Fieldwork Results
The 1993-5 seasons aimed to find out as much as possible about the east and west mounds prior to further excavation. Excavation began in 1995 and 1996. The work takes place in August and September and involves approximately 100 people, including 10 Turkish students and 20 local staff. It is undertaken with a permit granted annually by the Ministry of Culture. Our thanks are due to the Director General of Monuments and Museums and to the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.
The following methods are used:
- Surface Contouring and Grid Laying
- Magnetometry
- Surface Collection
- Surface Scraping
- Section Cleaning
- Excavation
- Fieldwalking
- Coring
- Museum Study Visits
- Specialist Analysis
1. Surface contouring and grid laying. A grid was established over the West and East mounds. Contouring with a total station was completed by Tom Pollard on the East mound (see figure) taking readings at 2m intervals. Contours could then be drawn at .25 and .50m intervals, giving a good indication of minor variation in the surface of the mound.
2. Magnetometer. A fluxgate gradiometer survey was completed by Dr C Shell on the East mound. In a number of instances it was possible to 'test' the magnetometer results against known house plans obtained through scraping the surface of the mound (see below: 4). A good correspondence was found between burnt rooms and high magnetometer readings. The overall arrangement of houses could be discerned, as well as large areas of ashy rubbish fringing the areas of dense classical and Byzantine settlement to the south of the mound.
3. Surface collection. Set amounts of soil were collected from 2x2m squares on a 20m grid, and sieved through a 5mm mesh. The grid of squares was completed on the East mound, and the whole of the West mound was completed, producing material from over 400 sample squares. On the East mound, very low densities were recovered in the flat NW corner of the fenced area, indicating that there was no occupation in this zone (a conclusion confirmed by boring - see below: 7). Analysis of the overall patterning on the East mound shows that historic period ceramics are confined to the southern area. The Neolithic ceramics indicate that the latest forms occur on the eastern eminence.
The material collected from the surface of the West mound shows that sherds from historic periods are lower in density than on the East mound and are concentrated on the eastern part of the mound, together with building tile. The Chalcolithic pottery indicates that later forms (perhaps Middle Chalcolithic) are concentrated in certain areas.
4. Surface scraping. The aim of the scraping has been to remove organic surface soil in 10x10m areas to reveal the plan of houses in the uppermost layer of the mound. Experience in 1993 showed that downward movement of soil had obscured traces of houses on the lower slopes of the mound. Our work concentrated on the tops of the mounds and on the top of the northern eminence on the eastern mound a larger area was scraped. The overall result in the 40x60m area was a plan of about 30 houses arranged in a complex radiating pattern, densely packed but with one narrow, winding street. Many of the houses had thick internal plaster facing on the walls, and there were plaster features and ovens. Large areas of plaster flooring were also uncovered just beneath the soil surface, and in one case a pair of articulated cattle horns was recovered possibly still in situ.
On the West mound three 10x10m areas were cleared on the top of the mound. The West mound is lower and flatter than the East, and it has evidence of ploughing and intensive agricultural use (eg plough marks were identified in the subsoil). As a result, the removal of the surface soil did not produce plans of houses, but did produce plans of brick lined graves on an E-W axis.
All the scraped areas were covered over with soil at the end of the seasons.
5. Section cleaning. The aim has been to clean and record the sections left from the 1960s excavations in order to understand the overall stratigraphy and to allow detailed micromorphological work. Numerous plaster floors, cuts through floors for burials, cuts to form a possible 'terrace' were all scrutinised and samples taken for micromorphological analysis by Wendy Matthews (see below). Samples of wall plaster were taken for conservation research.
For example, a N-S section extending from levels II-III to VIB was examined and drawn and showed in particular a partially burnt house filled intentionally with burnt and unburnt bricks, burnt wall plaster and large juniper beams. Samples of the latter were taken for dendrochronology by M Newton for P I Kuniholm. The evidence from a number of houses suggested deliberate fill. Houses were normally built on earlier house walls and there are few, if any, cases where later houses do not respect earlier houses. In some cases, however, midden areas come to be used for housing, or housing reverts to midden.
At the end of the seasons soil was heaped back against the base of the sections in order to minimise further erosion and collapse.
6. Excavation A single context recording system is used. The techniques have involved dry sieving all soil through a 4 mm mesh and taking 40 litre samples from all contexts/units for flotation. The heavy residues are dried and sorted down to 1 mm. Context data are fed immediately into the database so as to encourage immediate feedback and interaction between lab and field specialists. Lab specialists visit and comment on the excavation areas daily and there is daily video recording - the results of which are edited into short clips and fed into the database. The database also contains a diary kept by the director and trench supervisors.
7. Fieldwalking in the drainage ditches being constructed around the site provided evidence of a large Byzantine site immediately to the east of the East mound. Also found was evidence of a palaeochannel carrying the Çarsamba river to the area between the mounds. The regional field survey directed by Douglas Baird has discovered many sites of all phases in the surrounding Konya plain. These include very small sites contemporary with Catalhoyuk and buried beneath alluvium - their location can be discovered in dyke walking. Satellite imagery is also being examined.
8. Coring undertaken by a team led by Dr Neil Roberts beneath a level XII house showed a further 5metres of occupation. Samples were taken for optically stimulated luminescence dating from the base of the occupation. These examples are part of a wide programme by Neil Roberts to understand the changing environment before, during and after the occupation at the site. Work has also begun on identifying the interface between the surrounding alluvium and the eroding mound; and also on identifying nutrient enrichment in the buried soils around the mound.
9. Museum study visits have been made to Konya Museum by various specialists on the project (bone, lithic, ceramic). The aim of such research is to obtain comparative evidence for dating, for differences between 'shrines' and non-'shrines', differences between burials and house contents etc. Initial indications are that the fine bifacially flaked obsidian points, and evidence for their production, are concentrated in the more elaborate 'shrine' buildings. However, these conclusions are not supported by the more fully studied ceramic material which does not indicate clear repeated differences between the two types of building except perhaps in terms of 'innovation'. The faunal evidence surviving from the 1960s excavations is not adequate to allow variation between building types to be studies. But a lack of clear distinction between 'shrine' and non-'shrine' is also suggested by the initial micromorphological work, which indicates in a number of cases that buildings, including those with elaborate sculpture, may change their function through time.
10. Specialist analysis. Study of the ceramics is being spearheaded by Jonathan Last, Cambridge, of the obsidian by James Conolly, Institute of Archaeology, London, and of the animal bone by Louise Martin, Institute of Archaeology, London. Louise Martin has been joined by Nerissa Russell from Berkeley, California. Some of the initial results of the work of these specialists is incorporated in the account given above. Indeed, one of our aims at Çatalhöyük is to integrate the work of the different 'specialists' within a 'contextual' methodology. The integration includes, for example, Wendy Matthews' micromorphological work, Christine Hastorf's and Julie Near's archaeobotanical work, Adnan Baysal's work on the ground stone, and all the other people working on particular aspects of the site. The computing aspect of this contextual integration is being handled by Tim Ritchey from Cambridge. Computer visualisation is an important part of this research.
Study of the human bones by Dr Berna Alpagut, Ankara University and by Dr Peter Andrews and Dr Theya Molleson at the London Natural History Museum includes a re-analysis of the crania and mandibles excavated by James Mellaart in the 1960s. The work is concentrating on nutrition and genetic distancing. Work by Naomi Hamilton, Edinburgh University, in the Konya Museum on the artifacts from the burials will allow correlations to be drawn with the biological data.
Part of the faunal database can now be inspected here.
Ethnoarchaeological and experimental research is of particular importance for understanding the architectural features of the site - for example, why were houses built with roof entrance, what does a swept floor look like, how do the houses collapse. Such questions are being studied ethnoarchaeologically by Nurcan Yalman, a student of Mehmet Özdogan from Istanbul University. The experimental work on the houses will be coordinated by a team from Berkeley, California, led by Mira Stevanovic. But there are many other ethnoarchaeological and experimental aspects of the research (eg including burial and monitoring of bone survival, experiments with hearths).
Other teams working at the site include an excavation team led by Ruth Tringham from Berkeley and a team from Thessaloniki led by Kostas Kotsakis.