Last House on the Hill
(printed edition)
BACH Area Reports from Çatalhöyük, Turkey
Preface
This volume is in essence the seventh major publication by the Çatalhöyük Research Project. It comprises a record of the University of California at Berkeley research project at Çatalhöyük (BACH) from 1997 to 2003. The first volume of the Çatalhöyük Research Project related to the initial phase of surface work 1993-95 (Hodder 1997). The second volume focused on issues of the reflexive methodology (Hodder 2000). The third, fourth, fifth and sixth volumes present the results of excavations of three areas at Çatalhöyük, known as SOUTH, NORTH and KOPAL, between 1995 and 1999, and their analysis and interpretation (Hodder 2005a, b, c, 2007). This monograph presents the excavation results of the BACH project and their analysis and interpretation in one volume.
As with the other Çatalhöyük volumes, the results of the excavations (chapters 1-5) are followed by chapters that present the analysis of excavated data (chapters 6-19), which are followed by chapters of synthesis and interpretation (chapters 20-22). However, in keeping with the reflexive methodology we have attempted throughout the volume to avoid the separation of the presentation of data from their interpretation.
The life histories of people, places and things are topics that continue to interest all of those who participate in the Çatalhöyük Research Project. We arrived at Çatalhöyük with long experience and enthusiasm for Neolithic architecture and this is certainly borne out in this volume. We address in this volume a number of topics that reflect the interests of the BACH team and have not been addressed so explicitly in previous volumes. For example the intricacies of house construction and maintenance; replication and experimentation with full-scale models to investigate prehistoric life and the formation of the archaeological record; digital documentation of the excavation process and open access to the recontextualization of the media record; the construction and the multisensorial experience of place both now and in the past, including vision, sound, and touch at Çatalhöyük; exploration of virtual representation and the presentation of our work on the Internet.
Our attitude to the sharing of our knowledge with the public, making the process of our archaeological interpretation transparent in order to engage them more intensively in our work, and our attitude to breaking the strict bondage of the empirical data is, we feel, very close to that of the Çatalhöyük team as a whole. And it is this feature which has made it always such a pleasure to work there and which is reflected, we hope, in this volume.
We feel that this volume, which is printed and therefore appears to be a definitive – or at least finite – statement, is but a prelude to a richer, more colorful, and certainly more intricate and entangled expression of what we do and how we think that will be published as a digital on-line edition - Last House on the Hill. The narratives in this book have been built out of the rich body of data and media that are available and accessible in this digital on-line version. The advantage of the digital version that it is an open-ended document that can grow and – as long as it is well curated – can live for many decades.
Hodder, I. (editor)1997On the surface: Catalhoyuk 1993-95. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge,
2000Towards reflexive method in archaeology: the example at Çatalhöyük by members of the Çatalhöyük teams. McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge.
2005aChanging Materialities at Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995-99 seasons (Catalhöyük vol.5). British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK.
2005bInhabiting Çatalhöyük: Reports from the 1995-99 seasons (Catalhöyük vol.4). British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK.
2005c Çatalhöyük perspectives: reports from the 1995-99 seasons. 6. British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK.
2007Excavating Çatalhöyük: South, North and KOPAL Area reports from the 1995-99 seasons (Catalhöyük vol.3) British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara and McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge, UK
