ÇATALHÖYÜK 2000 ARCHIVE REPORT

Phytoliths / Fitolit Raporu

Arlene Miller-Rosen

Abstract

Phytolith research continued, focussing upon the selection of material for further study to investigate contextual patterning. Work began on examining phytoliths preserved in tooth plaque.

Özeti

İçeriksel dizilimi incelemek icin seçilen bir dizi malzemede fitolit araştırması devam etmiştir. Çalışmalar, diş plakası üzerinde korunan fitolitleri inceleyerek başlamıştır.

Phytolith research at Çatalhöyük for the Summer 2000 season consisted of ‘excavation’ through boxes of archive sediment samples. The aim was to pull out subsamples of key priority units for processing and analysis in my home laboratory at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Previous phytolith samples collected and analysed from the site did not correspond to the 355 priority units which are currently the joint focus of study and write-up by members of the Çatalhöyük team. Since I will be unable to complete the analyses on all 355 priority units before the end of this academic year, I selected 60 samples which could contribute the most information to the understanding of room-use, activity areas, and plant exploitation and disposal into middens through human actions and animal dung. Most of these sub-samples came from the North Area, building 1 and the South Area middens. The phytolith distributions from Building 1 will ultimately allow me to compare the results with distributions I have already analysed from Building 5.

In addition to the sediment samples collected from the archive, I am also examining the phytolith content of tooth plaque taken from the human remains at the site. This will hopefully provide information on variations in diet among different inhabitants at Çatalhöyük.