The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set ...into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7100–5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Çatalhöyük human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence.
The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic,1 mainly because material culture studies provide limited ...insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings,2 household composition and social structure can be studied through these human remains. Here, we describe genetic relatedness among co-burials associated with domestic buildings in Neolithic Anatolia using 59 ancient genomes, including 22 new genomes from Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük. We infer pedigree relationships by simultaneously analyzing multiple types of information, including autosomal and X chromosome kinship coefficients, maternal markers, and radiocarbon dating. In two early Neolithic villages dating to the 9th and 8th millennia BCE, Aşıklı Höyük and Boncuklu, we discover that siblings and parent-offspring pairings were frequent within domestic structures, which provides the first direct indication of close genetic relationships among co-burials. In contrast, in the 7th millennium BCE sites of Çatalhöyük and Barcın, where we study subadults interred within and around houses, we find close genetic relatives to be rare. Hence, genetic relatedness may not have played a major role in the choice of burial location at these latter two sites, at least for subadults. This supports the hypothesis that in Çatalhöyük,3–5 and possibly in some other Neolithic communities, domestic structures may have served as burial location for social units incorporating biologically unrelated individuals. Our results underscore the diversity of kin structures in Neolithic communities during this important phase of sociocultural development.
•Genetic kinship estimated from co-buried individuals’ genomes in Neolithic Anatolia•Close relatives are common among co-burials in Aşıklı and Boncuklu•Many unrelated infants found buried in the same building in Çatalhöyük and Barcın•Neolithic societies in Southwest Asia may have held diverse concepts of kinship
Yaka et al. use ancient genomes from Neolithic Anatolia and present evidence for diverse concepts of social kinship in Neolithic societies. In some communities, like Çatalhöyük, many genetically unrelated infants were buried together inside the same buildings, whereas in other sites, people buried together were frequently close biological kin.
Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emergence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The ...first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousands of more sedentary inhabitants. Accompanying this shift, the material culture and ancient ecological data indicate profound changes in economic and social behavior. A shift from residential to logistical mobility and increasing population size are clear and can be explained by either changes in fertility and/or aggregation of local groups. However, as sedentism increased, small early communities likely risked inbreeding without maintaining or establishing exogamous relationships typical of hunter-gatherers. Megasites, where large populations would have made endogamy sustainable, could have avoided this risk. To examine the role of kinship practices in the rise of megasites, we measured strontium and oxygen isotopes in tooth enamel from 99 individuals buried at Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu, and Çatalhöyük (Turkey) over 7,000 y. These sites are geographically proximate and, critically, span both early sedentary behaviors (Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu) and the rise of a local megasite (Çatalhöyük). Our data are consistent with the presence of only local individuals at Pınarbaşı and Boncuklu, whereas at Çatalhöyük, several nonlocals are present. The Çatalhöyük data stand in contrast to other megasites where bioarchaeological evidence has pointed to strict endogamy. These different kinship behaviors suggest that megasites may have arisen by employing unique, community-specific kinship practices.
The use of wood, dung and other biomass fuels can be traced back to early prehistory. While the study of prehistoric fuel use and its environmental impacts is well established, there has been little ...investigation of the health impacts this would have had, particularly in the Neolithic period, when people went from living in relatively small groups, to living in dense settlements. The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Çatalhöyük, Turkey, is one of the earliest large ‘pre-urban’ settlements in the world. In 2017, a series of experiments were conducted to measure fine particulate (PM
2.5
) concentrations during typical fuel burning activities, using wood and dung fuel. The results indicate that emissions from both fuels surpassed the WHO and EU standard limits for indoor air quality, with dung fuel being the highest contributor for PM
2.5
pollution inside the house, producing maximum values > 150,000 µg m
−3
. Maximum levels from wood burning were 36,000 µg m
−3
. Average values over a 2–3 h period were 13–60,000 µg m
−3
for dung and 10–45,000 µg m
−3
for wood. The structure of the house, lack of ventilation and design of the oven and hearth influenced the air quality inside the house. These observations have implications for understanding the relationship between health and the built environment in the past.
Recent bioarchaeological analyses at the Neolithic Anatolian site of Çatalhöyük have revealed considerable variation in skeletal completeness, preservation, articulation, and flexion among burials. ...Furthermore, organic remains from burnt contexts demonstrate that many bodies were tightly bound and wrapped using cordage, matting, textile, and animal hides. Some of the observed variation is suggestive of a period of delay between death and final burial for certain individuals, likely as part of a multi-stage funerary rite, perhaps seasonal in nature. It appears that some bodies may have been processed in such a way as to facilitate their temporary storage prior to burial. We examined bone samples from 57 Çatalhöyük individuals using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) imaging techniques to determine whether specific funerary treatments can be associated with specific patterns of microstructural preservation. As endogenous gut bacteria released into the body at the onset of putrefaction are believed by some researchers to be responsible for particular patterns of microscopical focal destruction (MFD) observed in cortical bone, the lack of such bio-erosive features has been used to infer anthropogenic treatments aimed at reducing soft tissue body mass. A previous study of skeletal material from Çatalhöyük claimed to identify bacterial bioerosion in rib thin sections but did not make use of SEM. In the present study, our analyses reveal limited evidence for bacterial MFD, which highlights the fact that standard light microscopy is insufficient for properly documenting microbial bioerosion. While there is a range of variation among other taphonomic variables observed in the current study, it is difficult to associate this variability with specific human interventions. Furthermore, the complex role of local environmental and depositional factors must also be taken into account. As such, caution must be taken when using the presence/absence of bioerosion in human bone alone to assess ancient funerary practices.
Directly burned human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts are often found in the literature, while cases of indirectly burned remains are rare. This case study examines thermally altered ...human skeletal remains recovered from the Neolithic East Mound of Çatalhöyük, Turkey (7100–5950 cal BCE). Individuals in this society were commonly buried beneath the floors and platforms of house structures, some of which appear to have been intentionally burned as part of the building abandonment process. The practice of house burning resulted in indirect thermal damage to the skeletons interred within the structure, creating a unique postmortem signature. A range of color changes caused by thermal alteration observed on the remains is discussed. This study presents evidence of the condition of the burned remains, including analysis of burn patterns and preservation of brain and other soft tissue.
The vast majority of primary burials at Neolithic Çatalhöyük (Central Anatolia, Turkey, 7100-6000cal BC) are recovered from beneath house floors, with burials in external spaces extremely rare. ...Excavations at Çatalhöyük in 1998 brought to light a young adult male buried in a midden (a burial location observed so far for only 4 out of 440 individuals), showing a suite of pathological features affecting the entire skeleton. The observed pathological changes include perimortem and antemortem fractures, proliferative and resorptive areas, thinning of the bone cortex, and localized areas of disorganized spongy bone invaded by fibrous tissue. We propose a differential diagnosis by considering a set of conditions: Paget's disease, osteomyelitis, hyperparathyrhoidism, Ollier's disease, fibrosarcoma, and fibrous dysplasia. The severity and distribution of the observed skeletal changes are consistent with a diagnosis of polyostotic fibrous dysplasia, a possibly debilitating and disfiguring condition. This, together with an unusual depositional context, may suggest a socially-mediated reaction to this individual's infirmity.
Food has long served as a mechanism for identifying and reinforcing social structures, but while carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis has provided important identity-based evidence of past diets, the ...cyclical and stable/fluid nature of food consumption practices across the life course has been relatively neglected. In this paper, the large human assemblage at Çatalhöyük with all age groups present has enabled diet reconstruction of the rarely represented groups of older children and adolescents as well as for the young, middle and old adult age groups of both sexes. These data show how neonates reflect foods available to pregnant mothers, that infants were breastfed until around 18 months of age and weaned by three years of age, older children had a different diet compared to adolescents and young adults who, in turn, differed from middle and older adults. The absence of sex-related differences suggests changes in food consumed at Çatalhöyük accompanied the marking of transitions through the life course.
The bioarchaeological record of human remains viewed in the context of ecology, subsistence, and living circumstances provides a fundamental source for documenting and interpreting the impact of ...plant and animal domestication in the late Pleistocene and early to middle Holocene. For Western Asia, Çatalhöyük (7100-5950 cal BC) in central Anatolia, presents a comprehensive and contextualized setting for interpreting living circumstances in this highly dynamic period of human history. This article provides an overview of the bioarchaeology of Çatalhöyük in order to characterize patterns of life conditions at the community level, addressing the question, What were the implications of domestication and agricultural intensification, increasing sedentism, and population growth for health and lifestyle in this early farming community? This study employs demography, biogeochemistry, biodistance analysis, biomechanics, growth and development, and paleopathology in order to identify and interpret spatial and temporal patterns of health and lifestyle under circumstances of rapid population growth and aggregation and changing patterns of acquiring food and other resources. The record suggests that the rapid growth in population size was fueled by increased fertility and birthrate. Although the household was likely the focus of economic activity, our analysis suggests that individuals interred in houses were not necessarily biologically related. Predictably, the community employed resource extraction practices involving increased mobility. Although oral and skeletal indicators suggest some evidence of compromised health (e.g. elevated subadult infection, dental caries), growth and development of juveniles and adult body size and stature indicate adjustments to local circumstances.
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