The 9,000 Year Old City Built Over Ritual Death

Çatalhöyük, a Neolithic mega-settlement in central Turkey, thrived between 7100–5700 BCE with up to 8,000 residents. There were no streets; people entered homes through rooftops, suggesting a tightly packed, egalitarian urban layout. Intriguingly, over 60% of burials found beneath house floors were infants or young children, hinting at high child mortality and possibly ritual significance. Despite the density, no central authority or warfare evidence was found. The society maintained social cohesion through shared rituals, wall paintings, and ancestor veneration—often burying the dead, especially children, beneath living spaces.

00:00 Intro
03:28 A City Without Streets
06:13 The Floorboards Of The Dead
09:04 The Scars On The Bones
13:03 Violence As A Memory
17:11 Death, Status & Belonging
20:19 When Humans Became Cities
23:13 The Foundations We Stand On
25:05 Outro

#Neolithic #Çatalhöyük #Archaeology #AncientCities #BurialRituals #PrehistoricLife #UrbanOrigins #HumanHistory #ChildMortality #StoneAge #UtopianSociety #Anthropology #ArchaicArchitecture #HistoryFacts #AncientMysteries


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