Çatalhöyük

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Çatalhöyük with surroundings..jpg

Catal Huyuk was a city that existed from 7500 to 5700 BCE[1], with an estimated 6,000[2] to 10,000[3] people. One of the earliest known cities, Catal Huyuk is notable for gender equality, economic equality, the absence of a State, and an apparent ecological orientation. Ian Hodder, a Stanford archeologist who has led the excavation of the site since the 1990s, explains:

“People lived with the principle of equality in Çatalhöyük, especially considering the hierarchy that appeared in other settlements in the Middle East. This makes Çatalhöyük different. There was no leader, government or administrative building; men and women were equal.[4]

Citing the archeologist James Mellaart's work in the 1950s and 1960s, the anarchist Murray Bookchin writes:

Its tool kit and highly naturalistic artistry suggest an ecologically oriented community of late Paleolithic hunters and gatherers rather than an early Neolithic community of food cultivators. The culture is marked by a very sophisticated stone and bone technics, by markedly collective dwellings adorned with images of animals and shamanlike figures amidst paintings of reindeer, leopards, and bow-carrying hunters [... ] Nor do hierarchy and warfare seem to be features of the city's social life. Judging from the size of Çatal's dwellings and the implements found in burial remains, the city was fairly egalitarian despite minor differences that are observable. There are no 'obvious signs of violence or deliberate signs of destruction', Mellart observes for the original city and its nearby successor, both of which were simply abandoned for no apparent reason after centuries of occupancy. Cases of violent death among the hundreds of skeletons examined on the sites are notable for their absence.[5]

Bookchin also writes that there is no evidence that Catal Huyuk had an internal market economy.[6]

Mellaart posited Catal Huyuk to have been a matriarchal society, but Hodder later concluded, "Thanks to modern scientific techniques, we have seen that women and men were eating very similar foods, lived similar lives and worked in similar works. The same social stature was given to both men and women. We have learned that men and women were equally approached".[7]

  1. Miller, Brandon, "Catal Huyuk: Origins of Civilizatoins," Alternative Archeology, http://alternativearchaeology.jigsy.com/catal-huyuk
  2. Bookchin, Murray, The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship (San Fransisco: Sierra Club Books, 1987), 18.
  3. Miller, ibid.
  4. "Çatalhöyük excavations reveal gender equality in ancient settled life", Daily News, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?PageID=238&NID=72411&NewsCatID=375
  5. Bookchin, ibid, 18-19.
  6. Bookchin, ibid, 22.
  7. Çatalhöyük excavations reveal gender equality in ancient settled life", Daily News, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?PageID=238&NID=72411&NewsCatID=375