ÇATALHÖYÜK 1999 ARCHIVE REPORT

The Excavation of the BACH 1 Area

BACH Alan 1 Kazıları

Mirjana Stevanovic and Ruth Tringham

BACH (Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük )

BACH Director: Ruth Tringham

Field Director: Ruth Tringham, Mirjana Stevanovic

Site Assistants: Roger Matthews, Sonya Suponcic, Katherine Twiss, Anne Marie Vandendriesch, Predrag Dakic, Ana Spasojevic, Paolo Pellegatti, Heidi Hunderbjerg, Kathryn Killackey, Harpreet Malhi, Claudia Lopez, Alexander Gagnon, Robert Geiger, Slobodan Mitrovic, Adam Cohen, Paul Lapinski, Sybllia Tringham, Dusan Boric, Vladimir Ilic.

Site Photographer: Michael Ashley, Caitlin Gordon

Social Anthropologist: Ayfer Bartu

Abstract

Excavations in the BACH area concentrated on building 3 but several other spaces were also excavated. In building 3 a range of floors, fire installations, platforms, burials, post retrieval pits, bins and niches were excavated. The central floor area contained fire installations and cuts and was surrounded by platforms along the north, east and south walls of building 3. On the west side, the main space of the house was divided from its western space by a ‘curtain wall’ which appears to have been made of a wooden structure lined with plaster. To the south, three more cell-like spaces, disassociated from building 3 by a double wall, were excavated, they produced evidence for a range of activities.

Özeti

BACH alanındaki kazılar daha çok Bina 3’de devam etmesine rağmen diğer alanlarda da devam etmiştir.Bina 3’de taban tabakaları, ocak yerlerı, çukurlar, silolar ve nişler kazıldı. Merkezdeki taban ocak yerleri ve çukur izleri içermektedir ve doğu, güney, ve batı duvarları boyunca platformlarla çevrelenmiştir. Batı bölümünde, ana bölüm doğusundakı bölümden yapısında sıva ile birlikte ağaçın da kullanıldığı bir ‘perde duvar ile ayrılmıştır. Güneye doğru, üç tane daha hücre biçimli yapı bir çift duvarla Bina 3’den ayrılmıştır. Bu ayrılmış alanların kazısında, burda da çeşitli aktivitelerin yer aldığı gözlenmişti

Introduction

Work commenced on 9 July 1999 and ended on August 25.

The primary aim of the season was to continue and possibly finish excavation of the Building 3 (space 86 and 158), and to continue work in spaces 89 and 88, as well as to open the third small-size room, space 87 (see Figure 1, Figure 23 and Figure 24).

The Bach 1997 and 98 seasons showed that we have been faced with a large number of spaces/buildings, all of which happen to have rich house fill and house interiors. In the fill of Building 3 we excavated a number of burials from the late Roman period, as well as the Neolithic house roof, midden, screen wall, and two periods of the entire western wall of the house. Only after most of these features in the fill were completely or partially excavated at the end of the 1998 season did we arrive on the building floor level and its platforms. The floor and platforms of Building 3 also comprise a complex collection of features, which we faced in 1999 season. As this report will point out, by the end of the 1999 season we still had not completely excavated the platforms nor the earliest floor in the building. However, finishing the excavation of Building 3 was not an option since at the end of the 1999 season we came upon burials under the platforms, and will have to spend the next season (2000) excavating the burials in order to finish the excavation of the building.

The excavation of building 3 began in August 1997. In the 25 days of that season we excavated five post-Neolithic graves, and most of a midden in the SE corner of space 86. In addition we identified the remains of a collapsed roof in the northern part of space 86. The excavation of this interesting feature was carried out in the 1998 season. Also in 1997, along the western part of space 86 we identified a possible "curtain-" or "screen-wall", represented by a large plaster feature (F.155) and two short internal walls. This feature was also not excavated until the 1998 season. In 1997 we also excavated a few cm depth in space 89 in order to reveal and lift the large boukranion that had lain on its surface. During this excavation we discovered a spectacular find of flint pressure-flaked dagger in a carved bone handle.

During the 1998 season we excavated the roof to enable its scientific sampling in a variety of ways and to get as much information as possible about its construction. We also excavated the midden in the southern part of building 3 and focused on defining the relationship between the wall plaster of the walls and possible platforms across the northern end of the space.

Results of the 1999 excavation season

Building 3 (Spaces 86 and 158)

Building 3 is the largest single building in the Bach excavation area (see Figure 24). It’s dimensions are 6m x 5.5m. Building 3 comprises a large, open central space (86), and a long and narrow space (158. These two spaces are separated by a series of walls running in a N-S direction comprising two short interior walls (F. 160 and 161), and the "curtain wall" (F.601) in the middle (consisting of F. 155, 156,164). The sequence of the construction of these walls has not yet been entirely explained.

Space 86

In building 3 in the beginning of the ’99 season we continued defining the platforms and the house floor. The central floor area (Feature 606) covers about 2 square meters and on its periphery it is bordered by five platforms, which were already defined in ’98 (Features 162, 173, 170, 167 and 169), and - in an early period of its occupation - by a semi-platform (South-Central house floor) which was only defined during the 1999 season (see Figure 24).

At floor level, the overall impression of the house is a tripartite division: North, Center, South. This has replaced the ’98 season’s impression of a bipartite division (roof vs midden remains). In excavating the remains that lay directly on the floor we could observe a striking difference between the "Clean" area (northern and central part) contrasting with the "Dirty" area (south-central part) of the house. These observations have not been fully supported by the specialist tour probe-analyses.

The method of excavation applied in removing the floors was to attempt to separate the floors from the underlying packing. It is a standard feature at Çatalhöyük that the floors were built in at least 2 layers: packing with a smooth polished floor layer on top. The floor and the platforms were excavated in meter squares, regularly sampled, with two baulks being left as long term stratigraphic controls. In addition, all the soil from these surfaces was sent to flotation.

Central Floor

The final remains of the roof and midden on the central floor area were removed in the very beginning of the ‘99 season. As we cleared these remains, we came across many interesting features that were lying above the house floor. At the interface between the roof and midden we excavated a large boukranion (3524) (see 98 archive report; also Figure 24 in this report) that was laying face down and in the very center of the building. The boukranion was not directly on the floor but somewhat above the floor and within the remains of what are described as bricky fill and interpreted as belonging to the collapsed roof. Immediately west of the boukranion and at the same elevation we excavated two human skulls (unit 3529) that were deposited in an interesting position (see Figure 25). The skulls are placed on their sides touching at their foreheads. They are both missing their lower jaws, although the rest of their skulls were well preserved. One skull was laying directly under a large but fragmented hearth or a red baked clay surface - interpreted as a fire installation floor (F. 159; 3528). The question remains - was the fire installation on the roof and fell with it, or was it located on the midden and thus a result of a temporary activity and was covered by the later midden deposits. Like the boukranion, it was also positioned within the bricky roof remains.

When we exposed the central floor area we could see that it stretched from the edges of the platforms surrounding it on the North, East and South side to the Curtain wall on the West side. It was solidly built, with a smooth and even surface. We could also see that it consisted of multiple layers.

In the removal of the central floor we discovered a number of features. Immediately next to the curtain wall and directly on the uppermost house floor level, slabs of "wall plaster" (comprising multiple layers) up to 2cm thick were carefully and deliberately deposited. They created a strip of plaster slabs of about 25-30 cm wide.

Other features on the Central building floor could be divided into two distinct groups:

fire installations: F.616 (6202, 6222, 6223); F.615 (6187, 6220); F.620 (6208, 6221);
cuts: F.621 (6213, 6214); F.618 (6191, 6224); F.619 (6212, 6219).

The fire installations belong to three different floor levels:

F.616 was built on the latest or uppermost floor;
F.615 was built on the floor below;
F.620 was built below both floors, that is on the earliest floor, so far excavated in the building.

Thus the location of the fire installations changed over time within the building’s central floor area, from the Northern most part to the Central and then Southern-most part. In all three cases the fire installations were placed away from the Curtain wall. Yet another distinction is that two of them were built with inclusion of stone (f.620, 615) and the third was not.

The three small sized cuts (F.618, 619, 621) belong to the same floor level, the middle or the 2^nd floor. They are located in a large triangle within the Central building floor:

F.618 is directly next to the curtain wall and close to its North end;
F.619 is East of F.618 and next to the rim of the platform (F.173);
F.621 is in the South of the Central floor and next to the Northern edge of the platform (F.169).

We have excavated two groups of floor levels in the central and south part of the building. On the three platforms (NE corner, E wall, and S wall) we also removed two levels of floors. On the well preserved platform in the NW corner of the building we have removed only one floor level. The main reason for this is that on this platform a burial cut was discovered.

South-Central Floor

The South-Central Floor area is south and southeast of the Central Floor area of the building. This floor is also an open space, like the Central Floor area and they are in fact connected. However, the South-Central Floor is somewhat higher in elevation than the Central Floor area and belongs exclusively to an earlier phase of the house. It is separated from the Central Floor area by a threshold built of fine white plaster.

The South-Central Floor area is very different from the rest of the house floor. It is different in the way in which it was built and used during the life-history of the house. But it is also differs in its treatment after the abandonment of the house (it was filled in by midden). It gives the appearance of a dirty floor because of the multiple layers of organic materials on it, comprising ash, charcoal, and phytoliths. Moreover, this floor area did not have the same type of surface finish as the rest of the house floor. The use of this area of floor is indicated by a large fire installation and by a possible platform for the access ladder (next to a step-like platform and possibly used during descending the ladder). The fire-installation F.613 (6111, 6160) in this area is interpreted as being oval in plan, with a dome roof that was supported by a number of thin poles. It is preserved in the floor in this area as a circle of small 2-cm diameter pits. Each of these was analyzed for phytoliths.

Platforms

The remaining floor surface in Building 3 is taken up by numerous platforms, which are raised about 20-25 cm above the level of the central floor. There are five platforms; all of which are large The smallest is F. 167, the step-like platform at the southern end of the building, possibly associated with the access ladder.

Features 154/162

This platform (F. 154) is large, square in plan with rounded corners. Its edge (F. 162) was built up as a 10-15 cm wide, shallow wall around the platform. This platform is linked to the East of the short interior wall (F. 160) and went through the same phases of use and replastering as the interior wall itself.

We have removed one floor level and arrived on an earlier platform floor that was built of very fine white plaster with a very smooth finish. The burial cut (F.617) was fairly obvious on this floor level. The same fine plaster material was used for sealing the burial pit but its color had a more beige hue than the rest of the platform floor.

The burial pit F.617 (6206, 6211, 6207) is oval in plan, 60 cm in diameter, and bell-shaped in profile (see Figure 26). In the burial, a child's skeleton was discovered buried in a basket. The child is 4-5 years old and buried face down. There were no burial goods discovered with the body. The basket - or rather the phytoliths that remain from it - are fragile and were only sampled with no attempt being made to lift it. We have indications that in this burial pit there are more skeletons. We can see more human bones under the excavated child skeleton and east of it in the same pit there are more individual bones visible. Moreover, in the eastern part of the burial pit there is a large part of another basket, which possibly belongs to a second burial.

The relationship between the platform (F. 154/162) and the curtain wall has not yet been defined. This platform stretches in front of the curtain wall to some extent.

Feature 173

This is a large platform in the northeast corner of Building 3. It runs from the edge of Feature 154/162 to the edge of Feature 170 and all the way to the North and East wall of Building 3. An interesting part of this platform is its western, curving edge which projects from the corner of the north-central platform (F. 154/162), and is the same type of edge as seen in that platform (see Figure 24).

In the 1999 season we defined its southern edge which this feature and F.170 have in common.

Two floors were removed from this platform, with a thick layer of dark gray packing in between.

Feature 170

This platform merges with the East building wall and was built between the two wooden posts, as evidenced by two large post-retrieval pits along the East house wall (see Figure 24). This platform slopes steeply down from south to north and from east to west, probably as a result of collapsing deposits underneath, but also possibly intensified by the weight of the collapsing roof in its northern part. The floors of the northern part of this platform were better preserved from those in its southern part by the collapsed roof deposits. In the southern part some of the upper floors had been eroded and destroyed during their post-abandonment exposure as midden area. Only one floor was excavated in the southern area of this platform, whereas two floors were excavated in the north.

Between the roof collapse and the floor, there was virtually no debris.

Feature 167

This feature comprises a platform located in the southeast corner of Building 3. It shows that originally the platform had a step-like shape. That is, the southern part of the platform that was attached to the South wall of Building 3 was higher, whereas its extension towards the north was lower. This platform was considerably damaged by cuts that were dug in preparation of the post-abandonment midden and by the post retrieval pit (F. 168).

The removal of only one floor layer from this platform took place at the very end of the 1999 excavation season. An interesting building technique was associated with this platform. That is, in an earlier phase of the feature it had been considerably damaged in one area and had been fixed by insertion of a large scapula and the application of floor plaster on top of it.

In the southern profile of the post retrieval pit (F. 168), it is possible see that in an earlier phase the same platform did not exist in the house and a bench built of white plaster was in its place along the East house wall.

Feature 169

This platform is in the corner between the South wall of Building 3 and the short interior house wall (F.161). By its location this platform is the counterpart of the northern platform (F.154/162). Like the northern platform (F.154/162), this southern platform (F.169) is connected both to the interior wall (F.161) and the perimeter wall (South) of Building 3, and it projects towards the center of the building. This platform gave an impression that it is probably the most damaged of all the platforms, since it has been damaged on its eastern side by the midden cuts and its uppermost floors have been stripped off before depositing the midden debris. The stripped platform top reveals several events of earlier repairing of the platform floors.

The excavation in ’99 confirmed that this platform had been the most active one. That is, in the removal of the floor levels 4 platform cuts have been discovered, and an additional post retrieval pit cut (F.614; 6170,6173). The platform cuts are all small in size and shallow. They are located across the platform:

F.604 (3591, 3598) is in the SE;
F.603 (3590, 3597) is in the SW;
F.605 (3592, 3599) is in the center of the platform;
F. 624 (6161, 6162) is in NW of the platform and partly damaged by a later cut F. 614 – post retrieval pit).

All four platform cuts were executed from the level of Floor #1, that is the uppermost floor that was excavated in this platform.

Other features

Post retrieval pit – F. 168

A pit that has been interpreted as a post-retrieval pit is located along the southern portion of the East wall of Building 3. Its dimensions are 60 x 55 cm but the actual posthole that had been in the middle was 20cm in diameter. The fill of the pit comprised the remains of wall plaster mixed with eroded soil and deposits that were brought in by animal agents. A large fragment of wall plaster in the fill was painted with a black and red geometric design.

The pit cut exposes numerous floor layers that belong to Building 3 as well as a large midden that is deposited under Building 3.

Post retrieval pit - Feature 602

This large post retrieval pit (3596, 3589) was cut from the upper most floor level. It is roughly of the same size, shape and depth as the other post retrieval pit on the East building wall F. 168 (see Figure 24). The major difference between the two is that feature 620 had a rectangular shaped posthole, where as the post in the feature 168 was round. The fill of feature 620 was dominated by large sheets of wall-like plaster. At the bottom of the feature 620 these plasters were mixed with very black coloured, organic remains that belong to the midden under the building 3, which can be also observed in the cut made by feature 168. The deep cut that feature 620 makes through the building 3 deposits and the deposits under it shows thick remains of a heavily burned feature, presumably a large size fire installation located under building 3.

Post retrieval pit - Feature 614 (6170, 6173)

This post retrieval pit was dug in order to retrieve a post that was a part of the Curtain wall construction. The size of the cut is smaller than the two large ones on the building East wall. Also, the cut damaged the platform next to it (F.169). Its relationship to the building floor remains to be clarified. The fill of this feature comprised of plaster fragments in the upper levels and midden deposits in the lower level. This feature indicates along with F.168 and 602 that there is a large midden under building 3.

Curtain/Screen wall (F.601)

The curtain wall is the central feature in Building 3 and it belongs to both spaces, 86 and 158 (see Figure 24 and Figure 27). The history of the wall, which was constructed between two internal house walls seems to be central to the history of the house and indicates that Building 3 had more than one phase of use and internal restructuring. The curtain wall is also very closely related to the rebuilding of the west wall of Building 3.

The Curtain wall comprises:

We started excavating the Curtain wall in 1998 and continued in 1999 but have not yet been able to interpret all of its aspects. It was discovered high up in the fill of Building 3, but the roof remains were tightly covering and surrounding it Thus the curtain wall could not be excavated until the roof had been removed. At the level of the house floor it appears that the Curtain wall might have had an earlier phase, which is constructed below the floor levels that we are currently excavating. On both ends of its history, the Curtain wall poses problems that require the entire building be excavated before we can understand it.

After the removal of the roof, we proceeded to excavate the curtain wall by focusing on its uppermost part, an oval disc (F.155) made of multiple and very fine layers of white plaster. The layering of the plaster indicates that the ‘disc’ was originally of a smaller size but that it increased in size through time as layers of plaster were added to its surface. In addition, the variation in thickness of the disc may be evidence that it was a relief sculpture. We believe that if this sculpture were attached to the curtain wall, presumably as a decorative element, it would have been located in the middle of the curtain wall.

Features 156 and 164 were pillars supporting the curtain wall. They were built of horizontally laid mudbrick and mortar layers. They are squarish in plan and originally were probably taller than their preserved remains. Both pillars had their east face plastered with a thin layer of white plaster that, in the case of Feature 156, was painted in a bright red color. Both pillars were surrounded with a fill that was different from their wider surrounding, comprising rather compact brown-orangish moist clay with a large amount of regularly dispersed small and medium size charcoal fragments.

The Curtain wall itself consists of a 2-3 cm wide strip of white plaster layers in situ (3558) that stretch between the pillars. These layers represent multiple re-plastering. According to our interpretation, the curtain wall in the beginning would have had fewer plastered layers, and with time more layers would have been added. The west face of the curtain wall is often sooty. More than one layer of sooty plaster is visible. Even though, the line of wall plaster is rather thin and would have been fragile, its preservation is remarkable. The line of plaster is continuous except for the places where it is interrupted by the posts F.608 and 609. Despite its continuity the plaster line varies in thickness. In some places it is actually bulging out and forming a ridge or a shape in relief. We were able to excavate it up to 60-70 cm in height at places. However, once excavated the strips of wall plaster in many instances have collapsed. Yet, it is still present in situ to a height of up to 30-40 cm.

In excavating the west face or rather the back of the wall (in Space 158) we came across many clues to the construction of the Curtain wall. At least three posts were part of the upright supporting construction of the Curtain wall in addition to the two pillars F.608 (6103), F.609 (6104, 6108), F.611 (6155, 6156). The two posts F.608 and 609 were placed exactly where the pillars ended; the third post (F.611) was on the same line and in the same area at the center of the curtain wall, and towards the South. The Curtain wall plaster line between the posts (3558) was held upright by a wooden structure built of planks. In other words, the screen wall made of planks was covered by the layers of plaster on its east face that was looking towards the space 86. The planks in the wall may in some places have been combined with wattle-and-daub technique. This interpretation is based on the discovery of several fragments of wall plaster that held the impressions of the planks and/or wattle and daub. We have not found any evidence to suggest that the Curtain wall had two faces (east/west or facing both spaces 86 and 158). On the basis of the evidence we have found, we believe that the Curtain wall faced towards the center of Building 3 (space 86) and that in Space 158, the wooden structure of the wall would have been exposed.

Space 158

Space 158 is considered by us to be an integral part of Building 3, even though it was at most times, or even always, separated from the rest of the building by the Curtain wall. This space is narrow and elongated and bordered on the east and west by two walls that are structurally the most complicated features in this building. In addition, Space 158 appears to have been used for different activities from space 86. The interpretation of the relationship between space 158 and 86 depends on establishing a sequence of events that took place in prehistory and caused re-building or shoring of the West wall and construction of the Curtain wall.

West wall of Building 3 (F. 600) (3538, 3539, 3540, 3544)

In the 1998 excavation we established that the West wall of Building 3 was most likely built in later phases of the history of Building 3. Thus, we were suggesting the spaces 158 and 86 were joined with space 85 as one building until the West wall was inserted to separate them. The main evidence for this was the presence of plaster on the interior surfaces of the North and South walls of Building 3 in the area where they join the West wall. Another evidence, that a bin-like/threshold-like feature (F.171) was located in the line of (or within) the West wall and was not covered by the wall (see Archive Report for 1998).

After the ’99 season’ excavation, the West wall is explained rather differently. It is interpreted as a feature that has undergone at least two phases of use. In the later phase this wall was replaced by the "Curtain wall", which assumed the function of the West wall for space 86 (at least the function of visual and/or symbolic separator). In the earlier phase, the West wall provided the Western boundary of Building 3. According to this explanation, by the time the "Curtain wall" was built, space 158 in Building 3 ceased to be used. The reason for this was structural damage sustained by original West wall of Building 3.

The scenario goes as follows: The West wall of Building 3 became damaged and started collapsing under the pressure of midden deposits that had accumulated to its west (Space 85) and that started to shift and slip downhill towards the east. The inhabitants of Building 3 attempted to solve the problem by shoring up the West wall by adding another brick wall on the inside of the house (in Space 158), against the inner surface of the original West wall. This additional supporting wall was not properly built as can be seen in the drawing of its cross-section ( Figure 28), presumably because the inhabitants did not have time and/or other options. The pressure of the deposits against the West wall may have been unexpected and required an immediate response. There is evidence that midden deposits and rubble started to pour into Space 158 when the West wall was damaged, so that the only immediate response could have been to shore up the wall from inside the building by combining the materials pouring in with the bricks made on the spot and by using other solid structural blocks and insert them in the wall. An example of such structural blocks is a whole series of damaged features F.628 and fragmented bricks that were placed as part of the wall shoring (see Figure 24).

In order to uncover the original West wall, we had to remove the bricks and rubble that belonged to the later supporting West wall. The remains of the original West wall can be seen as a line of fragmented bricks which perfectly corresponds with the line of the northern undamaged end of the West wall. In addition, outside Building 3 and next to the West wall in Space 85 there are remains of a trench that was dug probably during the repair of the West wall of Building 3. We can also see this trench was subsequently filled with rubble.

As the West wall was damaged and subsequently shored up, space 158 nevertheless eventually became filled with rubble and stopped being used. At this point, the Curtain wall would have been built to block off Space 158 from the rest of Building 3. It is also possible that the Curtain wall had existed in this building in some form from the beginning of its use-life, and that in this later stage of its use it was built up higher in order to block off Space 158 from the "active" part of the building.

Thus, the floors that we have been excavating in the 1999 season in space 86 are the remains of a later phase of Building 3. We are expecting in 2000 to come down to the earlier phase of the building when both spaces 158 and 86 were in use at the same time.

The floors and other features in Space 158

Between a narrow E-W wall (F.623) and the North building wall there is an area of Space 158 that most likely functioned as a bin-storage area for the house F.629. This area is approximately 2 x 1.20 meters in size and would have contained a number of smaller sized bins (see Figure 24).

The remains of bin-like features have been found in traces along the West and North walls, as well as on the floor in the this area of Space 158:

Traces of plaster/mortar of a specific type (brownish in colour and coarse from the vegetal inclusions), that has been found used for bins in other buildings at the site. The remains of the plaster in Space 158 indicate that there were at least two phases of the bins built in here.

On the floor near the North wall of Space 158 there are remains of the bottoms of roundish recipients executed with roughness that is characteristic for bin-construction.

Feature 171 – A Bin-like feature

South from the bin area and more towards the center of Space 158 we find feature 171 that was partially discovered in the 1998 season. This feature is made of clay of an intense orange color that has been recorded only in one other part of the Bach area, also in space 158 - further south along the West wall of Building 3. F.171 occurs at a depth of 65-70 cm from the present surface, and is located in the middle of the West wall of Building 3. It is wider than the West wall itself, and slopes down from west to east. The feature’s west face is attached to the West wall that is F.171 was mounted in this location. That is the most likely reason why this part of the West wall was not plastered. The feature consists of a central surface that is rectangular in plan with roundish segments attached to it on its north and south sides. The surface of the feature is very smooth and well prepared. This feature also has parts to it that are bin-like in shape. It is unlike any other feature that we have seen so far in the buildings at Çatalhöyük.

Feature 623 – Interior E-W wall

As already mentioned, F.623 is a low E-W wall in between the bin area in the north of Space 158 and the central area of the space (see Figure 24) . The wall is built of two bricks, (20cm and 30cm long and 8cm thick) set on their side. They run from the West wall to the Curtain wall. The bricks are built of very compact and purified clay and give an impression that they are stronger than average bricks we find. It should be kept in mind that these bricks are only partially accessible for description and analyses because they are still not completely exposed. . At this point, it seems that this was not a structural wall; it was a wall to separate the area between the bin area and the rest of Space 158. The floor clay that adheres to the northern edge of the wall is raised up and looks like an edge of a bin-like container. In other words it functioned as a part of the bin construction.

Feature 607 – A Niche

A niche that was discovered during this season is in the southwest corner of Building 3. It is actually located in the West wall of Building 3 (see ). This part of the Building 3 has always been somewhat different from the rest. The fill excavated in this part of the house was midden fill but it was not the same as the midden fill in the southern part of Space 86. The small space between the west wall and the short N-S internal wall (F.161) at the southern end of the building was filled with a very dark midden that contained poorly preserved bones of large animals as well as numerous remains of fruits and nuts. The fill accumulated on the floor in Space 158. The same floor on which the niche was built. The niche has an elongated floor surface (50 cm long and 37 cm wide). Its roof is dome-like and in the central part is 60 cm high. The inner surface of the niche sides and roof are smoothly plastered. The floor inside the niche is just the continuation of the house floor in Space 158. The niche fill included the same nuts and fruits remains which had been characteristic for the fill in this house corner.

Other buildings in the BACH excavation area

In addition to building 3 there are nine other spaces that surround it and which are fully or partially within the Bach excavation tent. Four space out of the nine are present to the extent that we can excavate them. They are Spaces 85, 87, 88, and 89. Space 85, which is to the West of building 3 seems to be, based on the surface scraping and the excavation of the bldg.3’s West wall, a very rich midden or even an open space between the buildings. Spaces 87, 88, and 89 are smaller size rooms or even separate buildings that are disassociated from building 3 by a double wall, and have been under our excavation since ’97. So far, we have not been able to establish the links between the building 3 and the other spaces; we have not discovered any openings between them and have not tried yet the con-joining studies of their finds. Stratigraphic evidence indicates that all of them were the buildings erected at the upper most phase of construction in this part of the mound and that their floors are at similar elevations.

Space 87

The actual size of the space is 4.5m x 2-2.5m. However only one half of the space’s length lies within the Bach tent excavation area. Because the opening of the entire Space would undermine the stability of the tent we have started excavating only 1.5 x 2 m area of space 87. That is less than one half of the space will be excavated and the remaining portion that is on the outside of the tent will not be excavated in the near future.

In the space 87 we have removed the top layers of debris that consists of mixed remains of building materials such as bricks and plasters. In the middle of the fill we excavated a large chunk of this building roof. The roof remains are being investigated carefully in order to compare them with the roof remains found in space 86. In this space we have arrived on a floor level. The floor is well made, smooth and solid. It is better preserved on the edges than in the middle of the room where it goes into a depression. There is a large cut made through the fill in the south-west part of the room. The cut runs from the surface to the floor level. In the cut we excavated remains of a fire installation that had been redeposited by the Neolithic people. In these remains there were two human bones (a mandibula and a long bone), which are heavily effected by fire. On the other side of this space a small fragment of red ochre was excavated.

Space 88

In 1998, we started to excavate space 88, a small 2 x 2 m cell, and reached a floor at about 60 cm depth from the surface. The floor surface that occurred in the NW part of space 88 was thin and fragile. The fill of space 88 consisted of mixed deposits but fairly uniform artifact types: almost complete clay weights, a large number of complete and fragmented macrocrystalline stone tools. The majority of the tools were used for grinding (mano) or grindstones themselves (metate). It was concluded that this room shows evidence for some kind of grinding activity, either of pigments or food.

The excavations of this space in ’99 reviled numerous floor layers under the top floor. All of them are of the same character, thin and fragile. They give an impression of heavily used floors, which had to be often replastered. The features 165 and 166 that were exposed in ’98 continued deeper down. It became clear that the wall-like feature (166) was a part of bin construction. The South part of Space 88 contained a number of storage bins, whose wall remains are preserved in fragments since this space was heavily damaged by the animal activity. A platform F.165 was a late addition to the space. It was built on the earlier feature made of white plaster (remains to be completely excavated in 2000 season). Also the platform had at least two major phases of re-building. Initially it was half of its present size and later the other half (to the south) was added to it. In the central-west part of the space we excavated a grinding kit F.610, which comprises: a round cut made in the building floor; a ground stone that was placed in the cut; and the packing between the ground stone and the cut. There were three fragments of red ochre found in this space but none of them directly associated with the grinding kit. In the West wall of the room a squarish niche has been discovered F.627, and in the East wall another possible niche. They are both partially damaged by animal activity and partially preserved.

The combination of the features that belong to the late use of the Space 88 can be summarized as: (i) storage features: bins and niches; (ii) production surfaces: working platform, grinding kit. In this phase the space appears to be the most industrious room in the Bach excavation area.

Even though, we have partially unearthed some features from the earlier phase of this building we can not describe them and this remains to be done in the 2000 season.

Space 89

Space 89, (ca. 2.0 x 2.5 m) cell-like space appeared to be quite interesting building and very difficult to define. It’s character is completely different from the next door space 88 in that it does not contain production activities. What it seems to contain is a variety of features that have symbolic and decorative roles. At the surface, the fill in this space contained remains of intense burning especially in its central southern part. Amongst the charcoal and ash we excavated a boukranion and flint dagger as well as scattered human skull bones (see 1998 Archive Report). The location and combination of the finds is heavily reminiscent of Mellaart’s house platforms on which human skulls were placed with boukrania on the wall above. However, since these finds in space 89 had suffered the collapse of the entire building and were exposed on the surface for the most part we have not found them in their original positions.

The burnt deposits (2275) were cross-sectioned and under them a thick layer of ashy but yellowish in colour soft deposits continued. During the ’99 season, at the depth of 50 cm below the surface a layer that was interpreted as floor appeared along the West and South wall of Space 89. The floor was fairly fragile and not preserved in the other parts of the space. This is attributed to the combination of intense burning that took place here and possible post depositional-processes. Similar situation is observed on the walls in this space. They don’t have plastered face, which makes them more prone to deterioration but nowhere else in the Bach area have the wall bricks deteriorated so much as in this space. It was very difficult to identify the line of the wall bricks in Space 89. Presumably, the late building floor has been destroyed for the most part and just its edges have been preserved. The finds that were found in the burned remains would have belonged to that floor level.

Under the late floor we came across the remains that did not show much traces of burning (3545, 3548). Instead, we have come upon the remains of a large feature made of clay that collapsed and disintegrated in roughly even size fragments F.612 (6120). There is a peculiar pattern to the breakage surfaces of these clay fragments. It is sharp and pointed, triangular form, that looks alike the breakage of the clay balls. The total amount of the clay fragments is large which indicates a sizeable feature a relief. Two horn cores were associated with the clay fragments. The central part of the Space is taken by these remains and the periphery contains fill. Under these clay remains we started coming upon the large fragmented bricks and possible round basin-like feature with which we will deal in the next season.

Acknowledgements

The research of the BACH team has been carried out with funding from a National Science Foundation senior research grant (SBR-9805755). We also acknowledge with appreciation the help in funding, facilities and equipment from the Archaeological Research Facility of UC Berkeley, the University Research Apprentice Program of the UC Berkeley, the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara, and Cambridge University.

Figures

Figure 23:General plan of the North Area showing the BACH 1 excavation area.

Figure 24: Schematized drawing of the Bach 1 excavation area showing all the features

Figure 25: Two human skulls (3529) in space 86, building 3.

Figure 26: Feature 617, child burial under platform in space 86, building 3.

Figure 27: Reconstruction of the Curtain wall by the project illustrator John Swogger.

Figure 28: The cross section through the west wall that was built in the later phase and functioned as a shoring of the original west wall.

© Çatalhöyük Research Project and individual authors, 1999