Çatalhöyük 2001 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2001 ARCHIVE REPORT

Introduction Çatalhöyük 2001

Ian Hodder

Heading

The 2001 season involved both excavation and a second study season. From June 7th about 80 people comprising the Berkeley, Poznan and West Mound teams excavated in three excavation areas (Bach, TP and West respectively). By mid July the teams changed with the departure of the excavation teams and the arrival of up to 40 members of the Cambridge/Stanford team involved in the publication of the North and South area excavation reports covering the years 1995-1999. This publication season ran to mid September.

Excavation

Two excavation areas continued on the Neolithic East Mound. The BACH (Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük) team conducted further excavations of Building 3 to the north of the site. This is a substantial building with many phases of use and renovation, with well plastered floors and platforms, and with painted walls. A total of seven human burials have been excavated so far beneath the platforms and floors. A male adult was found under the northeast platform, and four bodies (a female adult and three younger individuals) under the northwest platform. In the central floor area were found burials of three very young infants, one with shell, bone implement and pigment (malachite and cinnabar). All these burials were in the areas of the building with 'clean' floors. To the south of the main room were the 'dirty' floors around the oven and ladder entrance, and a screen wall separated off a western room associated with ovens and bins.

At the crest of the southern part of the East mound the TP (Team Poznan) has opened a new area where we expect to find the latest Neolithic building phases. So far the project has mainly excavated below Level VI and we need comparative material from the upper levels. In fact the excavation area turned out to have rich deposits of Byzantine and Hellenistic date. In particular over 70 Byzantine burials were found, with all bodies in an extended position with their heads facing west. The graves often had mudbrick walls. There was also evidence of Hellenistic constructions.

An excavation also continued on the Chalcolithic West mound. In 2000 the first plan of a Chalcolithic building at the site was defined. The aim in 2001 was to clarify the full extent of the building and its relationship with surrounding buildings and spaces. More Chalcolithic walls have been uncovered, but the excavations in 2001 were dominated by the recovery of Byzantine graves cutting through the Chalcolithic deposits. One Byzantine tomb was constructed of well-preserved mortared tile, with plaster facing and red painted decoration. A skeleton was found within a wooden coffin within this grave.

Study season

From 15 July to early September about 40 members of the Cambridge-Stanford team worked intensively on post-excavation. In the 2000 study season and in the months since that time, project members had worked on their own specialist reports covering a wide range of topics from the excavation description itself to the description of faunal and other data sets. These primary reports were pre-circulated and were presented for discussion to all members of the project at the start of the 2001 study season.

Throughout the rest of the season two types of seminar took place on an almost continuous basis. In the first type, the data were considered context by context. In other words, all the different types of finds (faunal, ceramic, lithic, phytolith, botanical etc) were considered for each building or space, phase by phase in order to arrive at a specific interpretation of depositional and post-depositional activities. Typically these discussions involved 10-15 people, each with their own type of data on a laptop, sitting round a table and looking at finds, videos, pictures, histograms and so on from each unit, space or context. The aim was to reach some consensus on the interpretation. The results of these discussions will be used to form Volume 1 (see below).

The second type of discussion was thematic. All project members with information to contribute to a particular topic (such as feasting, landscape, discard, house life cycles, food, politics of space) took part in these discussions. Theme leaders took notes and afterwards produced an outline of a chapter that was posted on the local network. This was used as the basis for further discussion and elaboration of the chapter outline. These drafts will be used as the basis for chapters in Volume 3.

The overall aim of these discussions and joint analyses of the data was to create a high degree of integration of a wide range of different types of data. In this way interpretation can be better informed and can have greater depth. A timetable was also produced which will lead to three volumes being ready for publication by mid 2002. The three volumes are as follows.

Volume 1 Archaeological contexts

This is conceived as the main description and interpretation of the archaeology of buildings and spaces. It covers the results of the South, North and KOPAL excavations. But it also integrates specific interpretations of platforms, floors, ovens, features etc from the other data specialists. The volume tries to capture the flavour of the in-the-field and the in-the-lab interpretive discussions. It integrates specialist accounts by direct and attributed quotes provided by specialists.

Volume 2 Data reports

This volume will include the specialist reports (eg lithic, faunal, ceramic, clay ball, isotopes, phytoliths). Specialists will here cover any ground they feel will be expected by colleagues in their field. But each report will also include temporal and data category trends (fill versus midden versus floor versus construction etc; inside versus outside; raised platforms versus floors; white versus non white versus occupation floors). In other words, these chapters consider general contextual variation, but normally leave the specific interpretations of individual features to Volume 1.

Volume 3 Themes

This volume is less concerned with presenting data and more with standing back and writing thought pieces that make use of a wide range of different types of data to make general statements about the site. The main themes covered are as follows: Feasting, Landscape - long term and gradual change, Landscape modelling, Discard, House life cycles, Food, Politics of space, Contemporary socio-ecology, Seasonality, Burning, Art and decoration, Memory, Domestication, Social difference, Production, Trade and exchange, Death and burial.

All volumes, but especially volume 3, will contain quotes from a group from the local village of Küçükköy. Seminars were held with this group and their ideas about interpreting the site discussed with them. These discussions were video-taped and quotes from these tapes will be used in the volumes.

Other activities

Progress has been made in covering the site for visitor access, and more work has been done on reconstructing a 9000 year old house, with internal oven and store rooms and sleeping platforms. A new library/seminar hall has been added to the dig house. A new team from Atölye Mimarlik, Istanbul, has begun to update the on-site Visitor Centre with new information panels and better access. The National Geographic magazine is preparing an article about the site and the project.

The project has now established a Çatalhöyük Thames Water Scholarship to assist young Turkish archaeologists gain training and to travel abroad. This year seven applicants have been awarded funds.