THE POTTERY

Nurcan Yalman

The pottery this year has helped date the deposits excavated. The pottery from Spaces 254, 255, 256 shows the features of Level V. The east sector of 4040 (eg. Space 227) is very important as this area may represent periods rather insufficiently described previously at Çatalhöyük, such as Levels IV – III. The layers of TP join up with Mellaart’s Levels I and II. These sherds differ from the well defined wares studied up to now. They are very important in learning about the pottery of the latest levels of Çatalhöyük and the transition between the late Neolithic and Chalcolithic. While pottery from the South Area excavated this year has the features of Level V, Buildings 44 and 56  provides the features of the transition between Layers IV and V. IST has pottery which has very strong indicators of Level IV although some sherds show some features of Layer V.