ÇATALHÖYÜK 1999 ARCHIVE REPORT

Report on Human Remains Recovered from the South Area, together with a summary of material from the BACH area and the KOPAL trench

Güney Alanından Elde Edilen İnsan Kemiği Kalıntıları Raporu Ve Bach Alanının Ve KOPAL Açmasının Buluntularının Özeti

Theya Molleson, Peter Andrews, Başak Boz

Abstract

Özeti

Summary

Three areas were excavated during the 1999 season; South, BACH and the KOPAL trench. Human bone was recovered from each area.

The youngest material came from the BACH area, level VI with one burial of a child in a basket and the disarticulated bones of a 12 year old juvenile and of two adults.

The original Neolithic lake/back-swamp levels were reached in the KOPAL trench. Disarticulated human bone of several adult individuals were mixed with broken bones of large mammals. For this reason aspects of post-depositional change - fragmentation, weathering, gnawing will be analyzed by the archaeozoologists.

Work on the South area has been in three parts. Clearance of the Back-Fill created in the 60s at the end of James Mellaart's excavations. This yielded cranial and post-cranial disarticulated bone, presumably from levels IX and X. Excavation of Building 6 and the underlying Buildings 17, 18, and 23 resulted in 18 primary burials and an isolated cranium in a post-retrieval pit (Table 34). The Deep Sounding (sub-level XII) below Buildings 18 and 23 produced only cranial fragments and in the lowest levels no human bone at all (although animal bone was still being recovered).

Building 6 (Mellaart's Shrine 10)

Building 6 has one large room which is Space 163 and an additional room, Space 173, possibly a store room (Mellaart's antechamber). The Building was truncated and back-filled by James Mellaart. The underlying Building is Building 17, Space 170.

When completed Building 6 space 163 yielded nine skeletons, and space 173 a neonate in the SE corner. Only B464 was under a platform, the rest of the burials had been cut into the fill of Building 17. The burials generally don't show any particular spacing in the room, although they are concentrated in the central-east part of the space.

Two of the burials, a female and an adolescent male, had amounts of small mammal bones and yellow ochre deposits in the graves (they also display physical signs of relationship). The burial of a second male was most unusual, lying on its back with the legs flexed open to the sides. The head had been removed and there are cuts-marks on the first cervical vertebra.

Three babies were in baskets, with lids; two flexed, three lying on the side, right or left, legs bent at the hips; one supine in a similar position to the headless adult.

All except one of the burials were single primary inhumations but in most cases had suffered some post-mortem disturbance.

Three of the burials were recovered from Space 170, the Fill of Building 17 underlying Building 6. All had been introduced through the floor of Building 6.

Table 34: Human skeletal material recovered from South area in 1999

Preservation

The bones from the burials in the South area and the BACH area are very dry, fragile and friable. They deteriorate rapidly once exposed. Bones can rarely be recovered intact and few measurements can be taken.

In contrast the bones from the Deep Sounding and the KOPAL trench, although fragmented, are well preserved. The KOPAL bones are stained brown and are slightly mineralized. The bones from the Deep Sounding are not so deeply stained but some appear slightly mineralized.

Preservation of the bones from the Back-Fill is very variable. Fragment size is comparable to that of KOPAL and Deep Sounding bones and the bone is not dried out, porous or friable. Some are mineralized.

It is possible that the context of burial in baskets made of plant fibres may not have helped bone preservation in the South and BACH areas; but the biggest cause of dehydration must be drying out of the tell through lowering of the water-table and surface loss of vegetation. It is notable that the Back-Fill bone has suffered less, presumably because, being loosely packed, it has not suffered from the capillary action of ground water movement drawing water out of the bone.

Many of the burials have been disturbed by burrowing animals either in antiquity or since the 1960s excavation. Bones of otherwise articulated skeletons have been displaced and smaller bones of the hands and feet lost.

The lack of signs of gnawing suggests that the animals concerned were not carrion feeders and not interested in bone.

Red ochre, either cinnabar or iron ochre, applied either to the skin or on a head band can survive on the bone, usually around the brow and face after the decay of the soft tissues. Impressions of plant fibres used in the baskets are also often preserved superficially on the bone, especially the head where it had pressed against the side of the basket. An irregular distribution of black mottled staining is frequently noted on the external surface of the bone and occasionally on the inside of the skull.

The crania are often crushed. After burial and sealing with plaster there is very little soil movement and the crania remain hollow and vulnerable to later compaction. This does not happen with the thoracic cavity, rather one side is compacted onto the other.

Black staining on the inside of the thoracic cavity is interpreted as insoluble carbon from smoke deposited on the ribs and vertebrae as the lungs decay.

Hair markings have not been observed, nor any evidence of clothing or footwear.

Burials from the South area

There were 18 inhumations of primary burials recovered and the secondary burial of a female cranium in a post-retrieval pit. The primary burials comprise six neonates, eight infants (under two years), one adolescent youth, two adult females and one adult male. This last had been decapitated.

Beads or bone objects were recovered with five of the burials, four infants and one adult female. Not all infants, however, had beads. None of the neonates had beads, one had a clay ball in the grave. Most of the infants including neonates were buried in a basket, none of the adults was.

Small mammals and owl pellets were found with two of the burials, the youth and one of the females (who appears to be related to the youth).

Many of the skeletons show signs of a chronic bone pathology and some of these have traces of red ochre, usually on the skull.

Neonates which comprise a third of the sample are buried in any of the spaces of Building 6 - 163, 170, 173, 171, 181, and 178. All the adults were buried in Building 6/17 as were most of the infants. Space 163 or the underlying space 170 was the chief burial area. Burials tend to be in the centre of the room under the floor and not particularly related to any platforms. There is non-metric evidence that several of the individuals were related.

Demography

The proportion of infants in the sample is exceptionally high (14:3 or 8:3 in 163/170). Many of the infants, in particular, do show signs of a chronic systemic pathology. Such heavy selection at this young age must have had an effect on the genome. Having survived childhood an adult might attain an old age. Among the older individuals the sexes are equally represented.

Several of the skulls share similarities notably extra-sutural ossicles that suggest they were related to one another. Building 6/17 would appear to have been used for the burial of members of one family.

The lack of children, as distinct from infants, among the burials is probably not significant given the small sample size. The greatest stresses are at birth and in infancy. Adolescence is also a time of stress both for physiological reasons and as the youngsters join in adult activities.

Health

Oral health is generally very good. The few cases of dental caries are all occlusal and can be attributed to trauma - fractures of the tooth crown exposing the dentine to decay. There are no cases of inter-proximal or cervical caries. Abscesses appear to result from traumatic damage to the root apex. There is often subsequent ante-mortem loss of the tooth.