Archaeologists find ancient matrilineal society in Turkiye’s Catalhoyuk

Catalhoyuk, Turkiye – About an hour southeast of Konya lies one of the most exciting Neolithic finds of the 20th century – the densely populated settlement of Catalhoyuk.

Occupied for 1,000 years from about 7000 to 6000 BC, Catalhoyuk has drawn archaeologists since its discovery in 1958 as they have tried to piece together how its society worked.

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A recent genomics study published in the journal Science revealed that Catalhoyuk’s gender dynamics made it unique among European Neolithic settlements.

The discovery centres around matrilocality, the fact that women remained in their homes while males were more likely to move away when they reached adulthood.

The study’s 46 authors “estimated that 70 to 100% of the time, female offspring remained connected to buildings”, in contrast to other European Neolithic communities, which were patrilineal and patrilocal.

The settlement

Catalhoyuk, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is possibly the world’s first city with clusters of buildings, agricultural production, rituals and even ornamentation.

Today, its remains are in two large tells, or mounds, that have formed over successive generations that built, demolished and built again on the sites.

The homes in Catalhoyuk were built directly on top of one another. Excavations have found about 18 layers of construction, leading to a theory that its inhabitants filled in the lower level of buildings, demolished any structures above them and built new homes on top.

An archaeologist works at an excavation site at the ancient city of Catalhoyuk, Turkiye [Can Erok/Al Jazeera]

The two tells lie east and west of a now-dry river that likely branched out into fertile deltas. The west mound was left behind by a later community while the east mound is the Neolithic settlement.

Estimates vary as to Catalhoyuk’s population, but archaeologists have agreed it likely fluctuated over time as people moved to it or away, reaching peak habitation of 3,500 to 8,000 people at times.

The housing clusters were so tightly packed that there were no streets or front doors. Instead, inhabitants probably moved from one building to another over the roofs, which acted as pathways and gathering spaces.

To get into their houses, residents would climb through ceiling hatches that led down to a hearth.

On the opposite end away from the hearth in many of these buildings were clay platforms under which the early inhabitants of Catalhoyuk buried their dead in pits below the homes.

In line with the general equality being uncovered, Catalhoyuk didn’t seem to have buildings that were obviously for worship or governance or belonged to wealthier, more powerful individuals.

However, some were more ornamented than others with intricate wall paintings and bull’s horns plastered into alcoves, benches or raised platforms.

And these more ornate buildings generally were the sites of larger numbers of burials underneath their floors. Not all of the dead at one site were related to each other, posing a mystery that archaeologists have yet to unravel.

Indications of matrilineal society

The authors of the genomic study screened 395 skeletons found in the floors of homes and analysed the grave goods they were buried with.

This analysis led to their conclusion that Catalhoyuk may have been matrilineal – tracing kinship and descent through mothers – as well as matrilocal.

Although there was no evidence of property ownership, women tended to keep their residency for generations as the males moved in and out.

By exploring the relationship between groups of skeletons found together, the study’s authors found that the skeletons were more likely to be related along maternal lines and it seemed female offspring remained connected to their homes while adult males might move away.

Archaeologists work to uncover the remains and sort out the mysteries of Catalhoyuk [Can Erok/Al Jazeera]

Another finding suggesting female importance is related to grave goods, artefacts such as beads, pendants and decorations placed with the deceased, often on the wrists or ankles.

At Catalhoyuk, young females, including infants, received up to five times as many goods as boys.

“We managed for the first time to identify sex or gender of all these children’s skeletons there,” Polish archaeologist Arek Marciniak, who took part in the study, said while standing in the shade on a plaza on Catalhoyuk’s east mound that his team discovered in 2022.

“It turned out that the children were more or less the same proportion, girls and boys,” the professor said.  “But all the girls had highly sophisticated burial goods, not the boys.”

The study examined the genomes of 131 individuals from 35 houses, a data set more extensive than any prior genomic research on Neolithic settlements in Anatolia, according to Marciniak.

Most Neolithic communities in Europe and elsewhere that have been genomically studied so far show patrilocal and patrilineal patterns, seen as the precursor to patriarchal structures.

Several 19th century thinkers, including Johann Jakob Bachofen and Lewis Henry Morgan, argued that matrilineal societies came before patrilineal ones and reflected an earlier phase of social development.

Catalhoyuk was discovered in 1958 in southern Anatolia [Can Erok/Al Jazeera]

“Why is Catalhoyuk matrilineal while soon after European Neolithic societies were patrilineal?” mused Ian Hodder, who directed excavation at Catalhoyuk for more than 20 years and spoke to Al Jazeera over the phone.

But the matrilineality of Catalhoyuk did not mean that men were treated badly, he pointed out, adding that there is strong evidence of social egalitarianism.

Earlier studies on human remains ran isotope analysis to determine the diet of females versus males and found no difference, said Hodder, a professor of archaeology at Koc University in Istanbul and professor emeritus at Stanford University.

“The recent results show that females played a central role but not a dominant role,” he explained. “So the question is rather why did we become hierarchical?”

Mother goddess

There have already been several discoveries of female figurines at the site, which all hinted at the importance assigned to women, current excavation lead Ali Ozan told Al Jazeera.

Take the Seated Woman of Catalhoyuk, found in an 8,500-year-old grain bin in 1961 and currently on display at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara.

With her exaggerated breasts, belly and hips and arms resting on two leopards, the baked clay figurine has stirred conversations over a possible matriarchy, female worship or high social esteem of women at Catalhoyuk.

The Seated Woman of Catalhoyuk sits between two leopards [Creative Commons]

Two similar figurines discovered here in 2016 and others found across Neolithic Europe and the Near East have kept the debate going about whether they represent mother goddesses, ancestral women or societal ideals.

Catalhoyuk and its genomics study have been cited by proponents of the mother goddess theory, which argues that early human society was built on the predominance of the feminine.

Another unusual thing about Catalhoyuk is the lack of signs of organised violence through centuries of its female-centric existence despite other European Neolithic communities suffering violence that sometimes killed dozens of people, Ozan said.

At the end of those centuries, by 5700 BC, Catalhoyuk’s east mound was deserted, and there is nothing to link its unusual existence to what is known today in modern Turkiye.

Some matrilineal cultures remain today around the world, such as among the Mosuo in China, the Minangkabau in Indonesia and the Khasi in India.

The Mosuo people have a matrilineal and patrilineal community, and a study found that women in the matrilineal Mosuo community are healthier than in the patrilineal community while men’s health is the same in both communities.

This equality in physical condition, archaeologists said, is something they have found ample evidence of in Catalhoyuk, indicating an equality in conditions for everybody who lived in this matrilocal, matrilineal community.