Ҫatalhöyük

Definition

Ҫatalhöyük is one of the largest Neolithic settlements ever discovered. Built more than 9000 years ago in modern Konya Plain, central Turkey, it is known in archaeology as a proto-city, a link between the cave-dwellings of prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the early urban constructions. This is where communities began to grow crops and herd animals in preplanned and systematic ways for the first time in history.

More about: Ҫatalhöyük

Timeline

  • c. 9000 BCE
    Tribal groups of hunter-gatherers in Mesopotamia begin to domesticate plants and animals.
  • c. 7400 BCE
    First groups of settlers in Ҫatalhöyük.
  • c. 7100 BCE
    First mudbrick houses appear in Ҫatalhöyük and Jericho.
  • c. 6500 BCE
    Dense housing at Ҫatalhöyük. Room-flats completely made of mudbricks with painted and decorated walls. Systematic methods of cultivation and animal husbandry. The first dairy products.
  • c. 6000 BCE
    Demographic concentration on the west mound of Ҫatalhöyük. Desertion of the east mount to be used exclusively as a necropolis. Earliest pieces of painted pottery.
  • c. 5900 BCE
    Rare obsidian tools and early signs of metallurgy mark out the beginnings of Chalcolithic era at Ҫatalhöyük.
  • c. 5600 BCE
    Abandonment of Ҫatalhöyük.
  • 1958 CE
    James Mellaart discovers the Neolitic site of Ҫatalhöyük in the Konya Plain, central Turkey.
  • 1961 CE - 1965 CE
    Mellaart leads four seasons of excavations at Ҫatalhöyük.
  • 1993 CE
    Ian Hodder resumes Ҫatalhöyük excavations.
  • 2012 CE
    Ҫatalhöyük is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.
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