Catal Hyuck

Introduction

Prehistory (down to ca. 3000 BC)

Sites: Jericho, Çatal Hüyük, Al-Ubaid, Uruk, Jemdet Nasr, Abydos, Hierakonpolis, Qustal

Jericho is a town in the West Bank, located within the Jericho Governorate, near the Jordan River. Its name may be derived from the word meaning "moon" in Hebrew and Canaanite, as the city was an early center of worship for lunar deities.[2] Despite the city's long history, Jericho was first mentioned in the Book of Numbers.

Jericho is believed to be one of the oldest continuously-inhabited cities in the world,[3] and archaeologists have unearthed the remains of over 20 successive settlements there, dating back to 11,000 years ago (9000 BC).[4]

Jericho has a population of approximately 25,000 Palestinians.[5] The current mayor is Hassan Saleh, a former lawyer. Three separate settlements have existed at or near the current location for more than 11,000 years. The position is on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea.

The first archaeological excavations of the site were made by Charles Warren in 1868. Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated Tell es-Sultan and Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq between 1907-1909 and in 1911. John Garstang excavated between 1930 and 1936. Extensive investigations using more modern techniques were made by Kathleen Kenyon between 1952 and 1958. Lorenzo Nigro and Nicolo Marchetti conducted a limited excavation in 1997. Later that same year, Dr. Bryant Wood also made a visit to the site to verify the findings of the earlier 1997 team.

Çatalhöyük in Turkish; also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük, or any of the three without diacritics; çatal is Turkish for "fork", höyük for "mound") was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, dating from around 7500 B.C for the lowest layers. It is the largest and best preserved Neolithic site found to date.

Çatalhöyük is located overlooking wheat fields in the Konya Plain, southeast of the present-day city of Konya (ancient Iconium) in Turkey, approximately 140 kilometers (87 mi) from the twin-coned volcano of Hasan Da?. The eastern settlement forms a mound which would have risen about 20 metres (66 ft) above the plain at the time of the latest Neolithic occupation. There is also a smaller settlement mound to the west and a Byzantine settlement a few hundred meters to the east. The prehistoric mound settlements were abandoned before the Bronze Age. A channel of the Çarsamba river once flowed between the two mounds, and the settlement was built on alluvial clay which may have been favourable for early agriculture.

eš(2,3)-da: ceremony; a type of vessel, goblet ('shrine' + 'with; to be near').

šu(4)-luþ: ritual cleansing, purification ritual, lustration ('hand' + 'to clean').

zíd-dub-dub: flour for the best ritual actions ('flour' + reduplicated 'to pour, move in a circle, shake, sprinkle off, strew').

akkil: lamentation, ritual wailing.

sañña(2,3,4), sanña(2,3,4): a sprinkler, used for ritual cleaning; economic director of a temple or occupation (such as all the smiths) (sañ, 'head', + ñar;ñá, 'to store') [SANGA archaic frequency: 530; concatenates 3 sign variants].

Sumer and The Old Kingdom of Egypt (ca. 3000-2300 BC)

Sites: Ur, Kish, Lagash, Girsu, Umma, Memphis, Saqqara, Giza

Settlements after 9000 BC

The Neolithic in Mesopotamia is characterized by the change in location, distribution and size of human settlements: from scattered campsites in areas where game is present (mountains slopes, in general very differentiated terrain), via repeatedly occupied campsites near valleys to larger but still isolated settlements, never located in the middle of the alluvial plains.

The first proofs for domestication of plants and animals come from such temporary campsites and are sporadically already seen from 9000 BC. e.g. the distribution in the bones over male and female animals could not be explained by hunting alone.

The principle of agriculture: sowing and harvesting is probably discovered in many places and in many time periods independently. Even nowadays in the Near East one can collect at suitable spots two liters of wild grains per day per person. First grain species are barley and wild spelt. The knowledge that grains of corn will grow to new grain plants must have been known for a long time. The selection for the breeding of new varieties initially occurred almost automatically. Loose grains falls off while cutting. They are a waste, but the ones brought home and sowed again suffer less from this disadvantage. Simply sowing into fertile soil also stimulates different and better varieties. Natural barley has a flat spike in two rows, but in fertile soil a mutant is going to dominate automatically having a spike of six rows, resulting in an important increase of harvest yield.

The food storage problem. Despite the simple principle, a good and guaranteed harvest every year requires the solution of many practical problems. Growing crops and raising animals proceed at different rates at various times and places, each region emphasizing its own combination of cereals and animals. The problems are e.g.: residence on the same location for a long time and the storage and preservation of food. Roasting grain -as is evident from excavations- was done often. It prevents premature germination and facilitates winnowing (separation of the wheat from the chaff). A technical innovation (ceramics) was needed to protect against the damage by rats and other animals: the production of storage vessels. There is evidence that the first actual buildings are made for the purpose of food storage: they are often too small or too low to live in.