The living conditions of the earliest-known inhabitants of Anatolia depended upon their ability to hunt and gather edible plants. Their sanctuaries from wild animals and inclement weather took the form of rock shelters and caves; and they moved on whenever food resources became scarce. Their artifacts were related to their spe¬cific needs. Hence we find around their settlements flint hand-axes and scrapers and, with the refinement of flaking techniques, a wider range of later tools from types of points and perforators to cutters, chisels and a variety of micro tools, all characteristic of the period known as the Palaeolithic (or Old Stone) Age. Yet, the evidence of the material activities of these people is complemented by their cultural attainments, particularly painting—a clear indication of their spiritual aspirations. For the inhabitants of Anatolia frequently decorated the walls of their cave and rock dwellings with depictions of their everyday lives and of the magical aspects of activities relating chiefly to fertility and the hunt. The reasoning, as it were, behind their hunting was reflected in this revelation—the depiction of the animal hunted—from which we may infer a holism in early man's view of life and perception of the cosmos. Evidence of Palaeolithic man in Anatolia is spread across various provinces, notably in the caves of Beldibi, Karain, Belbasi, Okuzini and Kumbucagi, in and around Antalya; the caves called Kadiini in Alanya, Kapaliin in Isparta, Magaracik in Hatay and Palanli in Adiyaman. And the growing expertise and increasingly concerted effort in man's activities continued through the Mesolithic (or Middle Stone) Age until the advent of what is known as the Neolithic Revolution.
The start of the Neolithic (New Stone) Age was marked by the decisive step of man taking advantage of his environment through the deliberate cultivation of plants previously gathered wild and the domestication of animals previously acquired through skill in hunting. This active production of a more or less stable supply of food necessitated a more permanent relationship with the specific tracts of land, the plains, upon which all depended. Clearly caves and rock dwellings on high ground, though secure, were no longer suitable and man was obliged to construct his own shelter where he wished it, not to take shelter where he happened to find it.
Undoubtedly, Anatolia is now generally regarded as the most advanced center of neolithic culture in the Near East. And by far the most important site is that of Catalhoyuk, lying about 50km SE of Konya and prominent between approximately 6500 and 5500 BC. The significance of the site chosen for settlement may not immedi¬ately be apparent to the modern visitor, who sees a vast dry plain covered with wheat and a few grazing herds but completely devoid of woodland. But in the 16th millennium BC the entire Konya basin was one lake, and by the time of the Catalhoyuk settlement this had drained to form a rich alluvial plain, with fertile grazing land and marshes in the east and thick forest to the west and south—an ideal source of timber for constructing dwellings.
The settlement presents a fairly uniform style of architecture, with rectangular single-storied houses built of mud-bricks supported internally by wooden beams and buttresses, grouped around court¬yards and rising in terraces up the slope of the mound on which they were built. The flat-roofed houses had no doors but were entered through apertures in their roofs, reached by ladders, so that not only did the settlement present a solid blank wall to the outside as defense but the flat roofs served both as working space and as passageways from house to house, in many respects like villages of the region today. Inside were raised platforms or benches made of clay-brick for sitting and sleeping, and under these—as well as in separate shrines—were buried the dead, after excarnation (removal of the flesh). Indeed, the presence of over 40 shrines in the Catal¬hoyuk settlement offers us an insight into neolithic Anatolian reli¬gion. For, in addition to various statuettes of male deities, the presence of numerous stone and clay female figurines, often flanked by wild animals, indicates the prominence of the cult of the mother goddess, symbol of fertility and fecundity. We shall come across this cult of the mother goddess, and her association with wild beasts such as the leopard, again and again; for what originated here at Catalhoyuk was to dominate Anatolian religious belief through subsequent millennia. And the carving of bulls in association with the mother goddess in wall reliefs forms our first encounter with the popular bull cult, whose symbol endured through the Hittite period and beyond, most notably in the Urartian.
But perhaps the most striking characteristic of the shrines and houses of Catalhoyuk is the spectacular wall-paintings—possibly the oldest paintings to be found on man-made walls as opposed to natural cave walls. At Catalhoyuk, the walls are lavishly and artis¬tically decorated with paintings of a religious nature, often scenes of death or excarnation, and plaster reliefs pertaining to a fertility cult. Other paintings depict most vivid naturalistic scenes—hunting, run¬ning and dancing, flowers, butterflies and bees—even the view of a town and a volcano in eruption, probably Catalhoyuk and the nearby, then volcanic, mountain, Hasan Dagi. There are also the numerous drawings and imprints of hands, crosses, stars and other symbols with, presumably, a magical and protective significance. And of particular interest are the intricate geometrical patterns closely resembling the bright geometrical Anatolian kilims (woven carpets) of today; in some instances even the stitched borders of the kilims are depicted, suggesting that these were copies of, rather than models for, the woven materials.
Other crafts practiced in Catalhoyuk included very fine obsidian and flint work in the preparation of weapons and mirrors, colored-bead jewellery of various designs, fine woolen textiles and, in particular, wooden vessels and basketry showing a skill and sophistication unrivalled in the neolithic Near East.
Economy was based on agriculture, stock-breeding of sheep and goats and hunting of wild cattle, deer, boar, asses and leopards. A wide range of crops was cultivated—including varieties of grains— vegetable oil was used and very likely hackberry wine, if not beer, drunk. Indeed, the Catalhoyuk diet—the most varied known from any Near Eastern neolithic site—was a balanced one, as is evinced by the well-preserved teeth of the skeletons. Trade flourished, with what seems to have been a monopoly on the production and export of obsidian along the eastern Mediterranean (Akdeniz) in return for flint for weaponry, seashells for bead-making and a variety of stones for the manufacture of stone vessels, stone beads, cult statuettes and domestic utensils. A number of local raw materials, including ochres and other paints, greenstone, copper and iron ores and fossil shells, were also used in Catalhoyuk.
There is no doubt that the influence of Catalhoyuk as an important cultural 'hearth' spread far beyond Anatolia geographically and far into the future chronologically, to the extent that it is evident in aspects of village culture in Anatolia today.
In addition to Catalhoyuk, other major neolithic settlements flour¬ished across Anatolia, notably the hoyuks (barrows) of Gozlukule (Tarsus), Yumuktepe (Mersin) and the Amik plain of Hatay in the SE, of Erbaba and Suberde in the Lake District (Goller Bolgesi) and of Asikli Hoyuk and Can Hasan in central Anatolia. The earliest-known neolithic settlement, that of Cayonu Tepesi, near Diyarbakir in eastern Anatolia, dates from about 7000 BC.
About 5700-5600 BC, approximately 300km W of Catalhoyuk, near the town of Burdur, a settlement known as Hacilar became the most prominent and advanced culture of the late Neolithic/early Chalcolithic (Copper Stone) Age. Remarkable architectural develop¬ments include an increase in size—the houses were often two-storied and with flights of mud-brick steps connecting the lower and upper floors—and, more importantly, the arrangement of the houses in blocks with wide double doorways at ground level entered from narrow streets.
Interestingly, the disappearance of male deity statuettes at Hacilar is offset by the increase in the number of baked-clay figurines of female deities representing the mother goddess but modeled in a more stylized way than at neolithic sites like Catalhoyuk. The fertility cult is no longer confined to elaborately decorated shrines, as at Catalhoyuk, but has become domesticated, with the statuettes to be found in nearly every dwelling.
What is perhaps of particular interest at Hacilar is the gradual rise in importance of pottery manufacture alongside the decline of stoneware. And the extremely high standard of technique was more than matched by the rich geometrical painted designs for which Hacilar was unsurpassed throughout the Near East and the Mediterranean. The creativity in pottery decoration equals that of Catal¬hoyuk in wall-painting, an art that disappeared in Hacilar with the decline of hunting. For Hacilar was a mainly agricultural economy; teeth deteriorated as gritty cereal foods replaced the earlier balanced diet. The range of crops was still wide and a continuation of that of Catalhoyuk with some additions, such as chick-peas. Trade seems to have been as important, particularly the import of red and yellow ochres, hematite and white marble, obsidian and pumice. And, besides the spectacular painted pottery-ware, local bone and pol¬ished stone, textile and kilim-weaving industries flourished.
Towards the end of the early Chalcolithic period Hacilar, like other settlements, met with violent upheaval and came to an end with the burning and abandonment of the site. And yet elsewhere, notably in the Konya region of central Anatolia, the middle to late Chalcolithic period (early fifth to late fourth millennium BC) maintained its development. Indeed, a site like Can Hasan, south-east of Konya, displays all the stages of the Chalcolithic Age, during which copper was really discovered and utilized for the first time. For example, at Beycesultan (near Denizli) has been found a small hoard of copper - objects—bars. needles, drills, a sickle, a fragment of a dagger (and a silver ring)—illustrating the use of this once rare and precious metal in ordinary household activities, and thus, by inference, the growing prosperity, based on industry and trade, of Anatolia generally during the Chalcolithic Age. By now, settlements were springing up all over Anatolia from Istanbul (Fikirtepe) and Canakkale (Kumtepe) to Samsun Ikiztepe) in the north, across central Anatolia (Karaoglan, Hashoyuk. Alisar, Pazarli, Buyuk Gullucek) and stretching far into the east and south-east (Karaz, Tilkitepe. Tepecik, Norsuntepe, Elazig, Yumuktepe) And it was during the Chalcolithic Age that people seem to have begun to fed the need to surround their settlements not simply with walls but with fortifications (of which notable examples include the later Hacilar, Yumuktepe and the second town of Troy) and the urge to enlarge their lands through competition with other groups: although otherwise elements of customs and traditions of earlier ages tended to persist, with modifications. The characteristic building of the period comprised a unit of a single room with a hearth and grain store, made of mud-brick on a rectangular plan and entered through a fore-court, or vestibule—an innovation that proved durable and came to be known in western Anatolia and the Aegean world as the megaron (hall-and-porch) style. The dwelling was long and narrow, never expanded sideways or connected with others, more similar dwellings being built alongside if additional accommodation was required. There is no evidence to date of separate shrines, but in the later stages a distinctive marble statuette of a deity makes its appearance. In pottery, the most notable feature is the clear break from the sophisticated Hacilar tradition, with the predominance of a heavier and coarser ware.
As the Chalcolithic Age passed smoothly into the Bronze Age, c 3200 BC, a flourishing metallurgy developed in Anatolia. This development is attested mainly by the absence of stone artifacts rather than by the presence of quantities of metal ones, since metals such as gold and silver were continually recycled and have thus rarely survived. Moreover, the stone and pottery artifacts that exist tend to be imitative of metalware either in their design or in their metallic glaze. As the metal industry and trade progressed, it gave rise to specialized professions, the division of labor and hence a more complex lifestyle. The obvious prosperity of the region seems to have been based chiefly on the exploitation of its rich metal resources and the establishment of its position as the central metal market for trade eastward with Syria and Mesopotamia and westward with the Mediterranean and Balkans. Major urban communities and city-states organized under kings now began to emerge out of the traditional agriculturally-based economies. Plentiful evidence of this political organization of Anatolia by the mid Bronze Age (second millennium BC) is available from royal tombs and fortresses and from the numerous city sites covering Anatolia, bearing in mind that not all shared the same speed or characteristics of development. The most important settlements of the period included, to the west, Troy and its environs; to the south, Semayuk, Karahoyuk and other hoyuks in the Konya area; in the center, notably Ahlatlibel, Polatli, Buyuk Gullucek, Alisar, Alacahoyuk, Kultepe and Acemhoyuk; to the south-east, Cukurova and the Amik Ovasi (Plain); to the east, the Malatya and Elazig areas, Erzurum, Karaz, Pulur and Guzelova; and to the north, the Samsun and Sinop regions.
But the great advance in metallurgy is chiefly evident from such sites as the Alacahoyuk burial chambers in north-central Anatolia, with their extraordinarily rich collections of gold, silver, bronze and copper artifacts—vessels, jewellery, bull and stag statuettes, ritual standards, sun-dials and musical instruments such as the sistrum with its tinkling bell-like sound. The wealth displayed here and in sites such as Troy II and Yumuktepe leaves no doubt of the standing of such people and of the prosperity of the small independent city-states. The palace complex at Troy, for example, features megaron-style buildings for the rulers. Evidence of the religious beliefs of the period is readily available as shrines are numerous. Beycesultan, for example, reveals both male and female deities with sacrificial con¬tainers before them and hearths nearby. And the shrines of Beycesultan, like Catalhoyuk, contain altars in the form of rams' horns and stylized bulls' heads—the bull comprising, as we have noted, a significant link between the neolithic and Hittite religions. Thus, the roots of Hatti and later Hittite religious belief may be inferred as extending as far back as the Neolithic Age in Anatolia. In addition, Anatolian neolithic influences on the Minoan civilization of Crete are striking, most prominently in the cult of the mother goddess as Mistress of Beasts and her association with the leopard (among other animals), the worship of the bull and the sport of bull-leaping—depicted in one of the Catalhoyuk wall-paintings and very often represented in Minoan art.
Relations with the Balkan and Aegean regions may also be adduced from the ceramic styles, architectural designs and building techniques of the Bronze Age Anatolian city-states. The precious metal artifacts, also, of Alacahoyuk and Horoztepe resemble items from a kurgan (burial mound or barrow) to the north-east at Maikop in the Kuban region of Caucasia. The implications of this similarity are several: that the craftsmen were natives of Anatolia; that the rulers of Alacahoyuk and Horoztepe, in whose graves the artifacts have been found, were Caucasian in origin and brought their knowledge with them; or that the craftsmanship was derived through trade. Although the answer is as yet unknown, my own belief, until evidence is provided to the contrary, is that knowledge spread through trade.
However, towards the end of the third millennium BC there occurred ah outbreak of destruction and conflagration throughout central, western and southern Anatolia, and evinced not only at the major sites of Troy II, Beycesultan, Kusura, Ahlatlibel and Polatli but also at hundreds of lesser settlements across the region. Indeed, the majority of sites were deserted and never reoccupied. To judge from the occurrence of similar upheaval and destruction over the whole of the Near East at about the same time, it would seem that the area was undergoing widespread movement of population, a conclusion sup¬ported by certain cleavages in the cultural continuity of Anatolia and innovations of a type not necessarily local. Yet this period of disturbance served to usher in the enduring empire of intermingled peoples—indigenous Hattis and incoming Hittites.
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