11. Write a Brief Note on Settlement on Catal

Huyuk and its Significance in the Cultural Life

Of Mankind.

Catal Huyuk, in Anatolia, is the best example of an

early neolithic town where the transition to a fully

settled existence has been satisfactorily achieved. 

Food is produced by agriculture, with the cultivation

of wheat and barley, and by the breeding of cattle. In

addition to meat and milk, the cattle provide transport

as beasts of burden. A surplus of food enables

specialist crafts to develop. The community

uses pottery and woven textiles. Only a fraction of the

site has been excavated, but it is known to be in

continuous occupation from about 6500 to 5700 BC. The

population is calculated to number about 5000, living

in 1000 houses. 

 Each house in Catal Huyuk has its own oven for the

baking of bread. The walls and the floors of the houses

are covered in plaster, renewed annually, and the walls

in most houses are decorated with panels of red. Rush

matting is used on the floors. 

The furniture is built in (as at the much later

neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in Scotland) with

brick platforms for sitting on, working on and sleeping

on. Under these platforms the bones of the dead are

buried, to remain part of the family. 

Many of the houses excavated in Catal Huyuk are shrines

(so many that the small section of the site so far

revealed is thought to be the religious quarter). Their

walls are painted with a wide range of subjects. These

include hunting scenes, a picture of vultures setting

about human corpses, and even an elementary landscape. 

As in many early societies, such as Minoan Crete, the

bull is a sacred animal. Bulls' heads and horns project

aggressively from the walls and altars of the temple

chambers of Catal Huyuk. One of the murals suggests

that a dangerous sport is practised here involving

bulls, again as in Crete. 

Catal Huyuk is the oldest and the largest Neolithic

city found, so far. It dates to 8,000 years BCE and

was occupied continuously for 376 generations. No

specific reasons for its abandonment have been found

but it may have just gotten too high for comfortable

living on top of the mound.

The population of the eastern mound is estimated to

have been up to 10,000 people but the average

population is believed to have been between 5,000 and

8,000 people. Life expectancy was very short by modern

standards, with males living to 34 and females living

to around 28 years.

The Catal Huyuk site is believed to be haunted by local

people. This may explain why no other people settled

here after the original builders left the site. Local

people farm around the base of the mound but had done

no digging on the mound because of the belief that it

was haunted by ghosts.

Summery:

o Catal Huyuk is Regarded as the First City in

History.

o One of the earliest known farming villages

discovered (8,000 years ago).

o Home to 5,000- 6,000 people living in 1,000 houses.

o They:

Farmed

Hunted

Fished

Traded with distant lands

Worshiped gods in special shrines

o The development of agriculture brought great

changes to human society.

o The first farmers learned to grow plants and raise

animals in the New Stone Age.

o Farming changed societies and the way people lived.

o The inhabitants of Catal Huyuk possessed an

understanding of urban life, were capable of

planning, design and calculation, and that their

artistic understanding was far more advanced.