Not Seeing Is Believing: Ritual Practice and Architecture at Chalcolithic Çadır Höyük in Anatolia (original) (raw)
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This book offers a comprehensive evaluation of the epistemology by which archaeology has translated the architectural record at Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic (6500-5500 BC) sites in central Anatolia into interpretations of social organisation, as well as an exploration of how people in LN/EC central Anatolia used architecture to create communities.
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Excavations in the rockshelter at Pınarbaşı, 24.5km south-east of Çatalhöyük, have brought to light a sequence of structures and a rich assemblage of animal bones, with some of the bones embedded in plaster objects. The authors argue for a strong link with Çatalhöyük, and propose a hunter-herder site operated by a close-knit group from that settlement, supplying meat to it, but practising their own up-country rituals — so providing a glimpse of the ‘lived landscape’.
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Western Anatolian ritual pits provide valuable insights into socio-cultural, economic and symbolic practices during the Early to Middle Bronze Age. Findings in feasting pits, such as carbonized seeds and animal bones, indicate a strong link between ritual and food. Standing stones, altars and carefully arranged artefacts suggest a symbolic and sacred dimension beyond mere ceremonies. The pits from this period contain carbonized seeds and fragments of wood, indicating the presence of small fires during certain rituals. Changing features in ritual pits from the Early to Middle Bronze Age reveal a dynamic relationship between spatial arrangements and religious practices. The study shows that in the first half of the second millennium BCE several ritual activities known from different regions reached western Anatolia for the first time. Interregional trade involved not only goods, but also the dissemination of rituals over a wide geographical area. This cultural interaction reveals western Anatolia as a dynamic and influential centre in this historical period. By exploring the ritual practices of second-millennium BCE western Anatolia, this paper presents new perspectives on the rituals of the region.
PALEOLITHIC RITUAL ARTIFACTS AND ANATOLIAN EXAMPLES
A Reflection Of The Past And A Glimpse To The Future: Religion and Ritual in Anatolian Archaeology, 2023
Anatolian geography is a strategic land that serves as a bridge between Asia, Europe and Africa. Due to this feature, it has been a way of passage for people since the Paleolithic Age, and has been a home since the Neolithic Age. Human beings experiencing the religion phenomenon starting from the Paleolithic Age have performed rituals with different practices. For this reason, Anatolia, where different cultures and different peoples unite, interact and new civilizations flourish, is defined as the cradle of civilizations. Due to its location, it contains traces of numerous religious facts and rituals in its past. This book in your hand is the product of an endeavor to bring together studies focusing on religious facts and rituals that prove the contact established with Anatolian geography. Another objective of ours is to bring together the religion phenomena and ritual practices of the peoples, cultures and civilizations that lived in Anatolia from the beginning to the Roman times in terms of archeological and anthropological features, in a chronological chart.
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Prehistoric pits are often interpreted as trash or food storage; however, recent studies indicate that pit-use is also related to ritual activities. The aim of this study is to understand the function of pits at Uğurlu Höyük- Gökçeada (Imbros Island) dated to Late Neolithic & Early Chalcolithic Periods (5900-4900 BC). Based on production techniques, temporal and spatial relations and artifact distributions among 37 pits and related architectural contexts, this thesis establishes history of the emergence of pit area and its social function. Many elements of Uğurlu pits; such as association with communal buildings, mortuary practice, plaster use and “house closing”, alongside association with symbolically significant artifacts indicate a structured social action, i.e. “ritual”. Considering regional variations, a comparative scheme demonstrates similarly structured pit rituals became the hallmark from Northern Levant and Anatolia to Aegean and Balkans during the 6th millennium BC. Strikingly, many elements of pit rituals also indicate links to the Early Neolithic “Ancestor Cults” of Anatolia and Levant reflecting processes of social group formation through the agency of place. v Whereas this ancestor rituals negotiated social ties between place, actual houses and actual dead, the Late Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic ancestor rituals made the same negotiation with pits and symbolical artifacts referring to houses and dead metaphorically. Ultimately, pit rituals of Uğurlu reflect an intermediate stage in the major social transformation that took place during and in the aftermath of transition to agriculture intertwined with shifts in people’s perception of their identity and social landscape.
Chalcolithic, Iron Age, and Byzantine Investigations at Çadır Höyük: The 2017 and 2018 Seasons
The Archaeology of Anatolia, volume III: Recent Discoveries (2017-2018), 2019
Ayşegül Akın Aras is currently a Ph.D student in the Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology Department at the Social Science Institute. She has participated in two excavations and survey projects in Anatolia, including working at the Van Ayanis Castle excavations since 2012. Oğuz Aras is currently a Ph.D student in the Protohistory and Near Eastern Archaeology Department at the Social Science Institute. He has participated in many excavation and survey projects in eastern and southeastern Anatolia, including working at the Van Ayanis Castle excavations since 2011.