Çatalhöyük 1998 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 1998 ARCHIVE REPORT

Çatalhöyük 1998 Bone Tools

by Nerissa Russell

With the 57 bone tools recorded during the 1998 season, the total analyzed is now 187. I recorded all tools that were recognized in the field or encountered while studying the animal bones during the time I was at the site. Louise Martin provisionally recorded those that were found after I left and sent to the Konya Museum. Most of the bone tools (127) were found in the Mellaart area, with 77 from the North area and small numbers from the Summit, Bach, West, and Kopal excavations. Taxonomic and other standard animal bone information was recorded for the tools, as well as morphological and microwear information about their manufacture and use.

There are no major changes from previous years. Points account for nearly half the bone tools, while more than a quarter are ornaments, especially bone rings (see Table 1). Other types are only sparsely represented. The distributional pattern of the bone ornaments has varied through the years. Pendants remain far more common in the North area than the Mellaart area. Rings at first seemed more common in the Mellaart area. This pattern was reversed last year, and with the addition of this yearís tools, rings form the same proportion of the bone tool assemblages in the two areas. Some new bone tool types have been found in 1998, each represented by a single tool: chopper, spatula, and hammer.

Tool Types

Points

Figure 50 Tip Angle of Points

Although a variety of materials are used to make bone points, the great majority are made on sheep/goat (usually sheep) metapodials (see Table 2 and Table 3). They are the most common tool type throughout the site, but are most common in the Mellaart area, where they form more than half the bone tool assemblage. Most of the points have slender and sharp tips, but this applies especially to those from the Mellaart area (see Figure 50). This suggests that there may be differences in the activities performed with bone tools between the Mellaart and North areas.

Rounded Points

No additional rounded points were recorded in 1998.

Needles

This year, a complete tool that may belong to the type I have tentatively labelled as needles was recorded from the North area (3267.D1). Unfortunately, this tool was found after I left, so I have not yet seen it. Sheep-sized rib has been completely smoothed and polished on both inner and outer sides to make it very thin. At one end, the rib has been shaped to a tapering rounded end. At the other, it has a perforation of about 2 mm. in diameter near the end of the artifact. An additional fragmentary artifact, also from the North area and also found after I left, may also belong to this type (3278.D1). These artifacts, and the others I have called ëneedles,í are clearly not sewing needles. They may be weaving or netting tools, or may even be pendants.

Chisels/Gouges

A tip fragment of a chisel-like tool (1889. F20) has been placed in this category. The edge appears to have been originally beveled, but is heavily damaged; the break on the shaft that created this fragment seems quite likely to have been caused by percussive force lengthwise down the tool as well. Although there is a little use polish, the flint scrapes from manufacture are very fresh. This pattern does not support use in the soil, or in butchery. James Conolly does find it plausible as a punch for obsidian or flint working. It seems most likely to be a woodworking tool, but it is unclear how the edge became so thoroughly destroyed without leaving more polish.

Choppers

The first example of this type was recovered from what a unit in the Bach area that is interpreted as containing the remains of a feast (2250.F101). This segment of a large mammal metatarsal shaft is a tool by virtue of being used, rather than shaped. The distal end has a straight edge, with much flaking and battering along it. This could result from tapping out marrow, but there is also some polish both over the flakes and on the inner and outer sides of the shaft. The polish seems not to be postdepositional, as it does not appear on the broken edges. It may be a casual butchering tool, used to chop apart the joints. The polish seems to extend too far up shaft (nearly all the way) for this or any other chopping activity, however. In any case, it is a very casual tool that was probably used briefly and then discarded.

Pottery Polishers

An additional pottery polisher was recorded this year from the North area (3069.F16). While the microwear is consistent with use on fine-tempered ceramics, it may actually have been used on plaster, as the shape seems to be better suited to use on relatively flat objects than on rounded pots. It is a very casual tool made on a scapula that is unmodified except for breaking off its spine and perhaps the articulation. It was not used a great deal.

Plaster Tools

No additional plaster tools were recorded in 1998.

Spoons

No additional spoons were recorded in 1998.

Spatulas

A tool on a splinter of sheep/goat proximal metapodial from the Summit area (2608.F107) resembles artifacts that Mellaart refers to as cosmetics spatulas. It is quite flat, with a rectangular shape in plan. The tip is flat and broad, angled slightly. This tool is very carefully worked, and exhibits some use polish on both sides of the edge of the tip as though it was rubbed on something.

Handles

No additional handles were recorded in 1998.

Ornaments

This is a general category that covers assorted artifacts that seem to have a decorative function but are not classifiable as pendants, beads, or rings. No new artifacts were assigned to this category in 1998.

Pendants

Three new pendants were recorded this year. One is a perforated red deer ëwolf tooth,í or upper canine, from the Bach area (2254.D1). This vestigial tooth has a distinctive, smooth teardrop shape, and has often been highly valued as an ornament (McCabe 1982, Ursachi 1990). The value given these teeth is indicated by the frequent occurrence of ëfakes,í imitations carved in bone, at Çatalhöyük and elsewhere, as seen in 1290.X1, and perhaps in a more stylized version in 1092.H1 and 1368.H1.

The two other pendants are made of antler, roughly rectangular, and rather thick and crudely finished. Like several similar antler pendants found in previous years, they give the impression of being unfinished. It seems unlikely that all such artifacts were unfinished, however, so it may be that they actually are not pendants, but loom weights or plumb bobs. Correspondence with Professor Werner Bachmann raises the possibility that these may have been spun on cords as bull-roarers.

Beads

One additional bead was recorded this year. A segment of hare radius was cut and broken at one end, apparently broken without cutting at the other. It has been partially polished, but may be unfinished.

Rings

Nine more bone rings and ring fragments were recorded this year. They closely resemble those from previous years and continue to exhibit the same method of manufacture. All the new rings are from Mellaart and North.

Knucklebones

No additional knucklebones were recorded in 1998.

Fish Hooks

Each year from 1996-1998, a fish hook made of boarís tusk has been found in the North area. In 1996 one was found in House 1; last year another was found in the ashy sub-floor foundation packing for this house. This year, a third hook was found in the infilling of House 5 preparatory to the construction of House 1 (3047.F1, Figure 15). This small, delicate hook is very carefully worked. Unlike the other two, it has no barb. It has notches on both sides of the top that appear to be for attaching a line. In form, all three of these artifacts quite clearly seem to be fish hooks. They are quite different from the much heavier and blunter belt hooks found by Mellaart, for instance. It is not clear what fish would be caught, though, given that the fish remains from the site contain only a few bones representing fish even slightly larger than minnows. Boar's tusk is an unusual material to use for a fish hook, and is brittle enough that it might break in use. This hook seems more worn on one side than the other, raising the possibility that it was worn as a pendant rather than actually used in fishing. It is striking that all three of these artifacts are associated with House 1. Are these symbolic fish hooks made in a more valuable material than those that were actually used in fishing? Are they associated with the family that lived in this house? Given the small role played by fish at the site in the faunal remains, and their absence in the art, it seems an unlikely emblem.

Pressure Flakers

No additional pressure flakers were recorded in 1998.

Soft Hammers

No additional soft hammers were recorded in 1998.

Hammers

A hammer made on the base of a possibly shed antler, using the first tine as a handle, was found in what is interpreted as a deposit of feasting remains outside the south wall of House 1 in the North area. The beam has been removed and ground to round it off to form the hammering surface. On this surface are stray marks from a hard material, some probably flint/obsidian. The hammering surface is too large to use as a soft hammer in knapping. It may have been a woodworking mallet, used to hit perhaps both obsidian and bone chisels. Its presence in a feasting deposit is intriguing. Was it used to produce wooden serving vessels for the meal?

Preforms/Waste

The only addition to this category in 1998 is a preform for ring manufacture from space 159 in the Mellaart area. It is the unfused distal end and shaft of a rather large sheep/goat femur. There are six grooves circumscribed horizontally around the shaft at 1 cm. intervals, about 1 mm. deep and 1 mm. wide. The groove farthest up the shaft seems to have been in the process of being broken through to leave a ring, but this breaking caused a splitting of the whole shaft, thus rendering the preform useless for ring manufacture. There is polish on some areas of the shaft, suggesting that polishing began before the detachment of the rings.

Indeterminate

Ten artifacts recorded this year cannot clearly be placed into a type. From the Bach area, 2296.X22 is a scapula with chipping along two edges that may indicate use, although there is no sign of manufacture. A fragment of an antler tool (2228.X3) with straight edges that converge to a rounded, somewhat flattened point may be part of an artifact of the type I have provisionally called pendants, but which may actually be weights or bull-roarers (see pendants section above).

From the Summit area, a fragment of a split rib tool (2600.F219) may be part of a burnisher with very little use, or the handle end of some tool.

From the West area, 2910.F300 is a fragment of highly polished long bone shaft. A worked antler tine (2901.X1) shows evidence of a very neat use of the cut-and-break technique at the base; another cut circles the tine farther up, without a break. The tip seems beveled off and polished; although deer do rub their tines on trees, this is probably more modification than the deer would create. It is conceivably a pressure flaker, but the unbroken groove seems extraneous. It is possible that it is actually broken accidentally through the groove at the base, and that this is actually the base portion of a haft or other tool.

From the Mellaart area, a leaf-shaped piece of cut, split antler (2845.X2) could be a preform for the antler pendant/weights/bull-roarers. The sides seem finished, but the ends are quite rough, and there is no perforation. A fragment of split long bone shaft ground to a flat, rectangular cross section with an end broken and then ground on a diagonal is probably the base of some tool (2858.F50).

From the North area, 3039.F1 is a fragment of carved bone, probably near the base of the handle of a 'hairpin' or spatula. It is made on a section of thick long bone cortex, carved into a distinctive shape, not all of it present. It could be a representation of a human or a bird, among other things. One end is cylindrical, presumably heading toward the tip. The light gray-brown colour probably results from perhaps deliberate burning in a loose matrix such as sand or ash. It is very carefully worked and polished, but appears to have little actual use. A fragment of a split rib tool (3069.F11) does not really look like a burnisher and may be part of a handle of some tool. A fragment of dense bone with a rounded shape (3221.F1) is highly polished on the original outer surface, but too little remains to identify either the tool type or the body part.

Discussion

The bone tool finds from the 1998 season have not brought any major changes from previous years, but have largely confirmed the patterns that have emerged in the last two years. As the number of bone tools increases, a few new types are added. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the bone tool distribution is the limited occurrence of some types, such as fish hooks, so far found only in the North area, and knucklebones, so far found only in the Summit area. The localization of these two tool types may reflect ritual rather than craft specialization. The tendency to more slender tips on points in the Mellaart area could indicate some spatial or temporal difference in activities, however.

References Cited

McCabe, Richard E. 1982 Elk and Indian: Historical values and perspectives. In Elk of North America: Ecology and Management. J. W. Thomas and D. E. Toweill, eds. Pp. 61-123. Harrisburg: Stackpole.

Ursachi, Vasile 1990 Le depot d'objets de parure en eneolithiques de Brad, Com. Negri, Dep. de Bacau. In Le Paleolithique et le Neolithique de la Roumanie en Contexte Europeen. V. Chirica and D. Monah, eds. Pp. 335-386. Iasi: Institut d'Archeologie-Iasi.