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that have buried Neolithic sites, or experienced adverse climates, or whether they were sparsely populated, perhaps by communities of hunters and gatherers, is far from clear. Presently, evidence from the northeastern highlands indicates that village societies moved into this rugged terrain as late as the fifth millennium BC, which seems a curious paradox given the established Neolithic sequences in Trans-Caucasia.28

The three concentrations of Neolithic occupation noted earlier can be reduced even further to two, using the Taurus Mountains as the boundary, which effectively separate different economic subsistence strategies and environmental conditions. From the beginning of the Neolithic through to the Bronze Age, western and central Anatolia together with the Balkans, an area extending from the shores of the Mediterranean to the Danube River, formed one large zone. This region should be distinguished from the zone of Greater Mesopotamia and the Levant, including the southeastern Anatolia (or the Near Eastern zone), which developed along its own path.

In the Near East, despite its ecological diversity, arid and semiarid conditions necessitated a number of risk management strategies. One was a heavy reliance on cereal agriculture that was developed through irrigation farming, which, in turn, required a large labour force. The rich alluvium of Mesopotamia soon responded favorably to this type of management and agricultural surpluses provided wealth that saw the emergence of elite groups in later centuries. In the Anatolian–Balkan zone, however, the ecological zones were more varied and allowed for a range of economic options. The productivity of the land was relatively uniform throughout the zone, so we do not witness the early emergence of social groups whose power was based on agricultural surpluses. These fundamental differences also led to the development of two early settlement types. One, south of the Taurus, soon developed into towns, and later evolved into urban centres, states and empires. The other did not expand its complexity, but instead metamorphosed into variations of itself. We will trace these changes in subsequent chapters.

BEGINNINGS OF SEDENTARY LIFE

Several features distinguish the formative stage of the Neolithic in the Near East:

1its origins in the Epipalaeolithic

2its longevity—an episode stretching some 4000 years

3the large size of many sites (so-called “mega-sites”)

4a high level of sociopolitical complexity manifested by monumental public buildings, striking art, a stratified society, and elaborate cultic practices

5vibrant internal dynamics that sustained such large enterprises.

Whereas not so long ago such attributes were viewed as individualistic or unique, we now realize that they are widespread, having been identified from the southern Levant to the Taurus

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Mountains. Similar sites are probably also located further east along the mountainous arc in the foothills of the Zagros, but we must await the resumption of systematic fieldwork in those regions to verify this.

For the moment, it appears that the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in Anatolia were introduced. This judgment is not at odds with the rather abrupt appearance of villages in the 10th millennium BC in the southeast. Neither does it contradict the evidence on the other side of the Taurus. The concepts of settlement layout and sophisticated craft items from the plateau have no precursors in the Mediterranean late Upper Palaeolithic-Epipalaeolithic sequences, which in any case represent a totally different lithic tradition.

Views are divided on the pedigree of the Anatolian Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Michael Rosenberg prefers the Zagros region, drawing attention to similarities in lithic technology between Hallan Çemi and late Zarzian sites such as Zawi Chemi Shanidar.29 At both, blades were produced from single platform cores and modified into geometric shapes, such as scalene triangles. Equally noteworthy, according to Rosenberg, is the absence of certain chipped stones, including backed and truncated blades, which characterize the Natufian assemblage of the Levant. For Mehmet Özdog˘ an, by way of contrast, none of the Epipalaeolithic or Palaeolithic substrata in the Levant or northern Iraq has the cultural complexity in terms of art, architecture, and social life that could be compared to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic. For him, the north Pontic region, embracing the Balkans, offers a more plausible connection.30 This area is well known for its developed Upper Palaeolithic, which is characterized by notable achievements in mobiliary art, social organization, and a sophisticated lithic assemblage (Epi-Gravettian) based on bullet core technology. Moreover, and in contradistinction to Anatolia, the Neolithic cultures of the north Pontic are late, dispelling any notion of continuity. But exactly how two geographically distant regions— the north Pontic and the Taurus—connected remains to be seen.

Pre-Pottery Neolithic occupation has been identified in a range of environments (Figure 3.2).31 In the southeast, there is a concentration that stretches from the Tigris alluvial plains (if we include the Epipalaeolithic sites of Hallan Çemi, Demirköy and Körtik), across the foothills

(Çayönü), and plateaux (Nevalı Çori, Göbekli Tepe and Gürcütepe) south of the Taurus Mountains, to the Upper Euphrates (Cafer Höyük, Boytepe, and Çınaz). On the plateau, in central Anatolia, Pınarbas¸ı and As¸ıklı Höyük afford the earliest dates.32 In redefining the Neolithic, it has become apparent that apart from Çayönü, which is located on arable land, most Anatolian Pre-Pottery Neolithic sites are not situated in a terrain conducive for farming. Göbekli, for instance, is perched on top of a mountain, Nevalı Çori is located at an altitude of 490 m, and Suberde is situated in the northeastern foothills of the western Taurus range, on the edge of the Anatolian plateau. It is also important to note that most Pre-Pottery Neolithic communities preferred to settle in proximity to mountains rather than on the plains, as was once thought.

Whether the mountains themselves will yield substantial evidence of Neolithic occupation, has yet to be determined.

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rather than an entire family. The second type of settlement was closer to a true village plan and comprised multiroom rectilinear houses that had domestic quarters and storage facilities under the one roof. These houses were generally better built and were large enough for a nuclear family. The key issue here is not simply one of shape, but the social and economic structures underlying the designs. To quote Flannery, the distinction is between: “(1) societies where small huts are occupied by individuals and storage is shared and (2) societies where large houses are occupied by whole nuclear families and storage is private.”34 At the core of this distinction is the nature of risk management. On the one hand, in the first type of society, the group shares food, as well as the risk and rewards. The closed plan of the nuclear family houses, on the other hand, with its private storage areas, is an incentive to increase production without the need to share resources. This move from open plan communal storage to private facilities, from an extended family compound to nuclear family houses, is a fundamental shift that can be observed in Anatolia and throughout the Near East.35 The reason behind this change is aptly put by Flannery: “I suspect that Prepottery Neolithic societies grew so fast, and settlements became so large, that not every family considered itself closely related to its neighbors to be willing to share the risks and rewards of production.”36

Architecture forms an important part of the archaeological record, so it is worthwhile briefly reviewing the basic building techniques that we will encounter.37 Anatolia has an abundance of raw materials for building. It has no end of stone, plenty of earth, and, in antiquity, vast tracts of timber. These together with small plants constitute the most basic building materials. Rock structures are common in Anatolia. Rock is the longest lasting building material. But it has drawbacks, too. It is a weighty material and awkward to manage, and its energy density means a large amount of heat is required to keep a building warm. Wood, like rock, is a generic building material that can be used to build in most climates. Cut into lumber such as planks, wood is a very strong and flexible material.

Mixing earth, sand and chaff, or other fibrous material, such as dung, easily produces mud bricks.38 Shaped using frames and dried in the sun, they offer significant advantages in hot dry climates, and have a long history in Anatolia. Mud brick houses remain cooler because they store and release heat very slowly. Also known as adobe, from the Spanish word for mud, a pithy description of this technique is provided by The Farmers’ Handbook, published by the Department of Agriculture, New South Wales, Australia, about a century ago:

As their name (Adobe) implies, these buildings are constructed of sun-dried, but unburnt bricks. For buildings of this character, material like clay, which is unsuitable for Pisé-work, can be used. The bricks are made in a wooden mould, and are 16 in long, 8 in wide, and 6 in thick. A man can mould about 100 per day. They are laid in a similar manner to other bricks, the mortar used being wet loam, or even the material of which the bricks are made . . .

Buildings constructed of these bricks are substantial and cool, and very similar in character to Pisé buildings.39

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Looking at modern vernacular mudbrick architecture in Anatolia and neighboring regions, there appears to be a cultural divide between (a) the flat plate tradition of southeast Turkey that extends to Mesopotamia, and is the modern Arab type; (b) the adobe block tradition, which is found north of the Taurus, extending across to Europe, and now the norm in Turkey; (c) and a modern compromise tradition found in villages in the southeast.40 The approximate extent of the first two of these traditions is also reflected in antiquity.

Rammed earth construction, also known as pisé de terre or simply pisé was not as popular as mud bricks in Anatolia, but its simplicity of construction, cheapness, and durability account for its long history of use.41 On the technique of building in pisé, we can turn to Pliny, whose account is as succinct as it is informative:

Have we not in Africa and in Spain walls of earth, known as “formocean” walls? From the fact that they are moulded, rather than built, by enclosing earth within a frame of boards, constructed on either side. These walls will last for centuries, are proof against rain, wind, and fire, and are superior in solidity to any cement. Even at this day Spain still holds watchtowers that were erected by Hannibal. (Pliny Natural History 25: 48)

Elaborating a little further, to construct a rammed earth wall, a mixture of damp earth, sand, clay, and a stabilizer such as lime is compressed into a wooden frame (shutters) with the use of a rammer, creating a solid wall of earth. The wall frames are removed once the earth is compressed, and the wall is allowed to dry and cure. Soils used for pisé building should not be light or as stiff as clay, but should have a gravelly consistency that enables cohesion. Floors made of pisé were quite common in antiquity.

Architecture involving a light framing of poles and twigs (wattles) was utilized in regions north of the Taurus Mountains. A woven latticework of wattles that is daubed with a mixture of clay and sand and sometimes animal dung can create an effective structure often in the form of small, detached one-roomed structures, or as component parts of a mud brick or timbered building. We also know from numerous house models from Europe where wattle and daub buildings were common that roofs were gabled or pitched and not flat.

The interior of walls and floors were often plastered with lime, as were storage pits to keep them clean. Lime plaster can be readily produced by heating limestone (calcium carbonate) to a temperature of about 900°C to create quicklime, or burnt lime (calcium oxide). Water is then added to produce slaked lime (calcium hydroxide). The production of gypsum (calcium sulfate

dihydrate), a very soft mineral, required even less effort—the heating to a temperature of 100–200°C.

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