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These are some quotes and notes from the book (title author listed below) which are regarded to some usual topics as well as some recent discussions.

"The people of Catal Huyuk buried their dead below the platforms of their houses and shrines only after the flesh had been removed, probably for the sake of hygiene. The primary process of excarnation may have taken place in light structures, built of reeds and matting as depicted on the wall of a shrine, or by means of vultures." (p 86)

This devouring by vultures was already an old tradition when it was adopted by some of the Zoroastrians, forebears of the Zoroastrians now living in India who are having their vulture crisis.

Catal Huyuk had a thriving economy, apparently based on their monopoly over the obsidian trade from Lake Van into western Anatolia and points west. They made beads and other pieces of craft, using various materials including local greenstone. They mined ochre and used it and other local resources to make paints. They used fossil shells, lignite, copper and iron ores, native copper (that's copper with few impurities that doesn't need to be processed from ore), cinnabar, and galena. They imported "fine tabular flint" as well as obsidian for pressure flaked manufacturing. They made obsidian mirrors. The made textiles, apparently out of wool, as attested by their imitation of the weaving patters found in wood and clay vessels right down to the oldest levels. They imported sea shells "especially dentalia". They bred stock. They hunted wild cattle, Red Deer, wild ass, board, and leopards. They don't seem to have eaten fish (not unlike the Neandertal) but bird bones and eggshells are foun. They grew emmer, einkorn, and "bread" wheat, naked barley, pea, vetch, bitter vetch, and obtained vegetable oil from crucifers, almonds, acorns, and pistachios. Hackberry seeds found in abundance suggest wine production, and "beer can be assumed." (p 84)

They ate well, in fact, very well, with a varied diet. This seems surprising until one realizes that humans are ridiculously omniverous mainly due to the climate found in most of the world and the fruiting habits of every edible plant on Earth. There are parts of the rain forests which are like a grocery store basically all year round, but those areas never known frost. Khirokitia in Cyprus was an early Neolithic, Aceramic settlement characterized by domed houses, corridors, workshops, all linked by a main street.

Jericho has a "Proto-Neolithic", Early Natufian level radiocarbon dated to 9551 BC. Agriculture was practiced there. As of 1963 (heh) the evidence was conclusive but indirect, taking the form of sickles and sickle blades, "querns", mortars, pounders, and pestles. Although these Natufians grew crops they also relied on hunting and fishing for a great portion of their diet. (p 23)

Note that this site is closer to Tell Hamoukar and antedates it by over 3000 years. Granted it was a far smaller settlement compared to the final greatest extent of the latter, Jericho has been in nearly continuous occupation during the entire interval of over 11000 years.

Hacilar is a site related to Catal Huyuk and about 200 miles west of it. Its seven levels of occupation began circa 7040 BC. They domesticated dogs, ate sheep or goat (may have been domesticated, or pre-domesticated herds in pens), cattle and deer, 2 rowed hulled barley, wild einkorn, and lentils. (p 80) Hacilar II burned circa 5250 BC. Newcomers arrived, remodelled, built the Hacilar I a-b fortress. The fortress was destroyed by fired and the site deserted circa 5000 BC, or about 500 years after the abandonment of Catal Huyuk (west mound, a short-lived successor site across the river from the older, main site). (p 112)

These burnings are attributable to conflicts and raids. While Catal Huyuk had some fires, these have not been attributed to warfare. There's a peculiar lack of signs of war at Catal Huyuk, although daggers, spear- and arrowheads were made there. Since Mellaart wrote this book the terminal fire at Catal Huyuk has been interpreted as a destruction by invaders. The destruction of Hacilar took place twice, and Ryan and Pitman see both the fortifications and the fires as consequences of the Black Sea flood.

The Halaf culture existed from the late sixth to early fifth millennium BC. They built tholos which were domed chambers entered from a long outer room and entrance not unlike the Aceramic structures on Cyprus and the mainland, and for that matter the passage graves found in the British Isle and elsewhere in Western Europe. The Halaf were farmers, growing emmer wheat and hulled 2 row barley, flax for linseed oil and possibly linen cloth, and eventually 6 row barley. The 'Ubaid culture is thought to have had a population explosion due to their use of irrigation. As they moved north up the Tigris and Euphrates they overwhelmed and absorbed the Halaf. (p 119-126)

The Halaf use of 6 row barley suggests the use of irrigation, and since Mellaart wrote this evidence of irrigation has been found dated to 14,000 BP (12,000 BC), so this 'Ubaid population explosion is unlikely to have been the first. Settegast notes the combination of the round Halaf structures in the 'Ubaid layers which are mostly characterized by square structures. This shows that the two cultures coexisted, although the 'Ubaid was dominant. Eventually the Halaf disappeared. Of course, some appear to have moved to Cyprus. : )

Earliest Civilizations of the Near East by James Mellaart
1965, LOC 65-19415 - a volume of the Library of Early Civilizations

"In this book we see the first beginnings of agriculture from somewhere around 9000 BC, continuing in cultures in which at first pottery, long thought to be the main criterion of a 'neolithic' culture, was not in fact made, and then before many centuries have elapsed, the first use of metals -- copper or lead or gold, cold-worked from the native metal from the sixth millennium BC. The old technological-evolutionary stages of Mesolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and so on are rapidly losing their crisp outlines, but only because we are now able to perceive something which, because it is more muddled and imprecise, is more human." -- Stuart Piggott, general editor's preface.