ÇATALHÖYÜK 2005 ARCHIVE REPORT

Publications

FORTHCOMING

Excavating Çatalhöyük: South, North and KOPAL Area reports from the 1995-1999 seasons
By Members of the Çatalhöyük teams
Edited by Ian Hodder

Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 3
McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

This volume represents the third major publication by the Çatalhöyük Research Project, following on from a first volume related to the initial phase of surface work (Hodder 1996) and a second volume dealing with methodological/theoretical issues (Hodder 2000). It is concerned with presenting the results of excavations of three areas at Çatalhöyük, known as South (Chapter 2), North (Chapter 3) and KOPAL (Chapter 4), between 1995 and 1999. Further volumes will present detailed specialist reports (Volumes 4 & 5) and thematic discussions (Volume 6) related to these excavations. This volume outlines the general aims and history of the Çatalhöyük Research Project between 1995 and 2002 covering the period of excavation and post-excavation work on the areas in question. It describes aspects of the excavation, recording and sampling methodologies that are necessary for an understanding of the results presented. Specific issues that affect the understanding of the results, particularly concerning dating, ‘levels’ and the relationship between material found in/on floors and activities that took place on those floors will also be considered. Finally the major implications and results of the excavations will be considered and placed in their regional context.

While at one level this volume presents the results of excavations, followed by volumes dealing with analysis of excavated data (Volumes 4 & 5), followed by synthesis and interpretation (Volume 6), at another level an attempt has been made to avoid the notion that data are presented followed by interpretation. Although this volume does describe the excavation of buildings, features and units, it also incorporates interpretive discussion. It brings in data from the study of animal bones, lithics, ceramics, micromorphology and the full suite of analyses conducted on the material, in order to make sense of the buildings, features and units. The ‘descriptions’ of the archaeological features are embedded within information and quotes from a wide range of specialists who have studied the material from the site. These commentaries, and the conclusions drawn from them, are developed forms of the ‘priority tours’ that took place around the trenches during the excavation. They mimic the process of collaborative interpretation that took place during the excavation and post-excavation process. The ‘descriptions’ of the archaeology are thus exposed as interpretations involving a balancing of a variety of different types of data. They are synthetic interpretations that take place in the generation of data

PUBLISHED 2005
Inhabiting Çatalhöyük: reports from the 1995-1999 seasons
By Members of the Çatalhöyük teams
Edited by Ian Hodder
Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 4
McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

Volume 4 deals with various aspects of the inhabiting of Çatalhöyük. Part A embarks on discussion of the relationship between the site and its environment, using a wide range of evidence from faunal and charred archaeobotanical remains to phytoliths, shells and charcoal (Chapters 2 to 10 & 23). Part B looks at the evidence from human remains which inform us about diet and lifeways, as well as wider issues of population dynamics and social structure (Chapters 11 to 16 plus 24 & 25). It includes a consideration of population size (Chapter 16). Part C looks at the sediments at Çatalhöyük, exploring ways in which houses (the term ‘house’ is used in a general sense for structure and is not meant to possess the implications of the term as used by Mellaart) and open spaces in the settlement were lived in (Chapters 17 to 22). In all these ways, a picture is built up of the way in which people moved through and lived in the natural and cultural environment of the places we subsume under the heading ‘Çatalhöyük’. A synthesis and synopsis of the conclusions is provided in this introductory chapter.

IN PRESS
Changing materialities at Çatalhöyük: reports from the 1995-99 seasons
By Members of the Çatalhöyük teams
Edited by Ian Hodder
Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 5
McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

Volume 5 deals with other aspects of the material culture excavated in the 1995-99 period. In particular it discusses the changing materiality of life at the site over its approximately 1100 years of occupation. It includes discussion of ceramics and other fired clay material, as well as chipped stone, groundstone, worked bone and basketry. As well as looking at typological and comparative issues in relations to these materials, the chapters explore themes such as the specialization and scale of production, the engagement in systems of exchange, and consumption, use and deposition. A central question concerns change through time, and the degree and speed of change. The occupants of the site increasingly get caught up in relations with material objects that start to act back upon them.

IN PRESS
Çatalhöyük perspectives: themes from the 1995-9 seasons
By Members of the Çatalhöyük teams
Edited by Ian Hodder
Çatalhöyük Research Project Volume 6
McDonald Institute Monographs/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara

Volume 6 is synthetic, drawing on material from Volumes 3 to 5 to deal with broad themes. Data from architecture and excavation contexts are linked into broader discussion of topics such as seasonality, art and social memory. Rather than assuming that the work of the project is finished once the basic excavation and laboratory results have been presented in Volumes 3 to 5, it has been thought important to present more synthetic accounts that result from the high degree of integration and collaboration which the project has strived for at all stages. In this synthetic volume we most clearly describe the ‘stories we have been telling ourselves’ during the data recovery/interpretation process. This volume thus provides a contextualization of the work carried out in Volumes 3 to 5 – it records the framework of thought within which the data were collected and studied, but it is also the result of the interpretation that occurred in the interaction with data.

PUBLISHED
The Çatahöyük Biography – Michael Balter
The Goddess and the Bull, the “authorised” biography of Catalhoyuk, has been selling steadily since its publication in January 2005 in the USA and April 2005 in the UK. It has been reviewed, nearly always favorably, in Science, Nature, New Scientist, Antiquity (short review), British Archaeology, Current Archaeology, and other specialty publications, and has been the subject of an article in the Times (London). The literary journal Books in Canada gave it a rave review, and several US newspapers have reviewed it as well. There have also been several online reviews, all of which have been very kind and positive. The year 2006 will bring more important developments for the book: A paperback edition will be published in the spring by Left Coast Press, the new publishing house created by AltaMira founder and archaeological publishing legend Mitch Allen. This should make the book more widely available and ripe for course adoption. In addition, a Turkish edition will be published by Homer Kitabevi, slated for September, and a Bulgarian edition by NSM Media. Other foreign language editions are in the works. As always, I am grateful to the many team members who helped with the book and have supported it now that it is published.