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Archaeological evidence from the ancient city of Çatalhöyük reveals a complex funerary ritual in which human bones were dug up, circulated among the community, painted, and reburied. The coloring on exhumed bones has also been matched to paintings found on building walls. Çatalhöyük is often referred to as the “oldest city in the world,” as it hosted upwards of 8,000 people at its peak. Çatalhöyük’s inhabitants lived in mudbrick houses, fashioned clothing from trees, wore human teeth as jewelry, and manufactured baskets, ropes, and mats. Residents of the city also used colorful pigments for both decoration and burials, and often...

Cloth fragments found at Çatalhöyük were made from the bast fibers of oak trees, according to research published in the journal Antiquity. The authors of the new paper analyzed some of the oldest known woven fabrics in the world, in a finding that speaks to an unappreciated material used during the Stone Age. The paper subsequently settles a longstanding debate about whether linen or wool was used to make the Çatalhöyük fabrics, as the research found them to be made from neither material. Lise Bender Jørgensen from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is the first author of the...

Çatalhöyük is one of the largest and best preserved Neolithic sites in the world. It is located southeast of the modern Turkish city of Konya, about 90 miles (145 km) from Mount Hasan. The population of Çatalhöyük were early farmers, growing crops such as wheat and barley, and herding sheep and goats. It is thought the people living at Çatalhöyük either went to the rubbish tip (midden) to open their bowels, or carried their feces from their houses to the midden in a vessel or basket to dispose of them. To look for the eggs of intestinal parasites, Dr. Ledger...

A famed archaeologist well-known for discovering the sprawling 9,000-year-old settlement in Turkey called Çatalhöyük seems to have faked several of his ancient findings and may have run a "forger's workshop" of sorts, one researcher says. James Mellaart, who died in 2012, created some of the "ancient" murals at Çatalhöyük that he supposedly discovered; he also forged documents recording inscriptions that were found at Beyköy, a village in Turkey, said geoarchaeologist Eberhard Zangger, president of the Luwian Studies Foundation. Zangger examined Mellaart's apartment in London between Feb. 24 and 27, finding "prototypes," as Zangger calls them, of murals and inscriptions that...

A journey to 9,000 years ago Thursday, January 17, 2008VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News Çatalhöyük Research Project Director Ian Hodder says goddess icons do not, contrary to assumptions, point to a matriarchal society in Çatalhöyük. Findings in Çatalhöyük show that men and women had equal social status. According to Hodder, who also has been following the Göbeklitepe excavations in Şanlıurfa, meticulous archaeological excavation in southeastern Anatolia can change all scientific archaeological assumptions Clues as to when mankind really began living in urban patterns lie in the Neolithic layers of Çatalhöyük. Çatalhöyük is within the borders of Cumra district...