Neolithic Art, Jericho, c8300 7000 BCE,

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This video introduces Çatalhöyük, a major Neolithic settlement in central Anatolia (modern-day Turkey), and explains why it is so important for understanding early architecture, daily life, and image-making before writing. The lecture focuses on how people lived in tightly packed houses built from mudbrick, entered through rooftops, and repeatedly rebuilt on the same footprints over centuries, creating a tell (settlement mound). Instead of temples or palaces, art, ritual, and burial practices took place inside domestic spaces. Wall paintings, plaster reliefs, animal installations, and subfloor burials show how architecture, memory, and belief were integrated directly into everyday life.

The video also explores materials, technology, and social organization at Çatalhöyük, including obsidian trade, the gradual adoption of pottery, food storage, and the shift to farming and herding. It explains how archaeologists interpret the site using context, stratigraphy, and material evidence, and contrasts earlier interpretations by James Mellaart with later, more cautious research led by Ian Hodder. Special attention is given to burial practices, plastered skulls, animal imagery (especially bulls and leopards), and what these reveal about social structure, memory, and belief in a large prehistoric community without clear hierarchy or centralized religious institutions.