Çatalhöyük

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Çatalhöyük with surroundings..jpg

Catal Huyuk was a city in Anatolia 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 and social ecologist 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]

Culture

Women were equal to men in Catal Huyuk. Hodder explains, "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".[6]

The society seems to have been very peaceful, with no signs of violent death among the many hundreds of skeletons excavated by James Mellaart.[7]

The religion appears to have been non-hierarchical and based on a goddesses-centered cosmology. Of 41 excavated sculptures of deities, 33 were of goddesses and only 8 depicted masculine gods. Although there were priestesses, there was "no evidence of a hierarchical organization."[8]

Economy

Dwellings were all roughly the same size.[9] Bookchin writes that there is no evidence that Catal Huyuk had an internal market economy.[10]

Environment

Paintings of animals may have suggested a reverence for non-human life. The combination of small farming, hunting, and gathering fed the society that lasted about two millennia.




  1. Brandon Miller, "Catal Huyuk: Origins of Civilizations," Alternative Archeology, http://alternativearchaeology.jigsy.com/catal-huyuk
  2. Murray Bookchin, The Rise of Urbanization and the Decline of Citizenship (San Fransisco: Sierra Club Books, 1987), 18.
  3. Miller, "Catal Huyuk".
  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, Rise, 18-19.
  6. Çatalhöyük excavations reveal gender equality in ancient settled life", Daily News, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/Default.aspx?PageID=238&NID=72411&NewsCatID=375
  7. Fromm, Anatomy, 180.
  8. Erich Fromm, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (New York: Henry Holy and Company, 1973), 180, 182.
  9. Fromm, Anatomy, 179.
  10. Bookchin, 22.