Comparing Near Eastern Neolithic Megasites and Southwestern Pueblos: Population Size, Exceptionalism and Historical Trajectories

Abstract

AbstractÇatalhöyük and other Near Eastern Neolithic 'megasites' are commonly interpreted as exceptional because of their large size and early dates. In this paper, we question exceptional claims about the size and social organization of megasites like Çatalhöyük by comparing them to pueblos in the American Southwest. We argue that Çatalhöyük and other Near Eastern Neolithic megasites are better understood as large villages whose size, layout, and social organization compare readily to many of the late prehispanic and historic period pueblos in the American Southwest. We suggest that four factors contribute to disparate interpretations of structurally similar sites in the Near East and American Southwest: 1) surface architectural visibility; 2) different regional intellectual traditions that emphasize 'micro-' vs 'macro' scale social organization; 3) a tendency toward overestimation in archaeological population estimates, especially when the 'biggest' or the 'earliest' sites are involved; and 4) perceptions of continuity with later time periods. 1 Çatalhöyük is often described as a Neolithic "megasite" with a large, densely packed population that is puzzling because it predates by 3000 years the kind of urban settlement associated with early cities. Although no longer seen by most archaeologists as the 'first city' (e.g., Mellart 1967), Çatalhöyük is nevertheless still viewed as exceptional: a site whose size "pushes the idea of an egalitarian village to its ultimate extremes" (Hodder 2006, 98), a huge street-less mass of houses that was a '"dead end' in the evolution of human architecture and In this paper, we raise questions about exceptional claims regarding the size and social organization of Near Eastern megasites like Çatalhöyük by comparing them to pueblos in the American Southwest, in particular the pueblo of Awat'ovi ( Fig. 1). Although comparisons between Çatalhöyük and pueblo architecture are not uncommon (e.g., Hodder 2006, 25), these are often anecdotal (but see Mills 2014). Here we suggest that more systematic comparison can provide insights into key questions about Çatalhöyük population levels and social organization, and about the phenomenon of Near Eastern Neolithic megasites more generally. Awat'ovi has 2 roughly the same architectural footprint as Çatalhöyük, but is estimated to have had a population less than half the size, and is interpreted as a classic 'tribal' village rather than a proto-urban centre. We argue that four factors contribute to disparate interpretations of these structurally similar sites: 1) surface architectural visibility; 2) different regional intellectual traditions that emphasize 'micro-' vs 'macro' scale social organization; 3) a tendency toward overestimation in archaeological population estimates, especially when the 'biggest' or 'earliest' sites are involved; and 4) perceptions of continuity with later time periods.Rather than outliers requiring special explanation, we argue that Çatalhöyük and other Near Eastern Neolithic megasites are better understood as large vi...

Breaking continuity? Site formation and temporal depth at Çatalhöyük and Tell Sabi Abyad

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New insights on commemoration of the dead through mortuary and architectural use of pigments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

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Socio-Material Archaeological Networks at Çatalhöyük a Community Detection Approach

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