Çatalhöyük 2002 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2002 ARCHIVE REPORT

Introduction Çatalhöyük 2002

Ian Hodder

In 2002 our main team based in Stanford and Cambridge Universities has been completing the writing of four volumes that will report on the work that we conducted at the site from 1995 to 1999. We have already published volumes dealing with surface survey and with our methodologies (Hodder 1996; 2000). But the four new volumes will provide the first in-depth coverage of the excavations and the analyses that members of the 120-strong team have been conducting. It is important to get this post-excavation and publication stage completed before we plan to return to large-scale excavation in 2003. But other teams working at Çatalhöyük have been digging (Fig. 1). The Berkeley team has completed the excavation of Building 3 in the BACH area in the north part of the site, and a team from Poznan in Poland has been working in the TP area in the southern part of the East Mound. Excavations by the Stanford-Cambridge team also took place in the South Area for the foundations of a large shelter.

Figure 1: Areas of excavation

Excavation

The TP team (Team Poznan) made up of 10 archaeologists and students from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences in Poznan and Institute of Prehistory, University of Poznan undertook its second field season at Çatalhöyük. The excavations this year continued in a trench 10m x 10m on top of the East mound, opened up last season and located next to an area excavated by James Mellaart in the 1960s. The objective of this project is to study the latest phases of tell occupation, dated to the end of the seventh millennium BC.

In fact the TP team spent much of their time this season again working on much more recent traces of occupation on top of the mound, covering the latest Neolithic levels. The excavations began by defining and excavating two Roman buildings. They were separated by a narrow passage. The buildings appeared to have been used both for manufacture and storage of clay objects. Five kilns have been excavated in the northern part of the trench, used for spindle whorl and pot production. There were four rectangular kilns with a superstructure made of large mudbricks and a rakeout area in front, as well as a circular kiln with a domed superstructure made up of many layers of clay. A preliminary analysis of pottery indicated a date in the late Hellenistic and early Roman period for this phase of activity on the top of the East Mound.

Below these buildings was a layer containing a large amount of limestone fragments. Its exact function remains unclear at this moment and it might have been a paved area or the remains of walls. Most of these limestone fragments were cleared away by builders of the Hellenistic/early Roman structures, but they survived in situ in some parts of the trench.

The earliest phase of occupation discovered this year comprised clearly defined walls of various small late Neolithic/early Chalcolithic rooms in the western part of the excavated area. The excavation of this Neolithic building will begin next season. Red painted plaster associated with this building has already been found, as well as an anthropomorphic figurine.

The first two seasons conducted by the TP team show that the east mound had a long and complicated history continuing much later than the Neolithic. The site became an important element of the Hellenistic, Roman, and then Byzantine landscape and was intensively used as a place for the living and for the dead.

The BACH team (Berkeley Archaeologists at Çatalhöyük) made up of faculty and students from the University of California at Berkeley, USA, as well as archaeologists and students from Yugoslavia, Turkey, Bulgaria, UK, Holland and Denmark, completed the excavation of Building 3, which they began excavating in 1997.

Building 3, like all the buildings at Çatalhöyük has had a long and complicated history in which it has gone through various configurations of room size, use and meaning. During the 2002 season, as they excavated the earliest two phases of the five phases in the building’s occupation history, including its initial construction, they made several interesting discoveries.

The house was built directly on midden (rubbish) deposits. Before the first floors and platforms were laid out, the walls were constructed, upright posts were dug into the foundations for the support of the roof, a bench to enable roof entry was carefully constructed, and two ovens were constructed. Next to the entry bench, two beautiful obsidian points and animal parts were deposited, perhaps as a foundation ritual. In its earliest phase, in sharp contrast with the later phases, Building 3 comprised a large spacious room with space partitioned only by low platforms. Very few additional features formed the fixed furniture of the house, including a storage bin and a couple of plaster basins. Later on, as has been reported in earlier accounts, the space became much more divided up and differentiated by platforms, divisions and activities.

The BACH team also continued the excavation of three small rooms or cells next to Building 3. In one of these, Space 87, they made the surprising discovery that this small room had a number of superimposed plaster floors that had been cut at least 6-8 times in order to bury at least 8 (possibly 10) individuals. Of these, two were adults, three were children, and the rest were adolescents. Above the latest of these burials was found an exceptionally well preserved bone hook and buckle that may have been part of the burial clothing.

In another of the small rooms – space 88 – under a platform in which many grinding activities had taken place, were found a wild pig skull and sheep bones that were adorned with 37 marine shell beads and one large bead of carnelian. These have been interpreted as a symbolic deposit.
The South Area Shelter Project has been in the planning for the past three years and in earnest this last year. It is now two-thirds complete and will be ready for a new phase of excavations in 2003. The 45m x 27m shelter also covers the Summit Area excavated by the team from Thessaloniki in 1996 – 1998. It drops from a ground level of 1014.9m AD (meters Above Datum) to the east down to 1006.9m AD to the west in the South Area and has been designed by a team of architects from Istanbul, Atölye Mimarlik. The design of a continuous concrete foundation plinth was the solution to the many difficulties posed by constructing on an archaeological site of mudbrick architecture, differential soil compaction and exposure to extreme weather conditions (Fig 2).

Figure 2: South Area Shelter Design

On digging the foundations for the shelter, a range of building levels and activities were excavated. To the east, at the top of the mound, some evidence of classical activity was uncovered, which included part of a mudbrick structure but consisted mostly of homogenous build-up. The eastern strip consisted predominantly of Neolithic ‘midden’ deposits of circa Levels III – IV and it was from these deposits that some of the more interesting finds were retrieved. Some structural remains, probably of Level V, were excavated to both the north and south limits of this trench. The northern foundation, which stepped down eight meters from east to west, covered a span of Levels VI to VIII. A sequence of middens and walls lay to the east whereas the centre and west mostly comprised the remnants of the 1960s Level VII buildings.

The western foundation trench cut through the 1960s spoil heap, whilst to the south the trench ranged from circa Level IV to VIII.

Other activities

The dig house has finally been completed: there is now accommodation for 80 people, three storerooms, a Visitor Centre, seven laboratories (including a large seminar and excavation study room), and a terrace overlooking the mounds.

The project was very honoured to receive an award this year from the Turkish Ministry of Culture, and we acknowledge in return the help that has been given to us in 2002 by the Minister of Culture and the Department of Monuments and Museums, especially regarding the South Area shelter. We are also making plans in collaboration with the Department, for a major exhibit about the site at the American Natural History Museum in New York.

During late 2001 and early 2002 a fascinating Çatalhöyük exhibit opened in the Science Museum of Minnesota.

The project has also become the lead partner in a Mediterranean-wide heritage project called TEMPER (Training, Education, Management and Prehistory in the Mediterranean). This involves six partner institutions and will lead to site management plans being completed for Çatalhöyük as well as for four other sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the importance of the prehistoric heritage of the European Mediterranean and to encourage best practice in site management. Training sessions will disseminate best practice methods and the first of these took place this summer at Çatalhöyük. Educational programmes are also being devised to encourage school children and adults to visit the sites and to develop an interest in prehistory.

This year the dig house was also used as the venue for a seminar for 7 Palestinian and 7 Israeli archaeologists to hold discussions about a shared past and a common cultural heritage.

The project has 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.

Acknowledgements

The project works under the auspices of the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara, with a permit from the Turkish Ministry of Culture. The project is grateful to Alpay Pasinli (Anitlar ve Müzeler Genel Müdürü) and to the two temsilci from the Kültür Bakanligi, Rahmi Asal from the Istanbul Archaeological Museum and Yasar Yilmaz from the Konya Ethnographical Museum.

Much support of the project is provided by politicians and officials in the local town of Çumra, especially the Belediye Baskani Zeki Türker and the Kaymakam Osman Taskan. In Konya our appreciation for help and support to Ahmet Kayhan, Konya Vali, Necip Mutlu, Konya Cultural Director and much gratitude is due to Erdogan Erol, the Director of Konya Museums.

The main sponsors are Koçbank and Boeing. Other sponsors are Shell, British Airways, Thames Water, Koçsistem, and the long-term sponsor is Merko. In Britain support has been provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Board, the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara. In America funding has been received from Stanford University, the National Science Foundation, including the Research Experience for Undergraduates programme, the U.C. Berkeley Archaeological Research Facility and MACTIA. Generous private donations have been made by John Coker. In Poland thanks are due to the University of Poznan, and the Polish Academy of Science. Other support is provided by the Friends of Çatalhöyük and the Turkish Friends of Çatalhöyük, and we are grateful as ever to Jimmy and Arlette Mellaart. Special thanks is extended to Ömer Koç for his continued support of the project.

References

Hodder, I (ed) 1996On the surface: Çatalhöyük 1993-95. Monograph of the McDonald Institute and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.

Hodder, I (ed) 2000 Towards Reflexive Method in Archaeology: The Example at Çatalhöyük. Monograph of the McDonald Institute and the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara