Home, annex or pied-à-terre? Assessing the socioeconomic dimension of small-sized built environments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Central Anatolia

IF 0.9 2区历史学 0 ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeological Research in Asia Pub Date : 2025-04-16 DOI:10.1016/j.ara.2025.100619

Aroa García-Suárez

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Abstract

Built environments provide valuable information on domestic and group activities, the development of household identities, and the changing use of space. In the case of Neolithic communities in the Near East, interpretations have often been articulated around the concept of autonomous households as the principal elements of social and economic organisation, each occupying discrete buildings that showed a high degree of spatial standardisation. However, a strong research focus on the architectural homogeneities of domestic buildings may have masked differentiations promoted by variable economic and social practices.

This paper aims to draw attention to the multiple forms in which buildings occurred at the clustered settlement of Çatalhöyük (Türkiye) by focusing on the insufficiently studied small-sized built environments, those under ca. 10m² in extension. Assumed to be socially and economically dependent on larger houses, the functional role that these small constructions played in the constitution of the large settled community at Çatalhöyük has been seldom explored.

This study uses thin-section micromorphology to examine the stratigraphic sequence of a small built environment, Space 87, observed in the field to display a complex life-history spanning multiple phases of occupation and architectural renovation. Micro-contextual analyses have contributed to unravelling formation processes, transformations, and use and concepts of space in this structure. Results highlight the great degree of dynamism and symbolic evidence of Space 87, akin to that observed in larger buildings, as reflected by multiple burials, recurrent floor refurbishments and fire installation replacements. The micro-stratigraphic history of this small built environment points to the repeated restructuring of its living space as a means to balance the architectural standardisation traditionally displayed by Neolithic buildings at Çatalhöyük with the adaptations to changes in its socio-economic function and risks to its constructional integrity.

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家，附属还是附属-à-terre？评估新石器时代Çatalhöyük，安纳托利亚中部小型建筑环境的社会经济维度

人造环境为家庭和群体活动、家庭身份的发展以及空间使用的变化提供了宝贵的信息。在近东的新石器时代社区中，人们经常围绕自治家庭的概念进行解释，将其作为社会和经济组织的主要元素，每个家庭占据独立的建筑，显示出高度的空间标准化。然而，对国内建筑同质性的强烈研究可能掩盖了不同经济和社会实践所促进的差异。本文旨在通过关注未充分研究的小型建筑环境（扩展面积约为10平方米），引起人们对Çatalhöyük （t rkiye）集群聚落中建筑的多种形式的关注。假设这些小型建筑在社会和经济上依赖于大型房屋，这些小型建筑在Çatalhöyük大型定居社区的构成中所扮演的功能角色很少被探索。本研究使用薄切片显微形态学来研究空间87这个小型建筑环境的地层序列，以展示跨越多个占领和建筑改造阶段的复杂生活史。微观语境分析有助于揭示这种结构中的形成过程、转换、使用和空间概念。结果突出了空间87的巨大活力和象征性证据，类似于在大型建筑中观察到的，反映在多次埋葬，反复翻新地板和更换消防装置上。这个小型建筑环境的微观地层历史表明，其生活空间的反复重构是平衡新石器时代建筑（Çatalhöyük）传统建筑标准化与适应其社会经济功能变化和建筑完整性风险的一种手段。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Archaeological Research in Asia ARCHAEOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

13.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Archaeological Research in Asia presents high quality scholarly research conducted in between the Bosporus and the Pacific on a broad range of archaeological subjects of importance to audiences across Asia and around the world. The journal covers the traditional components of archaeology: placing events and patterns in time and space; analysis of past lifeways; and explanations for cultural processes and change. To this end, the publication will highlight theoretical and methodological advances in studying the past, present new data, and detail patterns that reshape our understanding of it. Archaeological Research in Asia publishes work on the full temporal range of archaeological inquiry from the earliest human presence in Asia with a special emphasis on time periods under-represented in other venues. Journal contributions are of three kinds: articles, case reports and short communications. Full length articles should present synthetic treatments, novel analyses, or theoretical approaches to unresolved issues. Case reports present basic data on subjects that are of broad interest because they represent key sites, sequences, and subjects that figure prominently, or should figure prominently, in how scholars both inside and outside Asia understand the archaeology of cultural and biological change through time. Short communications present new findings (e.g., radiocarbon dates) that are important to the extent that they reaffirm or change the way scholars in Asia and around the world think about Asian cultural or biological history.