Author's reply

SOME ARCHITECTURAL ASPECTS OF THE CENTRAL ANATOLIAN NEOLITHIC

Günes DURU                                                                                        
gduru@hotmail.com

The excavations at Çatalhöyük during the 1960s revealed the existence of a developed Neolithic settlement in Central Anatolia. There was a lot of speculation as to where the people of this culture might have come from. One of the wall paintings at Çatalhöyük showed a settlement which, according to some, had to be situated north of Hasan Dagi. This settlement was thought to be Asikli, which, some people argued, had to be the place of origin for the people of Çatal. Many researchers thought of Asikli as the past of Çatalhöyük culture, basing their judgements also on similarities in settlement patterns and construction materials.

During the CANeW workshop many different researchers emphasized, especially in relation to the obsidian sources in Cappadocia, the existence of networks of trade between Central Anatolia and the Levant. In a sense, it has been implied that the neolithisation of the region was brought about by the cultures of the Levant. For some reason, the Neolithic cultures of Central Anatolia are thought to have taken the neolithisation/civilisation support that they ‘needed’ from the Levant or from Southeast Anatolia.

The question I wanted to emphasise in my paper was the following: Why is it, then, that the settlement in Asikli is in discord with the construction material that is provided by that geography? Even though I focused on two factors, namely construction materials and settlement patterns, my purpose was not to inquire into the metrical or structural meanings that might be found in these factors. Rather, I sought to understand whether the reasons behind the fact that these factors were not discontinued can help us in answering questions related to the possibility of a common past for the two settlements in question.

The point I wanted to underline in the light of the data was the possibility that Çatal and Asikli might be sharing a common past that could have been shaped in the geography of Çatalhöyük.