ÇATALHÖYÜK 1999 ARCHIVE REPORT

Ground Stones

Öğütme Taşları Raporu

Adnan Baysal

Abstract

Özeti

This ground stone study is largely based on the material that has been unearthed in the excavations in the South area. The buildings here belong to levels VII - XII and some of them were partly excavated by J. Mellaart and back filled later by him. Mellaart’s back fill was also of interest as the ground stone types found help to draw typological lines for the site. However, the sampling strategy for the stones also took a step further in this season in order to find the stone sources that the excavated material is related to. Also organic residue sampling continued.

General

In preparation for next year’s study some organization was needed in the depot of the site. This organization started with re arranging the crates (in total 37) and their contents. All the crates and their contents, including the unexamined and processed material, were recorded and put in the database. The same work was carried out for the stones that come from flotation residues. These stones, in general, consist of very small pebbles. Their dimensions are 0.3 - 2 cm. However, some of the stones are bigger than these stated sizes. These comparatively bigger pieces show that, in close up, they can be part of the big tools or broken pieces of them. Many ground stone flakes are noted which must be the remains of reworking and reshaping the tools. This may lead us to think that possibly secondary or tertiary use of the material existed on the site as a result of the absence of nearby stone sources.

Methods

The ground stone study is focused on several points in order to develop a better understanding of food producing activities and ground stone tool types. However, a source of raw material, which is mainly volcanic rocks, is not available nearby the site and in order to make these tools people must have been either going to the sources or trading these tools with other communities. Based on these main currents the study involves the following major steps.

A) Database Entries

The database was prepared to allow a multi-stranded approach to the related information about the stones. The database includes all the contextual information and individual information on each stone such as weight, number of fragments, dimensions so on. These data entries are also available to other specialists as soon as loaded into the network system on the site. Every entry in the data base is numbered and related to the number of bags which are produced by the excavation of a context. The database enables us to check on any aspects of the material yielded on the site such as spatial distribution of the artifacts. In the future photographic and illustrated images can also be placed in the system.

B ) Sampling Strategy

This is also one of the important aspects of the study. The sampling strategy is divided into two different categories at the moment;

1) Organic Residue Analysis: This sampling method aims to obtain more information about the diet of the prehistoric people. Samples are taken from mainly two different areas: very close vicinity to in situ ground stones, and careful cleaning of the surfaces of the tools. Some of the ground stones found on the site still had traces of red ochre on their surfaces. If they are not used in food production then this will answer the question of the purpose of these tools - at least their last use before discard.2) Source Analysis : These analyses are aiming to locate stone sources in the Konya Plain. In order to succeed separate survey collections and sampling are carried out (see report "Provisional Report on Geological Surveys in Relation to Ground stones" by A. Baysal; 1998) with a geological team from METU in Ankara. The collection of samples from Karadağ continued in order to compare chemical properties of the samples with the stones found on the site. Thin sectioning the stones is being carried out by A. Turkmenoglu of METU University. This year over fifty samples were collected from different areas. The following list shows the content of these samples and related areas.

C) Use Wear Analysis and Recording

Most of the ground stones that found on the site are heavily used. Use wear on the stones is detected even by naked eye on some of them but for others microscopic analysis is required. In order to understand the usage and separate the wear marks from those marks that occurred during the production and reshaping work on the tools further research is essential. The microscopes available on the site also allows us to do photographic records of the use wear as well as measuring the length and width of definite markings on the surfaces of the stone tools. Traces on some of the stone tools, especially small green axes, show that they have been several times re-sharpened or shaped around the sharp edges. However, some of the use wear on these axes suggests that they might have been used like a small chisel. This is only a provisional idea and further study and experiments will throw more light into this area.

South Area

Altogether 6 cratefuls of stones were unearthed from the South area and 30 - 40 % of them have traces of being in use. Most of the stones are again in small sizes. The dimensions of the stones varied between 2 - 24 cm. Most of the interesting finds were discovered from Mellaart’s backfill (Figure 42) in the west end of the excavation area. These included a mace head (Figure 43), small axes (Figure 44), handstones and many broken pieces of ground stones. However; unit 5212 contained a small decorated stone which is shaped by grinding and has a deeply grooved geometrical design on its surface (Figure 44 - 1). It might have been use for stamping or decorating other objects, possibly clay. At the back of this stone long lines are visible. The size of this stone is 2 x 4.4 x 0.7 cm. It is made of gabbro which is another volcanic rock type. The South area also yielded a small amount of straighteners and also sharpener stones which still carry the traces of the way they functioned. Axes, as has been mentioned above, are often resharpened and continued in use until broken in one hard blast. Most of them have broken or chipped edges. Most of these axes are very small: roughly 2 - 5 cm length.

Kopal Area

The Kopal Area is one of the interesting excavation areas from the perspective of ground stone studies. However, little of the collected material has been processed yet. A general view of the material show that over 50 % of the stone assemblage is calsium carbonate, or in general terms limestone. Most of the artefacts are broken pieces of ground stone made of volcanic rocks, such as basalt and andesite. These pieces represent the upper and lower parts of grinding stones. Additionally some marble polishing stones with flattened surfaces were found. One of the richest contexts in this area is 6010 with 6025 and 6030 also producing numerous grinding tools, these are mostly broken with dimensions of 2 - 7 cm and come from the lower part of grinding stones. (see Figure 45 and Figure 46). Some other pieces, again especially from unit 6010, suggest the existence of larger medium size ground stones which were broken and the fragments subsequently reused as hand stones. In addition to the discarded and reused material these units also contained high quantity natural stones which measure between >1 - <8 cm.

Bach Area

Excavations in BACH area, especially spaces 87 and 88, produced a range of grinding stones. Space 88 also contained a high density of animal bones and other organic food remains indicating that this area was used for food processing as well as being a storage area. The grinding stones found in this area were with a few exceptions (Figure 47, Figure 48, and Figure 49) small fragments. Microscopic examination shows that the broken edges of most of the tools discovered in this area are slightly rounded due to post-breakage use of the fragments. Tool types included various types of handstones and quern pieces. All the tools are made of volcanic rock, the majority of basalt and a few of andesite. One of the ground stones had a convex surface with circular striation marks, the shape of the stone and its convexity suggest that it is a large stone but the use wear on the surface was along the long side’s direction. This suggests that it was used in conjunction with a smaller handstone.

Conclusion

This years ground stone study has led to a number of conclusions;

A) Mellaart’s backfill contains important stone objects which can aid typological studies that were relatively neglected in the 1960’s. Typological analysis will compare the tool types with other sites as well as considering tool types and how they change through the occupation of the site.

B) In the earlier deposits there appears to be a greater variety of raw materials in comparison to the later dominance of volcanic rocks. This variety may be the result of different networks around the site.

C) Discarded stones were always reused, often several times. The base of a fire installation in Building 23 utilised stones previously used for other purposes, mainly broken fragments of ground stones. Similar re-use has been observed at the aceramic neolithic site of Asıklı Höyük.

D) The general lack of ground stone tools from many buildings where they would have been used shows that these were usually removed prior to the abandonment of buildings.

Figures

Figure 42: Unit 4246:; typical handstones from Mellaart’s backfill

Figure 43: 4194.D2: Macehead from Mellaart’s backfill

Figure 44: Small axes and geometrically decorated seal

Figure 45: Unit 6030: Broken ground stone fragments from KOPAL Area

Figure 46: Unit 6010: Ground stone fragments from KOPAL area

Figure 47: 3537.x4: broken handstone from BACH area

Figure 48: Units 6153: Ground stone from BACH area

Figure 49: 6197.x2: small size quern, with possible secondary use, from BACH area

Table 16: Stone Samples collected in 1999