Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Çatalhöyük reveals fundamental transitions in health, mobility, and lifestyle in early farmers

Abstract

The transition from a human diet based exclusively on wild plants and animals to one involving dependence on domesticated plants and animals beginning 10,000 to 11,000 y ago in Southwest Asia set into motion a series of profound health, lifestyle, social, and economic changes affecting human populations throughout most of the world. However, the social, cultural, behavioral, and other factors surrounding health and lifestyle associated with the foraging-to-farming transition are vague, owing to an incomplete or poorly understood contextual archaeological record of living conditions. Bioarchaeological investigation of the extraordinary record of human remains and their context from Neolithic Çatalhöyük (7100-5950 cal BCE), a massive archaeological site in south-central Anatolia (Turkey), provides important perspectives on population dynamics, health outcomes, behavioral adaptations, interpersonal conflict, and a record of community resilience over the life of this single early farming settlement having the attributes of a protocity. Study of Çatalhöyük human biology reveals increasing costs to members of the settlement, including elevated exposure to disease and labor demands in response to community dependence on and production of domesticated plant carbohydrates, growing population size and density fueled by elevated fertility, and increasing stresses due to heightened workload and greater mobility required for caprine herding and other resource acquisition activities over the nearly 12 centuries of settlement occupation. These changes in life conditions foreshadow developments that would take place worldwide over the millennia following the abandonment of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, including health challenges, adaptive patterns, physical activity, and emerging social behaviors involving interpersonal violence.

Keywords: Neolithic farmers; Turkey; bioarchaeology; health; lifestyle.

Fig. 1.

Regional map of Turkey and the Mediterranean basin showing location of Çatalhöyük. Image courtesy of Camilla Mazzucato (Stanford University, Stanford, CA).

Fig. 2.

Çatalhöyük burial F.2232 is a headless young adult female (13162) with a fetal skeleton (13163; arrow) in her abdominal region. The 2 individuals were the first in a sequence of interments in a burial pit in the east platform of Building 60, dating from the Late Period occupation at Çatalhöyük. Skull removal was an element of mortuary treatment in this Neolithic setting. Image credit: Jason Quinlin. Image courtesy of the Çatalhöyük Research Project.

Fig. 3.

(Left) Femoral middiaphyseal cross-sectional bending strength ratio (Z_x/Z_y) for Çatalhöyük 6- to 20-y-olds. Values increase from the Early to Late periods, reflecting temporal increase in mobility and bone strength for juveniles over the history of the community. Open square, median; box, 25 to 75%; whisker, min-max. The image at Right shows the cross-sectional shape changes representing these behavioral adaptations.