Çatalhöyük 1998 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 1998 ARCHIVE REPORT

Çatalhöyük 1998 Lithic Report

James Conolly

Introduction

Lithic material was examined from 287 excavated units throughout the course of the 1998 season on both the East and West Mounds by James Conolly, and 2104 individual pieces of knapped stone were registered in the main lithic database. In addition, 5542 pieces of microdebitage from 658 units (dating back from the 1995 season) were examined by Heidi Underbjerg. Additional analysis was conducted in the BACH area by Paulo Pelegatti, although details of this component of the analysis are currently unavailable.

This report deals exclusively with excavated material recovered during the course of excavations in the North and Mellaart Areas. The results of the microdebitage analysis are considered in a separate report by Heidi Underbjerg. The results of the BACH area analysis are summarised by Paulo Pelegatti.

Basic Data Summary

1812 pieces of knapped stone from the East Mound were examined in the 1998 season, and are derived from 251 contexts. The weight of all material was 1736.1 grains, with a mean weight of 0.96g. Table 1 summarises the counts and weights by raw material.

The material was divided into basic debitage categories based on their morphological characteristics. The schema followed in 1998 was the same as in previous years; Table 2 summarises the frequencies of these technological categories.

Of the 1812 pieces examined, 216 exhibited some form of what was deemed intentional retouch. Table 3 summarises the amount of retouched material by blank category. There is always some difficulty in separating post-depositional damage and use-wear from intentional modifications; as always, however, fairly stringent criteria were used to separate the latter from the former. In ambiguous cases, the benefit of doubt lay with the unintentionally modified group. This may under-represent the proportion of the assemblage that was utilised at some point (and at the same time activities that depended on simple ad-hoc obsidian or flint implements). This can only be resolved with a microscopic use-wear analysis of the Catalhöyük lithic artefacts, which was partially initiated this year by Paulo Pelegatti.

Debitage Characteristics

As in previous years, the most conspicuous characteristic of the analysed assemblage was its variety of form. Although unmodified flakes were the major category of debitage, the approaches to core reduction that could be gleaned from examination of their morphological characteristics were limited. It would appear that the typical approach to core reduction in both the Mellaart and the North Area, at least as represented by the 1998 material, is non-standardised. I have referred to this strategy as multi-platform/multi-sequence core reduction in earlier reports. As past analyses have suggested that this is the major approach to reduction in the lower (i.e. circa Mellaart Level V and earlier) contexts at Çatalhöyük, it is not out of place in the 1998 material. The exception to this is the occasional prismatic blade that appears (mainly) in the North Area and the occasional non-prismatic blade from the Mellaart Area. In the latter case, some of these can be ascribed to mixed or suspect contexts consisting of Mellaart's backfill. In the former, this form of debitage strategy seems to be a very unusual occurrence. This is in contrast to Building 1 where the appearance of this technique, while still uncommon, was playing an increasingly visible role.

Retouched Tool Characteristics

As in previous years, the retouched tools are highly variable. With some notable exceptions, most of the retouched assemblage consists of irregularly modified flakes. This is a common occurrence in Neolithic assemblages, and is suggestive of an ad-hoc approach to tool use and manufacture. In many cases, individual pieces appear to have been selected primarily based on how suitable an existing edge was for a determined task, with minor modifications made to strengthen or slightly change the shape of the working edge. As always, the recurrent morphological 'type' of lithic tool is the pièce esquillée, which again appears with remarkable frequency. Fifty-five were found in this year's assemblage, ranging from examples with bipolar crushing to the more regular 'gun-flint' examples. The other commonly recognised type of lithic tool are the projectile or projectile-like tools, of which 5 complete to nearly-complete examples were found, with a further 5 fragments recovered.

Contextual and Spatial Patterns

The exploration of contextual and spatial patterns in the 1998 material - both in the macro- and micro- assemblages - is severely hampered by a lack of readily accessible basic information about the past season's excavation units. The following assessments of distribution and association are limited by this deficiency, and are therefore subject to modification, as additional data eventually in two parts: becomes available. This discussion is best considered in two parts: (i) a statistical examination of artefact assemblage composition using multivariate factor analysis provides some useful comparisons between units excavated in 1998. Here relationships between units, and the reasons for those relationships, are Identified; (ii) patterns of lithic artefact distribution across two of the excavated areas are examined' ed. In this analysis, similarities and differences between different categories of object are identified based on their spatial distribution.

(i) Assemblage Compositional Analysis by Unit

A factor analysis conducted on the categorical composition of all the units (including those from the West Mound) excavated in the 1998 season has produced some meaningful patterning insofar as it separates out units of similar composition. This is clearly demonstrated in the graph in Figure 44, where 'hulls' have been drawn around the three major groups identified through the analysis. This has notably demarcated the West Mound units (i.e. those that begin 29 ... ) from the major central cluster, as well as a third peripheral grouping containing 5 units (2845, 2898, 2899, 3115, 3314). Examination of the weighting of the two axes used (Table 4) suggests the West Mound group - being positively aligned along factor 2 - is distinguished by a greater frequency of regular blades. The latter group is probably best considered as containing 'a-typical units and generally containing more than the modal frequency of flakes. In some cases (such as 2899, these units are 'mixed' and are derived from Mellaartian back-fill.

A similar analysis was performed with the West Mound units removed. The results of this can be seen in the graph in Figure 45 where a central cluster is surround by a loose dispersion of what could be considered 'a-typical' units. In this instance, the axes can be distinguished mainly by the frequency of flakes and secondarily by non-regular blades (Table 5). The outliers to the main group tend to be aligned positively along factor 1, and can therefore be interpreted as generally having more flakes than those in the central cluster. Unfortunately, attempting to interpret these patterns is impossible at the time of writing, as the details of some the units used in the analysis have not yet been made electronically available. It should, nevertheless, be possible in the near future to examine the cluster demarcations that I have made and look for similarities and differences vis-à-vis the units' contextual composition.

(ii) Spatial Distribution and Analysis

The analysis of the spatial distribution of the lithic artefacts collected in 1998 can be looked at along three major classes of artefact: (i) general lithic density distribution; (ii) retouched tool density distributions; (iii) debris density distributions. The Mellaart Area and the North Area have been considered separately in the following discussion and in all cases, the distribution maps have been made by plotting the variation from the mean density. Note that all maps are provisional, as only a 1/3 of the 1998 units could be examined in this way, as the x,y co-ordinates have not yet been made available for the remainder.

In the Mellaart Area, the general lithic density distribution shows a strong tendency towards the western end of the excavation area, with a mean density of 0.077g/1 (Figure 38). This contrasts strongly with the distribution map of tool density that exhibits central weighting with a skewed drop-off towards the east side of the trench (Figure 39). Conversely, the north-western side of the trench exhibits a lower mean density. The distribution of debris for the Mellaart Area matches the general lithic distribution, insofar as the tendency is for most debris to be located towards the western side of the excavated area (Figure 40).

In the North Area, lithic density is not oriented to any one central area but several 'pockets' with the building can be identified Figure 41). In particular the southern end of Space 154, the western edge of the main area, the north-eastern and the south-eastern corner show higher than normal amounts of material. The middle of the central area has relatively low amounts of material. The distribution of tools (Figure 42) in the North Area is shows a propensity for the south-eastern corner of Space 154, although greater numbers of tools seem to be found generally in this Space than in the central portion of Building 5. As with the Mellaart Area, the distribution of debris generally matches that of the total lithic distribution, with greater densities found around the peripheries of major Spaces.

Conclusion

This season's work has again shown that the lithic assemblage is an extremely non-standardised corpus of material with a variety of approaches to debitage and tool production. Although some technological patterns, or strategies of reduction, can certainly be identified, the most productive avenue for exploring a single-season's material seems to be along the lines of statistical exploration of assemblage composition, and spatial analysis of density distribution. Unfortunately, the latter two analytical approaches require basic contextual information to be made available so that a fuller sample of material can be examined. As a relatively small amount of this information was available at the time of writing, I have avoided making any interpretative statements, as the patterns identified can only be considered provisional.

Figure 38 Interpolated Surface: Mellaart Area Lithic Density by weight

Figure 39 Interpolated Surface: Mellaart Area Tool Distribution

Figure 40 Interpolated Surface: Mellaart Area Debris Distribution

Figure 41 Interpolated Surface: North Area Lithic Density by Weight

Figure 42 Interpolated Surface: North Area Tool Distribution

Figure 43 Interpolated Surface: North Area Debris Distribution

Figure 44 Factor Analysis of '98 Units using Summed Debitage Categories

Figure 45 Factor Analysis of East Mound '98 Units