Pre-Historic Çatal Höyük in Anatolia

The Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük was first discovered in the late 1950s and excavated by James Mellaart between 1961 and 1965. The site rapidly became famous internationally due to the large size and dense occupation of the settlement as well as the spectacular wall paintings and other art that was uncovered inside the houses ...

Nine thousand years ago visitors approaching Çatalhöyük from across a vast marshy plain would have seen hundreds of mud-brick dwellings on the slopes of an enormous settlement mound. The site's several thousand inhabitants would have been herding sheep or goats; hunting wild cattle (aurochs), horse, and deer; tending crops of peas, lentils, and cereals; or collecting wild plant foods such as tubers from the marshes. Some would have been bringing valuable raw materials to the site such as obsidian from volcanic peaks to the northeast. In size and complexity Çatalhöyük was unlike any other site in the world. The American archaeologist Walter Fairservis Junior writing in 1975 described it as a community at the threshold of civilization

Catal Huyuk: A Neolithic Town in Anatolia by James Mellaart

The Neolithic Site of Çatalhöyük (PDF) 13.2 MB 301 Pages

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium