Çatalhöyük (7100 to 5700 BCE)

(July 5, 2022) Catalhoyuk (7100 to 5700 BCE) was an early agricultural settlement of about 8,000 people in south central Anatolia. It was the first stop of the Neolithic farmer settlers coming out of the Middle East. It was located in an ideal agricultural setting being next to a marsh allowing for many flat agricultural fields separated by a network of small streams providing a natural sort of irrigation and abundant fish and shell fish. Floods would have renewed the soil every year.

The organization of the town was ancestral continuing the trends evidenced at Gobekli Tepe. No semi-public spaces devoted to fertility rituals have yet been found like those at Gobekli Tepe. Spiritual practices seemed to have occurred only in the houses. 

On the south side of every house was the hearth and food preparation area. The north side was the spiritual work space and possibly the sleeping area often having raised platforms below which artifacts of spiritual power were buried. These included ancestor bones, figurines, and auroch skulls. 

The number of human bone burials on the north side correlates with the richness of the religious symbolism in that house. The longer a house was in a family the more spiritual power that house seems to have acquired. Consequently, these houses would be rebuilt above the old ones for hundreds of years indicating a continuing family presence and tradition. Older people were honored in this society as evidenced by discarded food bones which shows the residents of the houses with the larger number of spiritual icons ate more meat than average. No differentiation in gender status is in evidence. Plastered heads used as spiritual ancestral icons were equally male and female. No family gained more material wealth or power relative to the others over time.

Some of the bones and even skulls of the buried ancestors were removed. The bones were apparently placed elsewhere while many of the skulls were plastered to act as house décor. One buried woman was even found clutching a plastered skull. 

References

Ian Holder’s 2014 Flikr stream at https://www.flickr.com/photos/catalhoyuk/albums/72157647113315030