overall, in contrast with the ready acceptance (although see Düring 2011a:72, 2011c:171; Thissen 2010:273 with alternative opinions) of especially the Kuruçay 11 towers as defensive features, there is very little direct discussion in the literature as to how exactly towers or saw-tooth walls would have added to the defensive strength of enclosure walls or how they would have been used in defence (a discussion also lacking in Selover 2015).
Another argument could be that walls with towers (#187) especially looked like strong defences, expressed for example in statements about Kuruçay 11 (Figure 11.2) such as, “its south facing exterior was reinforced with semicircular towers / bastions, giving this settlement a ‘castle-like’ appearance” (Duru 2008:42), or “Impressive fortification wall with a pair of semi-circular towers”
To contextualise the discussion of settlement perimeter fortifications, I would like to mention that settlement location is also regularly mentioned in the debate around Neolithic/Chalcolithic settlement defence, but these were not coded here because they were not architectural indicators: the choice to build settlements on natural hilltops (Brami 2017:93; Cutting 2005b:82; Düring
Conclusion In conclusion, it cannot be excluded that the settlement perimeter fortifications in the study region had functions other than defence, but likewise it cannot be excluded that such structures (also) had a defensive function. All indicators of Theme 26.1 are therefore accepted here. The above discussion has also pointed out ways to assess the defensive aspect of structures: Enclosure walls (#181) and similar features (#182–#188) are more readily accepted in the research community as defensive architecture if their nature made them particularly effective at limiting access to the settlement. In the case of an enclosure wall, this means for example that its defensive nature is more widely accepted if the wall was particularly thick, enclosed all of the settlement, and also had towers/protrusions (#187, #188) or protected entrances (#189–#191).
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Warfare 2011b:805; Duru 2008:42; Umurtak 2011:7) or on top of settlement mounds (Bachhuber 2015:52; Rosenstock 2009:223; Steadman 2000b:175) has regularly been interpreted as having a defensive aspect, and indeed such locations would have both impeded access to the settlement and offered vantage points to defenders during an attack, similar to the built structures discussed here. Baird (2005:68) also considered whether the location of Çatalhöyük in a seasonally flooded plain had a defensive aspect.
[but] we can be confident that a substantial wall with limited or especially protected entrances probably served as a fortification wall”. This same notion is also reflected in some other statements cited in the following paragraph, which displays the architectural variety of protected entrances. Narrow entrances (#190) are the most mentioned form of entrance protection. One example is Hacılar II, where in Mellaart’s reconstruction the enclosure wall (Figures 5.3, 5.4, 11.1) left only a few entrances of limited width, that further led into narrow and windy passages between houses that one had to pass through before entering the settlement; i.e. the protected entrance was formed by both an enclosure wall and house clustering (also see Cutting 2003:16 who confirms this assessment through access analysis). Eslick (1988:22) concludes that “The enclosure wall of [Hacılar] level II may be regarded as a fortification. It is substantial and the north-west and south-west entrances lead into corridors that would be defensible”. A similar narrow entrance formed by houses and freestanding walls is reconstructed for the ‘fortress’ of Hacılar I: “The entrance itself is exceedingly simple. A triangular area is narrowed at the outer end by a cross-wall leaving a doorway about 2 m. wide, which in case of danger could easily be blocked” (Mellaart 1959:54; also Mellaart 1960:96). At Kuruçay 11 (Figure 11.2), the narrow entrance between the enclosure walls was additionally formed into a passageway by adding protruding walls (Umurtak 2011:6). Another much discussed example is Kuruçay 6, where access to the settlement was only through relatively narrow alleys between houses (Duru 1996c:114–115) that might in one subphase have become additionally narrowed or blocked off with walls across alleys and doorways. Duru (1996c:116; also Eslick 1988:26) insinuates that the adding of this further protection was motivated by the impression of an impending attack (but see Düring 2011a:75–76, 2011b:803 with doubts as to the defensive efficiency of the Kuruçay 6 entrances).
Theme 26.2 Entrance protection ‘Entrance protection’ is here used to describe different architectural features that facilitate defending entrances to the settlement in case of an attack. Indicator #189 represents a headline node, and #190–#191 two different variations of protected entrances. I summarised the different entrance features encountered during the content analysis into two indicators; the main difference is that ‘gates’ (#191) incorporate rooms built specifically for defensive purposes while ‘narrow entrances’ (#190) are spaces or passages between otherwise used structures. Defendable entrances (#189–#191) stand in an interesting relation to enclosures (#181–#188). These protected entrances are in most cases formed by one of the enclosure variations discussed above, as well as in the examples named in the discussion below. They can therefore not often be seen as architecturally independent from enclosures; but they are somewhat separate in the architectural discussion and interpretation. Specifically, the content analysis has identified a number of text passages that state either that an enclosure can be regarded as defensive because it is combined with protected entrances; or that the defensive function of an enclosure should be doubted because it did not feature protected entrances. In other words, protected entrances #189–#191 seem to be regarded as more reliable indicators of defence than enclosures by at least some authors, although the two are often not actually separate architectural features. For example, Düring (2011c:228, also Eslick 1988:30) said, regarding the combined house ring/enclosure wall defence at Kuruçay 6, “Even if the defense wall is accepted, many ‘ungated’ entrances to the settlement remain, such as that between buildings 15 and 14” (Düring 2011c:228; similarly Düring 2011a:71; Rosenstock 2014:329 about Aşıklı and Çatalhöyük). Baird (2012a:448) registers reservations against most of the possible defensive structures in southwest Anatolia, but accepts structures at the perimeter of Middle Chalcolithic Mersin as fortifications because they “include a gate with substantial flanking bastions/gate towers which is the strongest indicator for a potential defensive role amongst these early enclosure walls”. Mersin is not within the study region, but these citations serve to capture the intellectual notion underlying many researchers’ approach towards early defensive architecture. This notion is well summarised in the words of Eslick (1988:14) who expressed that, “Enclosure walls are not always designed to protect a settlement from hostile human actions […]
The content analysis has identified several examples of buildings/rooms added to settlement entrances to enhance their defensibility, here summarised as ‘gates’ (#191). At Hacılar II (Figures 5.3, 11.1), two buttresses left and right of the northern entrance are reconstructed by Mellaart (1960:90, 1970c:25) and Umurtak (2011:4) as towers from which the gate could be defended (see also #187). Connected to that same entrance, Mellaart (1960:90, 1970c:29) reconstructs a ‘guardroom’ on the inside of the gate from which the passage could be blocked, and a platform over the gate that might also have served for defence (also Cutting 2003:16). He also recognised similar structures at Hacılar I (Mellaart 1970c:81) and Çatalhöyük East (Mellaart 1967:69–70). Duru reconstructed a gate building with guard room at EBA Bademağacı (Duru 2008:155–156) and a guard room protecting one of the entrances to Kuruçay 6 (Duru 1996c:114). However problematic many of these reconstructed gates are (see Chapter 5 for a critique of the LN/EC examples), in principle such structures would enhance the defensibility 269
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia of settlements. Entrances were the most vulnerable point of the site perimeter (Bachhuber 2015:111). ‘Narrow entrances’ could be closed off to prevent entrance into the settlement when needed. ‘Gates’ might add other defensive advantages, e.g. hidden vantage points and shooting angles. Both #190 and #191 are therefore accepted here as potential indicators of warfare.
window openings on ground level, making it easier to defend the entrance (#193; Mellaart 1967:68; Steadman 2000b:182). The notions underlying these interpretations are essentially the same ideas as those about settlement perimeter fortifications: architecturally creating the possibility to block entrance to a structure through entrance protection and sturdy walls. With these attributes, the indicators of Theme 27 could indeed be seen as defensive; but just as with those of Theme 26, there is an equally wide range of other possible reasons why houses were built that way. Building durable walls (#194, #195) might seem desirable for the more benign reason of reducing the danger of damage and repair. The rooftop entrances (#193) at Çatalhöyük and Hacılar I were necessitated by the clustering layout, which might have been more strongly motivated by community-building purposes (#55) than defence (#183). In conclusion, none of the indicators of Theme 27 can unequivocally be described as having been preparations for warfare, but none can be excluded either.
I added an indicator to Theme 26 that was isolated and did not really fit into any theme, but had some connection to the issue of fortification (sheltering inside the settlement) because it eliminates the necessity of leaving the settlement to obtain water: a well inside the settlement (#192). The notion underlying interpretations of wells as preparation for warfare is that an intramural well makes a settlement better able to withstand an attack. For example, Clare et al. (2008:76) cite ethnographic accounts to argue that a secure water source, without the need to leave the settlement, would have been beneficial for safety, and interpret the wells at Hacılar VI and II as evidence for warfare (Figure 5.1, 5.3). Mellaart (1967:69) also seems to imply that wells might have been useful for putting out fires set by attackers. Since quick access to water inside the settlement would of course also have been advantageous for many daily activities in a peaceful settlement, a well (#192), cannot in my opinion be seen as a strong indicator by itself for warfare preparation. If at all, it can only be seen as additional evidence for warfare in a settlement already featuring many other indicators.
11.2.3. Theme 28: Results of warfare The content analysis has identified six architectural indicators that describe the results of warfare: destruction of architecture (#196, #197), supposed victims of violence found inside destroyed architecture (#198), temporary settlement abandonment (#199) and rapid culture change related to, but also going beyond, building traditions (#200). This section will first briefly discuss indicators individually and then debate their use as indicators in the conclusion.
11.2.2. Theme 27: Fortifying houses Theme 27 was separated from Theme 26.1 because it is not related to settlement layout, but to the nature of individual buildings. Theme 27 describes possible ways to fortify individual houses against attacks either in the absence of settlement perimeter fortifications, or in combination with such. An example of the former is Kuruçay 7, where the excavator (Duru 1994c:100; also Steadman 2000b:184) has suggested that thick house walls (#195) served as defences in the absence of a perimeter fortification; although he also (Duru 1994c:100) speculated that additionally, a perimeter wall might also have been present at Kuruçay 7, only not preserved. In the house ring (#184) defensive layout of Kuruçay 6, the outermost house walls are also described as particularly thick (Duru 1996c:114). The ‘fortress’ of Hacılar I is portrayed by Mellaart as an example of a combination of settlement perimeter fortification (house ring #184) with a strengthening of individual buildings: each individual building block also had defensive features (thick walls #195, rooftop entrance #193, stone foundations #194) to offer protection once the enemy had already breached the settlement (Mellaart 1960:96).
Destruction (#196–#197) The destruction of a settlement, i.e. of built structures, is the most cited architecturally visible result of warfare for the study region. More specifically, the most cited indicator in Theme 28 is destruction of the settlement or parts thereof by fire (#197). A few text passages discuss destruction without mentioning fire (#196); but the examples coded for indicator #196 actually all refer to examples of fire destruction, even if that is not always clearly stated. In short, conflagrations, i.e. cases where all or many houses in an occupational level were burned, are often seen as evidence for intentional destruction during warfare. Clare et al. have in fact described large-scale fire destruction as particularly reliable evidence for warfare: “The main line of evidence for the occurrence of LN/ ECh warfare in Pisidia [the Lake District] is twofold. On the one hand, it comprises the occurrence of major conflagrations, and on the other it involves the construction of fortificatory walls around settlements” (Clare et al. 2008:73; also Clare and Weninger 2018:44). They draw on archaeological warfare research from the southwestern USA to suggest that (fire) destruction could be either inflicted by the attackers in an attempt to kill or weaken the attacked group; or by the defenders in order to deny the site to the enemy.
In combination, the three indicators of Theme 27 suggest that individual buildings were prepared for possible attacks through sturdy walls—thick walls (#195), possibly with stone foundations (#194)—that were more likely to withstand attacks (Cutting 2005b:103; Mellaart 1970a:320, 1978:25), and a lack of entrances or large
There are, however, other possible interpretations of Neolithic/Chalcolithic house fires. First, house fires 270
Warfare could have been accidentally caused by the inhabitants of a settlement; kitchen fires gone out of hand was Mellaart’s preferred interpretation of the many fires he observed at Hacılar and Çatalhöyük (Mellaart 1967:69, 1970c:16). Although readily recognising fortifications in the architectural record of both sites (#181, #183), he was actually rather conservative in the interpretation of fire destruction as evidence for warfare. Only in combination with other indicators of warfare, for example destruction followed by rapid culture change (#200) between Hacılar II and I (Mellaart 1970c:75, 148), did he interpret fire as the result of a hostile attack. Or second, newer research has instead tended to recognise house fires at Çatalhöyük as intentionally caused as part of house-related ritual (#27, #35), and recently Düring (2011c:165) has tentatively suggested this might also have been the case at LN/EC Lake District sites.
sites were really contemporary, i.e. took place within a few weeks, months or years of each other. Leaving that aside, however, even if a number of buildings and sites were burned around the same time, this does not exclude accident or ritual. In short, even though a destruction (by fire or otherwise) of some or all built structures within a village could be the result of a hostile attack, warfare is only one of three possible reasons for such destruction. Not enough research has been done to determine the causes of fires at LN/EC sites in central Anatolia, or to develop a checklist for determining the cause of fires in the first place. In absence of such a checklist, house fires are typically classified as evidence for warfare if they can be cross-referenced with other indicators of warfare. This cross-referencing was explicitly suggested by Clare et al. (2008:73), but is applied also by other researchers. Apart from the example already listed above (= skeletons in building infill #198, rapid culture change #200), other examples mentioned are an investment in fortification either just before or just after the destruction event (Duru 1996c:116; and see Bachhuber 2015:55 with EBA examples), or the abandonment of the settlement following the fire (#199, Clare et al. 2008:73–74; Duru 2008:8). Cross-referencing is certainly a suitable procedure; it would however be desirable to develop a toolkit for investigating causes of fire destruction independently from such cross-reference with other indicators.
In only a small minority of cases have the causes of Neolithic/Chalcolithic house fires in the study region actually been investigated (Düring 2011c:165). All examples where this has been done are at Çatalhöyük, and all houses studied at Çatalhöyük were most probably intentionally and ritually set on fire because: some important inventory was removed from the buildings before the fire; other objects seem to have been deliberately placed within the house in a ritually meaningful way; and the nature and progress of the fires is suggestive of a controlled process (Cessford and Near 2005; Harrison et al. 2013; Twiss et al. 2008; also see #35). It remains to be seen whether similar investigations at other sites will also be able to identify intentional house burning. In the meantime, due a lack of actual investigation of fire causes, unequivocal evidence for the hostile burning of sites in the study region has yet to materialise. At the same time, even in literature arguing for an interpretation of house fires as evidence of warfare there seems to be only a vague impression of what a potential signature of hostile destruction might look like in the architectural record: for example, houses collapsed with the interior furnishing and equipment still in place; and people were trapped inside and their remains are found in between the collapsed material (#198; Mellaart 1959:54; Clare et al. 2008:73–74). None of this, however, really contradicts an interpretation of accidental fire (see Cessford and Near 2005:174; Düring 2011c:165 with discussions of signatures of accidental house fires). Further, the fact that several adjacent buildings were burned seems to often be seen as evidence that they burned at the same time and therefore intentionality (Clare et al. 2008:73–74). However, in these cases there is usually no actual proof that the fires were contemporary. Clare et al. (2008) and Duru (2008:8) additionally gain confidence from observing roughly contemporary conflagrations at several neighbouring sites, ascribing these events to a defined period of social turmoil in the Lake District. This argument is weakened by the fact that Chapter 5 has disproved some of the site chronologies that Clare et al.’s argument is based on; and also the fact that the available resolution of radiocarbon dating in the Lake District is currently too poor to determine whether fires at different
Victims of violence (#198) There have been a number of claims that skeletons found within building infill do not represent burials (#198), and that this is evidence for warfare because these individuals were killed during a hostile attack, and left unburied because they were trapped within a collapsing building. For example, Mellaart reports charred bones found in between other collapsed material in Rooms 5 and 6 of the burnt Hacılar I fortress, and interprets them as victims of an attack that became trapped within the upper storey of the structure (Mellaart 1959:54, 1960:96, 1965b:112). Clare et al. (2008:74–75, Figure 5) interpret a number of skeletons found within the infills of buildings at Hacılar IIb and Bademağacı ENII3 as victims of warfare. To recognise evidence for interpersonal warfare on the skeletal remains themselves is entirely a matter for physical anthropology (e.g. Çatalhöyük: Baird 2012a:448; Hodder 2013b:28; Larsen et al. 2013:407–410; EBA: Bachhuber 2015:55, 68). If, however, the stratigraphical position of the skeleton is used as evidence for hostilities (#198), it becomes a matter for architecture research. It seems that in none of the cases cited in the discussion of indicator #198 was any physical anthropology study done (or none reported) to determine evidence for a violent death; that means that stratigraphical evidence is actually the only evidence to claim these individuals as evidence of warfare. Similar to house fires, there are two other potential interpretations for skeletons in building 271
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia infill: ritual intention and accident. Byrnes and Anvari (2022) show that a general bias exists within Neolithic/ Chalcolithic central Anatolian archaeology to not view skeletons found in building infill as normal burials, or burials at all. We, however, discuss a range of evidence to show that infill burials probably were a proper form of burial during the LN and EC. And even if the context or position of a skeleton suggests an event whereby a person became trapped in a burning house, the event might also have been an accident. In fact, some such examples have been interpreted as accidents. For example, the skeleton of a woman “fallen below the wooden staircase as the house collapsed” (Mellaart 1998a:36), was found within a burnt Çatalhöyük house (Cessford and Near 2005:174) and interpreted as a victim of an accident. Chapter 5 has pointed out that the formation processes of building infill are overall poorly understood in LN/EC central Anatolia; this means interpretations of skeletons in infill as evidence of warfare should be viewed with caution. Nevertheless, a connection between skeletons in building infill and hostile attacks can also not be completely excluded.
of great complexity; many other reasons besides warfare are possible and it requires holistic research into social and environmental processes to determine reasons for site abandonment (e.g. Rosenstock 2009:157–158, 235–236). Indicator #199 can therefore only be accepted tentatively. Rapid culture change (#200) Indicator #200 describes a thorough and rapid (e.g. from one occupational level to the next) change of material culture. In this scenario, the rapid culture change is seen as evidence that a new group of people replaced the original inhabitants of the settlement; and, especially if preceded by a destruction event (#196, #197), as evidence for a hostile takeover and population replacement. Rapid culture change refers not only to architecture, but also to other items of material culture that were not included in the coding. Besides pottery, however, a sudden change of architectural styles (#200) is the most cited class of material culture in this context. For example, the ‘invasion’ that destroyed Hacılar II and created Hacılar I is based on the supposedly different pottery styles of the two levels (Mellaart 1970c:75, 148), and on the fact that in Mellaart’s reconstruction the founders of Hacılar I removed a good part of the already accumulated mound before erecting their settlement and built in a different style (Mellaart 1970c:75, 120; also Joukowsky 1996:121–122; Yakar 1991:178–179). Clare et al. (2008:73, 74; based on Schoop 2002:422, 2005a:173–174, 2011b:153) debate Mellaart’s reconstruction of the Hacılar II–I change as being caused by an invasion, instead reconstructing a hiatus between the two phases – which is also, however, seen as different evidence for a hostile attack ending Hacılar II. However, they instead (Clare et al. 2008:74) insinuate that the change from monochrome to painted pottery between Hacılar VI and V might have been caused by a hostile takeover. Similarly, Duru (1983:48–49; also Steadman 2000b:191) originally considered whether the architecturally very different Kuruçay 6 might have been built by people who destroyed Kuruçay 7, but finally reconstructed a long hiatus between both (Duru 1994c:96, 2008:13, 2012:5) that forms part of the already mentioned (see discussion of #199) storyline of resettlement of the Lake District in the Late Chalcolithic after a long occupational gap following a violent end of the Lake District Early Chalcolithic.
Settlement abandonment (#199) Especially if following a destruction event (#196, #197), the abandonment or temporary abandonment of a settlement can be interpreted as evidence for warfare (Clare et al. 2008:74; Mellaart 1970a:323), particularly if many neighbouring settlements are abandoned around the same time (Duru 2008:8–9; Mellaart 1978:25). Permanent site abandonment is not, or not foremost, an architectural indicator, and was therefore not included in the coding. However, interpretations of temporary site abandonment (hiatuses) are mostly based on observations of stratigraphic breaks and the erosion/collapse of built structures (see Chapter 5 for a description and critique of the evidence for hiatuses at LN/EC sites). Temporary site abandonment (#199) is therefore based on stratigraphic evidence and was counted here as an architectural indicator of warfare. Either way, the process reconstructed for a connection between site abandonment and warfare are the same for either permanent or temporary site abandonment: following a violent attack, residents leave the settlement to live elsewhere and never return (e.g. Alkım 1969:71; Clare et al. 2008:74). The hiatuses reported in the discussion of #199 are all long enough to postulate that the people who resettled the sites were not the same as those who left it. For example, Clare et al. (2008:73–74) insinuate that settlement interruptions of 100 or 200 years at Höyücek, Hacılar and Kuruçay were the results of warfare. Duru (2008:8–9) reconstructs a violent end of all the excavated Early Chalcolithic settlements in the Lake District, followed by 1500 years of no or no permanent settlement in the region and finally a resettlement by a culturally different people in the Late Chalcolithic. It might therefore be incorrect to refer to these hiatuses as ‘temporary’ settlement abandonments, since for the people who packed up and left, it was in fact a permanent relocation. To truly understand reasons for permanent settlement abandonment in Neolithic/Chalcolithic Anatolia is a matter
The notion that can be reconstructed from many text passages coded for indicator #200 (e.g. Joukowsky 1996:121–122; Mellaart 1970c:75, 148) is that a sudden change of material culture must have been caused by the influx of a culturally different group of people; and that such population replacement, or cultural subjugation of existing residents, cannot have happened peacefully. This train of thought actually connects a lot of often precarious pieces of evidence: Was a particular change in material culture really as substantial to people in the past as it might appear to archaeologists? How secure is the dating of the site; how rapid was the change really? Is there another possible reason leading to a relatively rapid and substantial change in material culture? Much like site abandonment 272
Warfare (#199), postulating that rapid cultural change was a result of warfare requires a holistic investigation of its causes that must combine several categories of material culture; it is therefore difficult to use as an indicator of warfare, but nevertheless included on the indicator list.
makes sense; for example, discussions of defence are bound to focus more strongly on the settlement perimeter and less on the interior of individual houses than a discussion of households like in Chapter 8, where many indicators refer to the house interior.
Conclusion
Two observations can be made based on the coding list (Appendix 5) that suggest the presence of archaeological research bias in the study of potential warfare in LN/EC central Aantolia. First, it is a different set of people that are prominent voices in the warfare debate as compared to Chapters 8–10. For example, Refik Duru and James Mellaart have predominately carried the archaeological research into warfare in the study region, but are less represented in the Chapter 8 and 10 discussions (household autonomy, mobility). On the other hand, researchers that were prominent in the debates summarised in Chapters 8–10 are remarkably underrepresented in the coding list for this chapter (Appendix 5), and when they discuss architectural indicators of warfare it is more often than not in order to debate and discount warfare evidence suggested by others: this includes Ian Hodder and all of the researchers that have produced detailed overview analyses of LN/EC architecture in central Anatolia: Düring, Cutting, Schachner and Steadman.
None of the indicators in Theme 28 can unequivocally be described as a result of warfare; all could also have been caused by something else. Therefore, a reliable interpretation that a settlement was affected by warfare requires the presence of several indicators of Theme 28, and that is actually how it has been used by most researchers. For example, the destruction of Hacılar II (#197) is considered as hostile because an unburied skeleton was found in a building (#198) and because it is followed by rapid culture change (#200, Clare et al. 2008:74; Mellaart 1970c:36, 75), contrary to fire in previous levels of Hacılar where such additional indicators were not present, such as “the destruction [of Hacılar IV], which in the absence of skeletons, does not appear to have been of a violent nature” (Mellaart 1970c:24, similarly Cessford and Near 2005:174 about Çatalhöyük). All indicators in Theme 28 are therefore accepted as potential indicators of warfare, with the precaution that more than one needs to be present for a more secure interpretation.
Personal research preference, or research experience, seems to play a role in how researchers have approached the topic of Neolithic/Chalcolithic warfare in the past. From statements such as, “As very few architectural remains were found in this settlement [Kuruçay 12], the general plan and how the defence problem was solved is not clear” (Umurtak 2005b:7), or “A defence system is seen at Hacılar for the first time in level II. However, it would be natural to expect that a settlement in the middle of a completely flat plain would have been surrounded by some kind of a defence wall from the earliest settlement period. The fact that the excavations were carried out in such a small area would have limited the information that could be gained about the defence of the period before level II” (Umurtak 2011:4), it becomes clear that a number of researchers expect that the need for defence, and by association warfare or some kind of violent interaction between groups, was present in the study area from the beginning of settled life in the area (see Mellaart 1965b:104 with a similar statement about Hacılar VI, Mellaart 1967:69 about Çatalhöyük). By contrast, there is a large part of the literature landscape that does not concern itself with warfare, showing that quite a number of Neolithic/Chalcolithic researchers do not see this as a feature of these periods. For example, the Çatalhöyük team is remarkably underrepresented in the coding list for this chapter, while it dominated large portions of the previous chapters. Similarly, researchers at other LN/EC sites in the Konya plain or Cappadocia do not even mention warfare in their publications, or only mention it in order to point out that there is no evidence for it (e.g. Baird 2012a:448; French 1998:68; Öztan 2012:45). There are also differences in how the existing pieces of evidence for warfare or interpersonal violence
11.3. Summary and reflections Of the 20 indicators documented in the content analysis, all have been accepted as potential indicators of warfare (Appendix 5). None of them were found to be unequivocal evidence for either preparation for warfare or a result of warfare; but also, none could be completely discounted as evidentially not connected to warfare. This analysis has confirmed the notion present in the literature (11.1) that archaeological indicators for warfare can be categorised into two overall groups, preparation for warfare and the results of warfare. In terms of application these two groups are independent from each other: destruction proves warfare even if the settlement was not fortified; and fortification proves the expectation of warfare even if it never actually took place (see Clare et al. 2008:75 with a similar statement). Further, not being able to detect warfare in the architectural record does not mean that there was none. It could, for example, have taken place outside settlements. Another thing to note about the debate on warfare in the central Anatolian Neolithic and Chalcolithic is how disconnected it seems from that of the other three social processes researched here in Chapters 8–10. With the exception of indicators #183 (clustering), #192 (water well in settlement) and #197 (fire destruction), none of the architectural features related to warfare were mentioned in any of the other chapters. Clearly, the warfare debate focuses on different aspects of architecture as compared to the household autonomy, suprahousehold integration, social stratification and mobility debates. This actually 273
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia are handled; for example, the Çatalhöyük team chooses to stress the evidence for continuity and peace over the few cases of skeletons carrying traces of interpersonal violence (e.g. Hodder 2014d:166–167). Also, victims of violence identified at Çatalhöyük are generally interpreted by the team as evidence not for warfare between settlements, but for internal tensions resulting in violence (Knüsel et al. 2021:342–343; Larsen et al. 2019:12620–12621; also see 6.3.5) and possibly even as ritual violence (Hodder 2021a:28).
and 6, among masses of greasy black material, burnt brick, charcoal, pots and objects, all collapsed from the upper storey into the rooms below” (Mellaart 1960:96; similar descriptions: Mellaart 1959:54, 1967:69–70, 1970c:29). To a lesser degree, Duru (1996c:114–116) and Eslick (1988) discuss the details of the functioning of defence structures; but this is outweighed by a much larger number of sources that argue for warfare without venturing into the details of fighting and defence. Even Selover (2015) and Clare et al. (2008) are surprisingly vague as to how one has to imagine combat unfolding around these structures. More detailed research into the use of LN/EC architecture in battle seems necessary to investigate what features were really suited for defence. This is true for both sides of the debate, researchers who speak in favour of and those who doubt evidence for warfare in the study region.
Second, the overwhelming majority of examples named in the warfare discussion refer to Lake District sites. In the existing debates, then, the Lake District appears particularly war-torn. This pattern could represent actual prehistoric reality and signify a regional difference within central Anatolia. However, combined with the observations that particular researchers appear more ready to read warfare from the evidence than others, it is more likely that this pattern represents research bias: the excavators of Lake District sites, i.e. Mellaart, Umurtak and Duru, are clearly identified as being more likely to discuss warfare than others through the content analysis done for this chapter. Synthesising literature that relies on reconstructions by Mellaart, Duru and Umurtak is equally more likely to interpret evidence in favour of warfare (e.g. Brami 2017; Clare et al. 2008).
There is thus a lack of discussion about the actual function of the indicators in this chapter, but there is some reflection about their epistemology: Interestingly, to a higher degree than in Chapters 8 and 10, the coding for this chapter identified instances of overt debate about indicators – which is very crucial in moving research forward. By overt debate, I mean statements in which one research party directly addresses and engages with an interpretation made by another researcher, such as, “Mellaart suggested that the plan of this settlement [Hacılar I]—with the back walls of the houses forming an unbroken façade—is defensive. But there is no evidence to support this idea” (Sagona and Zimansky 2009:134). Such statements are coded in Appendix 5 as hypothetical. In addition, there is comprehensive scrutinisation by Düring (2011a), Baird (2012a:448), Rosenstock (2014:239), and Selover (2015:251–277) about the validity of the identification of many of the possible early fortification structures discussed here. Warfare, unlike household autonomy and mobility, seems to induce more researchers to directly engage with and debate statements made by their colleagues; only Chapter 9 (social stratification) also noted a relatively high degree of overt debate (9.4). In both cases, the reason might be that warfare and social stratification are more loaded research topics than household autonomy and mobility, possibly because they touch upon broader notions of human nature as discussed in the introduction to this chapter. The public interest in early Anatolian warfare should encourage archaeologists to be particularly meticulous when writing about evidence of warfare. However, the observations noted here of research biases and epistemological superficiality stand counter to that.
The potential for personal and regional research bias is one factor that leads me to conclude that the existing research on Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic warfare in the study region does not yet form a reliable basis for understanding this complex topic matter. Another factor is that the existing research on a relationship between architecture and warfare is often rather superficial. Specifically, I mean that there is little actual discussion within the analysed sources of the either the exact ways in which defensive structures worked (Themes 26–27) or the particular formation processes that were caused by warfare and impacted architecture (Theme 28). Taking for example Theme 26.1 (settlement enclosures), which contained some of the most commonly mentioned codes in this chapter: there is little exploration into the actual mechanisms of how walls, towers, house rings etc. worked in the defence of settlements. The only one to really describe how the functioning of these defensive structures is to be envisaged is Mellaart, who offers descriptions such as the following for Hacılar I: “However, the main reason for the lack of doorways on the ground floor of the fortress was evidently defence, and raising the main floor about 3 metres above ground level not only gave the defenders extra height, but also a better view over the surrounding countryside. Even if the enemy managed to penetrate into the courtyards he would still be confronted by a baffling lack of doorways and the one or two that did present themselves could easily be barred. Each block could have been defended as a single unit, and as in the case of Norman keeps, their peculiar method of construction turned them into death-traps for the defenders. Charred human bones, mainly of children, were found in Rooms 5 274
12 Looking Forward and Back It is easy to be seduced by the evidence of the built environment. (Baird et al. 2017:755) This chapter first evaluates the research methodology employed in this book (12.1). It then provides a summary of the social use of architecture in LN/EC central Anatolia (12.2) and a final reflection on epistemology based on Chapters 8–11 (12.3).
features of the social use of architecture in Neolithic and Chalcolithic central Anatolia. Here I summarise this aspect of the book; in the next section (12.3) I reflect on potential gaps and biases that might also apply to these results. Suprahousehold integration in an egalitarian framework was created architecturally in the study region through first, asymmetry in the distribution of vital features, such as hearths, storage capacities and ritual items; and second, a degree of uniformity in building style. The asymmetrical distribution of important features creates the need for reciprocity between households. For example, at Çatalhöyük, households were connected by pooling and exchanging ritual items (#92–#93); at Aşıklı Höyük, not every residence had a hearth (#81) or was large enough (#79) to function as a ‘complete house’ (#78). At Çatalhöyük, sometimes groups of houses shared hearths or storage (#74, #84, #87).
12.1. Evaluating the methodology used in this book A book employing archaeological reflexivity would be incomplete without a short evaluation of its own methodology. I found content analysis to be a very helpful tool for mapping an archaeological thought landscape. Content analysis identified a much greater number and variety of indicators than I had originally expected based on my pre-existing knowledge of the literature. The content analysis also identified a number of isolated research opinions and tentative suggestions made in the literature that by themselves might not be meaningful, but in combination with similar indicators as part of themes can be used to gather deeper insights into archaeological epistemology. This confirms that content analysis was able to bring out epistemological assumptions and patterns not otherwise noticeable on the surface; making them visible has probably been the main contribution of this book. At the same time, this book is an inherently idiosyncratic—my idiosyncratic—map of the literature landscape, guided by my personal interests, training and research environments.
Uniformity in residential architecture visually expressed, communicated, and thereby also reinforced communal identities, either of an entire village, or subcommunities in a village. It also has connotations of the sharing of knowledge and rules or conventions, or even social control. For example, clustering (#55) is an expression of, and at the same time fosters, social closeness across households and creates social control. Similarities in building materials and techniques (#70, #71) attest to a shared set of knowledge and conventions around building. By displaying the same idiosyncrasies (#73), a group of households could express that they formed a subcommunity within the larger village. The house standardisation (#69) at Boncuklu Höyük and Çatalhöyük socialised community members into existing social rules and conventions.
While content analysis worked very well as a tool for exploring an archaeological thought landscape, it worked less well in creating an indicator tool kit for future research. Content analysis is by design a method that documents the status quo. The indicator tool kit created in Chapters 8–11 therefore inherits existing research biases, which is a disadvantage of this approach. These epistemological biases are described in the next section 12.3. – the impact of personal research preferences, the Çatalhöyük dilemma. My indicator evaluation throughout Chapters 8–11 tried to take these into account, but that worked only to a degree. As a result, the indicator toolkit might not be equally suitable for all regions and sites studied since large parts of it are clearly focused on the Konya plain (read: focused on Çatalhöyük), and idiosyncrasies in architecture and social organisation of the Lake District and Cappadocia might not be adequately acknowledged in this toolkit.
Household autonomy, social competition and social stratification have been portrayed in Chapter 6 as different segments of one process, and the content analysis has confirmed this notion: the three overlap by sharing some of the same indicators and themes. Chapter 8 has identified differences between an Early Neolithic ‘baseline’ household autonomy and its modification after 6500 BC. During the Early Neolithic, household autonomy was architecturally created through symmetry in the distribution of vital features, and house(hold)-specific idiosyncrasy. Through symmetry, every household owned the features that enabled them to be socially and economically independent on a short-term, day-to-day basis; for example, being able to store food for a few weeks or months, processing food within the residence, resting and sleeping in it (Theme 1). This might have included the control over ritual house elaboration and burial (#19, #22, #23) at Boncuklu
12.2. Building blocks of Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic social organisation The architectural indicators and themes recognised through content analysis can be used to capture important 275
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Höyük, although perhaps not at Çatalhöyük (Theme 14). And within the relatively uniform village landscapes typical of Early Neolithic sites, households might have subtly communicated independence through idiosyncratic building materials and techniques (#14) or idiosyncrasies in ritual expression (#21, #27).
have changed in order to facilitate competitive hospitality, for example by creating large open rooms for commensal socialising, with a central hearth and strategically located wall paintings (Theme 18). At Çatalhöyük specifically, control over ritual and ritual items initially might also have been a status-asserting strategy after 6500 BC (Theme 19.5), but ritual status creation might not have been prevalent at other sites.
After 6500 BC, Çatalhöyük households architecturally disengaged from some of the tight suprahousehold integration of preceding centuries by decreasing investment in two of the most important architectural community-making strategies that were noted for the Early Neolithic in Chapters 6 and 8: spatial closeness of houses within the village was reduced (#36–#37); investment in ritual ties decreased (#30–#34), and it is even possible that some history houses were deliberately burned (#35) as a particularly drastic strategy of capping ritual ties. There is also slight evidence that Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic households chose increased house idiosyncrasy as a means of expressing increased autonomy: I tentatively suggested that idiosyncratic house layouts (#44) might be more characteristic of post6500 BC than of pre-6500 BC, and Düring and Marciniak (2005:175, 179, 181) postulated this for idiosyncratic house modifications (#45). The indicators coded for post6500 BC household autonomy also do not clearly show that more symmetry in the distribution of vital features was a strategy for creating more autonomy during the LN/ EC; rather, the indicators seem to capture an element of competition as each household attempted to obtain more vital features in comparison to other households: more house space (#46, #48), more storage capacities (#49), maybe more oven capacity (#51) and more outdoor space (yards, #54). At post-6500 BC Çatalhöyük, Canhasan and Köşk Höyük, there might be slight asymmetries in the distribution of these and other features between houses that indicate incipient socio-economic status differences between houses.
Socioeconomic productivity combined with a concealing/ displaying strategy that either purposely concealed or displayed the socioeconomic success of powerful households continued to be an important tactic for status assertion in villages with emerging social stratification. For this reason, early elite residences were larger (#120, #121) and had more storage (#112) and oven capacities (#113), as well as courtyard space (#114). These features also communicated their economic success visually. Other status-assertion strategies observed in Chapter 9 can also be described as part of a concealing/displaying strategy, although by the Middle and Late Chalcolithic, the balance might have shifted towards display. Elite residences visually dominated over others by being larger (#120), higher or located in a higher part of the settlement terrain (#148, #149), and possibly by being built from different materials (#122). In some MC/LC villages, settlement arrangements put elites on a social stage which placed them near communally used buildings and places, such as Güvercinkayası (#146–#147, #160); and maybe at Kuruçay 6, where an elite residence together with a shrine and storage building might have been located in the centre of the village (#150, #158, #160; although this reconstruction should be questioned, Düring 2011c:227–228). By the EBA, Bademağacı had a large central building that probably served as an elite residence as well as an administrative and storage centre (#121, #160). By placing the elite residence in a central place together with communal space, there was more opportunity for elites to display their status more or less subtly on a daily basis, for example through the elaborateness of their residence (Theme 21). But ‘hiding’, i.e. removing some elite activities and resources from communal control, might still have been an elitemaking strategy at some early stratified villages such as Güvercinkayası, where elite and non-elite residential areas were clearly separated (#146) by a wall (#147). It is possible to recognise elements of a concealing/displaying strategy in EBA elite making as well, for example when Bachhuber (2015:170–177) describes that citadel elites conspicuously consumed wealth both during large public spectacles (feasts, deposition of pottery, sacrifice of meat) and in more exclusive events inside closed quarters (metal deposition).
Indicators #46–#54 clearly show that LN/EC autonomy and competition evolved around socioeconomic productivity. Another architectural strategy observed in connection with social competition was a concealing/displaying tactic. Steadman (2000b) drew attention to the fact that inside the larger, more partitioned, more productive houses of the LN and EC, households were also able to hide some resources and activities from others (Theme 17). This might have been important in a social context where it was not (yet) feasible to openly display disparities in socioeconomic productivity, something also observed by Arbuckle (2012a:310) as characteristic of feasting at EC Köşk Höyük. But aside from ‘hiding’ wealth and power differences that might have characterised much of daily life, there are also architectural and other indications that opportunities were created for households to display their productivity during commensal events. The decorated pottery of the Early Chalcolithic (Çatalhöyük: Hodder 2014b:15–16; Köşk Höyük: Arbuckle 2012a:310) was one group of material culture used in the ‘display’ part of this competition. However, houses at Çatalhöyük might also
An interesting possible elite-making strategy that is so far only indistinctly evidenced is the coordination of a large building project by Neolithic/Chalcolithic elites. The building process itself could have functioned as a conspicuous performance of the influence elites had over human and non-human resources; after completion, the building itself continued to display the memory of the 276
Looking Forward and Back performance (as suggested by Bachhuber 2015:107–111, 128 for EBA fortification structures). At several LN/EC sites, previous researchers have tried to identify such elite control over community-building projects (Theme 20, #144–#145, especially Hacılar II–I, Kuruçay 11), but in all cases, either the identification of the buildings themselves is insecure (Chapter 5) or the reasoning leading from the building to the interpretation of elite influence is weak. For example, communally used buildings (#158–#160) might just as likely have been built through egalitarian decisionmaking. Nevertheless, the performance of Neolithic/ Chalcolithic elite influence on communal construction deserves more future research.
pastoralists might also have changed to accommodate the more animal-focused lifestyle, and it is important that all of the indicators describing this particular aspect (#175– #178) have also been connected to household autonomy and social competition; this confirms that mobility was part of the creation of autonomy and competition. Warfare is indicated by first, the preparation for warfare, and second, the destruction and abandonment that follows warfare (#196–#200). The latter, results of warfare, are often difficult to securely identify in the architectural record, as discussed in Chapters 5 and 11. Villages could have been prepared for warfare by fortifying the settlement perimeter (#181–#188) in ways that would facilitate blocking access to the settlement, which importantly also included the preparation of protected entrances (#189– #191). At Hacılar I and Kuruçay 12–6, in addition to or instead of, perimeter fortifications, individual houses or house clusters were also made less accessible through rooftop entrances and thick and sturdy walls (#193–#195).
A noteworthy point developed in Chapter 9 is that, although household autonomy is in some ways the counterpart to suprahousehold integration, social stratification and suprahousehold integration are not mutually exclusive. Rather, the emerging LN-EBA elites might have used either actual suprahousehold integration, or the architectural language of suprahousehold integration, for their purposes in ways that deserve a more complete investigation in the future. As one example, there have been several suggestions comprising chronologically diverse examples ranging from EN Aşıklı Höyük (Düring 2006:288, 309, 2014:133) to the EBA villages of Karataş and Demircihöyük (Bachhuber 2015:53, 81–82) of status differences and elite-making strategies being cloaked in the architectural language of kinship and community, using architectural forms that had in earlier millennia or centuries displayed egalitarian community integration, for example the pooling of shared ritual resources into one building (Düring 2014:133–134). This needs to be explored, first as a noteworthy elite-making strategy that should be clustered with the ‘hiding’ aspect explored above; and second, because it presents an epistemological challenge for architecture research, since it suggests that architecture might not always be the best tool to discern status differences. Also, the fact that a lot of the LN/EC social competition described previously that evolved around competitive hospitality could be seen as the repurposing of an existing social format (creating crosshousehold ties through feasting was important since the Early Neolithic, 6.2.3) for a new social reality and for the aim of asserting status, as Arbuckle (2012a) has postulated for Köşk Höyük and Güvercinkayası.
12.3. Reflections: the epistemology of architecture and social organisation Chapters 8–11 have identified weak spots in the research epistemology. Although frustrating, it is an important contribution of this book to have reviewed systematically and in detail existing interpretational biases. Here I summarise this aspect of the book by pointing out three issues in particular, also suggesting some ways to overcome interpretational biases in the future. Epistemological superficiality There is a worrying degree of unquestioned assumption in many archaeological interpretations of the social meaning of architecture. Throughout Chapters 8–11 I have repeatedly remarked that particular architectural indicators are insufficiently explored, i.e. the connection between a particular architectural form and a particular social interpretation has not sufficiently been demonstrated in previous research. Even some of the iconic features of central Anatolian Neolithic/Chalcolithic architecture, such as the clustering settlement layout (#18, #55, #141, #183), seem incompletely explored compared to the iconic status they have achieved in understanding and classifying communities. Another facet of this superficiality is that there is not enough overt discussion about the social interpretation of architecture – overt discussion meaning that one researcher directly addresses and debates the validity of a social interpretation of an architectural feature made by another researcher. This is especially the case in the household autonomy and mobility debates, less so in the social stratification and warfare debates, as pointed out in Chapters 9 and 11. Sometimes, diametrically opposite opinions are presented in the literature—for example, does clustering demonstrate household autonomy (#18) or the complete opposite, a strong level of suprahousehold integration (#55)?—without any discussion of the existence of other interpretations.
The indicators and themes that characterise mobility and warfare discussions (Chapters 10–11) are different; they refer to a less abstract level in the creation of social organisation and are more technical. They identify how the built environment was prepared to suit the needs of its users: the architecture of campsites such as Pınarbaşı B or Canhasan I Level 1 is characterised by ephemerality, i.e. not built to be lived in year-round and over decades (#163– #167). A degree of ephemerality might also characterise residences at the base settlements of partially mobile groups, for example at Çatalhöyük the average use-life of houses decreases (#173–#174) when pastoral mobility increases in the Late Neolithic. The base settlements of 277
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia Future research in central Anatolia needs more and more rigorous research towards a deeper understanding of the social use of architecture during the Neolithic/Chalcolithic which can then support more reliable archaeological interpretational frameworks. And this future research should include the participation of a greater variety of people: The existing bodies of work that have researched in detail the intricacies of mechanisms linking architecture and social organisation by exploring the social use of architecture in the study region originate from only a small circle of researchers, notably Bleda Düring and members of the Çatalhöyük team, including Ian Hodder. For some of the issues researched here, Sharon Steadman (see especially Themes 1, 17 and 21) and James Mellaart are also relevant, although many ideas from the latter should be regarded as outdated. It seems desirable that more people participate in these debates, offering a greater variety of viewpoints, using a multitude of research methods, and thereby moving archaeological knowledge forward and in different directions.
that these influences therefore should be integrated into archaeological research processes rather than treated with discomfort. In particular, there needs to be an awareness, and a more open discussion, of the fact that the research preferences of site directors and site supervisors influence how entire sites are excavated, documented and reported; in other words: how the knowledge base that all ensuing architectural (and other) research builds upon is created and shaped. Reflexive work on archaeological excavations (overviews: Edgeworth 2006a, 2012; Hodder 1999a:83– 104, 2000b; Lucas 2001a, 2001b; Yarrow 2003, 2006, 2008) has demonstrated that social reconstructions generated through excavation are so inherently shaped by the research strategy chosen by the excavators, and especially by senior team members, that re-interpretations of the data become complicated to impossible. In effect, many interpretations are established at the time of excavation (Chadwick 2003:100; Edgeworth 2012:78– 80; Gero 1996:252–253; Hodder 1999a:83–85; Yarrow 2003:65). Excavation directors in particular have a major influence on the interpretation of a site from the trowel upwards (Chadwick 2003; Gero 1996; Hodder 1997:698; Locatelli et al. 2011:330–331; Lucas 2001a:9): they choose what parts of the site to focus on during excavation and influence the documentation of the excavation. Moreover, they are also often the ones to decide what knowledge to disseminate within the research landscape: at many of the sites researched here, the excavation director is the only or main person to have published accounts of the architecture and stratigraphy.
Excavation is interpretation The content analysis has demonstrated that different researchers participate to different degrees in the discussion of various social factors or processes. For example, Mellaart, Steadman, Eslick, and Duru are more prominent in the discussions of social stratification and warfare than they are in those of household autonomy and community integration; by contrast, Ian Hodder is less prominent in the warfare debate than in the other chapters. As pointed out at several instances in Chapters 8–11, personal preferences seem to guide the interpretation of some architectural features. For example, some researchers interpret communally used buildings (#102, #103–#105, #158– #160) as signs of community integration in an egalitarian framework, and others as signs for social stratification. To a degree, differences in interpretation between researchers might simply be explained with differences in the sites they principally refer to. For example, an interesting possible relationship of mutual influence exists between the nature of the site and the research position of its excavator: excavation directors on the one hand might be drawn to sites that are likely to contain material relevant to research topics of interest to them, and on the other hand are more likely to favour certain research topics because their sites demand it. For example, it could be argued that Ian Hodder at EN Çatalhöyük was bound to write about egalitarianism and ritual elaboration (Hodder 2014b) and an absence of warfare (Hodder 1996a:46, 2006:206), and Refik Duru, whose work includes LC Kuruçay, EBA Bademağacı and EBA Hacılar Büyük Höyük, was bound to write about warfare and social stratification (Duru 2008).
Given how fundamentally these research choices influence the data that come out of an excavation, it can be very difficult in retrospect and as an outsider to critique the excavation data and its interpretation. For example, the Çatalhöyük that the Hodder team excavated was very different from the place that Mellaart excavated. Mellaart’s Çatalhöyük was socially stratified (Mellaart 1967:82, 207) and at least potentially under threat from hostile attack (Mellaart 1967:68–69). If Mellaart’s version of Çatalhöyük had never been challenged by a different research project excavating the same site with different aims and methodologies, would it have been possible to re-interpret the site as egalitarian and relatively peaceful based only on Mellaart’s data? And how different might Hacılar look if it were excavated again by someone different? With only a few test trenches at the periphery of the site, Duru (1989) was able to challenge Mellaart’s interpretations of the existence of an aceramic phase at the site (5.1.1.) and a cemetery near the site. This applies to any site and director, Mellaart was chosen here as an example because he is the only one whose sites were later re-excavated. For the same reason—excavation data being inherently shaped by the methods of excavation, recording and publication—it is difficult in retrospect to interpret sites whose excavators were hesitant to offer social interpretations, such as Erbaba and Canhasan. At Erbaba, researching social organisation was not an explicit focus of the strongly processual research project, and the excavation strategy chosen at the site was not
However, it is not only the site that influences the researcher, but also the other way around, and this issue is most prevalent with regard to excavators and excavation results. Reflexive archaeology (2.1) posits that the influence of each researcher’s personal experience and research motivation on the research product is unavoidable; and 278
Looking Forward and Back conducive to elucidating social organisation. As a result, the data from the site can contribute little to research projects about architecture and social organisation, despite sizeable exposure (5.5.2; Düring 2006:248). At Canhasan, it was French’s personal decision not to offer more detailed reconstructions of social life at the site: “I have deliberately chosen a minimalistic prose partly in order to keep close to the idiosyncrasies of the first accounts [the annual reports 1962–1968] but principally to focus on the record more than the interpretation” (French 1998:v; also Düring 2006:260; Steadman 2000a). Unfortunately, as a result the site has featured much less prominently in some discourses of prehistoric Anatolia. For instance, Redman (1978:182–188), although outspokenly not a fan of Mellaart’s excavation and research style (Redman 1972), based his discussion of Neolithic Turkey mainly on Hacılar and Çatalhöyük, mentioning Canhasan only in one sentence. Different from Erbaba, however, French’s much more extensive publications on Canhasan have allowed others, such as Düring (2006), to create social interpretation of the architecture.
The Çatalhöyük dilemma The site of Çatalhöyük East presents a dilemma for central Anatolian prehistoric research. The content analysis in this book has clearly demonstrated the overpowering interpretative dominance of this site for research into social organisation and probably for Neolithic research in central Anatolia more generally. Of the 200 indicators researched here, a worrying 77 indicators (38.5%) were only observed at Çatalhöyük (counting Çatalhöyük East and West as one site). A further 20 indicators (10%) refer to Çatalhöyük plus only one other site. Also, for many indicators and themes, even if particular indicators were named not foremost in connection with Çatalhöyük, Çatalhöyük provided most of the evidence that was available and that I drew upon to contextualise and evaluate indicators in Chapters 8–11. The dominance of Çatalhöyük is particularly pronounced in Chapters 8–9 which discuss household autonomy, suprahousehold integration and social competition and stratification – not so much in Chapters 10–11 about mobility and warfare. The reason for both—for the dominance of Çatalhöyük in the coding lists (Appendices 1–5) and its dominance in the evaluation through Chapters 8–9, and to a lesser degree Chapters 10–11—is that the site has provided more, as well as newer or more rigorously researched insights into architecture and its social meaning than other sites and also a greater variety of evidence derived from small-scale techniques such as geoarchaeology, micromorphology or the systematic light and heavy residue analyses of soil samples. Prominent examples, the understanding of which has been significantly enhanced by such methods, include the identification of food storage capacities (e.g. Themes 1, 13 and 19.3), research into the social meaning of variation or uniformity in building materials and techniques (Themes 2, 12), and the use of outdoor spaces (Theme 15). Reasons why many of the possible in-depth studies of different architectural features have so far only been conducted at Çatalhöyük are both the good preservation of the site, but even more so the decisions made by other teams to not include them.
On a larger scale, personal influence of site directors and other senior personnel on excavation results might have impacted the existing impression of entire regions. As pointed out in 4.6, the three regions researched here have been associated with different sets of excavators, with the Lake District for example being predominated by Refik Duru and Gülsün Umurtak and the Konya plain by British teams. As a result, it becomes difficult to decide whether seeming differences between the Konya plain, Cappadocia, and the Lake District concerning social organisation were a prehistoric reality or the product of archaeological research practices. For example, ritual house elaboration appears particularly important to the formation of social groupings in the Konya plain (see especially Theme 14), but the Lake District shows more signs of warfare (Chapter 11). These could be real patterns, or a result of the fact that different researchers dominate in the two regions. I suggest that precisely because of the unavoidable influence of the site director and excavation team on both the final perception of the site and the very data that is collected and published, there must be more debate about fieldwork techniques and more sharing of primary excavation data. This could begin with excavators including more descriptions and discussions of excavation and recording methodology in their publications, something that has been done systematically only by French (1998:8–18, 2005:1–10) and the Çatalhöyük Research Project (Farid 2000; Farid and Hodder 2014). Further, a regular open access publication of excavation recordings (context sheets, notebooks, photos, drawings, sketches, sample lists etc.) seems desirable. The Turkish system of publishing yearly season reports is already an invaluable source of information (Matthews 2011:38); but the sheer amount of raw data produced by modern excavations can probably best be published digitally either after the end of an excavation project or as part of the ongoing project.
35 of the 81 authors (43%) that have commented on architecture and social organisation as documented in my content analysis also worked in Çatalhöyük excavation teams during some point of their career: James Mellaart, David French, Refik Duru, Ian Todd and Jak Yakar worked at the site in the 1960s. Another 3020 of the authors documented in Appendices 1–5 have worked at the renewed excavations since 1993. This included Mihriban Özbaşaran, Güneş Duru, Douglas Baird and Andrew Fairbairn who have since led other excavation projects in central Anatolia at Aşıklı Höyük, Pınarbaşı, and Boncuklu Höyük. Further, the content analysis clearly shows the prevalence of Bleda Düring and Ian Hodder in the Asouti, Baird, Brami, Cessford, Czerniak, Der, Düring, G. Duru, Erdoǧu, Farid, Haddow, Hodder, Issavi, Kay, Last, Love, Marciniak, Matthews, Mazzucato, Nakamura, Near, Özbaşaran, Rosenstock, Russell, Ryan, Shillito, Stevanović, Tung, Twiss, Wright. For publication with more than two authors, I only counted the first. 20
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Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia discourse, who have both worked at Çatalhöyük, Düring for three seasons (Düring 2006:xiii) and Hodder for a quarter of a century. In sum, the Çatalhöyük discussion overwhelms the research field proportionally, as outlined above, and many researchers who comment on social organisation in central Anatolia were influenced by their experience working at the site. Çatalhöyük East presents a dilemma because it is at the same time a benefit for central Anatolian prehistoric archaeology and a methodological problem for comparative studies. It offers otherwise elusive insights into details of prehistoric Anatolian lives, specifically into details of the relationship between people and their built environment, but the degree to which these insights can be used to also understand other sites remains unclear. As long as there is no comparable data from other sites it is impossible to discern, for example, whether the social use of mudbrick building observed at Çatalhöyük (Love 2013a, 2013c; Tung 2013) or that of unroofed areas (Martin and Russell 2000; Shillito and Matthews 2013; Shillito et al. 2011; Shillito and Ryan 2013) was similar at other sites in central Anatolia where less data is available. To overcome the Çatalhöyük dilemma, more detailed, in-depth specialist research into different aspects of the built environment is also needed at other sites. Epilogue This book has provided an analysis of the academic discourse around the social interpretation of architecture in Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic central Anatolia. It has documented gaps in the archaeological knowledge base, and inconsistencies in archaeology’s knowledgemaking strategies. It has offered recommendations for overcoming these in future research. The sites researched for this book are archives of a fascinating episode in human history; it is a privilege to study them and I hope this research will contribute towards their improved understanding in the future.
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Appendix 1 Results of Content Analysis: Architectural Indicators of Household Autonomy Text passages in [brackets] are hypothetical statements. No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Theme 1: The complete house #1
house contains all autonomynecessary features to complete house make the household socially and economically self-sufficient
Schachner 1999:51; Steadman 2004:531, 544, 545, 547; Düring and Marciniak 2005:177, 179, 183; Cutting 2005b:136, 136, 137, 140; Hodder 2005g:15; Düring 2006:91, 101, 170, 173, 213, 214, 231, 245, 296, 302, 302, 312, 316; Düring 2007b:165, 171; Düring 2011c:64, 67, 68, 71, 98, 98, 117, 224; Stevanović 2012a:77-78, 79
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük, Bademağacı, Kuruçay 12, LC Beycesultan
#2
all or most contemporary houses inside the village are similar, and all are complete
autonomysymmetric completeness
Hodder 2005b:14; Düring 2006:122, 256; Düring 2007b:163, 176; Düring 2011c:97, 98; Düring 2013a:29; Furholt 2017:300, 379, 423; Mazzucato 2019:4
Boncuklu Höyük, Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Çatalhöyük East, Erbaba, Hacılar VI
#3
houses have sufficient space for a household
autonomyenough house
Düring and Marciniak 2005:177; Cutting 2005b:130, 136; Cutting 2006b:96; Düring 2006:92, 95, 111, 122, 128, 167, 167, 168, 176, 256, 277, 295, 296; Düring 2011c:64
Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar, Bademağacı, Erbaba
#4
houses are only large autonomy-small Düring 2007b:163; Düring 2011c:97; enough to house a nuclear house Garfinkel 2019:81 household
Çatalhöyük East, Erbaba
#5
all or most contemporary houses inside the village are similar in size
autonomysymmetric house sizes
Düring 2006:122; Düring 2007b:163, 176; Düring 2011c:97; Düring 2013a:29
Çatalhöyük East, Erbaba
#6
all or most contemporary houses have their own installations related to daily food economy
autonomy-own food features
Kay 2020:454, 462
Çatalhöyük East
#7
all or most contemporary houses have cooking facilities such as a hearth and/or oven located inside the building or in privately owned outside areas
autonomy-own hearth
Schachner 1999:60; Steadman 2004:533, 544, 546; Düring and Marciniak 2005:173, 176; Cutting 2005b:127, 136; Hodder 2005b:14; Hodder 2005g:15; Cutting 2006b:96; Düring 2006:92, 92, 95, 172, 176, 211, 212, 269, 296, 296, 312, 316; Hodder 2006:94, 180; Düring 2011c:64, 97, 112; Düring 2013a:29, 35; Hodder 2014d:156; Furholt 2017:403, 424, 473; Kuijt 2018:574; Fuchs-Khakar 2019:1, 14
Aşıklı Höyük, Bademağacı ENII4-3, Çatalhöyük East, LC Kuruçay 6
#8
all or most contemporary houses have storage facilities located inside the building or in privately owned outside areas
autonomy-own storage
Mellaart 1967:62-63; Becks and Jakob Çatalhöyük East, 1996:61; Schachner 1999:60; Steadman Kuruçay 6 2004:544; Cutting 2005b:127, 136; Düring 2006:212, 296; Düring 2013b:29; Düring and Marciniak 2005:177; Hodder 2005b:14; Hodder 2005g:15; Hodder 2006:57, 94, 180, 219, 226; Yakar 2011b:171; Hodder 2014c:17; Hodder and Farid 2014:27; Furholt 2017:403, 473; Kujit 2018:568; [Kay 2020:456]
317
Discounted
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No. #9
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
all contemporary houses autonomy-right Hodder 2006:57; Hodder 2013a:17-18; have storage facilities that storage Hodder 2013b:23; Hodder 2014d:151, 155 are only large enough to feed one household unit
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Çatalhöyük East
#10 food is stored in siderooms rather than in the main room
autonomysideroom storage
Twiss et al. 2008:54; Hodder 2014c:17; Kay 2020:455
Çatalhöyük East
#11 benches inside the house
autonomybench
Cutting 2005b:136; Cutting 2006b:96
Çatalhöyük East
x
#12 existence of platforms
autonomyplatforms
Cutting 2005b:136; Cutting 2006b:96; Düring Çatalhöyük East 2006:167, 172, 176, 211, 212, 212, 269, 296, 312; Düring 2011c:97; Düring 2013b:29, 35; Furholt 2017:424
x
#13 house has a socialising autonomy-good Düring 2006:165, 166, 176, 268; Hodder area marked by high 2006:129; Hodder 2007b:32 plaster quality and quantity of wall plaster (plaster of good quality, and repeated replastering)
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük
Theme 2: Constructing individualities #14 differences in construction materials between contemporary houses, such as different brick recipes or sizes
autonomydifferent materials
Matthews 2005b:396; Hodder 2005b:14; Çatalhöyük East Hodder 2005g:15, 29; Hodder 2006:94, 226, 231; Pels 2010:241-242; Stevanović 2012a:190, 200; Love 2012:152, 153; Love 2013a:89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96; Love 2013b:755; Love 2013c:269, 270, 274; Hodder 2013a:17; Hodder 2013b:25; Hodder 2014b:6; Hodder 2014d:155, 156; Hodder and Farid 2014:18, 27
#15 individualised types of fire installations: different buildings show a preference for oven over hearth or for a combination of oven and hearth
autonomydifferent fire installations
Fuchs-Khakar 2019:12, 12, 14, 14
Çatalhöyük East
#16 designs of hearths or ovens vary between buildings in term of size, shape, and details of construction
autonomydifferent fire details
Fuchs-Khakar 2019:3, 3, 7, 7, 14
Çatalhöyük East
#17 contemporary and neighbouring buildings/ houses do not share walls
autonomy-own walls
Heinrich and Seidl 1969:118-119; Hodder 1996a:48; Steadman 2000b:188; Hodder 2005g:15, 29; Hodder 2006:57, 94, 106, 219; Düring 2006:162, 245; Düring 2007b:163; Stevanović 2012c:77; Love 2013c:274; Hodder 2013a:17; Hodder 2014d:155, 156; Furholt 2017:300, 473
Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan I
#18 clustered settlement layout
autonomyclustering
Rosenstock 2009:217; Garfinkel 2019:95
Çatalhöyük East
318
x
Appendix 1 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Theme 3: Symbols of the household #19 ritual elaboration (with autonomymoulded features, inhouse artefacts, paintings) of the symbols house interior
Hodder 1987:49; Hodder 1996a:47, 48; Last 1998:369, 371, 372, 372, 375, 375, 376; Hodder 1999:163; Asouti 2005:81, 86; Last 2005:201, 205, 208; Hodder 2005c:11, 13; Hodder 2005f:184, 185, 186, 195; Hodder 2005g:23; Hodder 2005h:131, 133, 136; Hodder 2006:58, 135, 164, 169-170, 170, 184, 249, 255-256; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:89; Baird 2012a:453; Özbaşaran et al. 2014:625, 632; Haddow et al. 2015:19; Baird et al. 2017:761, 762, 766-767; Bernadini and Schachner 2018:657; Kay 2020:456
Çatalhöyük East, Boncuklu Höyük Bademağacı, Canhasan I, Höyücek
x
#20 lack of a communal ritual autonomy-no building ritual building
Asouti 2005a:81; Hodder 2005f:186; Hodder 2005g:23; Hodder 2005h:131, 133; Düring 2006:310; Hodder 2006:58
Çatalhöyük East
x
#21 symbolic images located autonomyin different buildings show idiosyncratic different motives or styles symbols
Hodder 1996a:47; Hodder 2006:143; Baird et al. 2017:761, 762
Çatalhöyük East, Boncuklu Höyük
#22 ritual items occurring in (nearly) every house, like wall paintings
autonomysymmetric symbols
Düring 2006:217; Düring 2007a:136
Çatalhöyük East
#23 sub-floor burials
Mellaart 1962b:52; Hodder 1996a:47; Asouti autonomysubfloor burials 2005a:84, 86; Hodder 2005f:195; Hodder 2005g:23; Hodder 2005h:131, 133, 136-137; Hodder 2006:58, 61, 106, 164, 165, 231, 249, 249; Hodder 2007b:32; Düring 2011c:67; Baird 2012a:460; Özbaşaran et al. 2014:625, 632, 642; Haddow et al. 2015:19, 20, 23, 24; Bachhuber 2015:94; Duru 2018:170; Garfinkel 2019:88, 95
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük, Köşk Höyük
x
#24 burial chambers
Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:174 autonomyburial chamber
Çatalhöyük East
x
Theme 4: Leaving and continuing the house #25 abandonment/ closure and autonomyfoundation rituals abandonment ritual
Hodder and Cessford 2004:32-33; Hodder 2005c:12, 14; Hodder 2005f:186-187, 188, 195; Hodder 2005h:134, 136; Last 2005:201; Russell et al. 2009:108, 120, 121; Baird 2012a:453; Russell et al. 2014:120
Çatalhöyük East
x
#26 intentional burning of the house upon abandonment
Hodder 2005c:12; Hodder 2005h:134; Baird 2012a:453; Haddow et al. 2015:24
Çatalhöyük East
x
#27 idiosyncratic autonomyabandonment/ closure and idiosyncratic foundation rituals that abandonment vary from house to house
Hodder 2005f:191; Hodder 2013a:16, 17; Hodder 2014c:17, 18; Russell et al. 2014:119, 120
Çatalhöyük East
#28 constructing house walls upon the walls of an abandoned older house and/or replicating the placement of features in the successive house
Hodder 1996a:47; Hodder 1999b:162; Baird 2005:71; Cutting 2005b:127; Hodder 2005c:14; Hodder 2005f:184, 187, 188, 194, 195; Hodder 2005h:136-137; Hodder 2006:129, 165, 204, 226-227, 249; Hodder 2007b:32; Twiss et al. 2008:42; Rosenstock 2009:221; Sagona and Zimanksy 2009:88; Baird et al. 2011:391; Baird 2012a:453; Hodder 2013a:16, 17; Hodder 2013b:25; Hodder 2014d:155; Haddow et al. 2015:19; Baird et al. 2017:762, 764, 766, 765; Duru 2018:170
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük
autonomyhouseburning
autonomybuilding continuity
319
x
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
#29 removal of features from autonomyhouses after abandonment feature retrieval by digging down from upper house
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Hodder 1999b:162; Hodder and Cessford Çatalhöyük East 2004:33; Hodder 2005f:184, 186, 191; Hodder 2006:146, 149; Baird 2012a:453; Hodder 2013a:16
Discounted x
Theme 5: Ritually breaking with the past #30 decreasing/ abandonment autonomyof ritual house elaboration elaboration abandoned
Hodder 2005c:12, 12; Hodder 2005f:190, 195; Hodder 2005h:138; Hodder and Pels 2010:184; Hodder 2013a:23; Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014d:167; Hodder 2014f:182; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:173
Çatalhöyük East, Çatalhöyük West
#31 decreasing/ abandonment of subfloor burials
Hodder 2005c:12; Hodder 2006:58, 254; autonomysubfloor burials Hodder 2013a:21; Hodder 2013b:21; Hodder 2014c:19; Hodder 2014f:179; Marciniak abandoned 2015a:91; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:173
Çatalhöyük East, Çatalhöyük West
#32 decreasing/ abandonment of sharing burial location between several households
autonomyasymmetric burials abandoned
Düring 2006:229, 313; Düring 2011c:132; Düring 2013c:88
#33 decreasing/ abandonment of building continuity
autonomybuilding continuity abandoned
Düring and Marciniak 2005:180; Düring Çatalhöyük East 2006:234, 298, 313; Hodder 2006:254; Düring 2007b:176; Düring 2011c:132; Düring 2013c:88, Hodder 2014b:15, 17; Hodder 2014c:19; Hodder 2016:3
#34 decreasing durations of house use lives
autonomy-short Hodder 2005f:190; Hodder and Pels 2010:184; Marciniak 2015a:96, 96 house
Çatalhöyük East
#35 an increase in the intentional burning of buildings upon abandonment
autonomy-more Pels 2010:246; Hodder 2014b:17; Hodder house burning 2014c:19
Çatalhöyük East
Çatalhöyük East
Theme 6: Giving each other space #36 clustered settlement layout is abandoned
autonomyclustering abandoned
Düring 2002:227; Düring and Marciniak 2005:180, 183; Hodder 2005b:19; Hodder 2006:254; Düring 2006:234, 247; Düring 2011c:132; Hodder 2013a:21; Hodder 2013b:26; Bogaard et al. 2014:123; Buchli 2014:288; Hodder 2014d:167; Hodder 2014f:183; Marciniak 2015a:91; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163
Çatalhöyük East
#37 abandonment of clustered autonomyGérard 2002a:107; Düring and Marciniak Çatalhöyük East neighbourhoods neighbourhoods 2005:181; Düring 2006:247, 298, 314; Düring 2007b:176, 177; Düring 2011c:132, 135-136, abandoned 155-156, 199; Düring 2013c:88; Hodder 2013a:24; Buchli 2014:288; Hodder 2014c:6; Hodder 2014d:150 #38 houses are separated by unroofed spaces
autonomynonclustered
Steadman 2000b:190, 190; Düring and Marciniak 2005:178; Schoop 2005b:48; Bıcakçı et al. 2012:91
320
Tepecik Level 3, Kuruçay 7, Hacılar II, Bademağacı ENII3
x
Appendix 1 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Theme 7: Building independently #39 mudbricks used for house autonomybuilding become smaller smaller bricks
Hodder 2006:252-253
Çatalhöyük East
x
#40 change from from wetautonomylaid, in situ bricklaying to mould bricks mold-made bricks
Pels 2010:241
Çatalhöyük East
x
#41 preference for juniper use autonomyin house building juniper
Hodder 2013a:25; Hodder 2013b:28; Hodder 2014f:175
Çatalhöyük East
x
#42 use of local, lesser quality autonomy-local Marciniak 2015b:94; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. timber over wood from 2015:163 wood further away
Çatalhöyük East
x
#43 smaller amounts of (large, autonomy-less fresh) timber used for wood house construction
Marciniak 2015b:94; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163
Çatalhöyük East
x
#44 individual differences between residences in the way they are sized, furnished or decorated
autonomyidiosyncratic layout
Hodder 2005g:29; Hodder 2006:232; Çatalhöyük East Stevanović 2012c:67; Hodder 2013b:25; Hodder 2014d:156; Hodder and Farid 2014:27
#45 frequent modifications to houses
autonomymodifications
Asouti 2005a:87; [Düring 2005:21]; [Düring and Marciniak 2005:179]; [Düring 2006:97, 112, 228, 298, 313]; [Düring 2009:31]; Düring 2011a:156; Matthews 2012:215; Stevanović 2012c:67; Bikoulis 2013:47
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Tepecik, Köşk Höyük
Theme 8: More productive space #46 increasing average house size
autonomylarger house
Cutting 2005b:137; Hodder 2005c:12, 12; Düring 2006:314, 314, 317; Hodder 2006:58, 256; Hodder 2013a:21, 22, 25; Hodder 2013b:20, 21, 28; Bogaard et al. 2014:146; Hodder 2014b:10, 11, 12; Hodder 2014c:19; Hodder 2014d:167; Hodder 2014f:175; Hodder and Farid 2014:34; Marciniak 2015b:91; Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:2
Çatalhöyük East, Erbaba, Canhasan I
#47 decreasing average house size
autonomysmaller house
Marciniak 2015a:96; Marciniak, Asouti, et al. 2015:163
Çatalhöyük East
#48 presence of several side autonomy-multi Hodder 2005b:19; Hodder 2005c:12; Hodder Çatalhöyük East, rooms within the building rooms 2006:58; Hodder 2013a:25; Hodder 2014b:10, Çatalhöyük West 12; Hodder 2014c:19; Hodder 2014f:175, 182; Marciniak 2015a:91 #49 size increase of household-specific (e.g. located inside house) storage facilities in most houses
autonomy-large Hodder 2013a:25; Hodder and Farid 2014:34; Hodder 2014b:10; Hodder 2014f:182 storage
#50 abandonment of autonomystandardised building standard house layouts including size and abandoned furnishing
Düring 2006:313; Düring 2011c:132, 136; Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014c:19
321
Çatalhöyük East
Çatalhöyük East
x
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
#51 size increase of ovens in most houses
autonomy-large Hodder 2005b:19; Hodder 2006:214 oven
Çatalhöyük East
x
#52 increase in the number of cooking installations
autonomy-more [Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:14] fire installations
Çatalhöyük East
x
#53 trend towards rectangular over round hearths
autonomyrectangular hearth
Çatalhöyük East
x
#54 increasing use of outdoor spaces around the house for production activities
autonomy-yards Schoop 2005b:49; Hodder 2013b:24, 28; Bogaard et al. 2014:123, 146, 147, 147; Hodder 2014b:12; Hodder 2014c:19; FuchsKhakhar 2019:2
Fuchs-Khakhar 2019:2, [14]
322
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II, Bademağacı ENII3
Appendix 2 Results of Content Analysis: Architectural Indicators of Suprahousehold Integration Text passages in [brackets] are hypothetical statements. No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on Discounted evidence from
Theme 9: Living close together #55
clustering of buildings with minimal unroofed space within the settlement
communityclustering
Bittel 1973:14; Hodder 1996a:48; French 1998:68, 68; Acar 2001:20-21; Düring 2001:2; Düring 2002:226; Steadman 2004:527, 546, 548; Cutting 2005b:29, 135; Düring 2005:21; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175, 178; Hodder 2005h:137; Hodder 2005g:15, 15, 16, 29; Matthews 2005a:134; Schoop 2005b:48, 54; Düring 2006:2, 92, 112, 122; Hodder 2006:95, 100, 104, 107; Hodder 2007b:26; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:118; Düring 2011c:69-70, 117; Hodder 2012:309; Stevanović 2012a:174, 201, 203; Hodder 2013a:20; Love 2013c:276; Stevanović 2013:100, 110, 112; Rosenstock 2014:239; Hodder 2014b:11; Hodder 2014c:18; Hodder 2014d:155, 162; Hodder 2014f:175; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Furholt 2017:291; Matthews 2018:75; Kay 2020:454
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Canhasan I
#56
clustered settlements including many twostoried buildings
communitysecond storey
Düring 2006:281
Canhasan I
Theme 10: A paradox of division and cohesion #57
division of settlement into spatially/visually separated (by walls or open spaces) house groups
communityneighbourhoods
Redman 1978:208; Schachner 1999:62; Düring 2001:16; Gérard 2002a:107; Steadman 2004:527; Cutting 2005b:129; Düring and Marciniak 2005:181, 183, 183; Hodder 2005h:127; Matthews 2005a:129; Düring 2006:93, 111, 112, 112, 128, 231, 246, 247, 280, 301-303, 312, 312, 313, 314; Hodder 2006:58, 101, 107; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:188; Düring 2007b:169, 170, 173, 175-176, 177; Marciniak 2008:104; Yakar 2011b:140, 174; Düring 2011a:71; Düring 2011b:803; Düring 2011c:69-70, 117, 120, 129, 155, 164, 171, 228, 283; Stevanović 2012c:79-80; Bikoulis 2013:47; Düring 2013a:33, 34, 36, 38; Love 2013a:92; Hodder 2013a:2, 16; Shillito and Ryan 2013:685; Hodder 2014b:8; Hodder 2014d:153, 162, 162-163; Hodder 2014f:182; Hodder and Farid 2014:29, 33; Mills 2014:164; Hodder 2016:2; Furholt 2017:336, 336-337, 403, 474; Clare and Weninger 2018:43; Kuijt 2018:565, 568, 570, 571, 572, 574, 574, 584; Duru 2019a:177; Mazzucato 2019:4, 17, 19; Kay 2020:454, 456; Hodder 2021a:25-26
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan III, Canhasan I, Erbaba, Hacılar, Bademağacı, Kuruçay
#58
two or a few houses cluster around a circumscribed unroofed space
communitycourtyard clusters
Schachner 1999:60, 60, 163; Steadman 2004:531, 533, 534, 536, 541
Bademağacı ENII4-3, Hacılar, Canhasan I Level 5, Kuruçay 12, LC Kuruçay 6
323
x
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
#59
lines of parallel houses facing one another across open space
Nickname communityhouse rows
Stated by Schoop 2005b:49
Based on Discounted evidence from Hacılar II, Bademağacı EN II
Theme 11: Building and destroying together #60
houses are built on the same foundation raft
communityshared foundation
Hodder 2007b:27; Stevanović 2012c:79; Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:29
Çatalhöyük East
#61
neighbouring houses share walls
communityshared walls
Schachner 1999:112; Cutting 2005b:99, 103, 130, 132, 132, 135; Hodder 2005g:15; Matthews 2005a:133; Hodder 2006:86, 92; Farid 2007:53; Hodder 2007b:27; Stevanović 2012c:79, 79; Hodder 2013b:25; Hodder 2014b:6-7; Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:29; Brami 2017:56, 114; Matthews 2018:75
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar, LC Beycesultan
#62
neighbouring houses were constructed at the same time
community-built contemporary
Cutting 2005b:82; Stevanović 2012c:78
Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan I
#63
effort involved in house construction or dismantling necessitated suprahousehold cooperation
community-time and effort
Cutting 2005b:82, 130, 130, 132, 132; Stevanović 2012a:202; Hodder and Farid 2014:18; Russell et al. 2014:119
Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan I, Hacılar VI, Hacılar II
x
#64
use of heavy building materials, such as clay
communityheavy house
Stevanović 2012a:201; Stevanović 2013:112; Hodder 2013b:16
Çatalhöyük East
x
#65
use of many and very community-large Stevanović 2012a:202; Stevanović 2013:112 large pieces of wood in wood house construction
Çatalhöyük East
x
#66
internal plastering
Stevanović 2012a:202
Çatalhöyük East
x
#67
houses are destroyed at communitythe same time destroyed contemporary
Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:29
Çatalhöyük East
x
#68
the concerted destruction by fire of entire blocks of houses or entire sites
Brami 2017:106, 114
LN Çatalhöyük East, Höyücek, Kuruçay, Bademağacı, Hacılar
x
communityplaster
communitycollective burning
Theme 12: Constructing similarities #69
contemporary buildings have very similar layouts including internal installations
communitystandard house
French 1998:68; Hodder and Cessford 2004:32; Cutting 2005b:95, 127, 130, 135; Hodder 2005c:11; Hodder 2005f:184, 191; Hodder 2005g:29; Hodder 2005h:132; Matthews 2005b:396; Düring 2006:245; Hodder 2006:56, 100, 135, 144, 232; Hodder 2007b:36-37; Stevanović 2012c:67, 67; Baird et al. 2017:758; Matthews 2018:85; Duru 2019a:177
Çatalhöyük East, Bademağacı, Hacılar VI, Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan I, Boncuklu Höyük
#70
similarities in construction techniques between different houses
communitysimilar construction
Cutting 2005b:95, 130; Tung 2013:80
Çatalhöyük East, Bademağacı, Hacılar
324
Appendix 2 Nickname
Stated by
Based on Discounted evidence from
No.
Indicator
#71
similarities in building materials between different buildings
#72
wall(s) within one communityresidence are built with patchwork wall different bricks and mortar types
Hodder and Farid 2014:18
Çatalhöyük East
#73
neighbouring or successive buildings share distinctive and idiosyncratic characteristic regarding layout, building materials, installation details, ritual elaboration or abandonment
Hodder 2013a:16; Hodder 2013b:25; Love 2013c:270; Tung 2013:67; Hodder 2014b:6; Hodder 2014d:156, 162; Hodder 2014f:181; Hodder and Farid 2014:27, 33; Mazzucato 2019:12-17, 17-19, 20, 21
Çatalhöyük East
Hodder 2013a:23; Love 2013a:90, [93]; Tung communitysimilar materials 2013:67, 78, 79; Stevanović 2013:112; Hodder and Farid 2014:18, 33
communityshared idiosyncrasies
Çatalhöyük East
x
Theme 13: Sharing social and economic space #74
more than one ‘complete house’ present in a building
communitycombihouse
Cutting 2005b:130; Düring and Marciniak 2005:179, 183; Düring 2006:214, 245, 297; Düring 2007b:164; Düring 2011c:98
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II
#75
doors/crawlholes connecting houses
communityconnecting doors
Düring and Marciniak 2005:180; Hodder 2005g:15; Düring 2006:214, 245; Hodder 2006:92; Hodder 2007b:27; Düring 2007b:164; Düring 2011c:98; Stevanović 2012c:79, 80; Hodder 2013b:25; Hodder 2014b:8; Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder 2021a:26
Çatalhöyük East
#76
shared retaining wall protecting two houses from adjacent midden
communityshared retaining wall
Hodder 2014b:6-7; Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:29; Issavi et al. 2020:115
Çatalhöyük East
#77
wattle-and-daub walls of a few buildings inside a house cluster
communitywattle
Düring 2011c:164
Hacılar
#78
some houses inside a village do not have the full set of features required to make a complete house
communityincomplete house
Steadman 2004:531, 537, 539, 546, 547
Aşıklı Höyük, Kuruçay Level 12, Canhasan I, Erbaba
#79
buildings are too small to serve as the residence of a household
communitysmall house
Steadman 2004:536-537; Düring and Marciniak 2005:173; Düring 2006:111, 167, 256, 296; Düring 2011c:64
Aşıklı Höyük, Erbaba
#80
houses are too large for community-too a nuclear household large house
Düring 2011b:800; Düring 2011c:246; Bikoulis 2013:45
Canhasan I Level 1, Kuruçay
#81
lack of cooking facilities in some houses
communityhearthless house
Schachner 1999:46; Steadman 2004:546; Cutting 2005b:103; Düring and Marciniak 2005:174; Düring 2006:92, 111, 296; Düring 2011c:64; Bikoulis 2013:47; Hodder 2013a:2; Hodder 2013b:2, 25; Hodder 2014c:17; Hodder 2014d:162; Hodder and Farid 2014:4, 29, 33; Kay 2020:462
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar I
#82
more than one hearth present in a residence
community-too much hearth
Furholt 2017:393
Hacılar I
325
x
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
#83
no house in the village has storage facilities two or more households share storage facilities lack of storage facilities in some houses limited storage facilities within each house - presumably not enough to support the household (some) houses have more storage and food processing installations than needed for just one household
community-no inhouse storage communityshared storage
Hodder 2013a:6; Hodder 2014c:6; Hodder and Farid 2014:9 Cutting 2005b:95; Düring 2006:214
communitystorageless house communitysmall storage
Stevanović 2012c:79; Hodder and Farid 2014:29; Kay 2020:462 Hodder and Pels 2010:178; Hodder 2014b:11; Hodder 2014d:151, 153; Hodder 2014f:174, 175, 182; Mills 2014:167; Furholt 2017:188, 188-189, 194
#84 #85 #86
#87
#88 #89
Stated by
community-large [Hodder 2006:57]; Cessford 2007:541 storage
Theme 14: Symbols of community ritual elaboration of communitybuilding interiors ritual elaboration lack of ritual community-no elaboration of the symbolism individual building
#90
symbolism shared between different (contemporary and non-contemporary) buildings, e.g. use of similar motifs for wall paintings
#91
asymmetric synchronic communitydistribution of subasymmetric floor burials between burials buildings, whereby some buildings have a lot of burials and others few or none
communityshared symbolism
Based on Discounted evidence from Aşıklı Höyük Çatalhöyük East, Bademağacı Çatalhöyük East Çatalhöyük East
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar
Redman 1978:186; Hodder 2005c:9, 11, 11; Schoop 2005b:48; Hodder 2006:57, 162; Özbaşaran 2011:114 Hodder 1987:54-55; Hodder 2005b:13; Hodder 2006:58, 167-168, 177
Çatalhöyük East
x
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük West, Hacılar
x
Forest 1993:15; Hodder 2006:56; Hodder 2013a:25; Hodder 2014b:8, 17, Figure 6; Hodder 2014d:151, 153, 160, 161, 167, Figure 10.1; Hodder 2014f:174, 182; Baird et al. 2017:761, 770; Chantre 2019:174; Mazzucato 2019:21; Hodder 2021a:27
Çatalhöyük East, Boncuklu Höyük
Last 1998:375; Hodder 1999b:161; Düring 2001:11; Düring 2003:10, 10, 12, 13; Düring 2005:21; Baird 2005:71; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175, 178, 181, 183; Hodder 2005b:19; Hodder 2005f:184, 189; Hodder 2005g:15, 29; Hodder 2005h:127, 135-136, 136, 136; Matthews 2005a:141, 148; Matthews 2005b:395; Düring 2006:201, 207, 210-211, 226, 231, 246, 247, 297, 299-300, 313, 317; Hodder 2006:92, 161, 162; Cessford 2007:541, 542; Düring 2007a:148; Düring 2007b:168, 177; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:118; Marciniak 2008:96; Düring 2008b:603, 607, 610, 612, 613; Düring 2009:34; Russell et al. 2009:121; Hodder and Pels 2010:178; Düring 2011c:110-111, 112, 115-116; Özbaşaran 2011:114; Yakar 2011b:139-140, 174, 175; Baird 2012a:455-456; Hodder 2012:304, 309; Bikoulis 2013:47; Düring 2013a:32-33; Hodder 2013a:2, 25; Hodder 2013b:2, 24 Düring 2014:131; Hodder 2014b:8-9; Hodder 2014c:3, 20; Hodder 2014d:151, 153, 156, 160, 161162, 162, 163; Hodder 2014f:174, 181, 182; Hodder and Farid 2014:4, 29, 33; Whitehouse and Hodder 2014:135; Marciniak 2015a:90; Hodder 2016:2, 2; Baird et al. 2017:755; Brami 2017:62, 103; Kujit 2018:570, 571, 574, 574-575, 584; Mazzucato 2019:4; Kinzel et al. 2020:14; Hodder 2021a:25
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East
326
Appendix 2 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on Discounted evidence from
#92
asymmetric synchronic communitydistribution of ritual asymmetric elaboration between elaboration houses, whereby some buildings are particular intensely rituallly elaborated
Heinrich and Seidl 1969:118; Last 1998:371372; Düring 2001:10, 11; Gérard 2002a:107; Hodder and Cessford 2004:36; Düring 2005:2122, 23, 24; Hodder 2005f:184, 189; Hodder 2005h:136, 136; Düring 2006:201, 226, 235, 297, 299-300, 317; Hodder 2006:161-162; Düring 2007a:146; Hodder and Pels 2010:178; Düring 2011c:107, 115-116; Özbaşaran 2011:114; Yakar 2011b:139-140; Baird 2012a:455-456; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Marciniak 2015a:90, 96; Mills 2014:161; Wright 2014:2; Kujit 2018:570, 571, 574, 584; Mazzucato 2019:4, 4; Kay 2020:454; Hodder 2021a:25
Çatalhöyük East
#93
building continuity
communitybuilding continuity
Heinrich and Seidl 1969:118; Cutting 2005b:131, 131, 135; Düring 2005:5, 21, 24; Düring and Marciniak 2005:175, 179, 181, 181; Hodder 2005f:191; Cutting 2006b:97; Düring 2006:92-93, 97, 228, 235, 246, 246, 247, 298-299, 312, 313, 316, 317; Marciniak and Czerniak 2007:118; Düring 2007a:148; Düring 2007b:169; Düring 2009:31-32, 35; Hodder and Pels 2010:178; Düring 2011c:115116, 129, 132; Hodder 2012:309; Bikoulis 2013:47; Düring 2013a:31; Düring 2014:132; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Marciniak, Barański, et al. 2015:173; Baird et al. 2017:755; Brami 2017:103; Furholt 2017:335; Kujit 2018:584; Mazzucato 2019:19, 21; Hodder 2021a:25
Çatalhöyük East, Aşıklı Höyük
#94
history houses
communityhistory house
Düring 2005:21-22; Düring 2006:225, 226, 231, Çatalhöyük 235, 246, 299-300, 303, 305, 313, 317; Düring East 2007a:146, 148; Düring 2007b:168; Hodder and Pels 2010:178, 183, 183; Düring 2011c:110111, 115-116, 135; Özbaşaran 2011:114; Yakar 2011b:139-140; Hodder 2012:304, 309; Bikoulis 2013:47; Hodder 2013a:25; Hodder 2014b:5, 16; Hodder 2014c:20; Hodder 2014d:151, 156, 156, 160, 162; Hodder 2014f:182; Hodder and Farid 2014:33; Mills 2014:161; Wright 2014:2; Baird et al. 2017:755; Kujit 2018:570; Mazzucato 2019:4; Kinzel et al. 2020:14
Theme 15: On common ground #95
Existence of (more than minuscule) unroofed areas between buildings
community-open areas
Mellaart 1970c:3, 5; Eslick 1988:22; Schachner 1999:48, 50, 93, 108; Steadman 2000b:178, 179; Acar 2001:16, 17; Steadman 2004:544; Cutting 2005a:167; Cutting 2005b:130, 136; Düring and Marciniak 2005:174, 174; Cutting 2006b:97; Düring 2006:77, 110, 111, 125, 234, 238, 243, 245, 247; Duru 2007:336; Umurtak 2007:6; Yakar 2011b:179, 184; Düring 2011c:62; Bıcakçı et al. 2012:93; Duru 2012:16; Hodder 2012:306; Stevanović 2012c:79; Shillito and Ryan 2013:696; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:46; Baird et al. 2017:768, 770, 773; Brami 2017:98, 113; [Bernardini and Schachner 2018:656, 658]; Clare and Weninger 2018:43; Issavi et al. 2020:110, 117; Hodder 2021a:26
‘Aceramic’ Hacılar, Hacılar VI, Hacılar II, Erbaba, Çatalhöyük East, Tepecik, Canhasan III, Aşıklı Höyük, Kuruçay, Boncuklu Höyük
x
#96
building entrances opening directly onto unroofed areas
communitydirect door
Steadman 2000b:190, 190; Cutting 2005b:99
Canhasan III, Kuruçay, Hacılar VI
x
327
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on Discounted evidence from
#97
refuse disposal and activity areas (‘middens’) located between houses
communitymidden
Eslick 1988:21; Schachner 1999:47, 50; Düring 2006:92, 296; Hodder 2006:103, 104; Farid 2007:52; Düring 2011c:61-62; Stevanović 2012a:175; Hodder 2013a:6; Hodder 2013b:6, 24; Hodder 2014c:6, 18; Hodder 2014d:150, 163, 165; Hodder and Farid 2014:29, 31, 33; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:48; Baird et al. 2017:768
Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük, Çatalhöyük East
#98
storage facilities located outside of residences in unroofed spaces cooking facilities (oven, hearth) located outside of residences in unroofed spaces
communityoutside storage
Hodder 1987:54; Steadman 2004:534; Cutting 2005b:93, 135, 136; Umurtak 2007:7
communityoutside cooking
Hodder 1987:54; Eslick 1988:21; Steadman 2004:534; Cutting 2005a:161; Cutting 2005b:46, 103, 135-136; Düring 2006:240; Hodder 2006:99, 182; Cessford 2007:541; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:88; Özbaşaran 2011:108; Arbuckle 2012a:307; Bogaard et al. 2014:133, 145, 146, 147, 147; Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014c:18; Baird et al. 2017:768; Furholt 2017:192-193, 193; FuchsKhakar 2019:3, 3, 12, 12; Issavi et al. 2020:114
‘Aceramic’ Hacılar, Hacılar II, Bademağacı ENII4-3 Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük, ‘Aceramic’ Hacılar, Hacılar VI, Hacılar II-I, Çatalhöyük East, EC Köşk Höyük
#100 burials in unroofed spaces in the settlement
communityoutside burials
Bıcakçı et al. 2012:93; Baird et al. 2017:768, 770; Hodder 2021a:26
#101 deposition of ritual objects between houses.
communityoutside ritual deposition
Mills 2014:165
#99
Theme 16: Constructing community space #102 presence of non[Baird et al. 2017:753, 773, 774]; [Bernadini communityresidential buildings of nonresidential and Schachner 2018:656, 658]; Duru 2018:163 significant size building #103 large building for ritual communityAsouti 2005a:79; Cutting 2005b:46, 46; Düring purposes 2005:23; Düring and Marciniak 2005:181; ritual building Düring 2006:105, 106, 111, 112, 125, 235, 300, 304-305, 309, 312, 316; Hodder 2006:58; Düring 2011c:72-73; Özbaşaran 2011:108; Yakar 2011b:112; Hodder 2013a:6; Hodder 2014c:6; Özbaşaran and Duru 2015:50; Bachhuber 2015:114; Baird et al. 2017:755; [Bernadini and Schachner 2018:656]
Boncuklu Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Tepecik Level 3 Boncuklu Höyük
Aşıklı Höyük Aşıklı Höyük, EBA Bademağacı
#104 building for production communityactivities workshop building #105 storage building communitystorage building
Hodder 1987:54; Eslick 1988:21; Cutting 2005b:130; Bıcakçı et al. 2012:93
Tepecik Level 3, Hacılar II
Hodder 1987:54; Eslick 1988:21, 23, 30; Schachner 1999:48, 60, 60; Cutting 2005b:46, 130, 137; Düring 2011c:171; Bıcakçı et al. 2012:93; Bachhuber 2015:79
Aşıklı Höyük, Tepecik Level 3, Hacılar II, LC Kuruçay 6, EBA Bademağacı
#106 settlement enclosure walls
Hodder 1987:55; Schachner 1999:48, 50; Acar 2001:14; Cutting 2005:103, 132, 136; Duru 2007:336; Düring 2011a:79, 80; Duru 2012:6
Aşıklı Höyük, Kuruçay 11, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, EBA Acemhöyük, EBA Bademağacı
communityenclosure wall
328
Appendix 3 Results of Content Analysis: Architectural Indicators of Social Competition and Social Stratification Text passages in [brackets] are hypothetical statements. No.
Indicator
Social competition Theme 17: Concealing #107 house have more depth in the sense of more internal partitioning
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
competitiondeep house
Steadman 2000b:182, 188, 190, 190, 190191; Cutting 2005b:29, 31, 122, 130
Hacılar II, Canhasan I Level 2b, Çatalhöyük East, Kuruçay
#108 increasing average house size
competitionlarger houses
#109 development of twostoried houses
competitionmultistorey
Steadman 2000b:178, 182, 188; Cutting 2005b:29, 31, 122; Düring 2006:314, 317; Hodder 2014c:19 Steadman 2000b:182, 185-186, 187, 188, 190, 190-191; Cutting 2005b:31; Düring 2006:280, 314, 317; Baird 2012a:452; [Bikoulis 2013:48] Steadman 2000b:182, 190; Hodder 2014c:19
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar, Canhasan I, Erbaba Canhasan I, Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar, Erbaba, Kuruçay 7 Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar
Steadman 2000b:190, 190; Cutting 2005b:130
Hacılar II
#110 presence of several side competitionrooms or internal partitions multiroom within the building #111 doors to the outside are located in areas where they limit visual access to the house #112 neighbouring houses do not share party walls #113 existence of open space between neighbouring houses Theme 18: Displaying #114 abandonment of clear (ritual: dirty/clean) subdivision of buildings (#64): floor space becomes more open and less structured
competitionoffset entrance
Steadman 2000b:188, 190 competitionnonshared walls Steadman 2000b:188, 190; Cutting competition2005b:31, 122; Cutting 2006b:99 nonclustered
Canhasan I Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan I
competitionopen floor
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014c:19
Çatalhöyük East, Çatalhöyük West
#115 wall paintings located on any interior wall (vs. previously restricted to burial corner) #116 depiction of hunting scenes in wall paintings
competition-art display
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014c:19
Çatalhöyük East
competitionwall paintings
Clare and Weninger 2018:43
Çatalhöyük East
#117 shift of ovens into side rooms #118 hearth located in centre of house #119 storage installations located in the living room
competitionside oven competitioncentral hearth competitionliving room storage
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014c:19, Hodder 2014f:179; [Fuchs-Khakar 2019:14] Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014f:179; [Fuchs-Khakar 2019:14 ] Asouti 2005a:88
Çatalhöyük East
329
Çatalhöyük East, Çatalhöyük West Çatalhöyük East
Discounted
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Social stratification Theme 19: The elite residence Theme 19.1: The large house #120 one or a few houses stratificationare larger than others asymmetric size
Mellaart 1964:50; Mellaart 1967:82, 225; Mellaart 1970c:34, 36; Eslick 1988:29-30, 30, 36, 37, 38; Yakar 1991:210; Steadman 2000b:182, 183-184, 184, 187, 191; [Hodder 2005c:13]; [Cutting 2005a:158, 167]; Cutting 2005b:33, 46, [127, 128], 131, 137; Cutting 2006b:97, 99; Düring 2006:213, 214, 278, 295; Hodder and Pels 2010:164, [173]; Steadman 2010:38; Düring 2011b:805; Düring 2011c:244; Yakar 2011b:113, 139, 176; Arbuckle 2012a:303, 310; [Hodder 2013a:2, 18]; [Hodder 2013b:2, 26, 26]; Czeszewska 2014:195; [Hodder 2014b:5]; Hodder 2014c:2; [Hodder 2014d:156], 160; Hodder and Farid 2014:4, 10, [27]; [Furholt 2017:404]; [Hodder 2021a:24, 25]
Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Çatalhöyük East, Erbaba, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, Canhasan I Levels 2ab, MC Köşk Höyük, Güvercinkayası, Kuruçay 6, Kuruçay 4
#121 one or a few houses have more rooms than others
Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1970a:325; Mellaart 1970c:85; Eslick 1988:37; Duru 2008b:150; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:168; Hodder 2013b:27; Hodder 2014d:160; Brami 2017:94
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar I, Kuruçay 4, EBA Bademağacı
Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1970c:34; Steadman 2000b:184; [Matthews 2005b:368]; Düring 2006:190; [Hodder 2013a:18]; [Love 2013a:81, 86, 94-95, 95];[ Love 2013c:264, 274]; Stevanović 2013:98, 105; [Tung 2013:67, 79, 80]; [Hodder 2014d:159]; [Hodder and Farid 2014:27]
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II, Hacılar I
#123 differences in the stratificationinstallations present furnishing in and around houses differences
Mellaart 1967:225; [Todd 1976:133]; [Cutting 2005b:32, 137]; [Kay 2020:453]
Çatalhöyük East
#124 one or a few houses have larger storage capacities
stratificationasymmetric storage
Eslick 1988:[23], 29-30, 30, 36, 37, 38; Steadman 2000b:187; [Cutting 2005a:167]; [Cutting 2005b:40-41]; Hodder 2005g:26; [Hodder 2006:183]; Hodder and Pels 2010:[173, 175], 178; Arbuckle 2012a:303, 304, 310; Arbuckle 2014:217-218; Hodder 2013a:21, 24; [Hodder 2013b:26]; [Hodder 2014b:5]; Hodder 2014d:[156], 160; Hodder and Farid 2014:[27, 33], 34; [Wright 2014:28]; [Mazzucato 2019:5]; [Kay 2020:453]; [Hodder 2021a:24, 25]
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan I Levels 2ab, Köşk Höyük I, Güvercinkayası, Kuruçay 6, Kuruçay 4
#125 a particular house has more or larger cooking facilities than others
stratificationmore oven
Eslick 1988:30, Steadman 2000b:184; [Cutting 2005a:167]; Hodder 2005b:14-15; Hodder 2006:182-183
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II, Kuruçay 4
#126 a particular house has more unroofed space
stratificationmore outside
Mellaart 1960:96; Steadman 2000b:184; Hodder 2013a:21, 24; Hodder 2013b:27; [Hodder 2014c:2]; Hodder 2014d:160
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II, Hacılar I
#127 distinct orientation, size, and height of platforms
stratificationplatform differences
[Hodder 2005g:26]; [Yakar 2011b:176]
Çatalhöyük East
stratificationmultiroom
Theme 19.2: Building materials #122 one or a few houses have better building materials
stratificationmaterial differences
Theme 19.3: Installations
330
x
Appendix 3 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Theme 19.4: Artefact distribution #128 a particular house contains more artefacts
stratificationassymetric artefacts
Mellaart 1970c:38, 115; [Eslick 1988:23]; [Hodder 1996b:361-362]; Steadman 2000b:183184; Hodder and Cessford 2004:30; Asouti 2005a:86; Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2005h:127; Hodder 2006:151-152, 182-183, 183; Pels 2010:253; [Hodder 2013a:18]; [Hodder 2013b:26]; Hodder 2014b:[5], 14; Hodder 2014d:[156], 161; [Hodder and Farid 2014:27]; Wright 2014:25, 28, 28; [Anspach 2018:189]; [Kay 2020:453]
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II
#129 particularly large amounts of prestige items used or stored in the house
stratificationprestige items
Mellaart 1970c:149; [Eslick 1988:23]; Becks and Jakob 1996:68, 71; Arbuckle 2012a:304; Bachhuber 2015:79, 131-132
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar VI, Hacılar II, Güvercinkayası, EBA Bademağacı
#130 some houses show more evidence of production activities through microdebris
stratificationmicrodebris
Hodder 2013a:18; Hodder 2014d:159
Çatalhöyük East
#131 prestigious/religious stratificationitems deposited into housefabric the house fabric (e.g. deposit foundation deposits)
Hodder and Cessford 2004:31; Hodder 2005b:13; Hodder 2005f:189; Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2006:170; Nakamura 2010:327; Hodder 2013b:25, 26; Bogaard et al. 2014:121
Çatalhöyük East
#132 presence of highstatus burials in/ under the house
Mellaart 1964:94; Mellaart 1966b:182, 182, 183; Mellaart 1967:82, 207; Mellaart 1975:102; [Todd 1976:133]; Mellaart 1979:27; [Yakar 1991:291]; [Hodder 1996b:362]; Mellaart 1998a:35, 36; [Asouti 2005a:88]; Hodder 2005f:193; Hodder 2005g:26-27; [Düring 2006:309]; Hodder 2006:179, [191]; Yakar 2011b:[113], 175, 176; Stevanović 2012c:77; [Hodder 2012:304]; [Hodder 2013a:18]; [Hodder 2013b:26]; [Hodder 2014b:5]; Hodder 2014d:[156], 160; [Hodder and Farid 2014:27]; [Hodder 2021a:24]
Aşıklı Höyük, Canhasan III, Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar II
stratificationburial differences
Theme 19.5: Ritual house elaboration #133 asymmetric stratificationsynchronic asymmetric distribution of elaboration ritual elaboration between houses (wall paintings, clay mouldings), whereby some buildings are particularly intensely ritually elaborated
Mellaart 1967:80, 82, 207; [Yakar 1991:209, Çatalhöyük East 210]; Forest 1993:[1], 33; Becks and Jakob 1996:68, 71; Hodder 1996b:[361], 363-364, 365; [Last 1998a:371]; Mellaart 1998a:35-36, 36; Hodder and Cessford 2004:30-31, 36; [Asouti 2005a:86]; Cutting 2005a:[158], 168; Cutting 2005b:128, 137; Düring 2005:20; Hodder 2005b:20-21; Hodder 2005f:188-189, 195, 195; Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2005h:135-136, 137, 137; Cutting 2006b:97, 98, 99; Düring 2006:191, 217, 220, 224, 299-300, 317; Hodder 2006:57, 151-152, 178-179, 182-183, 189, 204, 250; Düring 2007a:133, 134, 136, 145, 146, 147; Düring 2007b:166; Hodder 2007b:34-35; Hodder and Pels 2010:164-165, 173, 175, 178, 182-184; Pels 2010:239, 252-253; Düring 2011c:115116; [Hodder 2012:304]; Düring 2013a:30-31; [Hodder 2013a:2, 18]; [Hodder 2013b:2, 2, 26, 26, 26]; Love 2013a:94; Tung 2013:67; [Hodder 2014b:5]; [Hodder 2014c:2]; Hodder 2014d:[156], 160; [Hodder and Farid 2014:4, 27, 33]; [Mills 2014:174]; Wright 2014:2, 28; Hodder 2016:2; [Furholt 2017:404]; [Anspach 2018:189]; Kay 2020:456; [Hodder 2021a:24, 25]
331
x
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
#134 asymmetric stratificationsynchronic asymmetric distribution of subburial floor burials between buildings, whereby some buildings have a lot of burials and others few or none
Mellaart 1970c:36; [Steadman 2000b:181]; Çatalhöyük East, [Cutting 2005a:167, 168]; Düring 2005:20; Hacılar II Düring and Marciniak 2005:178; Hodder 2005b:18-19; Hodder 2005f:188-189, 195, 195; Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2005h:135-136, 137, 137; Düring 2006:191, 217, 220, 224, 225, 231, 246, 246, 299-300, 301, 313, 313-314, 317; Hodder 2006:167, 178-179, 182-183; Düring 2007a:131, 136, 141, 141, 142, 143, 145, 148, 148; Düring 2007b:166; Hodder 2007b:34-35; Düring 2008b:609; Düring 2009:34; Hodder and Pels 2010:[164-165], 178, 182-184; Pels 2010:239, 252-253; Düring 2011c:115-116; Hodder 2012:304; Düring 2013a:30-31; Düring 2013c:88; Love 2013a:94; [Hodder 2013b:2, 26]; [Hodder 2014b:5]; Hodder 2014d:156, 160; [Hodder and Farid 2014:27, 33]; Mills 2014:180; Wright 2014:2; Brami 2017:103; [Furholt 2017:404]; [Anspach 2018:188-189]; [Hodder 2021a:24, 25]
#135 stricter adherence to the separation of the house interior into ‘dirty’ and ‘clean’ (#64)
stratificationstrict house
Hodder and Cessford 2004:31; Hodder 2005g:26; Hodder 2005f:189, 195; [Anspach 2018:188-189]
#136 building continuity
stratificationbuilding continuity
Mellaart 1979:27; Becks and Jakob 1996:68, 71; Çatalhöyük East Hodder 1996b:363, 366; Hodder and Cessford 2004:36; Düring 2005:20, 21, 22; Hodder 2005h:137; Hodder 2006:165-167; Cutting 2006b:97; Düring 2006:96, 97, 220, 224, 225226, 228-229, 246, 247, 299-300, 301, 313, 317; Düring 2007a:133, 142, 145, 147, 148; Düring 2007b:169; [Hodder 2007b:34-35]; Hodder 2014d:156, 160, 160; Düring 2014:133, 134; Brami 2017:54, 103, 103; [Hodder 2021a:24, 25]
#137 long use lives of houses
stratificationhouse longevity
[Hodder 2013a:18]; [Hodder 2014b:5]; Hodder 2014d:[156], 160; [Hodder and Farid 2014:27]
Çatalhöyük East
#138 decrease or abandonment of building continuity as a means for establishing status
stratificationless building continuity
Hodder 2014b:17; Düring 2006:247, 301, 317
Çatalhöyük East
#139 houseburning
stratificationhouseburning
Cessford and Near 2005:175, 182; Russell et al. 2014:121
Çatalhöyük East
Discounted
Çatalhöyük East
Theme 20: Ruling the settlement #140 standardised brick sizes
stratificationstandard bricks
Mellaart 1979:27
Çatalhöyük East
x
#141 dense house clustering
stratificationclustering
[Hodder 1996a:46, 46]; [Acar 2001:16]; [Hodder 2006:99]
Çatalhöyük East
x
#142 less dense house clustering
stratificationunclustering
Eslick 1988:37, [39]
Canhasan I Level 1, LC Kuruçay
x
#143 standardised house layouts
stratificationstandard house
[Hodder and Cessford 2004:36]
Çatalhöyük East
x
332
Appendix 3 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
#144 regular settlement layout
stratificationregular settlement
Mellaart 1970c:77; Eslick 1988:39; Duru 1996c:118, 138; [Schachner 1999:47]; Duru 2008b:9; Arbuckle 2012a:310
Hacılar I, MC Köşk Höyük, LC Kuruçay 6
#145 enclosure walls
stratificationenclosure wall
Mellaart 1970c:77; Eslick 1988:39; Yakar 1991:158, 178; Duru 1996c:118; Acar 2001:17; Duru 2008b:7; Arbuckle 2012e:303, 310; Brami 2017:93
Kuruçay 11, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, Güvercinkayası
Schachner 1999:46, [47], 109; Steadman 2000b:184; Cutting 2005b:[33], 85, 131, 132; [Hodder 1996a:46]; Mellaart 1970c:34
Aşıklı Höyük, Hacılar II, Güvercinkayası
#147 wall enclosing a stratificationgroup of houses insite walls within the settlement
Cutting 2005b:131; Umurtak 2011:7; Arbuckle 2012a:304; Arbuckle 2014:217-218; Bachhuber 2015:107-108
Hacılar II, Güvercinkayası, EBA Bademağacı
#148 the elite residence(s) stratificationare in a slightly raised raised location location within the settlement
Steadman 2000b:184; Arbuckle 2012a:304; Furholt 2017:354
Hacılar II, Güvercinkayası
#149 one or a few houses have a visually dominant location in the settlement
Cutting 2005b:131
Hacılar II
#150 elite house located stratificationin the settlement central centre surrounded by location houses of dependent households
Duru 1996b:56, 56; Duru 1996c:116; Duru 2001d:45; Duru 2008:124, 127; Furholt 2017:[336], 354
Kuruçay 6, Güvercinkayası
#151 a particular house is located on the same axis as a shrine
stratificationshrine axis
Steadman 2010:39
Höyücek ShP
#152 a particular house is located close to a religious building (‘shrine’)
stratificationclose to shrine
Steadman 2010:38, 39
Hacılar II, Höyücek ShP
#153 a particular house is located close to a large storage building (‘granary’)
stratificationclose to granary
Steadman 2010:38
Hacılar II
#154 a particular house is located close to outdoor ‘bread’ ovens that might have been used communally
stratificationclose to outside ovens
Steadman 2010:38
Hacılar II
#155 a particular house is located close to well
stratificationclose to well
Mellaart 1970c:36
Hacılar II
#156 a particular house is located close to a gate/entrance into the settlement
stratificationclose to gate
Steadman 2010:38
Hacılar II
Theme 21: The pre-citadel #146 spatial separation of settlement space whereby the elite residence and/or public congregation space are located separate from the rest
stratificationsegregated site
stratificationdominant house
333
Discounted
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
#157 public spaces
stratificationpublic spaces
[Der and Issavi 2017:196]
none (hypothetical)
#158 large buildings for communal ritual
stratificationritual building
[Hodder 1996a:46]; Schachner 1999:46, 47, 51, 109; Acar 2001:17; Özbaşaran cited in Düring 2002:175; Steadman 2004:539; Asouti 2005a:79; [Cutting 2005b:28, 33]; [Düring 2006:310]; Duru 2008b:124; Erdoğu and Ulubey 2011:9; [Düring 2011c:72-73]
Aşıklı Höyük, Hacılar II, Çatalhöyük West, Kuruçay 6
#159 communal workshop stratificationbuilding workshop building
Acar 2001:17; Cutting 2005b:137, 137
Hacılar II
#160 communal storage building
stratificationstorage building
[Eslick 1988:23]; Acar 2001:17; [Cutting 2005b:46]; Duru 2008:124; Arbuckle 2014:221; Bachhuber 2015:79, 130-131
Hacılar II, Güvercinkayası, Kuruçay 6, EBA Bademağacı
#161 monumental architecture
stratificationmonumental architecture
[Der and Issavi 2017:196]
none (hypothetical)
334
Discounted
x
Appendix 4 Results of Content Analysis: Architectural Indicators of Mobility Text passages in [brackets] are hypothetical statements. No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
Discounted
Theme 22: Living light #162 occupation at a site is evidenced by other material culture, e.g. pottery, but there is no architecture
mobility-no architecture
Umurtak 2005d:66; Duru 2008:122, Clare and Weninger 2014:17; Duru 2019:164
EC Bademağacı, LC Bademağacı
#163 buildings made with light superstructures
mobility-light construction
Baird cited in Gérard 2002a:112; [Gérard 2002a:106]; Özbaşaran 2011:114; Yakar 2011b:81; Baird 2012b:200
Pınarbaşı A, Pınarbaşı B
#164 ‘low quality’ of construction
mobility-poor construction
Düring 2011b:800, 800-801; Düring 2011c:246
Canhasan I Level 1
#165 frequent modification of buildings
mobilitymodifications
Düring 2011b:800, 800-801; Düring 2011c:246; Özbaşaran 2011:114
Pınarbaşı A, Pınarbaşı B, Canhasan I Level 1
#166 buildings made with thin walls unable to carry the roof
mobility-thin walls
Düring 2011b:800-801; Düring 2011c:246; Yakar 2011b:283
Canhasan I Level 1
#167 buildings made with organic superstructure
mobility-organic superstructure
Baird et al. 2011:386; Özbaşaran 2011:114
Pınarbaşı B
#168 wattle-and-daub buildings mobility-wattle
Schachner 1999:61; Yakar 2011b:81
Gelveri, Pınarbaşı A
x
#169 oval buildings
mobility-oval house
Acar 2001:12, 20; Özbaşaran 2011:107; Yakar 2011b:81
Pınarbaşı A, Pınarbaşı B, Aşıklı Höyük Levels 3-4
x
#170 buildings partially cut into the surrounding sediment
mobilitysemisubterranean
Acar 2001:12; Baird cited in Gérard 2002a:112; Yakar 2011b:81
Pınarbaşı A, Pınarbaşı B
x
#171 presence of large storage facilities
mobility-large storage
Düring 2011b:800-801, Düring 2011c:246-247
Canhasan I Level 1
Theme 23: Shortening house histories #172 decrease of ritual elaboration of the house interior (wall paintings, reliefs, moulded installations)
mobility-less elaboration
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014f:178; Hodder and Gürlek 2020:193, 202
Çatalhöyük East
#173 decreasing building continuity
mobilitydecreased building continuity
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014f:178
Çatalhöyük East
335
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
#174 shorter use lives of buildings
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence from
mobility-short house
Hodder 2014b:15; Hodder 2014f:178
Çatalhöyük East
mobility-large house
Hodder 2013a:21, 21, 25; Hodder 2013b:18, 20, 21, 24, 28; Hodder 2014b:14; Hodder 2014f:177
Çatalhöyük East
#176 houses with several mobilitysubdivisions into different multiroom rooms or compartments
Hodder 2013a:21; Hodder 2013b:21
Çatalhöyük East
#177 a significant amount of mobilityopen space exists between unclustered houses
Hodder 2013a:21, 25; Hodder 2013b:21; Hodder 2014f:183; Whitehouse et al. 2014:139
Çatalhöyük East
#178 existence of large courtyards
Gérard 2002a:106
Aşıklı Höyük
Theme 24: Pastoral homes #175 large houses
mobility-large courtyards
Theme 25: Ritual in the landscape #179 concentration of ritual items in a seasonal settlement
mobility-seasonal ritual
Baird et al. 2011
Pınarbaşı B
#180 site has a ritual building but no residential architecture
mobility-lone ritual building
Thissen 2002b:25
Musular
336
Discounted
Appendix 5 Results of Content Analysis: Architectural Indicators of Warfare Text passages in [brackets] are hypothetical statements. No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence Discounted from
Theme 26: Fortifying the settlement Theme 26.1: Settlement perimeter fortifications #181 settlement is enclosed by a free-standing wall
Mellaart 1960:83, 84; [Mellaart 1962b:46]; warfareenclosure wall Mellaart 1965b:104, 108, 110, 112; Mellaart 1966a:111; Mellink 1966b:119; [Mellaart 1967:6869]; Alkım 1969:70, 115; Mellaart 1970a:314; Mellaart 1970c:10, 28, [86]; Mellaart 1971a:699; French 1972:233-234; [Todd 1976:25]; Singh 1976:66; [Mellaart 1978:17]; Redman 1978:187, [212]; Yakar 1985:38, 39, 121, 160, 163; Eslick 1988:[14], 22, 24, 24, [29, 30, 30, 31], 35, 37; Yakar 1991:152, 158, 178, 296; Duru 1994c:100; [Yakar 1994:45]; Duru 1996b:54, 56, 57; Duru 1996c:116, 119; [Hodder 1996a:46]; Joukowsky 1996:115, 116, 117, 120, 138, 157; [French 1998:68]; Duru 1999:174, 184; [Schachner 1999:162]; Steadman 2000b:184-185, 188, 191; Acar 2001:14, 17; Duru 2001a:50; Duru 2001b:80; Duru 2001d:46; Cutting 2005b:96, 101; [Hodder 2005g:16]; Schoop 2005b:50; Umurtak 2005b:7; Düring 2006:[104], 290; [Hodder 2006:206]; Duru 2007:[333], 346-347, 353, 353-354; [Hodder 2007b:26]; [Öztan 2007:233]; Clare et al. 2008:73, 75-76, Figure 5; Duru 2008:32, 44, 130, 153, 154, 155; Rosenstock 2009:218-219; Rosenstock 2010a:24, 31; Steadman 2010:36; [Düring 2011a:71, 72, 73, 76, 80]; Schoop 2011b:162; Umurtak 2011:2, 4, 7; Yakar 2011b:251; Arbuckle 2012a:304; [Baird 2012a:448]; Duru 2012:17, 18, 24, 24-25, 26; [Öztan 2012:45]; Rosenstock 2014:239; Bachhuber 2015:42, 55, 113, 127; DeCupere et al. 2015:4; Brami 2017:93; Clare and Weninger 2018:44; Duru 2019:177, 181, 182, 256
#182 settlement is enclosed by casemate walls
warfarecasemate wall
Duru 1996c:114; [Düring 2006:102]; [Düring 2011a:71]; Duru 2012:17; Duru 2013:9; Umurtak 2011:5; Duru 2019:182, 256
Aşıklı Höyük, Bademağacı EN II, Kuruçay 6, Hacılar Büyük Höyük
#183 clustered settlement layout
warfareclustering
Mellaart 1963e:55-56; Mellaart 1964:40; Mellaart 1965b:82-84; Mellaart 1966a:172; Mellaart 1967:68-69; Alkım 1969:52; [French 1972:232233]; [Todd 1976:25]; Mellaart 1975:101; Mellaart 1978:17; [Redman 1978:212]; [Yakar 1991:205]; Balkan-Atlı 1994:24; Duru 1996a:2; Joukowsky 1996:96; Acar 2001:14; [Düring 2001:2]; [Hodder 2005g:15]; [Hodder 2006:95]; Düring 2007b:160; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:[78], 88; Rosenstock 2009:220; Rosenstock 2010a:24; Düring 2011a:70, 71; Rosenstock 2014:237, 239; Brami 2017:55, 88, 90, 91, 92, 98
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Canhasan III, Canhasan I, Hacılar I
337
Aşıklı Höyük, Çatalhöyük East, Bademağacı EN II, Kuruçay 11, Kuruçay 7, Hacılar III, Hacılar IIa, Hacılar IIb, Hacılar I, Bademağacı LN1-2, LC Güvercinkayası, Kuruçay 6, Kuruçay 4, EBA Karahöyük, EBA Bademağacı, EBA Beycesultan, EBA Göltepe, EBA Hacılar Büyük Höyük
Rethinking Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic Architecture in Central Anatolia No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence Discounted from
#184 the outer walls of houses form fairly gapless façade towards the exterior of the settlement
warfare-house Mellaart 1959:54; Mellaart 1960:92-94, 96; Mellaart 1965b:112; Mellaart 1970a:320; Mellaart 1970c:10, ring 82; Mellaart 1975:118; Mellaart 1978:25; Yakar 1985:64, 160; Eslick 1988:23; Duru 1996a:7; Duru 1996b:55, 56, 57; Duru 1996c:114; Joukowsky 1996:121; Duru 1999:174, [184]; Steadman 2000b:180, 182; Duru 2001d:45; Cutting 2005b:80; Duru 2007:333; Clare et al. 2008:75, 76; Duru 2008:128, 130, 155, 156; [Sagona and Zimansky 2009:134]; Rosenstock 2010a:23, 24; [Düring 2011a:73]; [Düring 2011c:172]; Umurtak 2011:4; Yakar 2011b:293; Duru 2012:3, 24-25; [Rosenstock 2014:239]
Hacılar VI, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, Canhasan I Level 2, Kuruçay 12, Kuruçay 6, EBA Bademağacı
#185 edge of settlement marked by a slope formed by stones (‘glacis’)
warfare-stone slope
[Duru 2008:154]; [Düring 2011a:77, 81]; [Düring 2011c:281]; Duru 2012:7; [Bachhuber 2015:108]
#186 ditch surrounding the settlement
warfare-ditch
[Hodder 2006:206]
#187 enclosure wall with towers
warfaretowered wall
Mellaart 1970a:319; Mellaart 1970c:25; Yakar 1991:168; Duru 1994c:99; Duru 1996a:7; Duru 1996b:52, 53; [Duru 1996c:114]; Duru 1999b:175; Steadman 2000b:177, 183; Acar 2001:17; Duru 2001d:45; Umurtak 2000a:693; Cutting 2005b:103; Umurtak 2005b:7; Umurtak 2007:5; Clare et al. 2008:75, 76; Duru 2008:42, 43; Sagona and Zimansky 2009:99; [Düring 2011a:72]; [Düring 2011c:171]; Umurtak 2011:2, 6, 7; Yakar 2011b:252; Duru 2012:5-6, 17, 24, 39; [Thissen 2010:273]; DeCupere et al. 2015:4; Brami 2017:93; Duru 2019:255
Kuruçay 11, Hacılar II, Bademağacı ENII3, Güvercinkayası
#188 closed housering forming a saw-toothed defensive perimeter
warfare-saw tooth
Düring 1996c:114; [Rosenstock 2010a:24]; [Düring 2011a:75]; [Düring 2011b:803]; [Düring 2011c:227228]
Hacılar I, Kuruçay 6
EBA Bademağacı
Theme 26.2: Entrance protection #189 entrances into the settlement are well defendable
warfareprotected entrance
Eslick 1988:14, 24, 30; Düring 2011c:228
Kuruçay 11, Hacılar II
#190 only narrow and not many entrances into the settlement
warfarenarrow entrance
Mellaart 1959:54; Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1967:69-70; Mellaart 1970a:319; Eslick 1988:22, [23], 26; Duru 1996c:116; Cutting 2003:16; Cutting 2005b:101; Rosenstock 2010a:24; [Düring 2011a:71, 75, 76]; [Düring 2011b:803]; Umurtak 2011:6; Duru 2013:9; [Rosenstock 2014:239]
Çatalhöyük East Levels IV-III, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, Kuruçay 6
#191 gate-like structures added to settlement entrances to enhance defendability
warfare-gate
Mellaart 1967:69-70; Mellaart 1970c:29, 81; Duru 1996c:114-115; Joukowsky 1996:116; [French 1998:68]; Cutting 2003:16; Duru 2008:155, 156; Umurtak 2011:4
Çatalhöyük East Levels IV-III, Hacılar II, Hacılar I, Kuruçay 6, EBA Bademağacı
#192 well located warfare-inside [Mellaart 1967:69]; Clare et al. 2008:76 inside settlement well
338
Hacılar VI, Hacılar IIa, Hacılar IIb
Appendix 5 No.
Indicator
Nickname
Stated by
Based on evidence Discounted from
Theme 27: Fortifying houses #193 no house entrance on ground level
warfarerooftop entrance
Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1967:68; [Redman 1978:212]; Yakar 1991:158; Steadman 2000b:182
Çatalhöyük East, Hacılar I
#194 buildings with stone walls or stone foundations
warfare-stone walls
Cutting 2005b:103; [Düring 2011a:71]
Hacılar I
#195 buildings with thick walls
warfare-thick walls
Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1970a:320; Mellaart 1970c:77; Mellaart 1978:25; Yakar 1985:160; Eslick 1988:23; Duru 1994c:100; Düring 1996c:114; Steadman 2000b:184; Cutting 2005b:101, 103, 119; [Düring 2011c:172]; Brami 2017:55
Hacılar I, Kuruçay 12-7, Kuruçay 7, Kuruçay 6
#196 large-scale (non- warfarefire) destruction destruction of several contemporary buildings
Mellaart 1970c:37; Mellaart 1971a:681; Mellaart 1971b:407; Steadman 2000b:191; Schoop 2005a:168; [Düring 2011c:287]
Hacılar IIb, Kuruçay 7, Höyücek ShP, EBA Beycesultan, EBA II/III Konya plain
#197 destruction of several contemporary buildings by fire
warfare-fire destruction
Mellaart 1959:54, 56; Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart 1963d:210; Mellaart 1965b:112; Alkım 1969:71; Mellaart 1970a:320, 321, 323; Mellaart 1970c:[16, 24], 75, 87; Mellaart 1971b:383; Mellaart 1978:24, 25; Joukowsky 1996:117, 117, 121, 125; [Cessford and Near 2005:173, 174]; Schoop 2005a:173; Clare et al. 2008:73-74, 75, Figure 5; Duru 2008:8; [Düring 2011c:287]; [Hodder 2013b:28]; [Hodder 2014b:17]; [Hodder 2014d:166-167]; Clare and Weninger 2018:44
Hacılar VI, Hacılar IV, Hacılar IIa, Hacılar IIb, Hacılar Ib, Höyücek ShP, Bademağacı ENII2, Bademağacı ENII3, EBA Beycesultan
#198 skeletons found inside houses in contexts that do not indicate normal burial
warfareunburied skeletons
Mellaart 1959:54; Mellaart 1960:96; Mellaart Hacılar IIa, Hacılar 1965b:112; [Mellaart 1970c:24]; [Cessford and Near Ib, Bademağacı 2005:174]; Clare et al. 2008:74-75, Figure 5; Clare ENII3 and Weninger 2018:44
#199 temporary site abandonment
warfare-hiatus Clare et al. 2008:73, 74, 74; Duru 2008:8-9; [Düring 2011c:287]; Schoop 2011d:153; Clare and Weninger 2018:44
#200 rapid change of (material) culture between occupation levels
warfarerapid culture change
Theme 28: The results of warfare
Mellaart 1970c:75, 120, [185]; Mellaart 1971a:681, 692; Mellaart 1971b:383; Yakar 1991:178, 179; Joukowsky 1996:121-122; Steadman 2000b:191; Schoop 2002:422; Schoop 2005a:173-174; Clare et al. 2008:[73, 74], 74; Duru 2008:9; Schoop 2011b:153; Duru 2013:4
339
after Hacılar IIb, after Höyücek ShP, between EC and LC Lake District, EBA Beycesultan
between Hacılar VI and V, between Hacılar II and I, between EC and LC Lake District, between Kuruçay 7 and 6, EBA II/III Konya plain
BAR INTE RNAT IONAL SERIES 3061 ‘This is an enormous synthesis of the prehistory of the Central Anatolian region. Anvari’s work and approach celebrate the complexities of archaeological knowledge production, which is influenced not only by the nature of the archaeological record but historical contingencies and personal interests.’ Dr Burcu Tung, University of California, Berkeley ‘For anyone interested in the emergence of social complexity in prehistoric Anatolia and how this can be studied in innovative and systematic ways – this book is an essential read. It covers key sites dating to the late Neolithic and early Chalcolithic and analyses how buildings and settlements have been used to understand (changes in) prehistoric societies, using the method of content analysis. This book is an important resource for the study of social complexity in Anatolia and beyond.’ Dr Bleda S. Düring, Leiden University
This book evaluates the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500–5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia into interpretations of social organisation. The first part of the book provides a summary of existing knowledge on the study region, architecture in particular. The second part conducts a content analysis of 284 publications and systematically maps and critiques the archaeological discourse around Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic architecture and social organisation. As a by-product of this discussion, the book also provides an exploration of how people in central Anatolia during this period used architecture to create communities. In the tradition of reflexive archaeology, the main purpose of this book is to critically evaluate past research practices to contribute to their improvement. It seeks to improve the research tools to understand the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic as important transformative time periods in Anatolian prehistory that influenced the further course of southwest Asian and European prehistory, for example by initiating development towards social stratification. Jana Anvari is an assistant professor in Prehistoric Archaeology at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on the architecture of Neolithic communities in the Eastern Mediterranean. She has participated in excavations at various Neolithic sites in southwest Asia and southeast Europe, experiences that have informed this book.
Printed in England
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