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figurines, which Mellaart classified into four types: Statuettes, figurines, schematic figurines, and stone slabs with incised features (Figure 4.11: 1–5).51 Of these the statuettes were finely crafted (hence the distinction from “figurines”) from red or buff clay; black paint is often used to depict details. The statuettes varied in size from 24 cm to 7 cm, and displayed considerable diversity in posture and detail. Women are shown in a variety of poses—reclining, seated, enthroned (with animals), and standing—and are represented nude or wearing a skirt. Heads were made separately and attached to the body; cruder figurines probably had a wooden peg head. Attention is paid to hairstyles on the statuettes: Hair is shown either pulled up in a bun on top of their head, or hanging down the back as a pigtail.
In a reinterpretation of their context and function, Voigt suggests that these statuettes served as teaching devices or initiation figures.52 Her view is based on their diversity of shapes that lend themselves to be handled rather than displayed, as they would have been if cult objects. Indeed, it appears that the Hacılar statuettes reflect the different stages of a woman’s life and their sexuality, sometimes quite explicitly.53 Here at Hacılar, as at Çatalhöyük the emphasis is on femaleness that may suggest a change in gender roles, or at least recognition of the crucial role played by women in an agricultural village.
A site with considerable potential is Ulucak Höyük, close to Izmir and the Aegean coast, where excavations are uncovering a substantial Late Neolithic village with connection to both the Lake District and Thrace (Figure 4.13).54 Radiocarbon determinations suggest that the earliest occupation so far reached (Levels Va and IV) stretched from the very end of the seventh millennium BC to the first half of the sixth. The excavators prefer to call these levels Late Neolithic, as opposed to Early Chalcolithic, because they cannot detect any major stratigraphic change. Not even painted wares, generally held as the hallmark of the Early Chalcolithic, can be used to differentiate. A rambling wattle and daub building of at least five rooms, with one room approximating a rough square (ca. 4.7 × 4.5 m), distinguishes the earliest level. This plan is rather unusual for post framework constructions, which are usually freestanding and single. Pottery vessels, stone tools, and loom weights, and the large number of sling missiles, in excess of 200, are suggestive of a workshop. Lying above this deposit is a mud brick village with a plan—an agglomeration of closely packed houses—that shows clear connections with the plateau. When areas needed to be expanded the pisé technique was also used, although the level of workmanship is generally inferior. Nonetheless, three modes of building—wattle and daub, mud brick, and pisé—were used to build the Neolithic settlement at Ulucak. Figurines with generous thighs—one is a male with loincloth, long hair, and a headband (Figure 4.11: 6–7)—and associated hearths provide a glimpse of domestic ritual.
Northwest Anatolia
Towards the mid-seventh millennium BC, farming communities settled in the northwest of Anatolia around the Marmara Sea, the last destination before agriculture spread to southeast
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Ilıpınar. Strong connections with the heartland of the Balkans can been seen in the design and construction of the earliest village at Hoca Çes¸me.57 Substantial circular houses were built from thick posts driven into bedrock, and surrounded by a stone wall over a metre thick. A series of regularly placed postholes suggest that a wooden palisade defined its inner face. This mode of planning continued until Phase II, when residents changed the plan and built rectangular houses similar to those at Karanovo I in Bulgaria. The walls are thin and constructed of mud slabs reinforced by a framework of posts. Inside, they were furnished with domed ovens, bins, and clay platforms.
Methodical excavations at Ilıpınar and As¸ag˘ ı Pınar are providing a wealth of information.
Three construction methods are represented at Ilıpınar.58 Two types occur simultaneously in phases X–VII (6000–5700 BC) and are especially apparent in a large exposure—the “Big Square” (W 12/13 and X12/13). One made extensive use of timber and is distinguished by a series of aligned postholes that supported earthen walls, whereas the other structures had walls built of mud slab, actually slabs cut from natural clay deposits. The third mode of construction, using mud bricks, comes into vogue in Ilıpınar VI (5700–5500 BC), the Early Chalcolithic.
The original Ilıpınar village, perhaps no more than 10 to 15 freestanding, post wall houses (Figure 4.14), was arranged in a radial fashion around a spring. By the end of its lifespan 300 years later, the settlement comprised about 30 dwellings each with its own exterior space, such as shared courts and pathways. Later houses were rebuilt in line with the floor plans of earlier ones, suggesting the existence of family plots of land. Carefully aligned rows of posts were driven up to 50 cm into the earth and, in some cases, latched together using rope. The gaps between the posts were then filled with beaten earth (pisé); no evidence of a wattle and daub technique was recovered. Central posts supported ridge beams of the roof that was most likely gabled and reed covered, as they were in parts of the Balkans and beyond. Covering an area about 30 m2, these houses probably constituted space for a nuclear family. Internal features were rarely preserved. The exception is the burnt house from phase X.59 On entering the house, the visitor would have noticed a central hearth (but no oven as such), and in the corner opposite the entrance were storage bins and food-processing tools such as grindstones and obsidian blades. Along a side wall was a platform that presumably elevated a grinding slab, making the task of preparing food less back breaking. The floor was beaten mud, although neighboring houses had wooden floor boards. Lying on the floor was a large horned animal figurine, and stone and bone beads. What makes this post house settlement so interesting is that despite its overtly Balkan character, its material culture, especially its ceramic assemblage, reflects an Anatolian lineage. Similar houses are emerging from As¸ag˘ ı Pınar (Figure 4.15).60 Mortuary rites associated with this post house settlement at Ilıpınar are quite different to those on the plateau. The dead, mostly children, were laid to rest in the foetal position in simple earthen pits behind the house, in a roughly circumscribed area that can be called a burial ground; the skeleton of an adult found on a wooden board is an exception.61 Osteoarthritis and anaemia were among the maladies, while grooves detected on the front teeth of females were probably formed through weaving and basket making.
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Figure 4.14 Plan of Ilıpınar “Burnt House,” Level X (after Coockson 2008)
Judging by the size and layout of the mud slab structures at Ilıpınar, they too appear to have been freestanding houses. Rectangular in shape, their walls constructed of large mud slabs (clay) were founded on wooden boards that extended across the entire floor area of the dwellings.
Similar mud slab structures were recovered at Mentes¸e, in the Yenis¸ehir basin, where evidence of genuine wattle and daub structures is also attested.62
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