Çatalhöyük 1996 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 1996 ARCHIVE REPORT

Introduction

Ian Hodder

The season in 1996 began on August 1 and ended on September 30. In that time over 100 people worked at the site, including 23 local workers, about 20 Turkish scholars and students, and about 57 people from many countries including the UK, USA, Germany, Greece, Spain, Canada, and South Africa. The team stayed in the new dig house and worked in the new laboratories (4 now completed) which were opened formally by the European Ambassador and Director General of Monuments and Museums on 27 September. There was a major press day on 25 September at which 60 journalists and television reporters attended, and a local open day on 28 September. The work this year was funded by the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, The British Academy, The Newton Trust, The McDonald Institute, The National Geographic Society, and by various sponsors including Visa International (Main Sponsor for 1996), Merko (Long Term Sponsor), GlaxoWellcome and British Airways (Cosponsors), and Shell. A shelter for the excavations on the North part of the East mound has been purchased by the Istanbul Friends of Catalhoyuk. Support was also received from Orrin Shane and the Science Museum of Minnesota.

Work concentrated on Building 1 on the North part of the East mound, on continuing the lower levels of excavation in the 1960s Mellaart area, and on an area (termed Summit) on the top part of the main southern part of the East mound adjacent to the Mellaart area (figure 1). In all areas, 40 litres of soil from each excavation unit were taken for flotation and all other soil was dry sieved through a 4mm mesh. Archive samples for chemical and other analyses were also taken from all deposits and organic samples were taken from selected deposits. The heavy residues from the flotation, collected in a .5 mm mesh, were then dried and sieved through 4mm, 2mm and 1mm sieves and sorted by hand for what are termed below 'micro-artifacts'. All visible artifacts on floors and all other 'small finds' were 3-dimensionally plotted as 'macro-artifacts'.

North Area, Building 1

The excavation of this building (See figure), identified by surface scraping of the top of the north part of the East mound, had begun in 1995. Excavation continued in both the western room (Space 70) and in the main room (Spaces 71 and 72/110). Limited excavation also took place in the outside areas between Building 1 and the buildings to the west and east.

The Mellaart area

The aim of excavation in this area (Figure 4) is to go down in a 20m by 20m area in order to reach the lowest levels of the mound sampled by Mellaart in the 1960s and reported to contain 'Epipalaeolithic' and 'PPNA-type' obsidian. Excavation concentrated on Mellaart's Courtyard 15 (renamed Space 105), House 16 (Space 106), House 2 (Space 107) and House 12 (Space 108).

The Summit area

A new area was also opened to the southeast of the area excavated in the 1960s. The aim of the excavation here is to reduce erosion and to open up a well preserved building that can be seen in the section of the 1960s trenches. The building at the surface here (Building 10, Figure 5) is probably Level V on the basis of surface sherds and stratigraphy.

Other projects

Other projects which took place this year are Geomorphology undertaken by a team headed by Dr Neil Roberts, and Regional Survey undertaken by a team led by Dr Douglas Baird. This are both reported on separately. A team of Conservators from the University of Pennsylvania and Connie Silver made further progress in developing the treatment techniques that will be needed to conserve wall plasters and paintings when they are found. They also built a drilling and lifting rig that is able to lift up to 2.5 tons of wall so that walls and paintings can be taken to the laboratories and layers of plaster separated and restored in a safe and controlled environment. A team from Karlsruhe in Germany continued video documentation and feeding digitised videos onto the database. Experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology dealing with building construction, use and collapse were continued by specialists and students from the Universities of California, Berkeley and Istanbul. Other teams included Human Remains specialists from the London Natural History Museum and from Ankara University, Dr David Jenkins for Soil Chemistry, Dr Wendy Matthews for Soil Micromorphology, Dr Colin Shell for Geophysical Prospection.