ÇATALHÖYÜK 1996 ARCHIVE REPORT

Botanical Archive Report 1996

Christine Hastorf

The recent excavations began in 1995 with Ann Butler (UCL) building and operating a motorized flotation system. This machine was designed based on a modified Ankara flotation machine, using water to separate the charred plant remains from the soil matrix. A 3 horsepower motor was attached to a 55 gallon oil drum. In 1995 the goal was to collect 60 liters of soil from every excavation unit in bulk, point-provenienced collections, although some excavation units produced less than 60 liters. Approximately 200 samples were collected in 1995. Ann Butler processed approximately 90 soil samples in 1995. Ann Butler took the Mellaart samples back to UCL's archaeobotany laboratory in London, while the north sector structure 1 samples went to the University of California-Berkeley archaeobotany laboratory, where Julie Near had begun to look at them.

The 1996 August-September excavation season had Dr. Christine Hastorf (University of California-Berkeley), Julie Near (University of California-Berkeley) and Maria Mangafa (University of Thessaloniki) overseeing the archaeobotanical research and collections. The same blanket sampling strategy was maintained, but with either 20 or 40 liter samples taken from every excavation unit. In some smaller contexts however, samples of only several liters were collected, especially within the structure 1 in the north sector . We also requested that in certain midden and fill contexts a second, average soil sample was also collected from the units. These average samples were taken primarily in the Mellaart area that uncovered quite a bit of midden dumping in 1996. In all, almost 700 soil samples were floated during the 1996 field season. These 1996 processed samples include the remaining 120 samples collected in 1995. All flotation samples have been sent to the University of California-Berkeley Archaeobotany Laboratory for analysis.

To keep up with the excavations, a second, larger pump-driven water flotation system was built in 1996. This system was based on the SMAP machine, and was built to larger specifications than normal flotation machines. We also had a more powerful motor to aid in soil processing. This strategy was done in order to process larger samples. Normal operations had the smaller machine floting the smaller samples and the larger machine processing the full-sized samples. Both machines used a .5mm aperture to recover the heavy residue and a .17mm aperture for the light fraction floated material.

Middens, fills, pits, floors, charred storage bins, hearths, fire installations, mud-brick, and plaster all contained plant taxa. Of special note during the 1996 season in the north sector, there were two dense, well preserved botanical samples. The first, near the fire installation was an acorn cache on the floor of phase 2. There were about 40 nuts within this one concentration. This seems to have been a bundle of nuts that was probably hanging from the roof or on a peg in the wall, and fell while burning. The second dense find was in the center of the eastern wall in a storage bin. Within that bin was a solid layer of lentils. These seeds were extremely clean, with out much chaff or other wild taxa and were stored, ready for cooking and eating. The lentils covered most of this bin of about 1 by .5 m, and were about 5 cm thick. They were clearly burnt in situ but in an indirect atmosphere, due to there extremely well shaped and preserved condition. They might have been covered while burning.

Thus far in the analysis, we find quite a diversity in densities of plant remains as well as taxa present. Clearly, the different contexts in the site will yield very different frequencies of plants. All of the major domesticates associated with the Neolithic in the region are present, but their distribution is very nonrandom. Lentils, peas, and cereals are regularly present. Wetland, wild taxa also are common. The structure 1 floor samples seem quite clean of plant matter, yet the mud bricks are extremely dense with it. Especially interesting are the middens of the Mellaart area. In these middens, we found dense and large wood concentrations with likely animal and human dung, also burned occasionally.