Çatalhöyük 2001 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2001 ARCHIVE REPORT

Faunal Remains from the BACH Area

BACH bölgesinin fauna kalıntıları

Lisa Yeomans

Abstract

During the 2001 season over 48,000 animal bones from the Bach area of Çatalhöyük were recorded, almost 2000 of these could be identified to the taxonomic level substantially increasing the faunal sample from this area of the site. Finds from this year include the second point to have been manufactured from a bird bone which was identified as originating from a crane. Additionally part of a wolf humerus confirms the presence of this species within the range of taxa exploited by the inhabitants of the site.

Özet

2001 mevsimi boyunca BACH bölgesinden çıkan 48,000 adetten fazla hayvan kemiği kayd edilmiş, bunlardan neredeyse 2000 tanesi taksonomik dereceye kadar tanımlanarak yerleşimin etrafındaki faunayı daha ayrıntılı bir şekilde tanımamızı sağlamıştır. Bu seneki buluntulardan bir tanesi, turna olarak belirlenen bir kuşun kemiğinden yapılmış bir uçtur. Kazıda şimdiye kadar bu şekilde kuş kemiğinden yapılmış sadece iki tane uç ele geçmiştir. Aynı zamanda, bir kurtun arka bacak kemiğinin (humerus) bir parçasının ele geçmiş olması, yerleşimde diğer birçok değişik hayvanla birlikte kurtun daavlanıldığını kanıtlamaktadır.

The focus of the work carried out this year was the identification of animal bones recovered from the 2001 season and material provided by previous years of the BACH excavation at Çatalhöyük. The intention of this work was to increase the sample of fully recorded faunal remains to provide a greater quantity of data that will form the basis for interpretations relating to animal exploitation, utilisation and the treatment of their carcasses. The taphonomic information will also add to the reconstruction of other aspects of the inhabitants daily life by enabling a fuller review of site formation processes. Over 48,000 fragments of bone were recorded during the 2001 field season; Table 3 shows the level of taxonomic and taphonomic information extracted from these remains and the total sample of bones recorded from this excavation area so far.

The 2001 excavation season concentrated on the removal of a number of layers of flooring, packing and features associated with various phases of occupation inside building 3. In general these contexts were relatively devoid of bone; where bone did exist it was mainly confined to small fragments that were unidentifiable to a specific taxa.

This is in complete contrast to the debris that had accumulated in the midden deposit next to the building and contained a high concentration of bone. A limited area of this midden, just outside the western wall of building 3, was excavated and the faunal remains from this deposit were recorded to give an initial impression of the variation between the internal and external contexts in this area of the site. Large areas of midden excavated in the South area showed different species representation compared to material from inside the buildings. This could, potentially, be a factor of different taphonomic and/or cultural processes acting on the faunal remains from the different locations. Therefore, any consideration of the hunting/herding economy would be incomplete without at least some reference to the bones recovered from the middens.

Determining the stratigraphic relationship between building 3 and the midden is problematic; it is difficult to be sure if the midden represents waste deposited by the inhabitants of building 3, or even if the two events occurred within the same chronological phase. However, the close proximity of the building to the area of midden excavated suggests that its occupants were probably the primary creators of the contexts studied. The fact that the outside wall of the building had to be reinforced as a result of pressure exerted on it by the encroaching midden during a later phase of the buildings occupation (Stevanovic and Tringham 1999) implies that the midden was roughly contemporary to the period when the house was in use. The limited sample of material from the midden gives an insight into alternative aspects of the economy or other usage of the animals that is not represented by the internal contexts. The meticulous cleaning that appears to have occurred inside the building left few faunal remains to enable a full reconstruction of the animals consumed or otherwise utilised by its occupants. Figure 29 shows the mass and density of bone fragments per litre of matrix in the 3 main categories of deposit excavated in 2001. The data is plotted on a logarithmic scale reflecting the vast difference between the midden and burial fills compared to the packing and floors from inside the building. The density of bone in the burial fills supports the interpretation that they originated from midden deposits located below the building and into which the burials were cut.

Whilst the majority of the bone in the packing deposits probably represent background faunal remains that were present in the building material, unit 8251 contains what may be a purposefully left group of associated bones. Unit 8251 was described as a homogenous deposit containing a wide range of materials and included a number of clay balls and polishing stones. The bone from this deposit, in addition to the typical small fragments of faunal remains, incorporated two complete and articulating boar phalanges. There was also a portion of an articulated vertebral column, probably from a sheep or goat, that extended to include seven thoracic and two lumber vertebrae. A number of ribs probably came from the same animal and together these could represent a single depositional event from the time that the packing was laid. The situation that led to the formation of this assemblage involved the consumption a large portion of one animal without the subsequent processing that is typically found at Çatalhöyük. One possible explanation is that it represents the remains of a feast held at the time that the floor packing was laid and into which the remains became incorporated.

The majority of the bone from the 2001 excavation season that could be identified to taxonomic level came from the midden deposit (Table 4). Approximately 92% of the bones were identified as sheep/goat. These bones were dominated by carpals, tarsals and phalanges that had frequently been digested by dogs which could be a function of the highly fragmented and worked over nature of the deposit. The comparatively high frequency of caprines could partly be due to the fact that the midden material was recovered entirely by flotation. This led to the recovery of all the partially complete small bones of the most common taxon that may otherwise be lost even if the retrieval method of dry sieving was employed.

Bones from a wider range of wild species including birds, equids, cervids and boar are encountered more frequently in the midden than in the internal occupation deposits. A detailed comparison will have to wait until more of the associated midden receives attention and there is comparable sample of taxonomically identified bones from inside the building as the difference may just be a reflection of the sample size. Worked bone also occurs more frequently in the midden deposit and a particularly unusual piece worth mentioning was found in this context. A distal tarso-metatarsus of a crane (Russell pers. comm.) had been worked into a point (Figure 30). The entire surface, excluding the articulator facets, had been highly polished. The use of bird bone as a raw material for the manufacture of tools is rare at Çatalhöyük; this was probably because of the fragile nature of bird bone, which the inhabitants found suitable for working into beads but not into points. Only one other definite bird bone point has been found since the renewed excavations started at the site; this was a delicate point also manufactured from a crane distal tarso-metatarsus and was found in pre-level XII/B (Russell pers. comm.).

One bone of particular interest from the backlog material that should be discussed is an unfused distal humerus that could potentially be of a wolf. There is some degree of variability in the size of the dog remains at Çatalhöyük, which is consistent with Lawrences (1980:301) conclusions drawn from the Neolithic site of Çayönü, where she found "evidence of considerable variation in the size of the village dogs." Clutton-Brock (1995) also came to a similar interpretation in her evaluation of the origins of the domestic dog and argued that, whilst selective breeding did not start to produce different breeds of dog until considerably later, a wide variety of sizes would have already been present during the Neolithic. The use of size is not, generally, considered to be the most reliable means of separating the bones of domestic dog from those wolves and research has focused on differences in the cranial and mandibular morphology of the two species (Lawrence and Reed 1983; Benecke 1987; Morey 1992; Köhler-Rollefson 1997). The reason for this is that the subspecies of wolf present in the Near East are of a small size relative to their more northern counterparts. In recent times Canis lupus pallies had a distribution that included Turkey and extended through to India. A second subspecies, Canis lupus arabs, had a more limited geographical distribution centring on the region around Kuwait and Arabia (Clutton-Brock 1995). These two subspecies are the smallest of the wolves, which makes their identification in an assemblage where domestic dog is known to be present difficult on the basis of size differences alone. Despite this, the distal epiphysis of a canid humerus, identified from a deposit interpreted as fill above a plastered floor in space 87, is exceptionally large. Although the bone is unfused, suggesting that its maximum size had still to be attained when the animal died, the distal breadth (Bd) measured 38.7mm and the breadth of the trochlea (BT) was 27.9mm in size. Unfortunately only one other distal humerus of a canid from Çatalhöyük was complete enough to allow measurements to be taken; the size of this fused bone was considerably smaller than the possible wolf element (Bd = 23.1, BT = 19.2). To determine if this huge size difference could be explained by the variability in the size of dog present a comparison to the most frequent element intact and therefore measurable was made. This revealed, on an admittedly very small sample size, much less variation than was found between the measurements of the distal humeri. The anatomical measurement used was the breadth (Bp) on the proximal radius, which as part of the skeleton that directly articulates with the distal humerus, should have a comparable rate of variation. Only three measurements were available, these were 14.4mm, 17.1mm and 16.0mm. The maximum difference between these measurements (2.7mm) was only 17% of the mean value for this measurement. The difference between the two measurements taken on the distal breadth of the humerus was 15.6mm, a value that is equal to 50.5% of the mean of the two measurements. This is further compounded by the fact that the larger distal humerus was unfused. Overall it seems that this difference in size is considerably greater than that found within the dog remains recovered so far at the site, with the implication being that the largest bone came from a wolf.

In a study based on the geographical region of the Southern Levant, Tchernov and Valla (1997) compare the size of the distal breadth of the humerus in Natufian dogs and recent wolves. Although it is argued that Neolithic dogs were not the direct descendants of ones from the Natufian period there is a size difference between the two species (Tchernov and Valla 1997). Measurements of the distal breadth of the humerus in the recent wolves varies from just over 31mm in a female wolf from the Sinai to almost 38mm. The larger size of the canid humerus (38.7mm) from Çatalhöyük fits in with these measurements if it originated from a wolf. Bergmanns rule that larger animals of the same species are found in colder climates seems to have caused the difference in the size of wolves from various locations of the Southern Levant (Tchernov and Valla 1997) and a slightly larger animal may be expected further North in Anatolia.

The canid humerus is only the second bone from the site to be identified as wolf, the first being part of an ulna which was only tentatively identified to this species. This find seems to confirm the presence of wolf amongst the faunal remains of Çatalhöyük.

Continued work on the faunal remains from the BACH area of Çatalhöyük and a more detailed analysis will in the future provide a faunal assemblage to compare to the North and South areas of the site. This will hopefully improve our knowledge on how animal exploitation and treatment varied or remained constant through the different temporal and spatial areas of the site. The analysis of the floors from inside the building yields a substantial amount of information on the taphonomic aspects and may potentially be used as a means of examining the formation of the archaeological deposits and differences in the use of various areas within the building.

References

Benecke, N. 1987. Studies on Early Dog Remains from Northern Europe. Journal of Archaeological Science 14:31-49.

Clutton-Brock, J. 1995. Origins of the Dog: Domestication and Early History. In (Serpell, J.ed.) The Domestic Dog: Its Evolution, Behaviour and Interaction with People. pp.7-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lawrence, B. 1980. Evidences of Animal Domestication at Çayönü. In (Cambel, H. and Braidwood, R.J. eds.) Prehistoric Research in Southeastern Anatolia I. pp.265-308. Istanbul:Edeiyat Fakültesi Basimeui.

Lawrence, B. and Reed, C.A. 1983. The Dogs of Jarmo. In (Braidwood, L.S., Braidwood, R.J., Howe, B., Reed, C.A. and Watson, P.J. eds.) Prehistoric Archaeology along the Zagros Flanks. pp.485-94. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago.

Morey, D.F. 1992. Size, Shape and Development in the Evolution of the Domestic Dog. Journal of Archaeological Science 19:181-204.

Quintero, L. And Köhler- Rollefson. I. 1997. The Ain Ghazal Dog: a case for the Neolithic Origin of Canis familiaris in the Near East. In (Gebel, H., Kafafi, Z. and Rollefson, G. The Prehistory of Jordan II: Perspectives from 1997. pp. 567-574. Berlin: ex orient

Stevanovic, M and Tringham, R. 1999. The Excavation of the BACH 1 Area. http://www.catalhoyuk.com/Archive_rep99/ar99_05.html

Tchervov, E. and Valla, F.F. 1997. Two New Dogs, and Other Natufian Dogs, from the Southern Levant. Journal of Archaeological Science 24:65-95.

Figures

Figure 29: Mass and density of bone in flotation samples taken from the 3 main types of context excavated in the BACH area during the 2001 season.

Figure 30: 8178.F55 - bone point made from the tarso-metatarsus of a crane found in the midden deposit located to the side of the west wall of building 3. Note the groups of parallel diagonal and horizontal fine incisions on the medial side of the shaft.