Çatalhöyük 2001 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2001 ARCHIVE REPORT

West Mound, 2001 Animal Bone Report

Batı Höyük, 2001 Hayvan Kemiği Raporu

Sheelagh Frame

Abstract

The aim of the zooarchaeological work in the 2001 season was to characterize the Chalcolithic faunal assemblage from the west mound. Fourteen mammalian species have been identified but most of these are represented by only a few bones. Sheep and goat make up 91% of the identifiable bones and with the next two most common species, cattle (5%) and equids (2%), account for 98% of the assemblage. Although concentration on a few domestic species is consistent with models for the Chalcolithic, this is a high concentration on a very few animals, even by comparison to other sites.

Özet

2001 sezonunun zooarkeolojik çalışmalarındaki amaç, batı höyükten ele geçen Kalkolitik dönemi fauna topluluğunu belirlemek olmuştur. Toplamda 14 tür tespit edilmiş, ancak bunların çoğu sadece bir kaç kemikle temsil edilmektedir. Tanımlanabilen kemiklerin %91'i koyun ve keçiye ait olup, bunları sığır (%5) ve at cinsleri (%2) takip etmektedir. Sadece birkaç evcil türde yoğunlaşan kemik buluntuları başka Kalkolitik yerleşim modelleri ile tutarlı olmakla birlikte, sadece birkaç hayvan üzerinde bu kadar yüksek bir yoğunluğun olması dikkati çekmiştir.

The aim of the zooarchaeological work in the 2001 season was to characterize the chalcolithic faunal assemblage from the west mound. For this reason a modified priority sampling system was used in choosing units to be analyzed. This entailed selecting those units, which were from known, sealed Chalcolithic deposits. While this minimized the possibility of contamination from the Byzantine pits and animal burrows, it produced a group of contexts that were almost entirely house fill. The excavation of a midden area, anticipated in the 2002 season could, therefore, modify these results substantially.

A total of 29,015 bone fragments have now been fully recorded from the West mound. 3,551 of these (12 %) could be identified to genus. This amount of fragmentation is not unusual for a prehistoric site where recovery includes comprehensive dry and wet sieving. The fragmentation patterns on the long bones suggest that they were deliberately fractured for bone marrow extraction in antiquity, but they do not appear to have been used to produce bone grease, or to have been worked over in any significant way after marrow fracturing. Most of the material examined so far also seems to have been relatively undisturbed since deposition. There are only small amounts of trampling or carnivore ravaging and hyoid bones are surprisingly common. Hyoids are delicate bones that are infrequently found on archaeological site, yet we have 27 pieces of sheep and goat hyoids identified so far- this means they are three times as common as on the East mound. Bones that could have been articulated, like closely matching phalanges, are also often found clustered together and occasionally in articulation.

The element distribution in the house fill units supports the view that these deposits are largely post-butchery remains, with some post-consumption remains mixed in. Some of the post-consumption remains, however, were probably deposited elsewhere on site since these deposits are not very dense. The bone density in the house fill matrix is not particularly dense, and these areas do not seem to have been intensively used for discard. One unit, 6512, does appear more like a kitchen midden than the others, but it is relatively small. The good condition of the bones suggests that the bones were not exposed on the surface for long - they may have deliberately covered with a layer of dirt shortly after deposition. Some of the contexts are unusually coherent and may be part of abandonment deposits. This possibility will be explore din conjunction with other material types in the upcoming season.

Relative proportions of taxa

In this archive report I will only discuss the mammalian bones. Birds, fish and reptiles bones are all present, but in very small quantities. They will be studied separately at a later date. 14 mammalian species have been identified including sheep, goat, cattle, ass, dog, horse, pig, roe deer, large cervid, badger, fox, hedgehog, hare, small carnivore (probably a mustelid) but only the first five are represented by more than a dozen bones (Table 14). Sheep and goat make up 91% of the identifiable bones and with the next two most common species, cattle (5%) and equids (2%) account for 98% of the assemblage (Figure 35). Although concentration of a few domestic species is consistent with models for the Chalcolithic, this is a high concentration on a very few animals, even by comparison to other Chalcolithic sites. Some bias may have been created by the analytical concentration on house fill but it is clear that the Chalcolithic inhabitants were heavily dependent on their sheep and goat herds for animal products.

The overall ratio of sheep to goat is 5:1, however there is considerable variability between context types. The in house fills have a ration of 4:1. The large mixed pit and the between wall fill examined in 1998 has a sheep goat ration of 6 or 7 to 1. These units also have a slightly higher than normal number of cattle and equid bones. It is unclear whether these differences are due to the presence of two distinct modes of consumption as has been suggested for the Neolithic mound (Russell and Martin 1998), due to taphonomic mixing apparent in the upper layers, or simply an example of random variation. The study of different types of context from lower levels will help to clarify this issue.

There are a few important points that need to be made about the 'rare' animals. The 'equids' which make up 2% of the assemblage, are generally ass size, although none of the pieces could be specifically identified to onager or half-ass. However, there are also 2 bones, which appear to be Equus caballus, suggesting that the true horse, previously unknown on the Anaotolian Plateau before the Bronze Age, was present in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic. Roe deer and a larger cervid (probably red deer, but possibly fallow deer) also continue throughout the Chalcolithic . Most of the cervid pieces are antler, which may have bee n collected after it was shed, but some post-cranial bones were found in different contexts. The wild boar which was present in decreasing quantities throughout the Neolithic, is either no longer present, or no longer hunted by the occupants of Catal Hoyuk. Given the general abandonment of wild resources and the concentration on sheep and goat it is not possible to say if this is due to an ecological change such as the reduction of the wetlands, or a cultural avoidance that made pork not 'good to eat'.

Acknowledgements

I liked to thank Trina, Jonathan and Naomi for allowing me to leap frog over to the west mound team. It's great to have large pieces of bone! And, as always I'm grateful to the inhabitants of the bone lab who make days of counting unidentified bone fragments tolerable and even sometimes fun.

References

Russell, N. and Martin, L. 1998 Çatalhöyük Animal Bone Report 1998.

Table 14: Animal Taxa from the West Mound

	NISP	(%)	Diagnostic Zones	(%)
Sheep/Goat	1790	91%	451.75	91%
Cattle	92	5%	24	5%
Equid (ass and horse)	23	1%	10	2%
Dog	17	1%	4.4	1%
Cervid (small and large)	9	0%	2	0%
Small Carnivore	9	0%	1	0%
Pig	7	0%	1.5	0%
Medium Carnivore (probably fox)	4	0%	0	0%
Hare	2	0%	1	0%
Fox	2	0%	1.2	0%
Badger	1	0%	0	0%
Hedgehog	1	0%	0	0%

Figures

Figure 35: Relative Number of Taxa using Diagnostic Zones