Ҫatalhöyük is one of the largest Neolithic settlements ever discovered. Built more than 9000 years ago in modern Konya Plain, central Turkey, it is known in archaeology as a proto-city, a link between the cave-dwellings of prehistoric hunter-gatherers and the early urban constructions. This is where communities began to grow crops and herd animals in preplanned and systematic ways for the first time in history.
More about: Ҫatalhöyük8 days left
Server Costs Fundraiser 2024
Help our mission to provide free history education to the world! Please donate and contribute to covering our server costs in 2024. With your support, millions of people learn about history entirely for free every month.
$12659 / $18000
Definition
Timeline
-
c. 9000 BCETribal groups of hunter-gatherers in Mesopotamia begin to domesticate plants and animals.
-
c. 7400 BCEFirst groups of settlers in Ҫatalhöyük.
-
c. 7100 BCEFirst mudbrick houses appear in Ҫatalhöyük and Jericho.
-
c. 6500 BCEDense housing at Ҫatalhöyük. Room-flats completely made of mudbricks with painted and decorated walls. Systematic methods of cultivation and animal husbandry. The first dairy products.
-
c. 6000 BCEDemographic concentration on the west mound of Ҫatalhöyük. Desertion of the east mount to be used exclusively as a necropolis. Earliest pieces of painted pottery.
-
c. 5900 BCERare obsidian tools and early signs of metallurgy mark out the beginnings of Chalcolithic era at Ҫatalhöyük.
-
c. 5600 BCEAbandonment of Ҫatalhöyük.
-
1958 CEJames Mellaart discovers the Neolitic site of Ҫatalhöyük in the Konya Plain, central Turkey.
-
1961 CE - 1965 CEMellaart leads four seasons of excavations at Ҫatalhöyük.
-
1993 CEIan Hodder resumes Ҫatalhöyük excavations.
-
2012 CEҪatalhöyük is designated a Unesco World Heritage Site.