History › First civilizations › Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution
Çatalhöyük
c. 7100–5950 BC· Empire, kingdom or state· Middle East & Africa
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
Çatalhöyük was a large farming town in central Turkey, home to several thousand people from about 7100 to 5950 BC.
See it on the History map →What happened
Mud-brick houses were packed wall to wall with no streets; people walked across the rooftops and climbed down ladders through holes in the roof. Inside were plastered walls painted with hunting scenes and vultures, bull horns set into benches, and the dead buried under the floors. Residents grew wheat and barley and herded sheep and goats. James Mellaart dug it in the 1960s; Ian Hodder led new excavations from 1993 to 2017.
Why it matters
It shows thousands of people living together without obvious rulers, palaces or temples, a way station between village and city. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Think of it like
Like a dense block of attached townhouses with no streets, where the roofs served as the sidewalks.
How we know
Decades of excavation, skeletons and chemical isotopes showing diet and health, and radiocarbon dates. Hodder's team found houses of similar size, suggesting little inequality.
Still debated
Mellaart saw a mother-goddess cult in its figurines; most archaeologists now doubt it. Population estimates range from about 3,000 to 8,000.
Connections (2)
▸Agricultural (Neolithic) Revolution produced towns like ÇatalhöyükWell documented
The connection
Farming spread from the Fertile Crescent into central Anatolia, where reliable harvests of wheat and barley, plus herds of sheep and goats, could feed thousands of people living in one place year-round. Çatalhöyük, a town of mud-brick houses, rose about 2,500 years after farming began.
When and how
Konya Plain, central Turkey, about 7100–5950 BC.
How we know
Charred grain, animal bones, storage bins and tools found throughout the houses show a mixed farming economy.
Debates and open questions
Why people packed so densely without streets or obvious leaders, and why the town was eventually abandoned, are open questions.
▸Çatalhöyük foreshadowed the cities of Sumer and Mesopotamia: the first citiesMostly agreed
The connection
Çatalhöyük showed that thousands of people could live together in one place, about 3,000 years before Uruk. But it lacked what made Sumer's cities different: rulers, temple institutions, writing, specialized trades and a wide gap between rich and poor.
When and how
Central Turkey, about 7100–5950 BC; southern Iraq from about 4000 BC.
How sure are we?
Comparison of excavations: house plans, burials and goods at Çatalhöyük versus temples, palaces and tablets in Sumer. No direct descent is claimed.
Debates and open questions
Whether 'town' or 'proto-city' is the right term, and how much early towns like it shaped later urban life, is debated.