Çatalhöyük is a large Neolithic settlement mound in the Konya plain of central Turkey, occupied for about fifteen hundred years between roughly 7500 and 5700 BCE. Its inhabitants lived in houses of mud brick packed closely together, with no streets between them, and entered them through holes in the roof. They buried their dead beneath the floors, decorated walls with paintings and plaster reliefs, and farmed wheat and barley and kept sheep and goats, while also hunting. The site was found by the British archaeologist James Mellaart in 1958 and excavated from 1961, and the work was later continued by a team led by Ian Hodder. It is one of the best preserved early farming villages in the world and was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2012.
Before and after
- c. 8,230 BCEEruption of Grimsvotn
- c. 8,050 BCEEruption of Aira
- from 76th century BCE to 25th century BCEChalcolithic
- 76th century BCECats begin to live with farmers
- from c. 7,500 BCE to 5,700 BCEConstruction of Çatalhöyük
- c. 7,460 BCEEruption of Pinatubo
- c. 7,420 BCEEruption of Fisher
- c. 7,350s BCEConstruction of Cueva de las Manos
- from c. 7,101 BCE to 5,701 BCECatalhoyuk grows into a large Neolithic town
More in Civilizations & archaeology
- 8th millennium BCEOrigins of Athens
- from c. 7,000 BCE to 586 BCEConstruction of Tel Megiddo
- from 56th century BCE to 35th century BCEUbaid period
- 5th millennium BCEOrigins of Jerusalem
- c. 3,600 BCEConstruction of Ġgantija
- c. 3,501 BCEPeople first tame horses on the steppe
The era
This moment belongs to the Human prehistory (300,000 years ago to 3,200 BCE), the human story before writing.