Abstract

TRANSFORMATIONS AND SOCIETIES IN THE NEOLITHIC OF CENTRAL ANATOLIA

Frédéric GERARD
IFEA, Nuru Ziya Sok no. 22, PK 54, 80072 Beyoglu, Istanbul, TR. CNRS-UMR 7041 ArScAn, Maison de l'Archéologie et de l'Ethnologie, Nanterre, FR.
frederic.gerard@isbank.net.tr 

The lecture will discuss a few hypotheses on the nature of Neolithic societies in Central Anatolia and on the reasons for their differential transformations. It means that we will try to speak ambitiously about the incidence of the quotidian in the social order of people and not only deal with their cultural expressions.

Societies have a trajectory on the long term only perceptible by archaeologists. The Neolithic people themselves must have reproduced their ways of life by conceiving them as a cyclical phenomenon, because they had to maintain their links to the ancestors, and because of the very nature of their society. So, in practice, when looking for the social reasons of change, we have to deal with the social impact of the transforming conditions, i.e. the changing conditions of life style, which mostly are not directly expressed in archaeological cultures, but have to be analysed indirectly by looking at the general assemblages and the trajectory logics.

For Central Anatolia, two different transformational trajectories, reflecting two regions/landscapes and two societies will be proposed. To explain the alternative patterns of increasing site-densities vs. lack of sites in formerly occupied regions, we will stress a cyclical model of shifts of stable periods with settlements in the plain, to unstable periods with sites in the mountains.

In Cappadocia, on the basis of its impressive architectural and intra-site settlement pattern continuity expressing a cyclical - seasonal - conception of time, Asikli Höyük is characterised by a very conservative society. Material culture and funeral practices demonstrate the same conservatism. So, what happened at about 7400 cal BC, after the abandonment of Asikli and Musular, and related sites? Where did the people go? Since having built up an enormous amount of knowledge especially on sheep 'husbandry', Cappadocian society at the tail end of Asikli occupation may have turned to a sort of nomadic life style. They may have chosen to move to higher places better adapted to itinerant breeding of sheep on a seasonal basis, building slighter, archaeologically less visible structures such as sheepfolds, etc.

The reasons for the change - the turn to pastoral economy mainly relying on sheep - may be searched in the interference of the subtle changes of the subsistence economy with the conservatism of Cappadocian society. For instance, the increasing importance of domestication practices (mainly involving sheep) within an ancient, conservative 'aceramic' society must have produced social incompatibilities leading to the choice of nomadism, maybe in reminder of old practices. Also, within an increasing population, problems of representativity of the family heads in the 'village council' must have produced social inadequacies. In practice, the system was not working anymore. The dead-end 'aceramic' system of Cappadocia was finally not able to support the transformations in man / environment relations. All of that needed global changes as an answer to the human-induced landscape changes and the population growth.

The Konya and Karaman Plains, and the Beysehir-Sugla Lakes area stand for a different trajectory. All shows that Çatalhöyük represents a society developed in another way than Asikli village life. They may have common, early roots (Pinarbasi A and Canhasan III demonstrating local origins for Çatalhöyük) but the story is going different.

From levels VIB-VIA onwards, the much more dynamic and growing Çatalhöyük was relying largely on the domestic subsistence mode. Although they share the same intra-site settlement pattern, Asikli and Çatal differ from each other in the importance given to the use of domestic plants and animals, on the other cultural aspects, and on the way they adapted to different landscapes. What may have induced the difference in trajectories between Asikli and Çatalhöyük is the nature of their respective societies and the origins of their respective populations: the conservative Asikli people who were not able to adjust their society to the changing conditions, vs. the people of a mixed constellation founding Çatalhöyük East at about 7400 cal BC and continuously adapting their ways of life to a rich environment. The argument for a mixed origin of Çatal people, coming from much more diverse landscapes (the Konya Plain itself, the Beysehir-Sugla Lakes area and the Taurus foothills) than is the case for Cappadocia, may explain why Çatalhöyük is a different story.

Already stressed by Laurens Thissen, a pattern of convergence for the Konya Plain and Cappadocia appears starting at about 6000 cal BC. That's why we can stress that the Chalcolithic people are the real Neolithic. At that time, real farming sites appear with all the domestications used at their full range. It seems that conditions have changed and that in Cappadocia people turned back to quite small settlements on strategic locations or close to the obsidian sources. In the Konya-Eregli Basin, the reshuffling of sites is part of the continuum that is attributable to the transformation of Çatalhöyük society. Çatalhöyük represents thus the successful transition and continuity to an Early Chalcolithic farming society.

Lastly, the abandonment of many Early Chalcolithic sites in Central Anatolia at about 5500 cal BC (e.g. Çatalhöyük West, Kösk Höyük, Canhasan I) possibly heralds another cycle of instability in Central Anatolia, another turn to nomadism.