In Çatalhöyük Volume 5: Changing Materialities at Çatal-höyük: Reports from the 1995–99 Seasons, the focuswas on the relationship of Çatalhöyük residents to the

material world, involving especially the analysis and inter-pretation of movable artifacts. We have mirrored the CRPdiscussion of changing materialities in Part 4 of House Lives.

In his introduction to Çatalhöyük Volume 5, Ian Hodderremarks that with the increasing settling down in longer-established settlements that make a permanent mark onthe landscape, “Humans get increasingly caught up in so-ciety through their involvement with objects”(Hodder2005a:10). In other words, they become entangled in every-day acts of planning and carrying out tasks that involvepeople and materials which themselves are tangled in aweb of dependencies. We can see it in the intricate webs of“taskscapes” for procuring materials for building, eating,drinking, feasting: no task is a simple act. The act of bring-ing water and building materials to a house or buildingsite must have become more and more complicated as themound grew in height. The history of the Çatalhöyükmound is a history of the increasing complexities of livingand the perhaps increasingly ritualized strategies of thehuman agents to center themselves in their entangled world.In the BACH Area, we were excavating buildings that laychronologically in the middle of this process, as far as theEast Mound at Çatalhöyük is concerned.

As in other excavations that the BACH project leadershad directed, the driving force of our analyses of excavatedmaterials was the life history of objects—the procurementof raw materials, manufacture, consumption, maintenance,and final deposition as garbage, loss, or cache—all of which

are discussed in this section of House Lives. In one previousproject (Selevac), this aspect of materiality was related tothe intensification of production; in another (Opovo), itwas related to social inequality among households. In theBACH project, these questions are in the background ofthe investigation of Neolithic households in Anatolia, butthe details of life in the neighborhoods and the villages asa web of microhistories are also driving our project.

Many of the authors of chapters in Çatalhöyük Volume5 also authored the specialist reports on movable artifactsfrom the BACH excavation. Nerissa Russell, for example,wrote the worked bone reports for both volumes (Chapter15, this volume), in addition to being the lead author onthe faunal analyses. This reflects her long-standing interestin this topic, even as an undergraduate student.1

Jonathan Last analyzed and published the NeolithicEast Mound ceramics from the Çatalhöyük Research Proj-ect 1995–1999 excavations and based his analyses of theBACH material on these previous studies (Chapter 16, thisvolume). His focus in both publications is on how ceramicfrequencies can function as chronological indicators in thesequence of Çatalhöyük deposits to reveal a transformationof the settlement from the late Aceramic Neolithic to thefully Ceramic Neolithic. His analysis makes a significantcontribution to the dating of Building 3 in the Çatalhöyüksequence, as discussed in Chapter 3.

347

PART 4

CHANGING MATERIALITIES IN THE BACH AREA

1 Nerissa Russell’s senior thesis as an undergraduate at Harvard University,written under the supervision of Ruth Tringham, was the analysis ofbone tools from the Neolithic settlement of Selevac, Serbia, and laterwas published in the monograph of that project.

348 HOUSE LIVES

Sonya Atalay authored the analysis of the clay ballsfrom both the 1995–1999 excavations of the ÇatalhöyükResearch Project and the 1997–2003 excavations of theBACH Area (Chapter 18, this volume). Atalay argues forthe importance of clay balls in food preparation, specificallycooking, at a time when there was a relative lack of ceramicvessels. Çatalhöyük Volume 5 contains an article about bas-kets and basketry by Willeke Wendrich which also demon-strates the entanglement of non-ceramic vessels in foodpreparation in Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Some of the basketsshe discusses are from the BACH Area.

Tristan Carter was the lead author of the chapter onthe analysis of lithic materials in Çatalhöyük Volume 5. Hejoined Heidi Underbjerg in writing the final lithic reportof the BACH materials in 2005 in order to make the analysismore comparable with the format of the earlier publication,and to include his expertise in the examination of the ob-sidian assemblage. Their report (Chapter 19) mirrors theformat of his chapter in Volume 5. Carter’s analysis of ob-sidian sources for the BACH materials, using the XRF lab-oratory at UC Berkeley, has been published separately fromthis volume.

Karen Wright joined Adnan Baysal in writing the chap-ter on the ground stone or macrocrystalline rock assem-blage for the Çatalhöyük Research Project 1995–1999 ma-terials in Çatalhöyük Volume 5. Their final report on thesematerials for the BACH volume (Chapter 20) is based veryclosely on this publication. Karen Wright also has a specialinterest in the beads manufactured out of a variety of ma-terials, but especially macrocrystalline rocks, and wroteChapter 21 in this volume about these materials. This reportis rather different from that of Naomi Hamilton who re-ported on the beads of the 1995–1999 excavations, whichincorporated data from a University of London projectthat is investigating diversity of bead technology in Ne-olithic Southwest Asia.

Chapter 17 on the clay figurines from the BACH ex-cavations was authored by Carolyn Nakamura, who didnot participate in the publication of the clay figurines fromthe 1995–1999 excavations. In fact, Nakamura argues thather method of analysis and interpretation diverges stronglyfrom that of Naomi Hamilton who authored the study offigurines in Volume 5.

349

The Berkeley team recovered 188 pieces of workedbone from in and around Building 3 (see Figure4.1). Three of these were grave goods in Hellenistic

burials and will not be considered further here. I reporthere on the 185 Neolithic bone tools. This should closelyapproximate the total number of bone tools from the BACHArea. In addition to those tools recognized during excava-tion, tools were identified and recorded when the faunalremains were studied or assessed. With the exception of afew units from disturbed contexts, all the dry-sieved ma-terial was studied or assessed, along with almost all of theflotation material greater than 4 mm (see Chapter 8).“Worked bone” here includes artifacts made of any verte-brate skeletal material: bone, antler, tooth, or turtle shell.The methods used are the same as for the worked bonefrom the NORTH, SOUTH, and KOPAL Areas reportedpreviously (Russell 2005), including zooarchaeological, ty-pological, and microwear analysis. Throughout this report,I refer to the “previously analyzed assemblage” from theNORTH, SOUTH, and KOPAL Areas for comparison.

TOOL TYPES

I have defined the tool types on the basis of form and,where possible, microwear evidence for function. The dis-tribution of tool types is generally similar to that seen inthe other areas analyzed so far (Russell 2005), with points(42 percent) and rings (18 percent) predominating, andsubstantial amounts of manufacturing debris (11 percent).The chopper is a new tool type for the site. Several tooltypes found in the other areas do not occur here. In mostcases, they were very rare in the previously analyzed as-semblage, so their absence in the BACH Area may be simplya function of sample size. Two types, however, seem notable

in their absence: chisel/gouges and plaster tools. Chisel/gouges are made on unsplit distal tibiae, worked to a beveledtip that shows signs of use on a resistant material. Theywere probably used in making the wooden vessels foundby Mellaart (1967). They do not occur above Level IX inthe published assemblage but are found in later levels inmaterial subsequently studied from the SOUTH and 4040Areas (Russell and Griffitts in press). Plaster tools are madeon cattle scapulae, usually with beveled edges, and wereapparently used to shape plaster features. They are oftenplaced in houses at abandonment. While Building 3 hadmany scapulae placed in it, none were worked. The plastertools were particularly common in Buildings 1 and 5 inthe NORTH Area, adjacent to the BACH Area and close toBuilding 3 in time. Thus, their absence in the BACH Areais puzzling.

Points

Points (sharp-tipped, unperforated tools often called awls,perforators, or pins) are the most common tool type. Ingeneral, they resemble those studied earlier from the site.They are made mainly on sheep/goat metapodials (Tables15.1, 15.2; Figures 15.1–15.3), especially since the “mediummammals” are likely to be sheep and goat, and many of the“long bones” are probably also metapodials. There is nopreference for metacarpals or metatarsals, but they aremore often (66 percent) made on the distal end. The per-centages made on split long bones (83 percent) and showingsigns of curation through resharpening and repair (77 per-cent) are in line with the rates for Level VII and VI pointselsewhere on the site (Figures 15.4–15.5). One notable de-parture in raw material choice is seen in 8178.F55, madeon a crane tarsometatarsus (Figure 15.6). This carefully

CHAPTER 15

WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREANerissa Russell

made, highly polished point closely resembles another(4878.F506) on the same bone from Level pre-XII.B in theSOUTH Area.

The points range from expedient tools, quickly manu-factured with minimal effort and usually discarded afterbrief usage, to carefully finished objects with extensiveshaping. On the whole, little effort was devoted to modifi-cation of the bases of bone points at Çatalhöyük. Only 37percent of the points have any modification of the basebeyond splitting. Only 10 percent may be said to have ex-tensive modification of the base; the rest show only slightsmoothing, rounding, or flattening.

There are, however, some differences in manufacturingtechniques from the points previously studied. While mostof the points were split through unassisted fracture, therewas a somewhat greater use of grooving to guide the frac-ture in the BACH Area. In the analyzed NORTH, SOUTH,and KOPAL assemblages, only 4 of the 245 points showed

traces of groove-and-split, and 2 of those were questionable,with a single piece of groove-and-split waste. Of the 77BACH points, 2 show signs of groove-and-split, and thereis a piece of groove-and-split waste. The groove-and-splittechnique requires somewhat more labor but more reliablyproduces a usable blank and may permit the manufactureof two or more points from a single long bone. A still morelabor-intensive technique, although less conservative ofraw material, is also more popular in the BACH Area thanin the previously analyzed assemblage. In this technique,the point is formed by abrading extensively along the lengthof the bone, producing a section through the epiphysis andstraight, flat sides leading from it (Figure 15.7). This tech-nique was used only four times in the previously analyzedassemblage, although it becomes quite common in the laterNeolithic levels of the East Mound (Russell and Griffitts inpress) and the Chalcolithic West Mound. Three of the 77BACH points are made this way, and, like the points from

350 HOUSE LIVES

Table 15.1. Bone tool types by taxon

Tool type (number and percent)

Taxon Poin

t

Roun

ded

poin

t

Nee

dle

Cho

pper

Potte

ry p

olish

er

Spat

ula

Han

dle

Pend

ant

Bead

Ring

Belt

hook

or e

ye

Fish

hook

Pres

sure

flak

er

Pref

orm

/was

te

Inde

term

inat

e

Total

Hare-size mammal

222.2%

21.1%

Medium mammal

2532.1%

1270.6%

222.2%

2781.8%

525.0%

218.2%

7339.5%

Pig-size 125.0%

10.5%

Large mammal

11.3%

1100%

529.4%

1100%

375.0%

1100%

133.3%

111.1%

2100%

150.0%

15.0%

436.4%

2211.9%

Sheep/Goat

5165.4%

150.0%

515.2%

945.0%

6635.7%

Cattle 150.0%

10.5%

Red/fallow deer

266.7%

111.1%

1100%

315.0%

545.5%

126.5%

Boar1

11.1%1

50.0%1

5.0%3

1.6%

Bird1

1.3%2

22.2%1

3.0%1

5.0%5

2.7%

Totalrow %

7842.2%

10.5%

179.2%

10.5%

42.2%

10.5%

21.1%

31.6%

94.9%

3317.8%

21.1%

21.1%

10.5%

2010.8%

115.9%

185

the later periods, they are more thoroughly abraded thanthe previously reported specimens. Although most of thetools previously analyzed came from earlier periods thanthe BACH Area, this does not seem to be simply a temporaldifference. The immediately adjacent and roughly contem-porary NORTH Area has no examples made by abrasionor groove-and-split among its 35 points. The bases ofBACH points tend to be more extensively modified thanthose from the previously reported assemblage, where 73percent have no base modification beyond splitting (71percent in the NORTH Area) and only 10 percent are ex-tensively modified (14 percent in the NORTH Area). Inthe BACH Area, only 53 percent have no base modification,and 31 percent are extensively modified. Thus, the peopledepositing points in the BACH Area were more inclinedto invest extra time in manufacture, in ways that servedprimarily to produce a more aesthetically pleasing artifact.Bone points perhaps played a larger role in constructingpersonal identity here.

FunctionThe BACH Area points show microwear reflecting a similarrange of functions to that seen in the previously analyzedassemblage. Most of the preserved tips with use wear canbe described as either rounded or battered from wear at amicroscopic level. Two of the 28 tips (7 percent) that canbe assessed combine rounding and battering. The exactuses are unclear, but the battered tips were probably usedon tougher organic materials than the rounded tips. Evenmore clearly than in the previously analyzed assemblage,the rounded wear tends to occur on more slender tips thanthe battered wear, as measured by the breadth at 1 cm fromthe tip (Figure 15.1). The rounded wear is somewhat morecommon than the battered wear (57 vs. 36 percent).

One point (8110.X1), its very tip missing due to exca-vation damage, shows fine transverse striations near the tip,which appear to result from rubbing on very fine-temperedceramics or plaster with what looks more like a burnishingthan a perforating motion. Perhaps it was used incidentally

351CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA

Table 15.2. Bone tool types by body part

Tool types (number and percent)

Body part Po

int

Roun

ded

poin

t

Nee

dle

Cho

pper

Potte

ry p

olish

er

Spat

ula

Han

dle

Pend

ant

Bead

Ring

Belt

hook

or e

ye

Fish

hook

Pres

sure

flak

er

Pref

orm

/was

te

Inde

term

inat

e

Total

Tooth 222.2%

150.0%

15.0%

42.2%

Antler 266.7%

1100%

315.0%

545.5%

115.9%

Rib 22.6%

17100%

4100%

111.1%

545.5%

2915.7%

Humerus 13.0%

10.5%

Radius 33.8%

15.0%

42.2%

Femur 150.0%

222.2%

1854.5%

1050.0%

3116.8%

Tibia 1012.8%

105.4%

Metapo-dial

3950.0%

1100%

150.0%

315.0%

4423.8%

Long bone

2430.8%

1100%

1100%

133.3%

444.4%

1442.4%

2100%

150.0%

210.0%

19.1%

5127.6%

Total 78 1 17 1 4 1 2 3 9 33 2 2 1 20 11 185

352 HOUSE LIVES

Figure 15.1. Breadth of battered and rounded pointtips 1 cm from tip (mm).

Figure 15.4. Expedient point on a tibial crest (3549.X1).

Figure 15.5. Moderately expedient point on an unsplit proximal ra-dius (8629.F24).

Figure 15.7. Abraded point (6267.X1).

Figure 15.2. Point on a split proximal metacarpal (8629.F1).

Figure 15.3. Point on an unfused, unsplit distal metapodial(8629.F2). Figure 15.6. Point on a crane tarsometatarsus (8178.F55).

to polish ceramic objects, or maybe it was polished by rub-bing it on the wall or some convenient plaster feature. Threepoints (6307.X1, 8375.X1, 8625.F4) exhibit the deep trans-verse cuts on the shaft made at various points during usethat were observed on several points in the previously ana-lyzed assemblage (Figure 15.8). These are clearly part of theuse rather than the manufacture of the artifact, and likelyresult from cutting something against the point, probablyin the course of sewing or basketry. None of the BACH ex-amples has a preserved tip. In the previous analysis, threeout of four with preserved tips had rounded wear, and thefourth was battered.

Rounded Points

Rounded points are pointed artifacts with tips that arerounded rather than sharp, which would not be used forperforation. There is a single rounded point from the Neo -lithic deposits in the BACH Area (6252.X1), a beautifulsmall tool with a flaring round base with a perforation,carved from cortex of long bone, probably from a largemammal (Figure 15.9). It is very symmetrical and carefullyfinished—a real piece of craftsmanship. It was probablydeliberately polished and seems primarily ornamental, per-haps a hairpin or used to hold clothing. There is no wearin the perforation, which seems to be merely decorative.This artifact came from burial fill but was apparently notassociated with a particular skeleton. It may have belongedto a disturbed burial, as it is the kind of personal item oftenfound in graves.

Needles

I label as “needles” the long, broad, flat tools with flat,rounded tips and a large perforation at the base, whichMellaart (1967, 1962:56) calls “bodkins” or “weaving nee-dles.” They were probably used in netting or weaving. Theyare made on split ribs, mostly sheep-size but a few largemammal (Tables 15.1, 15.2). They are generally well over10 cm long and rather fragile, so almost always fragmentary.Sometimes needles that break through the perforation were

repaired by drilling a new hole, and this occurred on oneof the BACH needles (2261.F35). As in the previously an-alyzed assemblage, they are relatively common and formjust under 10 percent of the worked bone assemblage. Inthe previously analyzed assemblage, perforations were cre-ated by cutting only in Level VIII and below, while drillingwas used only from Level IX on. All five of the preservedneedle bases from the BACH Area were formed by biconicaldrilling, although three were subsequently enlarged byscraping. Thus, the temporal change in perforation tech-niques is supported by the BACH material.

Choppers

A single fragmentary artifact (2250.F101) falls into the chop-per category. It appears to have been used but not actually

353CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA

Figure 15.8. Fragment of a burned point with transverse cutson the shaft (8625.F4).

Figure 15.9. Rounded point (6252.X1).

shaped. A cattle-size metatarsal shaft shows many smallflakes and general battering along its straight edge on thedistal end. Frison (1974:41, Figure 1.16) argues that suchbones are choppers used to dismember carcasses in butch-ery. Based on his ethnoarchaeological observations, Binford(1981:163) has countered that the pattern of flaking actuallyresults from tapping the bone to remove the marrow. Inthis case, in addition to the flakes, there is some polish cov-ering the flakes and the inner and outer sides of the shaft.This suggests it was indeed used as an expedient tool, al-though the polish seems to extend too far up the shaft formost chopping uses.

Pottery Polishers

There are four pottery polishers from the BACH Area, allmade on ribs, mostly large mammal and one pig-size. Thestriations indicate fine or very fine temper, and it is possiblethat they may have been used to shape and burnish clayballs or plaster features in addition to pottery. They areslightly more common here than in the previously analyzedassemblage, and similar in form. They are still quite scarcecompared with Neolithic assemblages in Southeast Europe,where much of the pottery is highly burnished (e.g., Russell1990).

Spatulas

I term “spatulas” the small, often decorated spreaders called“cosmetics tools” by Mellaart (1967:214–215). The single ex-ample from the BACH Area (8184.X4) comes from a burialand was found with its tip stuck into a lump of blue-greenpigment. It is a small spatula with a rounded tip, a straight,round shaft, and a base that opens out into an oar shapewith a straight end. It is simple in design but carefully madeand almost perfectly symmetrical. It would indeed work wellto draw lines with pigment on the skin or elsewhere.

Handles

Two bone handles for other artifacts were recovered fromthe BACH Area. One (6279.X2) might actually be a ringpreform, as it is a section of sheep/goat femur shaft withmany broad grooves running around it and one end groundmore or less flat. But the grooves do not join up to circlethe bone, and it would be difficult to use them to break offring blanks. Although a calcareous coating makes it difficultto be sure, the inside seems reamed out, so the groovesmay decorate the handle for some tool.

There is no doubt about the function of the other han-dle (2210.X9), a piece of large cattle metacarpal proximalshaft carved in the shape of an animal head and foundwith a large flint dagger stuck into it (Figure 15.10; also seefrontispiece of this volume). The dagger and its handle lay,together with parts of a human skull and several cattle

horns, in an area of burning, and the handle itself had beebhighly burned in a reducing atmosphere. It was shatteredbut probably complete in the ground; one prong has beenlost, perhaps carried away in an animal burrow. The innercavity of the bone is virtually untouched, while the outerside has been carved in relief so thoroughly that none ofthe original bone surface remains. It is clearly meant torepresent an animal head, probably a boar, although it couldbe seen as an equid or feline. It bears a strong resemblanceto two carved stone boars’ heads from Göbekli Tepe insoutheastern Anatolia about a millennium earlier (Petersand Schmidt 2004). At the proximal end of the shaft seg-ment, the end where the dagger was inserted, were twonotched flanges (one lost), around which some fiber waspresumably wound to bind the dagger into the handle.Thus, they would probably not have been visible when thedagger and handle were assembled and are unlikely to rep-resent ears. There are a few traces of chipped stone toolcuts on the handle but no striations from sandstone. Thesmooth, rounded surface must have been attained by bur-nishing with leather or some fairly soft, fine-grained sub-stance after carving. The central cavity is much larger thanthe dagger, so it must have been packed with some organicsubstance, now lost, to hold it in place firmly. The daggerblade shows little or no sign of use, and the handle seemstoo short (9 cm) to hold comfortably in an adult hand. So

354 HOUSE LIVES

Figure 15.10. Carved dagger handle in the shape of an animal (boar?)head (2210.X9): (a) from the side; (b) from the top.

perhaps it was intended primarily for display. It is analogousto a bone dagger handle carved in the shape of a snakefrom a burial in Mellaart’s excavations (Mellaart 1964).

Pendants

I term “pendants” objects designed to be worn suspendedalone or as the centerpiece of a necklace, while those meantto be strung as part of a composite necklace, bracelet, andso on, I call “beads.” While beads are more easily groupedinto types, the pendants tend to be variable and unstandard-ized in form. Some general types recur, however. Of thethree pendants from the BACH Area, two are of the typemost common at the site in general. These are long, narrow,roughly rectangular, rather crudely worked pieces of splitantler, with a perforation at one end. It is not certain whetherthese are actually pendants, some kind of weight, or perhaps“bullroarers” that were swung around on strings to make aloud noise. The remaining example (8272.F1) is a fragmentof a long, narrow pendant on a large mammal long boneshaft. The BACH Area lacks the more elaborate and carefullyfinished pendants sometimes found in burials.

Bone Beads

The previous analysis of Çatalhöyük worked bone definedthree major bead types, two of which had three subtypeseach (see also Chapter 21). The main types are tubularbeads, red deer canine variants, and double-ended beads.The tubular beads subdivide into simple tubular, tall ring,and barrel-shaped varieties. Red deer canine variants in-clude genuine red deer canines, fake red deer canines, andstylized red deer canines. All the main types occur in theBACH Area, although not all the subtypes are found there.Additionally, there is one example of a new type: rectangularbeads.

Among the tubular beads, there are three simple tu-bular and two tall ring subtypes. These form percentagesof the total bead assemblage similar to those found forthese subtypes in the previously analyzed assemblage. Thesimple tubular beads are made on segments of long boneshafts: one bird, two hare-size mammals. The segments arecreated by the cut-and-break technique and sometimesthen smoothed and polished slightly. The tall ring beadsfollow the ring manufacturing technique (see below), atleast in part, and are more thoroughly finished. They aretaller and usually smaller in diameter than the rings. TheBACH tall ring beads are both made on sheep-size longbones, in at least one case a femur, like the rings themselves.As in the previously studied assemblage, the tubular beadsall come from secondary or tertiary contexts: midden, fill,or construction material. Two come from a burial fill(8421.F34, tall ring variety, and 8421.F35, simple tubularvariety), but do not seem to be associated with skeletons.

Red deer upper canines are vestigial teeth with noenamel and a distinctive shape well suited for piercing tomake beads. However, there are only two per animal, andfemale canines are too small to make good beads. So atleast since the Natufian (Phillips et al. 1998), people havemade imitation red deer canines out of bone. In the previ-ously analyzed assemblage, the imitation beads far out-numbered the real ones at Çatalhöyük. However, in theBACH Area, the red deer canine variants are much rarer,and the single occurrence is a genuine tooth found in fill(Figure 15.11). This bead broke through the perforationand was repaired with a new perforation lower down. Therewas little room left on the thin root of the tooth, so thethin edge separating the old and new perforations brokeagain through to the old perforation. However, it seems tohave continued in use. Since there is only a small gap, athick thong would have held it.

Double-ended beads are found only in the BACH andadjacent NORTH Areas, two each. These beads are notperforated, but small, flat, elongated diamonds with notchesand grooves creating a waist in the center to tie them to afiber (Figure 15.12). It is possible they are not beads but,perhaps, fishing gorges (Campana 1989:39; 1991; Craig1967). The site lacks remains of fish large enough to becaught by this method, however (Van Neer et al. in press).The BACH Area double-ended beads were found in con-struction material.

355CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA

Figure 15.11. Red deer canine bead, repaired withreperforation (2254.D1).

Figure 15.12. Double-ended bead (6287.F1).

The final bead, also found in construction material, isan unusual one made on a boar lower incisor (Figure 15.13).Both ends and all faces have been ground into a rectangularshape, leaving almost no enamel. There are two apparentfalse starts on drilling a perforation, before one was suc-cessfully drilled and subsequently heavily worn from use.A set of similar boar incisor beads were found as gravegoods in a burial in Building 50 in the SOUTH Area.

Rings

As in the previously analyzed assemblage, rings are thesecond most common bone tool type (after points) in theBACH Area. With very rare exceptions, all the Çatalhöyükrings follow a standard manufacturing method: blanks wereremoved from a sheep/goat femur using the cut-and-breaktechnique, the inside was hollowed out with flint scrapescircling the inner surface, the broken edges were groundsmooth, and sometimes the outer surface was abradedslightly or deliberately polished. As elsewhere, the BACHArea rings vary in size, height, thickness, and care in fin-ishing. Many are too small for adult fingers. The BACHrings also show the variation in color seen elsewhere. Whilemost are the brown color typical of archaeological bone,two are evenly burned black, perhaps deliberately. Moremysteriously, 7 of the 33 BACH rings are nearly as whiteas fresh bone. It is unknown what causes these rings to re-tain their white color, but it suggests some kind of specialtreatment. All of the rings found in the BACH Area arefragmentary, and all are from secondary contexts, althoughsome from burial fills might ultimately derive from dis-turbed burials. One ring from the BACH Area is unusualin that it is made on bird bone. It could be a tall ring typebead but is the right size and shape for a ring and followsthe manufacturing method except the inside was notscraped (no need, since the bird bone is thin already). In

the previous analysis, four rings with pillars, following aquite different manufacturing technique, were found inLevel VIII and earlier. None were recovered from the BACHArea, suggesting this type may have disappeared by ca.Level VI.

Belt Hooks and Eyes

The only examples of belt hooks and eyes from the BACHArea were found in loose association in the upper gravefill above two burials. It is likely that they were disturbedfrom an earlier burial. They are well matched in size andstyle so were likely used together (Figure 15.14). Object8385.X1 is the hook, more elongated than those displayedin the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara fromMellaart’s excavations. It is made on a segment of a robustlarge mammal long bone shaft. A perforation was drilledin the base end, with use wear on the side toward the base,presumably from the belt strap. The tip and inside of thehook also show considerable use wear from contact withthe eye. There are two odd, overlapping cuts on the outeredge mid-shaft, quite polished from use. They are deepand made with multiple strokes. They look deliberate, buttheir function is obscure. Possibly they are stray marks ofsome kind from manufacture.

Object 8385.X2 is the eye that most likely was usedwith 8385.X1. It has a figure-8 shape with two large holes,and a “tail” with a small perforation to attach it to the beltstrap, as indicated by wear on the base end of the perfora-

356 HOUSE LIVES

Figure 15.13. Bead on a boar incisor (8307.F1)(photo courtesy of Katherine Wright).

Figure 15.14. Belt hook and eye: (a) hook (8385.X1); (b) eye (8385.X2).

tion. This perforation matches that on the hook in size.The two larger holes both have use wear on the side towardthe tip, showing they were used to provide alternate beltsizes. Between the two large perforations, a waisted areahas been carved in from the sides and accentuated with aline incised across the front between the notches. Bothhook and eye are highly polished, probably partly fromuse and partly deliberately as part of the manufacturingprocess.

Fishhooks

Two fishhook fragments were found in the BACH Area,one in fill and the other in roof construction material. Bothare therefore probably redeposited from elsewhere. One(3531.F1) fits with those previously reported from the sitein that it is made of split boar’s tusk and bears two notcheson the side that seem to be decorative. The other (2238.F137),a curved fragment of carved bone, is almost certainly afishhook but is made of bone rather than boar’s tusk.

Pressure Flakers

A single probable pressure flaker (6169.X1) was found inthe BACH Area. It is made on an antler tine whose tip hasbeen carved to a dull, rounded bevel (Figure 15.15). Themicrowear traces are not entirely clear, but nicks and scarssuggest the tine may have been used at the tip as a pressureflaker and in the middle as a soft hammer. It was found ina floor unit, perhaps built into the floor or perhaps left orplaced on the floor.

Preforms and Waste

I have combined unfinished tools and the waste from toolmanufacture because it is sometimes difficult to distinguishthem. Such items can indicate the location of tool makingand provide insight into the manufacturing process.

Point PreformsAlthough points were the most common bone artifact type,point preforms and waste were relatively rare at Çatalhöyük,because points were, for the most part, roughed out by

unassisted fracture. The blanks or waste from this processare indistinguishable from the results of marrow fractureand, in fact, may simply have been chosen from pieces cre-ated by breaking bones for marrow. In the BACH Area,there was a single preform and one piece of waste likelyfrom point manufacture.

A split sheep/goat metapodial (6113.F31) has beenscraped to begin shaping it, leaving the edges smoothedand creating a bevel on the spongy bone near the proximalend of the bone. There is no sign of use, the spongy bonemakes a bad tip, and the tool is too narrow to make an ef-fective chisel or gouge. So this is most likely a rough-outfor a point, with the next step being to work the beveledend into a tip, bringing it back from the spongy zone inthe process. It is not clear why this piece was never finished.It was found amid fallen wall plaster on a floor and thusmay have been left at abandonment or may have been re-deposited.

A piece of groove-and-split waste (8463.F1) on a sheep/goat metatarsal attests further to the occasional use of thistechnique to produce blanks, mostly likely for points. Itwas found in a discrete pocket of burned material (althoughit itself is unburned) sandwiched between packing layersin Space 88. It was thus likely redeposited and does notnecessarily relate to activities in that room. Its surface con-dition is fresh, so it was probably discarded from more orless contemporary use, however, rather than deriving fromreworked construction material. What seem to be looselywoven phytoliths in the open marrow cavity may indicatethat it was contained in a bag.

Bead PreformsOne bead preform and one piece of waste from bead mak-ing were recovered from the BACH Area, covering twodifferent bead types (see also Chapter 21). While the onlyfinished red deer canine bead is a genuine tooth, there isan unfinished fake red deer canine bead (6250.X2) (Figure15.16). It is a realistic rendition carved from a chip of largemammal long bone cortex, finished except for the perfora-tion. This follows the more usual manufacturing processseen elsewhere at the site, where the perforation followsthe shaping. Less often, the rough-outs are pierced early inthe process, before carving and grinding the bead to shape.In this case, the microwear shows that the shaping musthave been done in stages, with some polishing betweenepisodes of grinding. On this bead, the last step in shapingwas thinning the top from both sides in preparation forperforation. This bead preform was found in a special de-posit built into a platform, suggesting it was not lost butdeliberately left unfinished. This seems reminiscent of theset of 12 fake red deer canine bead preforms found in aburial in Building 17 in the SOUTH Area.

357CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA

Figure 15.15. Antler pressure flaker (6169.X1).

A shaft segment of a goose radius (8629.F10) showscut-and-break marks at one end, indicating that one ormore simple tubular beads have been removed from it. Itcomes from a midden deposit in Space 85 that containsmany remains of bone working.

Ring PreformsRing preforms and waste (long bones, generally sheep/goatfemora, showing signs of the removal of ring blanks by thecut-and-break method) are strikingly common in theBACH Area, where they account for 12 of 20 preform andwaste specimens. In contrast, there were only 5 of 58 pre-form/waste specimens related to ring manufacture in thepreviously analyzed assemblage. Thus, there must havebeen substantial ring-making activity in or near Building3. These pieces are found from the midden underlying thehouse to the fill of a post-retrieval pit in the abandonmentphase. None are from primary contexts. Most come frommiddens, a few from bricks and mortar or fill. There is aparticular concentration of six specimens from the middenin Space 85 just outside the west wall of Building 3, five ofthem from unit 8629 (Figures 15.17, 15.18). There mayhave been small-scale specialization in ring manufacture,much as seen with beads in Building 18 in the SOUTHArea. Is the unusual burial in Building 1, adjacent to Build-ing 3, in which a skeleton wore five bone rings on its fingers(Russell 2005:356), related to this activity?

Interestingly, even in this limited area, we see the samevariation in the order of operations in producing ringblanks evidenced in the previously analyzed assemblage.Sometimes both articulations were removed first, producinga cylinder from which rings were then scored and removed

one at a time. Sometimes only one end was removed andthen ring blanks gradually detached. Sometimes all therings were marked out with grooves at the start. Sometimestwo at a time were so marked. One preform (8629.F28) ismade on a femur whose distal end had been gnawed off bya dog (Figure 15.18). The gnawing did not damage the partneeded for ring manufacture, but it does indicate that rawmaterial was probably chosen from discarded bones afterconsumption, rather than specifically selected during butch-ery.

Fishhook PreformsObject 6609.X1, from a floor in Space 89, is a preform fora split boar’s tusk artifact, possibly a fishhook. Preforms inthe previously analyzed assemblage showed that at Çatal-höyük fishhooks were made by splitting the tusk to producea flat piece, grinding this into an oval or trapezoidal shape,drilling two large holes in the center, snapping it throughthe holes, and then carving it into shape. This piece comesfrom the beginning of this sequence. The tusk has beensplit and retains a groove down one side from this opera-tion. It appears to have been flaked to rough out the shape(a crude trapezoid about 5 cm long), and there is a littleabrasion on the outer and occlusal surfaces. It remainsquite thick and is clearly unfinished. At this point, it couldalso become a pendant or other type of artifact.

358 HOUSE LIVES

Figure 15.16. Preform for imitation red deer canine bead (6250.X2):front and side views.

Figure 15.17. Ring preform (8629.F4).

Figure 15.18. Ring preform (8629.F28).

359CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA

Antler PreformsThree pieces of antler (3545.F65, 8629.F20, 8629.F23) ex-hibit traces of the groove-and-splinter technique (Clarkand Thompson 1954). The first two are probably waste re-moved by this method, while the last is a preform for somesmall antler artifact. It is a roughly rectangular piece ofsplit antler beam cut along both long edges. Both ends havebeen sliced on a bevel, and the inner surface has beenslightly smoothed.

Indeterminate

Eleven pieces are of indeterminate type. Five are fragmentstoo small to identify the artifact type and will not be dis-cussed further. Four are segments of split antler beam withrounded, somewhat flattened tips. They look like the “bull-roarer” pendants without the perforation, but seem finished.A split antler tine with a rounded tip is similar.

The remaining artifact (8625.F3) (Figure 15.19) is quitedifferent. It is the tip half of a split rib tool, carefully scrapedand abraded to produce a flat spatulate form with a flatrounded tip. Along part of one edge, a series of notcheshave been incised, giving a comb-like effect. They are wornon the high points in between rather than in the grooves,suggesting it was not actually used with a combing action.Perhaps it is a musical rasp, which seems consistent withthe use wear.

REPAIR

Maintenance of tools through repair is one measure oftheir value. I have discussed resharpening of points above.In addition, four tools were reworked to repair damage. Alongitudinal chip off the tip of a point (3580.F46) wasground to smooth it at the same time that the tip was re-sharpened. A less successful repair attempt on anotherpoint (8436.F116) used a more drastic method. The cut-and-break technique was used to remove the tip prepara-tory to forming a new one. However, perhaps because the

many deep stray marks would have made the surface toorough for scraping, the toolmaker repeated the cut-and-break operation further back, leaving the shaft segmentbetween the two assisted breaks. The other two repairs re-flect the tendency to break through the perforation, neces-sitating piercing a new hole and smoothing the brokenedges of a bead (2254.D1) and a needle (2261.F35).

WORKED BONE IN CONTEXT

Table 15.3 shows that the distribution of bone tool types incontext types is variable. In contrast to the previously ana-lyzed assemblage, needles are less common in middens thanin other contexts, and preforms/waste occur more often inmidden than in fill (Russell 2005). In the previously analyzedassemblage, only ornaments and one spoon were securelyassociated with skeletons in burials. In the BACH Area, theonly such bone artifact is a spatula found with pigment. Aneedle from burial fill (8315.X1) was probably complete inthe ground (very rare for needles) and thus may have beenassociated with the skeleton, although the rest of the bonein the unit looks as though it comes from fill. The same istrue of a rounded point (hairpin? 6252.X1) found with jum-bled human bones in a grave, and the belt hook and eye inunit 8385, which were probably originally associated with askeleton disturbed by a later burial. In both the BACH Areaand the previously analyzed assemblage, the absence of theotherwise common points in burials is conspicuous.

While most tools found in construction material areredeposited from their original discard location, in a fewinstances intact tools showing no signs of wear may havebeen deliberately built into bricks. These would includethe complete point and bead in the bricks of unit 6267,and perhaps the bead in the platform floor of unit 6287.Interestingly, both these beads are of the double-endedtype. Beads are found in construction material with somefrequency and may be small enough to be redepositedwithout suffering much surface damage. The point in unit6267, however, seems less likely to sneak into a brick un-noticed.

Some specific contexts are worthy of note with respectto their bone artifacts. A bin fill that included a clay mini-ball concentration in Phase B3.4A (6641) has an unusuallyhigh density of bone tools (.075 per liter, while the overalldensity for the BACH Area is .003) (see Figure 5.43). Thetools are three points, two complete and one missing itsbase. The complete points seem still usable, certainly ifthey were resharpened. One was expediently manufactured,and perhaps all, as well as the clay balls, were associatedwith the preparations for a particular event. All three pointshave sharp, slender tips; two have tip angles of 10 degrees,the third of 12 degrees. Two have been resharpened, andnone show much use since their latest sharpening. The one

Figure 15.19. Indeterminate bone artifact; possible musical rasp(8625.F3).

with the most wear is rounded rather than battered. Itseems likely that they were all used in similar tasks, perhapsmaking clothing or containers. If the mini-balls were usedin cooking, this may be part of the remains of the prepara-tions for a ceremony that included a feast. Alternatively,these items may have been stored in the house during oc-cupation and dumped in the bin at abandonment.

A point and needle were likely left or placed on thefloor of unit 8384 when the next floor was laid over it inPhase B3.1. The same may be true of point 8263.X1 inPhase B3.2, the possible fishhook preform 6609.X1 in PhaseB3.4, and the possible pressure flaker 6169.X1 in PhaseB3.4B. Among the multiple cattle scapulae forming an aban-donment deposit (Cluster 1) (see Figure 5.88) in PhaseB3.5A were found a “bullroarer” pendant (2296.F80) and acomplete point (2296.X1). It is not clear whether these werelying on the floor deposit like the scapulae, or in the middenthat surrounded them, but they may well have been placed.

Likewise, an unfinished point (6113.F31) found in a groupof plaster chunks on the floor in Phase B3.5A may havebeen left or placed on the floor at abandonment or, lesslikely given its size (11 cm) and fresh surface, may derivefrom the plaster itself.

I have already discussed the concentration of preformsand waste, especially ring preforms, in Space 85 immediatelyto the west of Building 3. It is possible that these items re-sulted from bone working in the immediate area, but thesemidden deposits appear to be secondary. Thus, they wereprobably dumped from the roof of Building 3, either fromactual roof activities or carried from inside the house. Thedensity of bone rings from all units in the BACH Area is0.0005 per liter, or 0.0006 per liter when only fully studiedunits are considered. In the previously analyzed assemblage,the density was 0.0002 per liter (the same for all units oronly fully studied units). Thus, rings as well as preforms areconsiderably more common than usual in the BACH Area.

360 HOUSE LIVES

Table 15.3. Tool types by context type

Tool type (number and percent)

Context Poin

t

Roun

ded

poin

t

Nee

dle

Cho

pper

Potte

ry p

olish

er

Spat

ula

Han

dle

Pend

ant

Bead

Ring

Belt

hook

or e

ye

Fish

hook

Pres

sure

flak

er

Pref

orm

/was

te

Inde

term

inat

e

Total

Midden 3444.7%

45.3%

11.3%

11.3%

11.3%

1925.0%

911.8%

79.2%

76

Fill 1840.9%

12.3%

511.4%

12.3%

12.3%

36.8%

715.9%

24.6%

12.3%

24.6%

36.8%

44

Pit fill 350.0%

233.3%

116.7%

6

Between-wall fill

1100%

1

Special dump

133.3%

133.3%

133.3%

3

Burials 1100%

1

Floor 325.0%

325.0%

18.3%

18.3%

18.3%

216.7%

18.3%

12

Con-struction material

1540.5%

513.5%

38.1%

12.7%

410.8%

410.8%

12.7%

12.7%

38.1%

37

Mixed 1100%

1

Total 76 1 17 1 4 1 2 3 9 33 2 2 1 18 11 181

An antler artifact (6250.X1) and a bead preform(6250.X2) were found with an obsidian tool as a distinctspecial deposit built into the floor of a platform in Space88 (Figure 15.16). This fits the pattern of commemorativedeposits buried in the floors, most often platform floors,of the Çatalhöyük houses (Russell, Martin, and Twiss 2009).These deposits incorporated souvenirs of events into thefabric of houses. In this case, there is an intriguing indica-tion of incompletion (possibly neither bone artifact is fin-ished) that is hard to interpret. A different kind of specialdeposit occurred in unit 2210 in Space 89, where an elab-orately carved bone handle holding a large flint dagger (seeFigures 4.14, 5.124, 5.125) was found together with a set oflarge wild cattle horns and fragments of several more hornsand fragments of a human skull. All were burned alongwith a large amount of organic material, probably as partof the abandonment behavior in this area.

CONCLUSION

While the density and general patterning of the BACHArea bone tools are similar to those of the KOPAL/NORTH/SOUTH assemblage, the BACH Area does havesome distinctive features. Perhaps most strikingly, Building3 seems to have been a center of ring manufacturing, muchas Building 18 in the SOUTH Area was a center of bead

production. While in each case there were notable concen-trations of preforms and waste, the scale remains small.This is clearly not full-time specialization, but some peoplewho were particularly skilled at certain crafts producing alittle extra for exchange with their neighbors. The BACHArea has a rather high number of rings that have beentreated in some way that leaves them white even after mil-lennia in the soil, perhaps another sign of special skill.

While a few bone artifacts appeared in burials, specialdeposits, or abandonment deposits, most seem to have op-erated in the utilitarian sphere. The most spectacular ofthe special objects is the carved handle for a flint dagger,in a burned abandonment deposit with bucrania and a hu-man skull. Among the more everyday objects, there seemsto be somewhat more variability in point manufacture inthe BACH Area than elsewhere, in part foreshadowingchanges in base treatment that become common in laterlevels.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Rebecca Daly, who recorded some of thetools discussed here. I have also benefited from discussionswith BACH team members in setting the bone tools incontext.

361CHAPTER 15. WORKED BONE FROM THE BACH AREA