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or good fortune. Red is also seen as being endowed with beneficent properties and accordingly is rubbed on the ill to promote health and vigor, or on those who have overcome an ordeal. At special ceremonies such as the birth of a child or marriage, red is used liberally, and is seen as the color of celebration and goodwill. Daubing specific body parts (such as ears and eyes) in red can also enhance the functionality of those parts. Finally, in ritual circumstances red is also linked with cosmology and often used in shamanistic rituals as a means of protection. In social contexts, a well-decorated body that is both colorful and shiny is often seen as a prerequisite of high status. In highland New Guinea, for instance, an individual’s chances of becoming the “big man” are determined by the elaborateness and variety of his body decoration, the size of his gifts, and the nature of the entertainment. Coloring hair red and decorating erogenous parts of the body are two of many methods of sexual allurements, especially among young men and women who flaunt sexuality, prowess, strength, and beauty.
In Neolithic Anatolia, we have seen that ochre was primarily used in mortuary rites and to paint walls and floors of houses. Taking a cue from the above review, it would seem that sprinkling a corpse with ochre overcame the pallor of death and “infused” the deceased with life and blood. Likewise, we should not assume that walls were painted primarily in red simply because ochre was ubiquitous. Instead, the color red should be also appreciated for its symbolic and social significance. As a color that expresses vigor, vitality, and fecundity, and heightens sensory perception, red should be seen as part of the package of paraphernalia that was embodied within the ritually constructed spaces of many Neolithic buildings.
Invention of pottery
Across the Near East, clay was utilized for a number of purposes in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic— to coat floors, to construct house fixtures such as hearths, ovens and storage facilities, and to craft a variety of objects like figurines and geometric shapes (spheres, cones, and discs among them).73 Even so, it is the invention of portable pottery containers that defines the exploitation of clay as a resource. In Anatolia, this happened around 7000 BC and its occurrence has been conventionally used in archaeology to separate pottery-using communities from their forebears who did not create clay vessels.74 People have used receptacles for storing and carrying food and water since earliest prehistoric times. Ethnographic observations and scraps of evidence from archaeological contexts suggest that reeds, twine, gourds, wood, animal skins, and other organic substances were used (Figure 4.16: 1).75 These materials had the advantage of being light in weight and economical. But with permanent settlements came the gradually increasing need for durable storage facilities. Pits dug into the ground and occasionally plaster lined for cleanliness were suitable, but, of course, not portable. This necessity for sturdy everyday containers combined with the characteristics of clay—its plasticity that allowed the artisan to produce myriad shapes and its durability when baked—prompted the creation of terracotta vessels.
Ceramic artefacts hardened from fired clay together with stone tools and ornaments are the
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most durable objects manufactured in prehistory (Figure 4.16: 2–3). Yet despite their toughness ceramic vessels generally have a short lifespan because they are prone to breakage and wear. These characteristics plus clay’s ubiquity have made pottery a primary source in archaeology. Stylistic analysis, by far the most common form of investigation in Anatolian archaeology, looms large in chronological studies. In addition, pottery can provide useful information on formal and functional aspects of ancient societies, such as manufacturing technology and firing techniques. It can convey meaningful information about social behavior such as cooking habits, commensality, and also the scheduling of activities—potting was most likely a seasonal pursuit.76 Yet others have argued that the shape, surface treatment and ornamentations of pottery containers have symbolic connotations that can be decoded.77 These aspects are mentioned in passing because they have been hardly pursued in Anatolia and offer enormous scope for future research.
The earliest stage of pottery manufacture in Anatolia was not uniform, a pattern not inconsistent with the rest of the Near East. Evidence from Çatalhöyük, Mezraa-Teleilat, and Yümüktepe (Mersin) shows that it took a while for the usefulness of this fledgling technology to be embraced fully. Pottery from Neolithic Anatolia can be grouped into two broad categories that, bearing in mind time lags, roughly define the Early and Late ceramic Neolithic: (a) Dark coloured wares stretch from the southeastern regions, where they are known as Dark-Faced Burnished Ware (DFBW), to the shores of the Marmara Sea and beyond, into Bulgaria, where the monochrome repertoire may be considered distinct echoes. These wares are quite coarse and are often associated with the first wave of settlers, with the more distinct assemblages in the north representing the final stages of the movement; (b) red-slipped wares with a highly burnished surface and a finer paste are found concentrated in western Anatolia. Sometimes decorated with white painted designs, which increase in the Early Chalcolithic period, these red wares are generally ascribed to a later part of the ceramic Neolithic.
The fabrics of these two broad groups (dark and red wares) probably point to different cooking practices between the initial wave of settlers and those who followed.78 There are many regional variations on these two themes, especially with regard to decoration, and what follows is a brief overview of main types drawn from a number of key sites.
Cilicia and the southeast
The Syro-Cilician region is dominated by Dark-Faced Burnished Ware, which characterizes the deposit at Tell el-Judeideh (Amuq A and B), the lower Neolithic levels at Mersin (XXXII– XXVII) and Mezraa-Teleilat IIIA, extending down the Syrian coast to Ras Shamra VB–VA and beyond to Byblos.79 Shapes are simple and open—round and shallow bowls, hole-mouth pots and wide-bellied jars, sometimes with ledge handles, are the most common (Figure 4.17). Their well-burnished surface usually extended partly inside the vessel, and is sometimes impressed or incised with rows of neat dots, short curved lines (executed with the thumbnail or the edge of a
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