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A new radiocarbon dating program, conceived at the outset within a Bayesian statistical framework, has recently been applied to the earliest levels of occupation on the Neolithic East Mound at Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. Çatalhöyük was excavated by James Mellaart from 1961 to 1965 and new excavations directed by Ian Hodder started in 1993. In 2012 the site was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage site. However, the precise dating of the site has remained insecure, bracketed somewhere between the late eighth and the early sixth millennium BC calibrated. In a new dating program reported on here, dates previously obtained from the site have been allied with new dates to produce a series of models that could be evaluated statistically and in relation to taphonomic considerations. The preferred model puts the earliest excavated layers at Çatalhöyük 200 years later than previously thought. The implications of this later dating for local continuity and for the spread of pottery are discussed.

Recent advances in archaeogenomics have granted access to previously unavailable biological information with the potential to further our understanding of past social dynamics at a range of scales. However, to properly integrate these data within archaeological narratives, new methodological and theoretical tools are required. Effort must be put into finding new methods for weaving together different datasets where material culture and archaeogenomic data are both constitutive elements. This is true on a small scale, when we study relationships at the individual level, and at a larger scale when we deal with social and population dynamics. Specifically, in the study of kinship systems, it is essential to contextualize and make sense of biological relatedness through social relations, which, in archaeology, is achieved by using material culture as a proxy. In this paper, we propose a Network Science framework to integrate archaeogenomic data and material culture at an intra-site scale to study biological relatedness and social organization at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. Methodologically, we propose the use of network variance to investigate the association between biological relatedness and material culture within networks of houses. This approach allows us to observe how material culture similarity between buildings is associated with biological relationships between individuals and how biogenetic ties concentrate at specific localities on site.

Woven textiles from Çatalhöyük in southern Anatolia are among the earliest-known examples of weaving in the Near East and Europe. Studies of material excavated in the 1960s identified the fibres as flax. New scanning electron microscope analysis, however, shows these fibres—and others from more recent excavations at the site—to be made from locally sourced oak bast. This result is consistent with the near absence of flax seeds at Çatalhöyük, and suggests there was no need for the importation of fibres from elsewhere; it also questions the date at which domesticated flax was first used for fibres. These findings shed new light on early textile production in the Neolithic, suggesting that tree bast played a more significant role than previously recognised.

Understanding site formation processes is essential before we can make inferences about human behaviour, and a key part of the inferential process is the integration of multiple, diverse lines of evidence. The term 'multiproxy' has become increasingly used in studies of use of space, particularly in geoarchaeology, to describe an approach in which multiple methods are combined to reduce the impact of equifinality of interpretation. Since the early 1990s this integration has been an aim of the reflexive methodology at the Neolithic settlement of Çatalhöyük. Methods including sediment micromorphology, microartefact patterning and geochemical analyses of floors and wall plasters, phytoliths and starch, alongside artefact studies, macrobotanical and zooarchaeological analysis have all provided insights, but there is still a gap between macroscale and microscale approaches, and integration has not always been successful. Considering the history of analytical approaches at this site provides an opportunity to reflect on how we acquire and interpret archaeological science data, and the relationship between multiproxy and multivocality.

Excavations at Çatalhöyük have been ongoing for over 20 years and have involved multi-national teams, a diverse range of archaeological specialists and a vast archive of records. The task of marshalling this data so that it can be useful not only at the post-excavation stage, but also while making decisions in the field, is challenging. Here, members of the team reflect on the use of digital technology on-site to promote a reflexive engagement with the archaeology. They explore how digital data in a fieldwork context can break down communication barriers between specialists, foster an inclusive approach to the excavation process and facilitate reflexive engagement with recording and interpretation.

Çatalhöyük is one of the most well-known and important Neolithic/Chalcolithic sites in the Middle East. Settlement at the site encompasses two separate tell mounds known as Çatalhöyük East and West, with the focus of attention having traditionally been upon what is often regarded as the main site, the earlier East Mound. Limitations of dating evidence have, however, rendered the nature of the relationship between the settlements on these mounds unclear. Traditional models favoured a hiatus between their occupation, or, alternatively, a rapid shift from one site to the other, often invoking changes in natural conditions by way of an explanation. New dates challenge these theories, and indicate a potentially significant overlap between the occupation of the mounds, starting in the late seventh millennium BC.

The early village at Çatalhöyük (7100–6150 BC) provides important evidence for the Neolithic and Chalcolithic people of central Anatolia. This article reports on the use of lipid biomarker analysis to identify human coprolites from midden deposits, and microscopy to analyse these coprolites and soil samples from human burials. Whipworm (Trichuris trichiura) eggs are identified in two coprolites, but the pelvic soil samples are negative for parasites. Çatalhöyük is one of the earliest Eurasian sites to undergo palaeoparasitological analysis to date. The results inform how intestinal parasitic infection changed as humans modified their subsistence strategies from hunting and gathering to settled farming.

This article explores the extent to which formal network analysis can be used to study aspects of entanglement, the latter referring to the collective sets of dependencies between humans and things. The data used were derived from the Neolithic sites of Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The first part of the analysis involves using formal network methods to chart the changing interactions between humans and things at these sites through time. The values of betweenness and centrality vary through time in ways that illuminate the known transformations at the site as, for example, domestic cattle are introduced. The ego networks for houses across four time periods at the two sites are also patterned in ways that contribute to an understanding of social and economic trends. In a second set of analyses, formal network methods are applied to intersecting operational chains, or chainworks. Finally, the dependencies between humans and things are evaluated by exploring the costs and benefits of particular material choices relative to larger entanglements. In conclusion, it is argued that three types of entanglement can be represented and explored using methods taken from the network sciences. The first type concerns the large number of relations that surround any particular human or thing. The second concerns the ways in which entanglements are organized. The third type of entanglement concerns the dialectic between dependence (potential through reliance) and dependency (constraint through reliance).

Neolithic animals comprise more than half of the total figurine assemblage at Çatalhöyük (7400-6000 cal. BC), with some 741 horns and 449 quadrupeds, as opposed to only 187 human figurines. Many figurines, whether of wild cattle, boar or deer, are small, detailed, finely modeled and demonstrate anatomical knowledge and specificity. Their miniature quality allows them to do what real animals, plastered animal installations and wall paintings cannot - to socialize, and to facilitate embodied and immediate interaction between humans and wild animals. Figurines are active things in themselves and their small scale invites an intimacy, control and democratization of experience that was not possible with large-scale narrative paintings that were relegated to a few houses or with plastered bucrania retrieved from hunting. In this society of things, figurines are conduits between very different material scales and they effectively embody and communicate across the species divide in expedient and intimate ways.

The repetitive and highly structured domestic architecture of Çatalhöyük is a distinctive feature of this important Neolithic settlement. At the very end of the sequence, however, excavations on the surface of the East Mound reveal changes in household construction and burial chambers. Bayesian analysis of 56 AMS radiocarbon dates from these layers allow the date and pace of these changes to be established in detail. Settlement activity on the East Mound ceased just after 6000 cal BC, and was followed by the cessation of Neolithic burial activity a few decades later.