Ian Hodder

• Stanford University

Selective funerary practices can inform about social relationships in prehistoric societies but are often difficult to discern. Here we present evidence for an age-specific practice at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Anatolia, dating to the 7th millennium BCE. Among ancient DNA libraries produced from 362 petrous bone samples, those of subadult...

Este capítulo descreve uma nova abordagem arqueológica de trabalho sobre o papel da religião no sítio de Çatalhöyük, datado de 9000 AEC, na Turquia.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. Abstract We present palaeogenomes of three morphologically unidenti...

Arguments have long suggested that the advent of early farming in the Near East and Anatolia was linked to a ‘Mother Goddess’ cult. However, evidence for a dominant female role in these societies has been scarce. We studied social organisation, mobility patterns and gendered practices in Neolithic Southwest Asia using 131 paleogenomes from Çatalhöy...

This paper addresses the archaeological theory about entanglements between things and humans, understanding this relationship as flows of matter, energy, and information. The cultural world cannot be understood as self-evident data; things take part in a long process of interdependence, construction, and transmission of knowledge. The entanglement...

We present paleogenomes of three morphologically-unidentified Anatolian equids dating to the 1st millennium BCE, sequenced to coverages of 0.6-6.4X. Mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of the Anatolian individuals clustered with those of Equus hydruntinus (or Equus hemionus hydruntinus), the extinct European wild ass. The Anatolian wild ass whole genome p...

Around 10,000 y ago in southwest Asia, the cessation of a mobile lifestyle and the emer-gence of the first village communities during the Neolithic marked a fundamental change in human history. The first communities were small (tens to hundreds of individuals) but remained semisedentary. So-called megasites appeared soon after, occupied by thousand...

This is the first book to present a comprehensive, up to date overview of archaeological and environmental data from the eastern Mediterranean world around 6000 BC. It brings together the research of an international team of scholars who have excavated at key Neolithic and Chalcolithic sites in Syria, Anatolia, Greece, and the Balkans. Collectively...

This article uses results from the recent excavations at Çatalhöyük in Turkey to propose that continuous tensions between egalitarian and hierarchical impulses were dealt with in two principal ways during the Neolithic of the Middle East. A tendency towards overall balance and community (termed molar) is seen as in tension with more particulate and...

The social organization of the first fully sedentary societies that emerged during the Neolithic period in Southwest Asia remains enigmatic,1 mainly because material culture studies provide limited insight into this issue. However, because Neolithic Anatolian communities often buried their dead beneath domestic buildings,2 household composition and...

Violence and the Sacred in the Ancient Near East - edited by Ian Hodder March 2019

Violence and the Sacred in the Ancient Near East - edited by Ian Hodder March 2019

This entry explores the numerous ways that the notion of entanglement has been used in the sciences in order to show the broad basis of the study of material entanglement in archaeology and related disciplines. Different definitions of material entanglement in archaeology are discussed and examples provided of application, for example to the origin...

This paper argues that the search for an overarching explanation for the adoption of farming and settled life in the Middle East can be enhanced by a consideration of the dependencies between humans and human-made things from the Late Glacial Maximum onwards. Often not considered in discussions of the origins of agriculture is the long process of h...

This paper presents a dialogue about the question of symmetry and asymmetry in human–thing relations, and the links between such asymmetries and those encountered in power relations amongst humans. The conversation discusses various issues, such as whether symmetry is possible in any kind of relation, how one defines asymmetry, whether there are di...

We would like to begin by thanking all the commentators for taking the time to read and reflect on our dialogue and offer their own reactions; it can be particularly challenging to insert oneself as a third interlocutor within a dialogue between two people, but as Rizvi remarks at the end of her commentary, the important thing is to keep the conver...

This book, published only online, explores further the entanglements between humans and things. It contains theoretical and methodological developments including a redefinition of human-thing entanglement and the application of formal network analysis. The book also contains a series of case-studies regarding the formation of settled life in the Mi...

In a recent article in this journal, Carleton et al. (2013) cast doubt on a hypothesis about the social organization of the Neolithic tell site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The hypothesis concerns ‘history houses’ that were continually built in the same place and in which many interments occurred. Carleton et al. argue that the history house hy...

This article explores the extent to which formal network analysis can be used to study aspects of entanglement, the latter referring to the collective sets of dependencies between humans and things. The data used were derived from the Neolithic sites of Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The first part of the analysis involves using formal...

Excavations at Catalhöyük have been ongoing for over 20 years and have involved multinational teams, a diverse range of archaeological specialists and a vast archive of records. The task of marshalling this data so that it can be useful not only at the post-excavation stage, but also while making decisions in the field, is challenging. Here, member...

A new radiocarbon dating program, conceived at the outset within a Bayesian statistical framework, has recently been applied to the earliest levels of occupation on the Neolithic East Mound at Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. Çatalhöyük was excavated by James Mellaart from 1961 to 1965 and new excavations directed by Ian Hodder started in 1993. In 201...

This article retreats from an entirely relational treatment of matter, to rediscover the object nature of things. The thingly relations of things include object relations; materials provide affordances or potentialities to humans. The brute matter of things has effects on us that go beyond social networks. We cannot reduce things solely to the rela...

The results of a two-year field survey in Calabria are described. A number of specially designed ‘intensive’ field survey methods were devised and tested, and the results quantified. Through typological and fabric analysis of the pottery material recovered on the survey, some indication of the changing patterns of settlement in the region are detec...

Çatalhöyük is the site of a long-running archaeological project excavating and analyzing Neolithic period settlement ruins in central Turkey. Its large international team of researchers has been led since 1993 by Stanford's Ian Hodder. In June 2012, Çatalhöyük was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, in recognition of its global importance....

One of the greatest unsolved puzzles in the study of cultural evolution is the first emergence of large-scale, complex civilizations. Social scientists and historians have long puzzled over the dynamics of large hierarchical societies and the mechanisms responsible for their survival and spread. But less is known about the origins of complex societ...

Material culture meanings are transferred between objects on the basis of similarities and differences. In order to fix the potential ambiguity of meanings, experience is bracketed within bounded contexts. New acts always refer back to existing organized experience or texts. It can be argued that text comes before action. This idea is used in a dis...

This paper summarises and interprets data from the Neolithic site ot Çatalhöyük East collected between 2000 and 2008, while at the same time integrating data from earlier and more recent excavation seasons. The paper focuses on evidence for change during the occupation of the site, arguing for an increase in the size and density of occupation into...

The papers in this volume make a good case that the house played a key role in the Neolithic of Europe, not only in the sense that it sheltered and protected but also that it contributed substantially to the production of society. In relation to this claim, this chapter makes three points. First, while the chapters are adept at exploring the social...

Techniques to retrieve reliable images from complicated objects are described, overcoming problems introduced by uneven surfaces, giving enhanced depth resolution and improving image contrast. The techniques are illustrated with application to THz imaging of concealed wall paintings.

Pulsed terahertz imaging is being developed as a technique to image obscured mural paintings. Due to significant advances in terahertz technology, portable systems are now capable of operating in unregulated environments and this has prompted their use on archaeological excavations. August 2011 saw the first use of pulsed terahertz imaging at the a...

A powerful and innovative argument that explores the complexity of the human relationship with material things, demonstrating how humans and societies are entrapped into the maintenance and sustaining of material worlds • Argues that the interrelationship of humans and things is a defining characteristic of human history and culture • Offers a nuan...

TanglegramsLocating EntanglementsSequencing Entanglements – at ÇatalhöyükSequencing Entanglements – the Origins of Agriculture in the Middle EastCausality and DirectionalityConclusion

This article discusses findings from excavations at Çatalhöyük. There is limited evidence for specialized and differentiated economic, political, and social functions at Çatalhöyük. Rather, the effect of a "town" (a large agglomeration of people living packed against each other) is produced by the repetition of social behavior within houses. Daily...

This book describes new work on the role of religion at the nine-thousand-year-old site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey. It follows on from a volume entitled Religion and the Origin of Complex Societies: Çatalhöyük as a Case Study (Hodder 2010) that resulted from a seminar funded by the Templeton Foundation. The new volume results from a larger and more am...

As noted in Chapter 1, the project that resulted in this volume had initially explored the notion that the role of religion in the early farming societies of the Middle East and Anatolia could be explained in terms of power and property. It was assumed that religion was produced by the need to create communities, explain power, and justify differen...

This book tackles the topic of religion, a broad subject exciting renewed interest across the social and historical sciences. The volume is tightly focused on the early farming village of Çatalhöyük, which has generated much interest both within and outside of archaeology, especially for its contributions to the understanding of early religion. The...

I take it for granted that archaeological stewardship should be based on dialogue between stakeholder groups. Some form of collaboration and consultation is at the heart of most attempts today to deal with long-term stewardship issues, whether it is the consultancy involved in the development of the Stonehenge management plan or the dialogues invol...

This paper responds to that aspect of Andrew Sherratt’s writings that argued for building specifically archaeological theory. In describing a theory of entanglement, I have focused on the archaeological sensitivity to the complexities and practical interlacings of material things. The theory argues that human–thing entanglement comes about as a res...

Archaeology as Human Ecology. By ButzerKarl W.. 23·5 × 15·5 cm. Pp. xiv + 364 + figs. in text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. ISBN 0-521-24652-0. £22·50. P/b edn. available. - Volume 63 Issue 2 - Ian Hodder

Comparison of two Turkish Neolithic sites with rich symbolism, Çatalhöyük and Göbekli, suggests widespread and long-lasting themes in the early settled communities of the region. Three major symbolic themes are identified. The first concerns an overall concern with the penis, human and animal, that allows us to speak of a phallocentrism in contrast...

In exploring human-thing entanglement I wish to make five points. (1) Humans depend on things. In much of the new work in the social and human sciences in which humans and things co-constitute each other, there is, oddly, little account of the things themselves. (2) Things depend on other things. All things depend on other things along chains of in...

A la lumiere des recherches recentes a Catalhoyuk, relatives au role de la religion, cet article examine quelques-unes des hypotheses exposees dans l’ouvrage de Cauvin, Naissance des divinites, Naissance de l’agriculture. Ces etudes ont rassemble anthropologues, philosophes et specialistes de la religion pour s’attacher, avec la collaboration des a...

The protection of cultural heritage sites is normally evaluated in terms of universal and scholarly significance criteria, although increasingly the contributions of sites and monuments to the economic and social well-being of communities have been recognized. Human rights discourse, despite its many problems and limitations, offers a possible mech...

This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çata...

The aim of this chapter is to situate the symbolism and ritual at Çatalhöyük in the wider context of eastern Turkey and the Middle East. The rich symbolism at the site has already incited a wide range of interpretations of the site and its earlier and contemporary parallels to the east (Mellaart 1967; Clark 1977; Gimbutas 1989; Cauvin 2000; Özdoğan...

What has been achieved by this experiment in interdisciplinary dialogue on an archaeological site? Archaeologists are so often forced to work in relative isolation as they excavate and analyze, being able to engage in wider debate only in summary conference papers, workshops and the literature. The Templeton project has now been extended for a furt...

This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çata...

This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çata...

This book presents an interdisciplinary study of the role of spirituality and religious ritual in the emergence of complex societies. Involving an eminent group of natural scientists, archaeologists, anthropologists, philosophers, and theologians, this volume examines Çatalhöyük as a case study. A nine-thousand-year old town in central Turkey, Çata...

Probable source materials and production technologies of neolithic pottery from Catalhoyuk were studied with micromorphological and archaeometrical methods, seeking to shed light on the established techniques and appropriate source material mixtures used by the inhabitants of the epoch (7500 yr BP) in contrast to the reputed idea of primitiveness o...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much later,...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium BC. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals-that is, traction and wool-the first clear evidence for these appears much later,...

The domestication of cattle, sheep and goats had already taken place in the Near East by the eighth millennium bc1, 2, 3. Although there would have been considerable economic and nutritional gains from using these animals for their milk and other products from living animals—that is, traction and wool—the first clear evidence for these appears much...

Ian Hodder was born in Bristol, England, in 1948. He obtained a Bachelor of Arts in prehistoric archaeology from the University of London in 1971, and his PhD from Cambridge University in 1975. He was a lecturer at the University of Leeds from 1974 to 1977, after which he returned to Cambridge where he worked as lecturer, reader and finally profess...

This chapter contains section titled:

Social Theory in Archaeology. Michael Brian Schiffer. ed. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2000. 235 pp. Social Transformations In Archaeology: Global and Local Perspectives. Kristian Kristiansen and Michael Row. lands. London: Routledge, 1998. 438 pp.

Multivocality remains for me a key component of archaeological practice, and it remains a core aspect of the methods we are using at Çatalhöyük. But I also recognize the dangers in the term and the idea, and I wish to respond here to those dangers. In many ways, the dangers of multivocality parallel those associated with pluralism and multicultura...

This review aims to show how the new results from Çatalhöyük in central Turkey contribute to wider theories about the Neolithic in Anatolia and the Middle, East. I argue that many of the themes found in symbolism and daily practice at Çatalhöyük occur very early in the processes of village formation and the domestication of plants and animals throu...

It is now 25 years since Symbolic and Structural Archaeology (henceforth SSA) was first published in 1982. Why run a review feature upon a book this old? Clearly not to let readers know about its now-familiar contents. One justification is historical. Very few works have had such an effect — in archaeology, the nearest parallel comes with works suc...

Lecture 1. Humans and things - developing some ideas and terms Lecture 2. Çatalhöyük: a Neolithic ‘town’ in Turkey Lecture 3. Humans and things at Çatalhöyük Lecture 4. Developing a long-term view: the ‘origins of agriculture’ in the Middle East This lecture series has two aims. One is to discuss a new theoretical framework for the relationships be...

This response to Adams' comment regarding the interpretation of Catalhoyuk a 9000 Year old tell site in central Turkey. notes some important differences between Neolithic Catalhoyuk and the Indonesian societies described by Adams. Ritual was closely linked to daily practices in all houses at Catalhoyuk. While it is argued that socialization through...

The largest known Neolithic settlement yields clues about the roles played by the two sexes in early agricultural societies

This article is concerned with the social processes involved in the formation of large agglomerated villages in the Neolithic of the Near East and Anatolia, with particular reference to Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. The article aims to show that practice theories (dealing with how social rules are learned in daily practice within the house) can be...

The third edition of this classic introduction to archaeological theory and method has been fully updated to address the burgeoning of theoretical debate throughout the discipline. Ian Hodder and Scott Hutson argue that archaeologists must bring to bear a variety of perspectives in the complex and uncertain task of constructing meaning from the pas...