Boncuklu, Pınarbaşı and the development of the Early Neolithic in the Konya Basin. Household histories and community identities
Douglas Baird
One of the great things about an archaeological perspective is the ability to examine social developments and social practices at a range of temporal and spatial scales simultaneously. I will attempt this for the development of the Neolithic in the Konya plain, based on c. 20 years of excavations at the sites of Pınarbașı and Boncuklu, the later apparently a direct antecedent of Çatalhöyük. This will allow consideration, at broad temporal and spatial scales of understanding, of the contemporaneous adoption of variable sedentary practices, small-scale cultivation and herding and avoidance of farming by early Neolithic communities,. The role of the development of distinct community identities within such networks of diverse proximate communities will be evaluated. I will then situate and interrelate more intimate and specific household and individual histories and identities, ritual and ancestral practices within these longer-term developments by drawing on a range of integrated stratigraphic, architectural, symbolic, mortuary, bioarchaeological, isotope and aDNA evidence.