Investigating the Social Formation of Tells at catal Hoyuk, Turkey

露丝·特林厄姆博士将带领一大群合作者，参与Catal Hoyuk考古遗址的挖掘工作。该遗址位于土耳其安纳托利亚中部的科尼亚平原上，1960年代初，詹姆斯·梅拉特博士挖掘了遗址的一小部分。在这项工作的基础上，Catal Hoyuk作为世界上“最早的城市”而闻名，并为农业起源和早期新石器时代宗教实践提供了见解。它的地下建筑遗迹保存完好，包括粘土浮雕和壁画装饰的墙壁和地板。特林厄姆博士将与伊恩·霍德博士和剑桥大学的一个团队合作，扩大这项早期研究的范围。她专注于一系列房屋，初步挖掘表明这些房屋有着复杂的职业历史。 Catal Hoyuk由一个“告诉”或高度分层的土堆组成，主要由职业碎片组成。在过去，大多数考古学家将这些洞穴划分为“层次”，并假设每个层次都同时被占用，然后被遗弃。特林厄姆博士合理地认为，这样的假设可能是不正确的，要理解随着时间的推移而发生的变化，关注单个房屋的历史更有意义。由于这些建筑物被重新粉刷，重新粉刷和改造多次，通过仔细的挖掘和分析，有可能重建它们的历史。 特林厄姆博士要解决的更大的问题涉及到导致复杂的分层集中社会的轨迹。根据她过去在东欧的工作，她指出，中东的特点在欧洲缺乏。同样，也没有达到类似的社会复杂性水平。通过对Catal Hoyuk的仔细挖掘和分析，Tringham博士希望重建社会组织的性质，这种组织导致群体在一个单一的地点停留足够长的时间，以允许发展。她将把这与她在欧洲工作期间重建的模式进行对比。 由于Catal Hoyuk的重要性，这项研究将产生许多研究人员感兴趣的结果。它将帮助科学家了解导致国家一级社会发展的过程，并为美国和土耳其学生提供培训。

Dr. Ruth Tringham will lead a large group of collaborators and participate in the excavation of the archaeological site of Catal Hoyuk. Located on the Konya Plain of Central Anatolia Turkey a small portion of the site was excavated by Dr. James Mellaart in the early 1960s. On the basis of this work Catal Hoyuk has become famous as the world's `earliest city` and for the insights it has provided into the origins of agriculture and early Neolithic religious practice. It's buried architectural remains are well preserved and include embellishment of walls and floors by relief sculptures in clay and painted frescoes. In collaboration with Dr. Ian Hodder and a University of Cambridge team Dr. Tringham will expand on this earlier research. She is focusing on a series of houses which preliminary excavation indicates have a complex occupational history. Catal Hoyuk consists of a `tell` or highly stratified mound which is composed mostly of occupational debris. In the past most archaeologists have divided such tells into `levels` and assumed that each was occupied and then later abandoned simultaneously. Dr. Tringham has reasonable argued that such an assumption is likely incorrect and to understand change through time it makes much more sense to focus on the histories of individual houses. Because such structures are replastered, repainted and remodeled many times, through careful excavation and analysis it is possible to reconstruct their histories. The larger issue Dr. Tringham will address involves the trajectory which leads to complex stratified centralized societies. Based on her past work in Eastern Europe, she notes that the tells characteristic of the Middle East are lacking in Europe. Likewise a similar level of social complexity is not reached. Through the careful excavation and analysis of Catal Hoyuk Dr. Tringham hopes to reconstruct the nature of the social organization which led to groups remaining at a single location long enough to allow tell development. She will contrast this to patterns reconstructed during her European work. Because of the significance of Catal Hoyuk this research will yield results of interest to many researchers. It will help scientists understand the processes which led to the development of state level societies and provide training for both US and Turkish students.