Çatalhöyük. a Summary of Recent Work Concerning Architecture

ÇATALHÖYÜK. A SUMMARY OF RECENT WORK CONCERNING ARCHITECTURE Ian HODDER* Özet Çatalhöyük. 0LPaULylH úlJLlL <HQL Çal×üPa g]HtL %X EölüP Çatalhöyük·tH y×l×QGaQ EHUL yüUütülHQ Ea]× yHQL oal×üPalaU×Q ö]HtLGLU YH ö]HllLklH PLPaULylH LlJLlL yHQL yRUXPlaU ü]HULQGH RGaklaQ×lP×üt×U. <HQL oal×üPa yHUlHüPHGHkL HYlHULQ üUHtLP YH VRVyal yaüaP küoük ERyXtlX JUXS HYlHUGH RlVa ELlH Eüyük öloHklL VRVyal JUXSlaU üHklLQGH JUXSlaQG×ù×Q× JöVtHUPHktHGLU. %a]× HYlHULQ PLPaULVL üLPGL ´taULh HYlHULµ RlaUak aGlaQG×U×lPaktaG×U ELlH RUJaQL]H HGLlPLütLU. %öylHFH VRVyal aQ×laU YH hHU ELU HYLQ taULhL ELlLQHFHktLUkXtlaQaFakt×U. $yLQ YH atalaU×Q kRQtURlü haULFLQGH ´VRVyal HYlHUµ LlH GLùHU HYlHU aUaV×QGa oRk a] IaUk YaUG×U. 0LPaUL üVt VHYLyHlHUGH ELUoRk QHGHQGHQ ötüUü GHùLüPLütLU. Introduction Çatalhöyük was first excavated by James Mellaart between 1961 and 1965. His excavations were mainly confined to the southwest corner of the Neolithic East Mound although he also dug on the Chalcolithic West Mound. Initial- ly the importance of the East Mound was recognized as its large size (Çatalhöyük East is 13.5 ha and 21 m high) and complex art at an early date, and its location outside the supposed ‘cradle’ of civilization in the Middle East. Much has changed in our knowledge of the Neolithic in Anatolia since the 1960s. In some ways Çatalhöyük is no longer so exceptional. It is late in the Neolithic sequence, occurring at the end of the Aceramic Neolithic and con- tinuing through the Ceramic Neolithic and into the Chalcolithic (the East Mound dates from 7400 to 6200/6000 cal BC, and the ensuing West Mound has dates in the early 6th millennium BC). Earlier major sites have been excavated in central Turkey at, for example, Aü×kl× Höyük (Esin and Harmankaya 1999), and locally in the Konya 3lain earlier precursors of Çatalhöyük have been excavated at 3×narbaü× and Boncuklu (Baird 2007). Earlier and to the east, elaborate and large sites with complex art have been discovered at, for example, Göbekli and Jerf el Ahmar (Schmidt 2006; Stordeur et al 2000). But there are ways in which Çatalhöyük remains distinctive. The sheer amount of the art – its concentration in so many houses in one site – remains particular. Indeed, the main mystery of Çatalhöyük remains the question of why all this art and symbolism, this flowering of imagery, should occur in this place at this time. One factor concerns the depositional processes. Through much of its sequence, Çatalhöyük provides a richly textured record of the minutiae of daily life. Rather than making hard lime floors that could be used over decades (as in many aceramic * Prof. Dr. Ian Hodder, Dunlevie Family Professor, Department of Anthropology, 450 Serra Mall, Stanford University, CA 94028, USA E-mail: [email protected] 304 Ian Hodder sites in Anatolia and the Middle East), at Çatalhöyük the floors were mostly made of a lime-rich clay plaster that remained soft and in need of continual resurfacing. Thus on an annual or even monthly basis, floors and wall plasters were resurfaced with extremely thin layers. Within 10 cms of floor or wall deposit it is possible to find up to 450 layers of replasterings. These provide a detailed record of daily life inside buildings. Middens too are finely layered, so that individual dumps of refuse from the hearth can be identified. And then, on abandonment of a house, paintings were covered over, and ovens and other internal features were sometimes carefully filled with earth. The upper walls were demolished and the lower half of the house often carefully filled in with fairly clean soil. In these ways the lower parts of the house were well protected and preserved. A new house was constructed using the lower halves of the walls of an earlier house as a base for new walls. Gradu- ally the 21 m high mound was built up as house was constructed on house. Together with the soil conditions that lead to good survival of carbonized plants, animal and human bone etc, these depositional processes result in a re- markably well preserved site with much detailed information covering long periods of time. Difficult to excavate because of its complexity, the rewards in terms of detailed information are high. Mellaart’s large-scale work established the importance of the site (Mellaart 1967). He demonstrated the extraordi- nary density of buildings on the site, with houses built up against each other so that movement around the settlement was on the roofs of houses. Entrance into houses was through the same hole in the roof through which the smoke from hearths and ovens escaped. One of the most remarkable aspects of Mellaart’s findings was the size of the Neolithic East Mound (Fig. 1). Population estimates vary between 3500 and 8000 for any one phase of occupation (Cessford 2005). There is little evidence so far of the internal specialization or differentiation of functions. There are houses, animal pens and areas of refuse at Çatalhöyük, but as yet, despite extensive survey work, no evidence of public buildings, industrial areas (except lime burning off the edge of the site), cemeteries (burial occurs within houses), ceremonial centers and so on. On the whole, the recent field research at Çatalhöyük, which started in 1993, has corroborated the findings of Mellaart (Hodder 1996, 2000, 2005a, b, c, 2006, 2007). The more recent research has found much evidence of occupation even in the most elaborate buildings identified by Mellaart as ‘shrines’. We have termed all buildings at the site domestic houses although we recognize differences in the internal elaboration of houses (see the discus- sion of history houses below). One indication of large-scale divisions of the Neolithic East Mound is a large dip or trough across the middle, dividing it into two hills (Fig. 1). The mound does seem to have developed in two halves. The southern, higher eminence continued to be occupied after the general abandonment of the northern hill. In addition we have found some differences in the genetic make-up of the humans buried in the two halves, and we have also found differences in consumption and sheep herding behavior. As well as this large-scale division of the settlement into two, other groupings of houses have been identified. In the upper levels of the site Mellaart found some evidence of ‘streets’ winding between houses. In recent research we have also begun to find alleyways or boundaries between ‘sectors’ of the mound, each sector containing 10- 50 houses (Fig. 2). There are yet smaller groupings of houses that seem to have both social and economic imp- lications. Small groups of perhaps 3 to 6 houses often seem to be linked in that they use a common main house (perhaps corresponding to Mellaart’s ‘shrines’ and dubbed ‘history houses’ by the current team) for burial. History houses are those with more burials and more architectural elaboration as measured by numbers of platforms, pil- lars, installations and so on. History houses tend to be rebuilt over longer periods of time than other houses, but they do not control production or storage and they do not have more wealthy burials. Any social differentiation between history houses and non-history houses was very slight. Çatalhöyük. A Summary of Recent Work Concerning Architecture 305 Living in the Çatalhöyük house Much economic, social and ritual life was organized at the house level at Çatalhöyük. The houses through most of the sequence (the houses become multi-roomed complexes in the upper levels and in the West Mound) consist of a main room (eg Fig. 3) with 1-3 side rooms that are used for storage and food preparation. The main rooms have walls that are more frequently replastered and normally contain the entrance ladder or stairs on the south wall, with the oven and hearth beneath the ladder. The northern floors in the main room tend to be higher and whiter and cleaner, with more frequent replasterings. Paintings, sculptures, installations and burials occur above and beneath these northern platforms on the whole. (However, neonate and child burials sometimes occur near the ovens and hearths in the south parts of the main rooms.) But what did it mean to ‘live’ in these houses. How much time did people spend in them, and what was it like? It is often said that the houses were dark inside. But an experimental house built at the site by Mira Stevanovic has shown that during the day so much light comes in from the ladder entry that the main rooms are quite bright. The white plastered walls were frequently renewed and often burnished and so they reflect light well. Even the side rooms receive some reflected light so that one’s eyes get used to the relative dark in them and activities can be carried out there. We know that people knapped obsidian near the ladder entries in the main rooms and that they stored obsidian in caches in the same location. Indeed, the location of the obsidian caches and the nearby working of obsidian may be related to the need for a light source. But the rooms were probably smoky. This is clear from the layers of soot that are found on the plaster walls. The frequent (annual, seasonal and monthly – Matthews 2005) replastering of the walls may have been necessary to maintain the light reflection in the main rooms. Several individuals buried beneath the floors of houses who had carbon residues on their ribs (Andrews et al. 2005) are older people, and most old people had these residues. The carbon on the ribs has been interpreted in terms of the layers of soot identified on the plaster walls and the lack of architectural evidence for good air draughts in the houses – and in terms of the need to spend time in the houses over the harsh winters.

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