Retention of old technologies following the end of the Neolithic: microscopic analysis of the butchering marks on animal bones from Çatalhöyük East

ABSTRACT

Microscopic analysis of butchering marks on bones from Neolithic to Hellenistic deposits at Çatalhöyük, Turkey, are employed as a proxy measure for identifying the rate and nature of adoption of metallurgy for quotidian activities. During the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, only stone tools were being used for butchering. In the post-Neolithic strata, however, chipped stone tools continue to dominate the assemblage. This stands in contrast to the larger regional pattern where metal butchering marks dominate after the end of the Early Bronze Age. The authors propose that the continued use of stone tools for processing animal carcasses long after the advent of hard metal alloys is because of the nearby and abundant source of obsidian. Obsidian flake and blade tools remain the raw material of choice for animal-carcass processing over time. The analysis demonstrates that the replacement of stone and adoption of metal butchering tools was not a straightforward affair.

KEYWORDS:

• Obsidian
• metallurgy
• butchering marks
• Near East
• SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy)
• zooarchaeology

Acknowledgements

The archaeological excavations discussed here from the Team Poznań excavations of the upper levels at Çatalhöyük East were directed by Arkadiusz Marciniak and Lech Czerniak. The zooarchaeological and SEM analysis were conducted by Haskel Greenfield. We are grateful to Kamilla Pawłowska and two former students (Marta Bartkowiak and Agata Czeszewska) who helped in the field laboratory collection phase of the research, and to Deland Wing for help with calculating the statistical tests. Permission to conduct the analysis of the butchered bone from the Team Poznań excavation area was obtained through the good graces of Ian Hodder and the Çatalhöyük Research Project. The paper is jointly written, with each of the authors making an equal contribution. This paper was written while HJG was the Overseas Visiting Scholar at St. John’s College of the University of Cambridge. Financial support for this research was provided by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the University of Manitoba, and St Paul’s College and the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań. We are grateful to all for their various forms of support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. All dates cited in this article are based on published calibrated radiocarbon dates (Marciniak et al. 2015).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Haskel Greenfield

Haskel Greenfield (PhD, CUNY, 1985) is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. His research focuses on the evolution of early agricultural and complex societies in the Old World, with interests in zooarchaeology, spatial analysis and ancient butchering technology. Aside from his research on butchering technology and the spread of metallurgy, he has also conducted extensive studies of regional subsistence and land-use systems, Secondary Products Revolution, the origins of transhumant pastoralism, the spatial dynamics of intra-settlement organization, and the spread of new technologies (i.e. metallurgy) in the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages of Europe, Near East and southern Africa. Most recently, he has been studying the spatial organization of Early Bronze Age communities in the Near East by examining the distribution of remains from early urban sites in southeast Turkey and Israel.

Arkadiusz Marciniak

Arkadiusz Marciniak (PhD, Adam Mickiewicz University, 1994) is Professor of Archaeology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań in Poland. His expertise is in the development of early farming communities in western Asia and central Europe and their progression to complex societies. He is currently directing a project at the Late Neolithic settlement at Çatalhöyük East in Turkey. His other interests comprise zooarchaeology of farming communities in the Near East and central Europe. He is an initiator and advocate of social zooarchaeology, a research paradigm aimed at investigating multifaceted social relations between humans and animals. He is also involved in the development of system of vocational training in the domain of archaeological heritage and archaeology and is an initiator of the Heritage Educational Portal – a platform offering a wide range of online courses in this field.