Ethnoarchaeological Field Work
Nurcan YalmanThe architectural variability should indicate a cultural variability; especially in Neolithic sites but it is not easy to understand the process of the cause and effect relationships in a site or differentiation between sites, lies under the architectural layout which has been established through thousands of years. For this reason, I decided to approach this problem with an ethnoarchaeological research on the traditional village architecture in Central Anatolia. The ethnoarchaeological study concerns an investigation of the environmental, economic and socio-cultural factors which determine traditional mud brick village architecture and settlement patterns in the area of the Çatalhöyük Research Project as a commencement to build a model for Central Anatolia in the near future.
In the 2001 season, I started the research in Turkmen Camili village, which is 20 km south west of Çatalhöyük. I collected data mainly on the history of the Turkmen tribe which constitute the village, the relationship between the compound-groups and kin groups, division of labour between men and women, and co-operation subjects, economic and environmental developments or variations and also some cosmological perspectives. I also carried out a mapping study to group the compounds and kins, to show the functions of the buildings of compounds and recording. As a result I gained many new insights, which raised new questions to lead me further into this project. Although there is still a lot of work to do at the same village, this season, was quite successful for my research.