Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:59:21.896Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Private pantries and celebrated surplus: storing and sharing food at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Central Anatolia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Amy Bogaard ,
Michael Charles ,
Katheryn C. Twiss ,
Andrew Fairbairn ,
Nurcan Yalman ,
Dragana Filipović ,
G. Arzu Demirergi ,
Füsun Ertuğ ,
Nerissa Russell  and
Jennifer Henecke
Amy Bogaard
Affiliation:
1School of Archaeology, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PG, UK
Michael Charles
Affiliation:
2Department of Archaeology, Northgate House, West Street, Sheffield, S1 4ET, UK
Katheryn C. Twiss
Affiliation:
3Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4364, USA
Andrew Fairbairn
Affiliation:
4The University of Queensland, School of Social Science, Michie Building, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
Nurcan Yalman
Affiliation:
5Caddebostan Cemiltopuzlu Cad. 79/5, Pınar Apt. Istanbul, Turkey
Dragana Filipović
Affiliation:
1School of Archaeology, 36 Beaumont Street, Oxford, OX1 2PG, UK
G. Arzu Demirergi
Affiliation:
3Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4364, USA
Füsun Ertuğ
Affiliation:
6Orhangazi caddesi, Kumbaçı yolu no 109, Iznik Bursa, Turkey
Nerissa Russell
Affiliation:
7Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
Jennifer Henecke
Affiliation:
3Department of Anthropology, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4364, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the Neolithic megasite at Çatalhöyük families lived side by side in conjoined dwellings, like a pueblo. It can be assumed that people were always in and out of each others' houses – in this case via the roof. Social mechanisms were needed to make all this run smoothly, and in a tour-de-force of botanical, faunal and spatial analysis the authors show how it worked. Families stored their own produce of grain, fruit, nuts and condiments in special bins deep inside the house, but displayed the heads and horns of aurochs near the entrance. While the latter had a religious overtone they also remembered feasts, episodes of sharing that mitigated the provocations of a full larder.

Keywords

TurkeyÇatalhöyükNeolithicsocial strategyspatial analysisbotanyfauna
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 83 , Issue 321 , September 2009 , pp. 649 - 668
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atalay, S. & Hastorf, C. A.. 2006. Food, meals, and daily activities: food habitus at Neolithiçatalh¨oyük. American Antiquity 71: 283–319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banning, E. B. 1998. The Neolithic period: triumphs of architecture, agriculture, and art. Near Eastern Archaeology 61: 188–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Banning, E. B. 2003. Housing Neolithic farmers. Near Eastern Archaeology 66: 4–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binford, L. R. 1978. Nunamiut ethnoarchaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Byrd, B. F. 1994. Public and private, domestic and corporate: the emergence of the Southwest Asian village. American Antiquity 59: 639–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cauvin, J. 1994. Naissance des Divinités, Naissance de l'Agriculture. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Cessford, C. 2007. Neolithic excavations in the North Area, East Mound, Çatalh¨oyük 1995-98, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Excavating Çatalh¨oyük: South, North and KOPAL Area reports from the 1995-1999 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 345–549. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Cessford, C., Newton, M. W., Kuniholm, P. I., Manning, S. W., Özbakan, M., Meleközer, A., Göze Akolu, K., Higham, T. & Blumbach, P.. 2005. Absolute dating at Çatalh¨oyük, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Changing materialities at Çatalh¨oyük: reports from the 1995-1999 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 65–99. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Clark, C. & Haswell, M.. 1966. The economics of subsistence agriculture. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Düring, B.S. 2006. Constructing communities: clustered neighbourhood settlements of the Central Anatolian Neolithic ca. 8500-5500 cal. BC. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten.Google Scholar
Düring, B.S. 2007. Reconsidering the Çatalh¨oyük community: from households to settlement systems. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 20: 155–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ertuğ-yaraş, F. 1997. An ethnoarchaeological study of subsistence and plant gathering in Central Anatolia (PhD dissertation, Washington University, St. Louis). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Fairbairn, A., Martinoli, D., Butler, A., Hillman, G. & Kennedy, A.. Forthcoming. The Mellaart seed archive from Neolithic Çatalh¨oyük East, Turkey (British Archaeological Reports International Series). Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Fairbairn, A., Near, J. & Martinoli, D.. 2005. Macrobotanical investigation of the North, South and KOPAL area excavations at Çatalh¨oyük East, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Inhabiting Çatalh¨oyük: reports from the 1995-1999 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 137–201. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Farid, S. 2007. Neolithic excavations in the South Area, East Mound, Çatalh¨oyük 1995-99, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Excavating Çatalh¨oyük: South, North and KOPAL Area reports from the 1995-99 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 41–342. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 1972. The origins of the village as a settlement type in Mesoamerica and the Near East: a comparative study, in Ucko, R.T.P.J. & Dimbleby, G. W. (ed.) Man, settlement and urbanism: 23–53. London: Duckworth.Google Scholar
Flannery, K. V. 2002. The origins of the village revisited: from nuclear to extended households. American Antiquity 6: 417–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forbes, H. 1982. Strategies and soils: technology, production and environment in the peninsula of Methana, Greece (PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Galili, E., Weinstein-Evron, M., Hershkovitz, I., Gopher, A., Kislev, M., Lernau, O., Kolska-Horwitz, L. & Lernau, H.. 1993. Atlit-Yam: a prehistoric site on the sea floor off the Israeli coast. Journal of Field Archaeology 20: 133–57.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Y. 1987. Yiftahel: a Neolithic village from the seventh millennium BC in Lower Galilee, Israel. Journal of Field Archaeology 14: 199–212.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Y. & Miller, M. A. (ed.). 2002. Sha'ar Hagolan 1: Neolithic art in context. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Goring-Morris, A. N. & Horwitz, L. K.. 2007. Funerals and feasts during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B of theNear East. Antiquity 81: 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halstead, P. 1989. The economy has a normal surplus: economic stability and social change among early farming communities of Thessaly, Greece, in Halstead, P. & O'shea, J. (ed.) Bad year economics: cultural responses to risk and uncertainty: 68–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halstead, P. 1990a Quantifying Sumerian agriculture – some seeds of doubt and hope. Bulletin on Sumerian Agriculture 5: 187–95.Google Scholar
Halstead, P. 1990b Waste not, want not: traditional responses to crop failure in Greece. Rural History 1: 147–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halstead, P. 2007. Carcasses and commensality: investigating the social context of meat consumption in Neolithic and Early Bronze Age Greece, in Mee, C. & Renard, J. (ed.) Cooking up the past: food and culinary practices in the Neolithic and Bronze Age Aegean: 25–49. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Hayden, B. 2003. Were luxury foods the first domesticates? Ethnoarchaeological perspectives from Southeast Asia. World Archaeology 34: 458–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helmer, D., Gourichson, L. & Stordeur, D.. 2004. À l'aube de la domestication animale. Anthropozoologica 39: 143–63.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2006. Çatalh¨oyük: the leopard's tale. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Hodder, I. 2007. Summary of results, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Excavating Çatalh¨oyük: South, North and KOPAL Area reports from the 1995-99 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 25–37. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Imamura, K. 1996. Prehistoric Japan. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, C. 1982. Village ethnoarchaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Kuijt, I. 2004. When the walls came down: social organization, ideology, and the ‘collapse’ of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, in Bienert, H.-D., Gebel, H.G.K. & Neef, R. (ed.) Central settlements in Neolithic Jordan: proceedings of a symposium held in Wadi Musa, Jordan, 21st-25th of July, 1997 (Studies in early Near Eastern production, subsistence, and environment 5): 183–99. Berlin: ex oriente.Google Scholar
Kuijt, I. & Goring-Morris, N.. 2002. Foraging, farming, and social complexity in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant: a review and synthesis. Journal of World Prehistory 16: 361–440.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuijt, I. & Finlayson, B.. 2009. Evidence for food storage and predomestication granaries 11,000 years ago in the Jordan Valley. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106: 10966–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lee, R. 1973. Mongongo: the ethnography of a major wild food resource. Ecology of food and nutrition 2: 307–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mellaart, J. 1967. Çatal Hüyük: a Neolithic town in Anatolia. London: Thames & Hudson.Google Scholar
Noy, T. 1989. Gilgal I, a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A site, Israel. The 1985-1987 seasons. Paléorient 15: 11–18.Google Scholar
ÖzdoĞan, M. 1999. Çayönü, in özdoĞan, M. & Bas¸gelen, N. (ed.) Neolithic in Turkey: the cradle of civilization: 35–63. Istanbul: Arkeoloji ve Sanat Yayinlari.Google Scholar
ÖZbaşaran, M. & Buitenhuis, H.. 2002. Proposal for a regional terminology for Central Anatolia, in Gérard, F. & Thissen, L. (ed.) The Neolithic of Central Anatolia. Internal developments and external relations during the 9th-6th millennia cal BC: 67–77. Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari.Google Scholar
Rollefson, G. O. 1997. Changes in architecture and social organization at Neolithic ‘Ain Ghazal, in Gebel, H.G.K., Kafafi, Z. & Rollefson, G. O. (ed.) The prehistory of Jordan II. Perspectives from 1997: 287–308. Berlin: ex oriente.Google Scholar
Rollefson, G. O. & Simmons, A. H. 1986. The Neolithic village of ‘Ain Ghazal, Jordan: preliminary report on the 1984 season. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research Supplement 24: 145–64.Google Scholar
Rosen, A. M. 2005. Phytolith indicators of plant and land use at Çatalh¨oyük, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Inhabiting Çatalh¨oyük: reports from the 1995-1999 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 203–12. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M. & Redding, R. W.. 2000. Hallan Çemi and early village organization in Eastern Anatolia, in Kuijt, I. (ed.) Life in Neolithic farming communities: social organization, identity, and differentiation: 39–62. New York (NY): Kluwer Academic/Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, M., Nesbitt, R.M., Redding, R. W. & Strasser, T. F.. 1995. Hallan Çemi Tepesi: some preliminary observations concerning early Neolithic subsistence behaviors in eastern Anatolia. Anatolica 21: 1–12.Google Scholar
Russell, N. & Martin, L.. 2005. The Çatalh¨oyük mammal remains, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Inhabiting Çatalh¨oyük: reports from the 1995-99 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 33–98. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Russell, N. & Meece, S.. 2005. Animal representations and animal remains at Çatalh¨oyük, in Hodder, I. (ed.) çatalh¨oyük perspectives: themes from the 1995-99 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 209–30. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar
Schneider, H. K. 1957. The subsistence role of cattle among the Pakot and in East Africa. American Anthropologist 59: 278–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simmons, A. H. & Najjar, M.. 2006. Ghwair I: a small, complex Neolithic community in Southern Jordan. Journal of Field Archaeology 31: 77–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stordeur, D., Brenet, M., Der Aprahamian, G. & Roux, J.-C.. 2001. Les bâtiments communautaires de Jerf el Ahmar et Mureybet horizon PPNA (Syrie). Paléorient 26: 29–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twiss, K. 2008. Transformations in an early agricultural society: feasting in the southern Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 27: 418–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twiss, K., Bogaard, A., Bogdan, D., Carter, T., Charles, M. P., Farid, S., Russell, N., Stevanović, M., Yalman, E. N. & Yeomans, L.. 2008. Arson or accident? The burning of a Neolithic house at Çatalh¨oyük. Journal of Field Archaeology 33: 41–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twiss, K. C., Bogaard, A., Charles, M. P., Henecke, J., Russell, N., Martin, L. & Jones, G.. In press. Plants and animals together: interpreting organic remains from Building 52 at Çatalh¨oyük. Current Anthropology.Google Scholar
Watson, P. J. 1979. Archaeological ethnography in western Iran. Tuscon (AZ): University of Arizona.Google Scholar
Weiss, E., Kislev, M.E. & Hartmann, A.. 2006. Autonomous cultivation before domestication. Science 312: 1609–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wright, K. I. 2000. The social origins of cooking and dining in early villages of Western Asia. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 2: 89–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yalman, E. N. 2005a. Çağdaş K¨oylerde Yapilan ‘Yerleşim Mantiği’ Calismalarinin Arkeolojik Yerleşmelerin Yorumuna Katkisi. Unpublished PhD dissertation, Istanbul University.Google Scholar
Yalman, E. N. 2005b. Settlement logic studies as an aid to understand prehistoric settlement organization: ethnoarchaeological research in Central Anatolia, in Hodder, I. (ed.) Inhabiting Çatalh¨oyük: reports from the 1995-1999 seasons (McDonald Institute Monographs): 329–42. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research/London: British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara.Google Scholar