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.
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Definition
Timeline
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c. 9000 BCETribal groups of hunter-gatherers in Mesopotamia begin to domesticate plants and animals.
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c. 7400 BCEFirst groups of settlers in Ҫatalhöyük.
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c. 7100 BCEFirst mudbrick houses appear in Ҫatalhöyük and Jericho.
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c. 6500 BCEDense 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.
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c. 6000 BCEDemographic concentration on the west mound of Ҫatalhöyük. Desertion of the east mount to be used exclusively as a necropolis. Earliest pieces of painted pottery.
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c. 5900 BCERare obsidian tools and early signs of metallurgy mark out the beginnings of Chalcolithic era at Ҫatalhöyük.
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c. 5600 BCEAbandonment of Ҫatalhöyük.
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1958 CEJames Mellaart discovers the Neolitic site of Ҫatalhöyük in the Konya Plain, central Turkey.
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1961 CE - 1965 CEMellaart leads four seasons of excavations at Ҫatalhöyük.
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1993 CEIan Hodder resumes Ҫatalhöyük excavations.
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2012 CEҪatalhöyük is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.
