Çatalhöyük 2005 Archive Report

4040 Area Excavations

Neolithic Sequence / Neolitik Sıralama

Building 54

Doru Bogdan

Abstract

Located on the eastern side was a well-defined rectangular building with double outer walls, divided into three spaces by two interior walls and with internal measurements of 4m E-W and 8.5m N-S. Abutting / abutted by, adjoining Buildings 58 and 57, its sequence to these buildings will not be established until complete excavation but at this stage looks to be the latest. Being very close to the surface most of the interior features had suffered erosion leaving only some sequence of floors, a bin and a clay lined cut in the northern room Space 264, and a number of burials. In the northern room six babies were interred under the floors, while in the eastern one, three adults were found. In the largest space of the building another neonate was buried, as well as a juvenile.

Özet

Çift dış duvarlı olan çok belirgin bir dikdörtgen bina, iki iç duvar tarafından ölçüleri 4m D-B ve 8.5m K-G olan üç alana bölünmüştür. Bina 58 ve 57 ile birleşik olan bu binanın tabaka sıralaması kazı tamamlanana kadar kesinleşmeyecektir. Ancak şu an için geç olduğu düşünülmektedir. Yüzeye çok yakın oldukları için iç özelliklerin bir çoğu sadece bazı zemin sıralamaları, bir ambar, kuzey odadaki Alan 264’de bulunan kille döşenmiş bir kesim ve bir çok sayıda gömü bırakarak aşınmaya uğramıştır. Kuzeydeki odada altı adet bebek iskeleti zeminin altına yerleştirilmiş halde bulunmuşken, doğudaki odada üç yetişkin iskeleti ortaya çıkmıştır. Binanın en geniş alanında başka bir yeni doğmuş bebek ile çocuk iskeleti gömülmüştür.

Building 54 lay to the SE of the central zone of buildings, which has also been identified as possibly the latest building excavated this season see Fig. 13). No stratigraphic link was made to Spaces 267 and 268 however. Due to its proximity to the surface, Building 54 was badly affected by erosion leaving only the basal courses of the walls preserved. Some small areas of floor survived and all burials under the floor horizon survived. The layout of Building 54 is not a typical architectural layout formulated by most of the buildings previously excavated on site. It is a 4m x 8.5m rectangular building with the inner space divided into three rooms. The partition walls are narrower than the outer ones and they define three different size rooms. The largest, Space 265 occupies the southwestern part of the building, with an ‘L’ shape wall (F.2138) creating a small Space 266 to the northeast. An E-W aligned wall (F.2167) to the north creates a further space, Space 264, the northern room of the building.

The western wall of Building 54 (F.2163) is set against the eastern wall of Building 57, while the northern wall (F.2164) was built directly against the southern wall (F.1566) of Building 58. This indicates that these three buildings were constructed within a relatively restricted time range and that they co-existed at least for a while. The fact that the floor horizon within Building 54 is a lot higher than that of the other two buildings, could argue that it was constructed when Buildings 57 and 58 were already extant. Both Buildings 54 and 58 were postdated by the Level IV-II Building 47 (excavated in 2004), which partly overlays their walls. To the east the midden area Space 226 (excavated 2004) abuts Building 54.

Figure 18. Building 54. Facing West.

The outer walls of Building 54 are substantial, constructed with reddish brown mudbricks bonded with dark gray mortar. There were double walls on the midden side and single walls where they abutted walls of other buildings. Therefore the south wall F.2166 and the east wall F.2165 were both 0.6-0.8m wide double walls, while the north wall F.2164 and the west wall F.2163 were narrower single walls. The internal walls were also narrower but the construction material was similar. This indicates that they were all erected at the same time but that the outer walls may have been double faced for additional support or as retaining walls on the midden sides.

Space 264

The north room of the Building 54 was the best preserved of the three. Within Space 264 some of the floors together with other features were still present along the southern side of the room. Probably the floor level within this room was slightly lower than in the other ones and that was how these features escaped the erosion. Space 264 is a medium size rectangular room with internal measurements of 3.7m E-W and 1.9m N-S.

During the occupation phase of the house, the western end of this room was probably higher, possibly in the form of a platform. The floors (F.2036) stretch about 1.2m from the west wall, sustaining the presence of a raised western platform. The floors were made of fine greenish white plaster in multiple layers, which clearly indicates the use of the building over a long period of time. Along the northern wall of the room, as well as at the eastern end, the floors were affected by the erosion process and turned into a mixed non-layered deposit.

Above the floor level, along the southern wall of the room, a storage bin was preserved. F.2033 was constructed against wall F.2167, with thin outer walls made of mudbrick and plaster. The storage space was divided in two by one N-S brick placed in the middle of it. The plaster floors of Space 264 also cover the walls of the bin indicating that this was built at an early stage of the existence of the house. The bottom of the feature was probably plastered as well, but only the eastern half of it was found covered with plaster. No indicative items of use were found inside the bin, only a few bones and some stones were present in the fills (11945) and (11946), but these could have been part of the backfill at the time of closure of the building.

Figure 19. Square plaster lined cut F.2019 contained few dog bones.

In the northeastern corner of the room, a very interesting feature was excavated. F.2019 was a 0.3m square cut lined by white clay, forming a type of sub-floor ‘box’ (Figure 19). There was no stratigraphical evidence for where the feature was cut from as the floors in the area were entirely eroded away. The cut (11942) was lined with 40mm thick greenish white fine plaster, which formed the inner lining (11932). At the base were some stones while the fill (11931) contained a few dog bones. Interestingly, a similar feature was excavated in nearby Building 47 during the 2004 excavations (fill (10250), lining (10251), cluster (10257)), which also contained dog bones. The dimensions and the appearance were identical, the only difference being that F.1556 from Building 47 was cut through on the base of a 1m deep circular pit, while F.2019 from Building 54 seems to have been very close to the floor.

The interment sequence of the six neonate burials in Space 264 was impossible to establish due to the lack of intact floors through which the burials may have been cut. They were found in the infill layers below the floor horizon of the room. It is however possible that these represent foundation burials as was presented in a similar sequence excavated in Building 1.

F.2154 is the burial of one neonate in a very small circular cut (12362). The skeleton (11975) was found facing down, tightly flexed with the head oriented to south. The location of the grave is interesting, the burial appears to pre-date bin F.2033, being dug into the wall and room-fill of the earlier house and located under the bin. This is either evidence for a foundation burial or evidence that the bin was not a primary feature of this space.

F.2159 is the second grave of a single neonate, buried in the make-up layer of the raised western end of Space 264. Poorly preserved the skeleton (11973) was found tightly flexed on the right side in a very small grave cut.

As excavated, F.2037 is recorded as the common cut for four neonates interred in the same raised area at the western end of Space 264 as burials F.2154 and F.2159. The absence of four distinct grave cuts, one for each individual skeleton, lead to the hypothesis that they were either buried at the same time in one common grave, or buried within a relatively restricted time range, as they were also all spatially isolated from one another. All of the skeletons suffered more or less from borrowing rodents but enough was intact to show that all were anatomically articulated. The four bodies formed a N-S row, skeleton (11979) being the southernmost of them. This was severely disturbed by post-depositional actions, but it seemed to have been placed on its stomach, probably in a flexed position. Skeleton (11957) is the northernmost of the four and it was found flexed on its right side, identically to skeleton (11971). The last of the four was skeleton (11972), which was buried on its left side, tightly flexed at hip and knees.

Space 265

This was the largest room of Building 54, measuring 6.4m N-S and a maximum of 5m E-W at the southern end. The ‘L’ shape of the space was created by an internal wall F.2138, which createed a small room Space 266 in the northeast quadrant of Space 265. This southern room was totally denuded of internal features and occupation deposits through erosion exposing only the underlying infill and the lower courses of walls. Cutting through the fill however, were a number of burials.

F.2158 was the burial of one neonate located in the northern end of Space 265, next to the internal wall F.2167 and therefore close to the six in the northern room of the house, just on the other side of the wall. Skeleton (11996) was placed in a very small cut, on its back with the head to the west and tightly flexed.

F.2156 is a burial immediately to the south of F.2158. The skeleton (11982) of a juvenile was found lying on its back with the legs tightly flexed at hip and knees. The skull of this individual was found first, about 50mm above the rest of the bones and the first indication of disturbance to the burial. As more of the individual was exposed there were other bones identified in dis-articulated positions. No reason for the disturbance was apparent but which might come to light through the analyses of the individual who was 14-16 years in age at the time of death and with very well developed bones in terms of length for an individual of that age.

Space 266

Once again, due to its proximity to the surface, this small internal room was bare of its internal features and floors. Surface scrapping exposed the underlying infill (11993), which was cut through by burial F.2030 that contained the remains of three individuals. No evidence to indicate the function of this room were preserved, but its internal dimensions of 3.7m N-S and 0.9m E-W, make it a very small room.

Burial F.2030 was defined directly below topsoil and was in a very poor state of preservation. Despite the fact that the bones were very disturbed and fragmentary, three skeletons were identified. It was not possible to trace cuts for the burials, which have been recorded as being place in one grave cut, but it cannot be stated for certain that the burials were not individually interred. The skeletal remains were of three adults, skeletons (11926), (11927) and (11935), which were probably interred under the floors of Space 266 during the occupation of Building 54.

Little can be said about the occupation sequence of Building 54 due to erosion. Abandonment was probably a deliberate closure as is the case of most of the buildings on the site. No traces of burning were visible on the walls or on the internal features preserved within the northern room. Unit (11924) in Space 264 stood out as it had the appearance of a mixed dump deposit probably deliberately placed on the floor of the room. It contained large quantities of pottery and some stones, but it was difficult to say whether all of these were part of the fill or some of them were on the floor at the moment of abandonment and the fill just covered them. The dating of the artefacts in this unit however, represent the last phase of activity within Building 54.