Çatalhöyük 1997 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 1997 ARCHIVE REPORT

THE SUMMIT AREA. 1997

Kostas Kotsakis

1. The area

Work in the Summit proceeded during the 1997 season in two distinct areas: a. the northern part of Building 10, and b: the area east of Building 10. A new trench, called Summit 2, was opened to the east of Building 10, measuring 9 x 4 m. The main aim of this season's work was to investigate further Building 10, where a complex succession of floors and other structural features had been identified last year, but also to have a clearer view of the open area east of Building 10, where the new trench was opened. The work was carried out by 4 persons, assisted by 2 to 4 workmen, and lasted from August 25th to the 19th of September . In the 1997 season the following archaeologists worked in the Summit team: S. Geroussi , S. Hatzitoulousis , I. Imamidis, A. Konstantinidou, E. Kiriatzi, D. Lahanidou, A. Nitsou, D. Vlachos, A. Vargas Escobar.

2. Architecture and stratigraphy.

Summit 2. Excavation in the new trench revealed a dense pattern of pits covering the area almost in its entirety. The six pits had a circular shape, were shallow and had vertical walls. Their date is not yet certain, but they could well be Neolithic. One of the pits, Pit 130, was much deeper, bell-shaped, and its bottom had a circular depression, of a smaller diameter. The purpose of this arrangement remains unknown. The overall shape of the pit, however, closely resembles that of Pit 100 of the 96 season, as well as the shape of Pit 125 of 97. Furthermore, Pit 125 is connected to Pit 100 by a narrow channel, so these three features could belong to a single episode of activity in this area. On the evidence of pottery, the date of Pit 100 must be placed in the early Byzantine period.

One of the reasons for opening the new trench in Summit 2 was to understand better the function of the unusually thick wall 102. The working hypothesis was that wall 102 could have served also as a retaining wall in the stepped terracing system forming the site. In this case, one would expect constructions contemporaneous with Building 10 built on a higher level east of Building 10, and supported by wall 102. The evidence on this feature is not yet conclusive. Excavation revealed two walls (wall 134, 144), unusually thin (20 cm), running parallel to each other and to Building 10. Their in-between distance varied from 1.60 to 2.00 m. It is possible that these two thin walls define a small lane passing on the east side of Building 10, but this will require further investigation. The easternmost wall (wall 144) could well belong to a small building of a makeshift construction, which would serve an auxiliary function. In the easternmost corner of the trench, the old Mellaart's trench was uncovered.

The rest of the deposits in the area of Summit 2 have a distinctive midden appearance, with lenses of black, ashy deposits, full of charcoal, alternating with layers of clay. The general impression is not one of a simple refuse heap, but of an area that was regularly used, possibly in activities related to Building 10. Among these activities, those related to fire were easily identified, particularly in the area between wall 144 and 134, where excavation revealed abundant evidence for repeated fire episodes. In one case, whole branches were burnt in situ.

Building 10. Investigation here focused on the north side, where little work was done in 1996 and the stratigraphic relations of the walls had remained obscure. To this end, the deposits in Pit 100 were removed entirely this year, and the sides of the pit, revealing a very informative stratigraphy, were examined and drawn. As said before, the pit was dated to the Early Byzantine period.

The history of the walls in this part of Building 10 is fairly complex. According to the evidence from the pit 100 stratigraphy, the earliest wall 105 is related to at least four phases of thick plastered floors, below floor 117 of 1996. Wall 113, on the other hand, is the latest of the sequence, and its foundation cuts floor 117. During its life, wall 105 sustained many modifications, some of which were clearly defined this year.

Floor 117 was the earliest floor level reached in the excavation of the north part of Building 10. It was constructed as a hard packed white clay surface, which was very well preserved. Related to floor 117 are a number of features, mainly platforms, which were sequentially added in a succession of modifications. In the earliest episode of these modifications wall 105 showed a plastered face both on its northern and southern sides, so it is probable that wall 105 defined two spaces of the same building, possibly two rooms. If this was the case, platform 114, which was identified here in 1996 and has been related to floor 116, was a later feature, constructed after the two rooms had seized to function separately. As shown in plan 1, wall 105 turns at right angles to the North, joining with the earlier phase of wall 142. Only the south face of wall 142 is plastered, while its northern face is plain. On the stratigraphic evidence from the sides of pit 100 it seems probable that the recess thus formed was occupied by a low platform, covered by white plaster, and decorated with a band of red paint on its edge. Only part of this platform (F147) was revealed, the rest being covered by the later platforms 137 and 138. This was the earliest building episode identified in this part of Building 10.

A later platform (137) was constructed in this recess, covering the earlier feature 147 (plan 2). Platform 137 was badly preserved, but showed at least two courses of mudbrick construction. It turned at right angles to the South, following wall 102, under the later platform 120, which was excavated and described last year. This part of the platform was called F138. It was constructed of packed clay with careful white clay plastering over a thin spread of gravel. Occasional traces of red paint indicate that the surface of the platform used to be decorated. Its western edge was formed into a bordering lip, 2 to 3 cm high, which was turning at right angles to the East, and met wall 102. In the corner formed by platforms 137 and 138, and towards the centre of the building, the excavation unearthed a clay basin. It was covered with white plaster and was in an excellent state of preservation.

Both the basin and platforms 137 and 138 seem stratigraphically bonded to floor 117. But so does the earlier platform 147. Presumably these successive features represent episodes of rearranging the space in the Northeast corner of Building 10, during the life of floor 117. Floor 116, which was identified last year, is clearly later, and although poorly preserved, there is little doubt that it covers all these features. In the same episode belongs also the rebuilding of wall 142 and wall 105. Wall 105 extended at this stage further to the East, covering part of the earlier platform 147, as well as the plastered eastern face of its earlier face. The original recess became thus less wide.

The building of wall 113 represents a completely distinct episode in the history of Building 10. The wall was founded in a cut that had truncated both platform 137 and the earlier 147, as well as part of the wall 142 related to these features. It follows that wall 113 was built as part of a major rearrangement of Building 10 related to floor 116. Unfortunately, the cutting of pit 100 on this particular spot had obliterated all evidence of the connection of wall 105 and 113 in this phase. The stratigraphy preserved on the sides of the pit was equally uninformative on this issue.

Little work was done in the southern part of Building 10. It was attempted, however, to dig under floor 117 in the area around oven 111. Immediately below floor 117, the excavation came across an earlier phase of the floor. An interesting feature revealed by this short examination was that this earlier floor (140) passed under the northern part of oven 111 and was separated from it by a thick deposit of dark scorched earth. Just north of oven 111 a small podium covered with painted plaster was unearthed. This plastered podium supported a clay hearth. The whole arrangement is the exact replica of that explored last year with oven 111 and podium 123, except that the earlier arrangement was smaller and occupied less of the building's centre. The expansion of these fire installations to the centre also explains the expansion of the west platform 112 to the North. As it was observed in 1996, the last phase of expansion of the platform was related to floor 117. We know now this was also the phase when the oven was rebuilt in bigger dimensions and the painted podium moved towards the centre of Building 10.

3. Finds

The pottery (by E.Kyriatzi)

During the 97 season, excavation in the Summit area produced a significant amount of pottery, in comparison to the other excavated deposits on the site. A total of 2469 sherds have been recorded, weighing 21,400 gr. A major part of it, 1173 sherds (13,336 gr.) comprises material associated with Roman/early Byzantine pits, while 69 sherds (978 gr.) came from the remaining part of the Neolithic pit 101. Moreover, the excavation of the north part of Building 10 yielded about 180 more sherds (847 gr.) associated to the floor 117 deposit.

The study of the above pottery mainly concentrated on the creation of a recording system whose application would enable us to systematically collect and treat information on pottery raw materials and manufacturing technology, use, disposal and post-depositional history. The new system checked on the 97 matrial, but also on part of the 96 pottery, focusing on the study of three different types of contexts: floor 117 (of building 10), Neolithic pit 101, and the Roman/early Byzantine pits 100, 121, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131; the latter will be treated as a group due to their chronological association.

Roman/early Byzantine Pits: The nine pits excavated so far in the Summit area seem to have been roughly contemporary since the latest material they all contained has been provisionally dated to the Roman/early Byzantine period. More specifically, the pottery sherds they yielded are assigned to the Neolithic, Chalcolithic, Iron Age (?), Hellenistic (?) and Roman/early Byxantine periods. The presence of painted Chalcolithic pottery is consistent in all the pits, but its frequency varies, being higher in pit 100. Despite the lack of clear evidence on chronological discrimination of the pits, some differences on their depositional history can be suggested on the basis of pottery frequency and preservation. Significant variation in the frequency of pottery (pottery weight per litre of excavated soil) and the mean sherd weight can be noticed among the nine pits, not seemingly related to the size of the pit or its proximity to the surface. The present variation could be the result of the pits being filled with material from different sources, associated with different activities; i.e. pits 128 and 129 containing few small and poorly preserved sherds were probably filled slowly with surface material, while pit 130, with many large pottery sherds, seems to have been filled rather quickly (in one event?) with broken pots dumped into it.

Pit 101 Pit 101 was dug through later deposits of Building 10 ; on the basis of pottery, there does not seem to be much chronological distance between the two contexts. The pit, whose major part had been excavated during the 1996 season, contained 375 sherds, representing at least 9 almost whole pots and parts of several others. The good preservation of the sherd edges and the fact that parts of the same pot were found all through the pit deposit, from top to bottom, supports a quick "filling" scenario, as opposed to a slow process of deposition. The presence of "almost whole" pots further suggests that the pit deposit could be mainly related to a single event. The "whole" pots mainly comprise large holemouthed jars (rim diameter 23-38 cm) and large bowls with everted rim (rim diameter 20-28 cm). The presence of soot on the surface of some of the holemouths denotes the possible use for cooking.

Floor 117 The deposits of Building 10, associated with floor 117, have yielded a total of 252 sherds. In comparison to Pit 101, the frequency of pottery is quite low and the sherds are quite small. The rim sherds represent mainly bowls of small and medium size (rim diameter <20 cm). Among the pottery, the presence of soot on the surface of a number of sherds, is evident (cooking pots?)

Neolithic pottery technology Although the pottery seems quite uniform, there seems to be some variation in the raw materials used, the forming techniques and the surface treatment, mainly between vessels of different forms (i.e. holemouthed jars vs bowls). The results of the petrographic analysis of about 30 pottery samples, along with those of the comparative analysis of raw materials already selected from the vicinity of the site, will help to check, and take further our macroscopic observations aiming to the reconstruction of the pottery making process at Catal Hoyuk. Furthermore, referring to possible cooking pots, samples were taken for organic residue analysis.

Lithics

There were 70 pieces of obsidian inventoried from Summit. According to James Conolly , who made a preliminary examination, the material from the Summit area represents a developed blade industry. There appears to be a fairly complete range of debitage with the exception of cortical pieces. This suggests that in the Summit area, as elsewhere on the site, obsidian was being introduced in a prepared state.

From the rest of the finds, special mention should be made of a small figurine (1.8 x 2.2 cm) of a seated obese human figure, of the type with a whole in the place of the head.

4. Archaeobotanical Sampling (by Maria Mangafa)

During this season 84 samples of soil were collected for the recovery of plant remains, following the same sampling strategy as last year. Aglaia Nitsou (University of Thessaloniki) was responsible on-site for the sampling and the flotation. In total 2643 Lt of soil were processed and the flotation machines as well as the aperture for collection of the floated material and the heavy residue were the same as 1996. The excavation this year was extended also east of Building 10. From this area 25 samples were collected. However, most of these samples came from the surface and, consequently, they were heavily disturbed. Others were collected from the several pits that were found in this area and therefore, none of these samples was included in the analysis made so far.

The rest 60 samples were collected from Building 10. The majority comes from floors, platforms, pits, walls and middens. It is worth noting that all the different contexts contained plant remains. The species in these assemblages represented cereals, pulses, fruit/nuts as well as seeds from other wild plants. The cereals identified were einkorn, emmer, bread/macaroni wheat and barley of both hulled and naked variety. Only few pulses were found, and they were identified as peas and vetch. Hackberies and pistacios were also present in the samples. Wetland wild taxa were also very common.

Overall the assemblages from this year's season are the same as that of last year. Not only the range of species is similar but also the composition of the samples. All of the samples that have been examined so far consist mainly of chaff and weedy seeds and only few cereal grains, whereas in many cases the samples are mixed (i.e. cereals occur together with hackberry and pistacio nuts, and sometimes with few pulses). Thus, the assemblages seem to represent mainly the by-products of fine sieving of einkorn, and possibly emmer. Platforms F. 120 (and its various phases F. 133, 137 and 138) and the basin F134 yielded fairly low quantities of plant remains, although it should be noted at this point that flots <1mm have not been studied yet. The middens only seem to differ: large wood concentrations, animal dung and parenchymatous tissues have been found.

Figure 24: Plan of Summit Area, Early Phase

Figure 25: Plan of Summit Area, Late Phase

Figure 26: Clay Figurine 2675.X1 (drawn by A.Chadwick)