Çatalhöyük-the Neolithic dream

I am writing this post day-dreaming, even though ironically is good past midnight...I dream of summer, endless fields, ruins, watermelons and Turkey, a place where I feel strangely home...So I am going to write from memories and think of summer until Morpheus will allure me in his kingdom...

Midnight fire camp

I see myself somehow in between 2 worlds: geology and archaeology. I can't decide which one I love more and I was never able to do it...I don't want either...For me it's just the perfect duo.

Somehow too, I've never had a proper vacation like normal people, but travelling on shorter periods and using my holidays for fieldwork or various other scientific activities. It was this case too and I decided to challenge myself and try to go for diggings somewhere so incredible that I could only dream about-Çatalhöyük.

A piece of Çatal puzzle-floor with inhumations (north shelter)

Çatalhöyük is one of the earliest cities in the world and it's located in the middle of Konya plain, central-south Anatolia, in what it used to be a humid area surrounded by swamps. The city came to life around 9000 years ago and it's so special because at this time most of Europe was just recovering of the last ice age and people were scatter and still living in nomad groups. It's not only a very early city but also one of very first settlements that became permanently sedentary, cultivate land, raised animals and created a very distinctive form of art. All I can say is that we are terribly lucky to get a glimpse into these pioneer people's lives and over Anatolia's climate at that point.

After more than 8 months of preparations, tens of e-mails and letters, visits at Turkey's consulate in Frankfurt and negotiations with my supervisors, I succeeded to find my way to Çatalhöyük, a dream for more than 23 years. It was end of july last year and I got my visa exactly 1 day before my flight. It was after 2 crazy months of fieldwork, an awesome summer school and various other trips all over Europe. Plane, ferry, small boat, bus, train, metro, car, you name it- I got everything. :)) I was tired and stressed but incredibly excited and happy for the next adventure.

I left from Frankfurt on 31st july, spent my night in Istanbul airport freezing and without sleep, then in the morning I got another plane to Konya. From here I had 2 options, bus or taxi. To get to the bus station I had to take the taxi anyway so I decided to go for it till the end. I felt like an arogant bastard by doing it, but what the heck?...I was already in Indiana Jones spirit and I had no more patience.

I reached Çatalhöyük around 8 am without incidents and a great talk with the driver in french, I was given a room and jumped directly to breakfast (lucky me :P). After that I was given a site tour and I started to work in the newest excavation sector which had some burials from a later period on the top of a Neolithic building complex. It seems that all burials were men and without significant possessions.

The new excavating area with the burial place in centre

For 2 weeks I dug a tomb, parts of a kitchen and sieved tons of material. Cool and not cool due to a disk displacement, but in the name of science everything is accepted. Right? :)) I can't tell you the joy and excitement for each bead, seed, obsidian fragment, flint, bone or stone... I was constantly thinking about the people who worked them or used the seeds for preparing the daily food and I was happy for my chance to get to see this material. The biggest joy was brought by chared seeds, cereals fragments and wild garlic, some pieces of amber (possibly baltic, yellow like the sun itself), a garnet of about 2.5 cm diameter, some shell fragments and some baryte crystals. I was so happy because the plants were just perfectly preserved due to the burning process. When plants burn, the carbon inside them gets inactive so they don't rot that fast or at all. If they succeed to be preserved in time, they can turn into fossils. Fossilised charcoal is found quite often in sediments, especially at micro scale.

As for the rocky goodies, I was just looking at Çatal's trading market: amber (out of Anatolia since it doesn't have it), shells from Mediterranean, garnets-probably anatolian but not from close around (it would make splendid jewelries by the way) and baryte, probably from the volcanoes around. I assume that baryte (BaSO4-barium sulfate) had the same source as the obsidian (volcanic glass) but to no real use for making tools due to its low hardness (3-3.5 on Mohs scale, the rock hardness scale). There were also local shells (unionids) probably from the lakes and rivers around the settlement.

Obsidian spear heads exposed in the site museum

The other 2 weeks of my sinfully "vacation" I spent them in the archaeobotany lab and in between lab sessions helping with sorting pottery, bones, tools or trying to convince other people to let me help so I can see and learn more stuff.

The archaeobotany lab was like a microcosmos. Suddenly the little stuff became so obvious. The material was previously sieved on different granulometries and then sorted out manually with tweezers. It sound quite dramatic but it's incredibly rewording and fast when you get used to it. Human and animal bones mixed together, pottery, teeth, egg shells, tiny worked stones, seeds, beads, molluscs fragments and tons of bones from the rodent residents that mined the site for the last millennia. Everyhing one's heart desires!

Small quartz balls found in lab

Sample waiting patiently to be picked

While I enjoyed all this beautiful Çatal experience I also enjoyed a lot the people's company and even learned some turkish. Turkish people are one of the most genuine people I've met, but there were other amazing people around from Europe and New Zealand. We cropped a little gang of wanderers and almost every evening we were diving ourselves into the fields, on trails or trying to get ice-cream from the villages close by. Once a week came the supreme adventure of going to shopping for food, which was conducted via a micro bus (hop on/hop off) in the distinct city of Çumra. Quite a distinctive experience!

My favourite part was though "borrowing" fruits and vegetables from the fields next by and pile them in the room. As a creature who grew up in a small village (Yes, I am a peasant!:P), Çatal felt pretty much like home with true food, freedom, sun, dusty roads and silence. Also amazing sky view, just like my parents back yard where I used to spend endless hours with my brother as kids in the search of aliens. It gives me a good laughing portion every time I remember! No aliens at Çatal but the best Perseids meteor shower ever seen in my life. Over the curse of 3 nights, I spent my time in between terrace and yard, the former being "equipped" with a mattress so my neck doesn't get stuck awkwardly. I was very proud at the moment :))) even with scaring people passing by me...

'Borrowed' apples

Overall, Çatalhöyük was a great experience and it felt like a sort of naughty escape from my PhD life. It led me to new friends, lots of amazing places and the chance to see again my amazing turkish gang and go for new adventures in the search of Miocene fossils...

Thanks to Çiler, Ebru, Chris, Justin, Canan, Ege, Nil and Emir!!

Teşekkürler and afyet olsun my dear bebişims! :P