Boncuklu Höyük

Türkiye · Konya

SettlementExcavation ongoing
Approximate period8,300 BCE — 7,900 BCEPre-Pottery Neolithic; approximate dating See on the map ↓

In brief

Boncuklu near Hayıroğlu is a mound where early village life and the transition to farming in Central Anatolia are being studied. Its small mudbrick houses and burials beneath buildings provide evidence of the community's daily life.

What was found?

  • 1Oval mudbrick houses

    Food preparation areas inside the houses were separated from living areas kept cleaner. Renewed plaster layers allow the maintenance and patterns of use of the houses to be traced.

  • 2Human burials beneath floors

    People were also buried beneath house floors. These burials document the connection between living spaces and practices following death.

  • 3Charred seeds and traces of wheat chaff

    Seeds, siliceous plant remains from chaff, and field weeds were found together. According to researchers, these provide evidence of small-scale plant cultivation at the settlement.

What does it point to?

Plant cultivation at Boncuklu continued alongside hunting and the use of wild resources. According to researchers, local communities adopted agriculture; the transition to food production did not mean abandoning all earlier habits at once.

What did it teach us?

  1. It showed that small-scale plant cultivation could remain a limited part of the economy for a long time.
  2. It revealed earlier examples of practices known from Çatalhöyük, such as divisions of space within houses and burials beneath floors.

Images

Boncuklu Höyük 022
Vislupus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Record

Culture
Neolithic communities of Central Anatolia
First modern dig
2006
Team / historical
University of Liverpool and University of Queensland / Boncuklu Project
Coordinates
37.7518°, 32.8648°

Sources

  1. liverpool.ac.uk
  2. cambridge.org
  3. en.wikipedia.org
  4. Liverpool Üniversitesi
  5. World Archaeology — kazı araştırmacılarının yazısı

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12.000

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