Çatalhöyük 2004 Archive Report

ÇATALHÖYÜK 2004 ARCHIVE REPORT

Excavations of the 4040 Area

Spaces 232 and 240

Ruth Tringham

Berkeley University Field School
Supervised by: Ruth Tringham
Site Assistants: Elizabeth Tien Ha, Shanti Morell-Hart

Abstract

Our aim during the 2004 season was to excavate an area that may have represented a “street” – designated Space 232 – that was located between well defined buildings to explore the nature of possible trodden and trampled surfaces, to reveal the outer surfaces of the walls of buildings, and to reveal the existence of possible side openings or doorways into the buildings. In other words, we wanted to tell whether the space between the buildings was used as a path of communication. As the season unfolded, it became clear that the “street” might have played an important role as a boundary between an earlier phase of buildings, possibly equivalent to VI to the north later structures to the south.

Özet

2004 yılı kazı sezonundaki amacımız, ‘sokak' olduğu düşünülen (Alan 232) ve tanımlanmış binaların arasında yer alan üzerinde çokça yürünmüş olduğu gözlemlenen yüzeyleri kazmak, binanların dış duvarlarının yüzeylerini ortaya çıkarmak ve olası yan giriş ve kapı girişlerini ortaya çıkarmak olmuştur. Başka bir deyişle binalar arasındaki alanın binalar arasında geçişi ve iletişimini sağlayıp sağlamadığını ortaya çıkarmak idi. Sezonun sonunda ‘sokak' diye adlandırdığımız alanın erken evrelere ait binaların arasında, önemli bir rol oynayan bir sınır teşkil ettiği ve kuzeyde VI, güneyde de daha geç evrelere denk düştüğü ortaya çıkmıştır.

Spaces 232 & 240

Our aim during the 2004 season was to excavate the “street” – designated space 232 - between houses to explore the nature of possible trodden and trampled surfaces, to reveal the outer surfaces of the walls of buildings, and to reveal the existence of possible side openings or doorways into the buildings (see Fig 9). In other words, we wanted to tell whether the space between the buildings was used as a path of communication. As the season unfolded, it became clear that the street might have played an important role as a boundary between an earlier settled part of the mound north of it, and an extension of settlement later to its south.

From July 28, we excavated the lower set of compact beige “street layers” in Space 232 south of Space 240 in full sampling mode. They were excavated in two arbitrary layers. The upper layer unit (11029) was made a priority. The lower was excavated to the underlying midden only in its northern part. The rest remains to be excavated in future seasons. The southern edge of the “street layers” is bounded by the wall F.1564. This bounding wall has collapsed in the western end of the excavated area, spilling a small collection of cultural materials (several grinding stone) from unit (11030).

The two sets of “street layers” may be clearly seen in the profile through both Spaces 232 and 240. Two layers of compact beige clayey soil are interspersed with rich midden layers and abut the south wall F.1752, of Space 240. A series of micromorphological samples were taken through this sequence, to link up with those taken from the sides of a “Byzantine” grave F. 1551, in the middle of Space 232 (whose position is described in unit (11017).

Both Space 232 and 240 have been cut by a roughly circular post-Neolithic pit (F.1751), with heavily undercutting sides, so that its initial 1.6m diameter expanded at its base to 2.70m. The pit was filled with masses of heavily burned clay that appears to be both constructional material and oven or kiln debris that was secondarily deposited in the pit. Very little other artifactual material was found in it. Currently, the pit has been excavated to its base at ca. 1.0m below the present-day surface, but in places on its southern edge it appears to be continuing down.

According to the pit profile three – possibly four - courses of bricks survived in the south wall F.1752 of the truncated room that was designated Space 240. South of the pit (F.1751), however, only two courses survived the erosion of this area. The wall here does, however, have a 10mm thick plaster layer on its north surface remaining in parts. The wall plaster was linked to a small patch of floor plaster. The wall F. 1751 appears to be set in a shallow cut filled with dark grey matrix. The cut seems to have been enlarged and deepened either by subsequent animal activity or drip-water action. The east wall F.1755 and F.1605, of this room (Space 240) was more poorly preserved, with only one course surviving.

The room space 240 was cut by three later walls to its north F.1754, F.1604 and F.1607 and entirely destroyed except for a 0.7m strip of poorly preserved plastered floor and packing surfaces. And these were in turn cut by the pit F.1751. The eroded plaster floor surfaces of Space 240 were removed down to a compact beige packing base of the room.

The room surfaces west of the pit F.1751 were designated F.1753. These and their underlying packing were removed revealing the underlying midden. The midden in this corner was removed in two layers, both of which were sampled by flotation: an upper black layer unit (11023) which was very rich in seeds as well as animal bones, and a lower dark grey-brown unit (11024) that had much fewer palaeobotanical remains. The plant-rich sample seems to have been a localized patch, since no comparable remains were found under the wall F.1604 that cut Space 240/F.1753. On the basis of the ‘street' definition which is a constant route of communication between standing structures we cannot interpret this area or the deposits excavated as ‘street' with any confidence. Further excavation is required to see whether we have a series of ‘midden's and compact ‘street' deposits that are a temporal feature. For now, it appears that Spaces 232 and 240 form a boundary between phases of occupation at this location of the mound