Maney Publishing

Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in Southeastern Turkey: Cayn Tepesi, 1978 and

1979
Author(s): Robert J. Braidwood, Halet ambel and Wulf Schirmer
Source: Journal of Field Archaeology, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Autumn, 1981), pp. 249-258
Published by: Maney Publishing
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Introduction
Since the spring of 1964, six campaigns of archeological
excavation have been undertaken on the prehistoric mound
of (iayonu Tepesi in SE Turkey. The main deposit at (iayonu
consists of the remains of a very early village-farming com-
*The following persons have been actively involved in the discussions
concerning, and actual writing of, portions of this report, completed in the
field, October, 1980: Linda S. Braidwood and Robert J. Braidwood, the
Oriental Institute, the University of Chicago; Halet C,ambel and Mehmet
Ozdogan, the Prehistory Section, Istanbul University; Michael K. Davis,
field assistant, Prehistoric Project; Barbara Lawrence, Museum of Com-
parative Zoology, Harvard University; Wulf Schirmer, Bernhard Heid, and
Werner Schnuchel, Institut fur Baugeschichte, Karlsruhe University; Rob-
ert B. Stewart, Department of Biology, Sam Houston State University.
munity. The site is located near the headwaters of the Tigris
river, on the Tauros mountain piedmont, at 381 6'N;
3943'E, and at an elevation of slightly over 830 m. (FIG.
1).
The results of our first four campaigns have already been
briefly reported. 1 The intention here is to outline the work
1. Robert J. Braidwood, Halet C,ambel, Barbara Lawrence, Charles L.
Redman and Robert B. Stewart, "Beginnings of Village-Farming Com-
munities in Southeastern Turkey 1972,"ProcNatAcadSciUSA 71 (1974)
568-572; Halet C, ambel, ' 'The Southeast Anatolian Prehistoric Project and
its Significance for Culture History," Belleten 38 (1974) 361-377; Halet
C,ambel and Robert J. Braidwood, "The Joint Istanbul-Chicago Univers-
ities' Prehistoric Research Project in Southeastern Anatolia. Comprehen-
sive View: the Work to Date, 1963-72," in Halet C,ambel and Robert J.
Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in
Southeastern Turkey: (iayonu Tepesi, 1978 and 1979
Robert J. Braidwood
The Oriental Institute
The University of Chicago
Chicago, Illinois
Halet (iambel
Prehistory Section
Istanbul University
Istanbul, Turkey
Wulf Schirmer
Institut fur Baugeschichte
Karlsruhe University
Karlsruhe, West Germany
et al.*
The most recent preliminary report on excavations at the early village-farming
community site of (gayonu in SE Turkey covered the field season of 1972. What
was learned in the next two field seasons, 1978 and 1979, summarized here,
supports a somewhat unhappy proposition. The more that exposures on a site
are enlarged and deepened, the more that earlier suggestions and interpretations
must be revised. This is unfortunate because the earlier suggestions have already
passed on into secondary literature where they have become uneradicable fos-
sils. Nonetheless, the game is worth playing iffullness of understanding is the
hoped for goal. The two seasons' work summarized here were those when our
German architectural colleagues joined in the effort, markedly increasing the ex-
pedition's potentialfor understanding the archaeological record of this early vil-
lage community.
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250 Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in SE TurkeylBraidwood, ,Cambel, Schirmer, et al.
Figure 1. Sketch map of the portion of
Turkey beyond the NE corner of the
Mediterranean, with the location of (iayonu
near the Tigris headwaters.
of our 1978 and 1979 field seasons and to suggest how the
results of these two seasons affect and revise our general
understandings. For these recent campaigns, Istanbul Uni-
versity's Prehistory Section and the University of Chicago's
Oriental Institute were joined by Karlsruhe University's In-
stitut fur Baugeschichte. The expedition not only received
financial help from the Universities and from friends of the
Oriental Institute, but also benefited very substantially
through grant BNS75-13632 of the National Science Foun-
dation and through funding by the Directorate General of
Antiquities and Museums of the Turkish Ministry of Culture.
The main prehistoric phase of settlement at gayonu
(Phase I) appears to have been by people who were upon
the very threshold of effective food-production. Plant do-
mestication was present from the settlement's beginnings
but animal domesticates only appeared later in the phase.
A cluster of eight radiocarbon age determinations, based on
adequate samples from trustworthy findspots, puts the major
portion of this prehistoric phase within the half millennium
7250-6750 B.C. (in Libby uncalibrated terms). Further sam-
ples from the 1978-79 seasons are yet to be assayed. Surface
indication is that the village spread over about 30,000 sq.
m. and by the end of the 1979 season our exposures
totaled almost 7% of this area although considerably less
in the deeper layers of the mound (FIG. 2).
The soil matrix of (iayonu, a fair portion of it undoubtedly
of disintegrated sun-dried brick material, is of a very hard
dull, red-orange clay resembling gumbo. Fortunately for us,
the original inhabitants used much stone in founding and
sometimes in flooring their buildings. Although upstanding
walls, above the rather high stone foundations, were evi-
dently mainly of the now disintegrated mud brick, the plans
of various of (iayonu's buildings are normally quite well
expressed by the stone foundations.
The Artifactual lnventory
Perhaps in part because the site's hard clay matrix is so
difficult to excavate, the relative quantity and variety in the
small objects inventory is not as large as would be normal
from early village sites of comparable age, for example
from those along the Zagros flanks. This matrix hardness
cannot, however, be the only reason for the relatively mod-
est yield of smaller objects. For whatever reason, there is
little to add (for the 1978 and 1979 seasons) to the descrip-
tion of the small object inventory already given in the pre-
liminary reports on our earlier seasons.2
In essence, the Phase I (iayonu inventory is without port-
able pottery vessels. It includes clay figurines of animals
and a few of bumanoid forms. The bulk of the object in-
ventory consists of chipped stone tools of flint and obsidian3,
and of large and small ground-stone artifacts. Implements
of horn and bone are fairly common, including hafts for
flint knives and for celts. Considering its age, the appearance
of simple artifacts of hammered native copper is remarkable.
Braidwood, eds., The Joint lstanbul-Chicago Universities' Prehistoric
Research in Southeastern Anatolia, l (Istanbul IJniversitesi Edebiyat
Fakultesi Yayinlari No. 2589, 1980) 33-64.
2. See the works cited in note l, and Halet gambel, ';Chronologie et
organisation de l'espace a CJ ayonu," in Olivier Aurenche, ed., Prehistoire
du Levant: Chronologie et organisation de l'Espace depuis les origines
jusqu'au Vleme Millenaire (actes de la colloque C.N.R. S . no. 598, Maison
de l'Orient Mediterraneen, Lyon, in press).
3. Linda S. Braidwood, "The gayonu Chipped Stone Industry and its
Possible Interrelationships," Vlll Turk Tarih Kongressi, Ankara, October
1976, l, vol. I (1979) 37-45. This paper makes use of the statistics de-
veloped in the report on the 1968 and 1970 yield of flint and obsidian
artifacts by Charles L. Redman. Redman's study, together with a report
on the heavy ground-stone yield by Michael K. Davis, will appear presently
in the British Archaeological Report series.
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Journal of Field ArchaeologylVol. 8, 1981 251
Figure 2. Air view of the central and (in the background) western exposures on Cayonu looking west. The dark area on the
left is the BogazcJay, a small tributary of the Tigris. To the right in the central area are refilled exposures made in our earlier
seasons; cf. FIG. 4. (Air photograph courtesy of the Turkish Army.)
So far, we do not see evidence for significant technolog-
ical changes in different categories of the small object in-
ventory throughout the duration of the phase. It is, perhaps,
in certain fine-grained small stone artifacts, such as '4brace-
let" fragments, and in clay figurines, that the (:ayonu in-
ventory shows the closest analogies to the early village
materials of the Zagros flanks. On the whole, however, the
site's small object inventory, given present knowledge,
seems to have an overall complexion of its own While it
does have very generalized similarity to the materials of
comparable age, both for the Zagros and the Levant regions,
and in what we now know of the mid-Euphrates region, in
detail the assemblage suggests derivation from an earlier
and as yet not specifically identified artifactual tradition.
Whatever its antecedents, we have no hesitation in as-
serting that (:ayonu's main prehistoric phase may be inter-
preted as yielding the remains of a substantial village, in
which lived some number of generations of early food-
producing people.
The Building Activities
This very brief sketch of (iayonu's main prehistoric yield
(which also ignores the rather ephemeral hints of two suc-
ceeding phases) might thus end were it not for the site's
building remains. These are truly remarkable and our ex-
cavations of the 1978 and 1979 seasons have brought new
information in the matter. In these campaigns, we were able
to clarify our earlier understandings both of the building
types and the stratigraphic sequence of the main prehistoric
phase of Cayonu, although substantial problems in inter-
pretation still remain.
Within Phase I, the main prehistoric phase of (:ayonu,
there are in terms of construction at least four sub-
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252 Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in SE Turkey/Braidwood, fambel, Schirmer, et al.
Figure 3. Air view of the central area, looking east. The exposures on the right and within the baulks (with the exception of
the flagstone-floored building remains) were made in 1978. The grill plan in the left foreground was cleared in earlier seasons
but a new grill plan can be seen appearing within the baulks. In the upper left are the traces of exposures made in earlier
seasons, cf. FIG. 4. (Air photograph courtesy of the Turkish Army.)
phases of building activity (FIGS. 3, 4, 5). As to general
stratigraphyoalso, these sub-phases are separated one from
the other. Of these sub-phases, the upper three each yield
the remains, respectively, of a distinct building type. The
uppermost sub-phase is characterized by rectangular single-
or double-roomed house plans (FIG. 4). The next contains
the remains of buildings having several small cell-like di-
visions (FIGS. 4, s).Below this cell-plan sub-phase comes
another, distinguished by the foundations of long rectangular
buildings, of which one part has a grlll-like construction
(FIGS. 3, 4). In the earliest now available sub-phase not
widely exposed so far we have encountered only a few
and incomplete traces of buildings (FIGS. 3, 4) which do not
yet show uniform characteristics.
The remains of two very special buildings, each with
similar uniform rectangular plans, demand particular atten-
tion. These buildings appear in more than one of the sub-
phases and are treated in detail below.
Each of the types of building remains thus briefly de-
scribed represents a building type having several common
characteristics. Each type was a freestanding rectangular
structure, the basic plan of which implies a thorough con-
ceptualization and execution in one single building process
with none of our examples showing later major changes in
plan. Rather, there are examples that were, after some du-
ration, replaced on the same spot by a completely new
building of the same plan-type and dimensions.
Beside the above mentioned plan-types, there are,
throughout, a few remains of buildings or parts of buildings
that do not follow the foregoing basic conventions and are,
therefore, difficult to interpret. For example, in the earliest
sub-phase, the burned remains of a wall of poles, branches,
and clay was encountered (FIG. 6), as well as the stone
remains of a single-roomed structure with an interior stone
bench around its walls (cf. FIG. 4, square N28, sw).
The rectangular buildings of the uppermost sub-phase are
all to be found on the very top of the mound, immediately
under its present surface (FIG. 4). Accordingly, their preser-
vation is only fragmentary. It appears at present as though
they consisted of only one or two rooms, but buildings having
more rooms cannot be excluded. Two examples stand par-
allel to each other, in a N-S orientation; nearby, another
example is oriented toward the sw. The foundations indicate
room dimensions of about 2.2 m. to 3.5 m. width and in
the single, completely preserved example a length of
about 7.5 m. The stone foundation construction for its en-
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Journal of Field ArchaeologylVol. 8, 1981 253
Figure 4. Sketch plot plan of building
remains in the major portion of the central
area, looking east; cf. FIG. 3. The major
grid is 10 m. The remains of the
uppermost sub-phase buildings are stippled:
it will be noted that while the single large-
roomed example has an orientation of its
own, the other examples directly overbed
earlier cell-plan remains. The cell plans
are indicated by simple hatching, the grill
plans by cross hatching. The outlines of
the terrazzo floored building (square L29)
and of the flagstone floored building
(squares 028-29) are unshaded, as are the
outlines of the various parts of structures of
the earliest now-known sub-phase (square
N28).
closing walls measures about 60 cm. in width and consists
of rough limestone cobbles and some riverworn pebbles.
The superstructure, probably of mud-brick, is not preserved.
The characteristic feature of buildings of the next sub-
phase lies in their arrangement into small cell-like rooms
(FIGS. 4, 5). These cells usually have widths of ca. 0.6-1.2
m. and with one exception lengths of ca. 1.4-2.5 m.
Five to 12 such cells may be found in one or another of
such buildings, with the cell sizes varying with respect to
the number of cells in the given building (i.e., the more
cells, the smaller each individual cell). An eight-cell divi-
sion is the most common. The outer dimensions of these
buildings are ca. 4-6.2 m. in width, and 6.5-9 m. in length;
that is, they are all of approximately the same proportion.
The width of the outer walls is 40-60 cm., the inner walls
only 40-50 cm. The building material consisted of mud-
brick above a sub-structure of small rough cobbles. In some
of the buildings the sub-structure is preserved up to 60 cm.
The individual cells were frequently connected by small
openings. There are a few rare door-socket stones; these
point to wooden doors.
In the areas that have been exposed so far, the cell-plan
buildings have appeared only on the higher parts of the
mound; that is, they have not been encountered on the slope
towards the river. Their orientation, almost without excep-
tion, was toward the ssw. Furthermore, the spatial arrange-
ments of the buildings show a certain regularity.
The following observation is of particular importance: the
buildings of the cell-plan sub-phase are by no means all
contemporary. Rather, the cell-plan settlement probably ex-
isted over a relatively long span of time during which new
buildings of the same plan-type were being constructed. It
is striking that these new buildings were frequently built
exactly above the remains of older ones, having the same
orientation and dimensions. Only the uppermost examples
in this sub-phase show evident deviations from this.
The building foundations of the next earlier sub-phase
are clearly long rectangles (FIGS. 3, 4). Their width is about
5.00 m. Only two examples have so far been completely
exposed; their lengths are 11.5 m. and 13.5 m. The pro-
portion of length to width is therefore greater than 2:1. All
of the buildings of this type are oriented toward the SSE.
The foundations show different construction arrangements
for the northern and southern halves of these buildings. In
the northern half, a closely set, grill-like series of low foun-
dations runs between the east and west outer foundation
walls. Each grill strip is 30-50 cm. wide and the space
between them only ca. 15-40 cm. The southern half of such
a grill building consisted of a floor of closely packed small
cobbles, with several adjoining rooms at the very southern-
most end.
Certain details in the grill-plan type deserve special at-
tention. The intermediate spaces between the grill strips
have openings alternatively to the east or west to the
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254 Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in SE TurkeylBraidwood, JCambel, Schirmer, et al.
Figure 5. Building remains of the cell-plan sub-phase in the western exposures, looking ssw. In this area, cell plans appeared
immediately below the surface. (Air photograph courtesy of the Turkish Army.)
outside. It is also apparent that, supported by the grill con-
struction itself, there was in one case a plastered floor ev-
idently laid over a base of wooden supports and small
branches. It seems, therefore, that the northern grill-like
portion of these buildings was provided with aerated floors.
Little can be said about the superstructure of these grill
buildings. We lack any clear traces either of mud-brick upper
walls or of strong stone upper walls. Only in one instance
(the house with the plastered floor described in the previous
paragraph) are there subdivisions indicating an arrangement
resembling that of the cell-plan type. These are narrow rows
of stones, certainly not broad enough to have been the base
for higher massive walls.
As was the case with the cell plans, the buildings of the
grill-plan sub-phase were not added to, rebuilt, or repaired.
Here also, new buildings were frequently placed immedi-
ately above the foundations of a preceding example, fol-
lowing the same dimensions and orientation.
We return now to the two special buldings that demand
particular attention. In the present state of our knowledge,
the two examples, which show common characteristics,
come from different sub-phases. The later of the two ex-
amples, the so-called terrazzo building (FIG. 4) was more
or less contemporary with the cell-plan buildings. The older
example, the so-called flagstone building (FIGS. 3, 4),
seems according to our most recent observations to be
older than the grill-plan buildings. Both examples are rec-
tangular. They have, in common, the longer axis of the
rectangle at right angles to the main SSE orientation. The
interior arrangements, in both examples, included regularly
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Journal of Field ArchaeologylVol. 8, 1981 255
uppermost sub-phase of the main prehistoric occupation,
only simple rectangular houses, without special character-
istics, are now apparent. Only one complete foundation plan
has so far been encountered. The others are so fragmentary
that no special characteristics can be discerned either in
terms of the settlement arrangement or in terms of the in-
dividual buildings.
The next or cell-plan sub-phase shows the remains of a
uniform, well thought-out building, the orientation of which
seems to have been determined by the sun and the direction
of the prevalent wind. If further examination should verify
current observations concerning the locations of individual
buildings, there may have been from 15 to 25 contemporary
units in the settlement.
Most of the small cells of these buildings, given their
restricted dimensions, cannot themselves have served as
living or sleeping quarters. Such quarters must be sought
elsewhere, either in other buildings not yet encountered in
our exposures, or in an upper story above the cells, or above
part of them. Several detailed observations favor this latter
possibility. The cells themselves would then have served
as storage bins or magazines. According to our evidence
from this cell-plan sub-phase settlement (so far as present
observations go), a building that clearly stands out as ex-
ceptional is the terrazzo building. It can claim for itself the
full meaning of the term architecture, in which building
construction and building design form a whole. Whatever
its function may have been, we may, therefore, see in it a
building of higher order in the community of this cell-plan
sub-phase.
The next earlier sub-phase buildings, clearly separated
from those of the succeeding cell-plan structures, again
show a uniform building type with its own orientation. In
terms of its now known distribution over the site, it can be
said that, almost everywhere that exposures have been made
to sufficient depths, the remains of grill-plan buildings have
been encountered. According to the distances observed be-
tween these remains, the whole settlement should have had
space enough to allow for 40 to 50 such buildings. We must
naturally, however, consider that parts of the settlement of
this sub-phase may have been free of buildings or given
over to buildings of a different plan type (e.g., of the ter-
razzo or flagstone type).
The above-ground, aerated floors in the northern portions
of the grill-plan buildings indicate the absolute need for dry
floors and a corresponding comprehension by the builders
of how to achieve them. What we may have is simply dry
storage space in this portion of these buildings: the thin-
walled, aforementioned small cell-like subdivisions, found
preserved above the plastered floor in one grill plan ex-
ample, argue in favor of this possibility. Whether the in-
habitants' necessary living or sleeping quarters would then
have been in some portion of this space, or in the adjoining
Figure 6. A portion of the fragmentary remains of a curved wall of
poles, stones, and mud from a context (cf. FIG. 4, square N28, NE) that
is earlier than the grill plans.
spaced buttresses on the walls and carefully made massive
floors. The outside wall foundations of both of these build-
ings are more massive than those of the buildings described
above for the specific sub-phases.
The interior space of the terrazzo building has dimensions
of ca. 7.5 m. x 9.8 m. A true terrazzo floor gives the
building its name. This floor is of a reddish-orange color
on the surface; it is provided with two pairs of white lines,
positioned with relation to the buttresses on the walls. A
mineralogical analysis of the terrazzo floor material, kindly
undertaken by Professor Dr. Immermann and Dr. Einfalt of
the Institut fur Petrographie und Geochemie, of Karlsruhe
University, has shown unequivocally that a variety of lime-
stone materials was used in a bonding of burned and slaked
lime.
In detail, the terrazzo floor has the following composition:
a layer of small greyish-white limestone pieces in a bonding
material of light-colored lime mortar was applied over a
well-packed bed of coarse limestone fragments. A second
layer, of reddish-orange limestone particles (the color com-
ing from haematite naturally occurring around the calcite
crystals of the limestone), was applied within a lime mortar
of the same colored material. The fine-grained white lime-
stone pieces that made up the pairs of lines were then added
in this reddish-orange upper layer. Five different materials
were therefore used in the preparation of this floor. After
it had set and hardened, the whole surface was then carefully
polished.
The so-called flagstone building, which was partially
destroyed by erosion on its river front, has a floor of large
flat stones measuring up to 1.5 m. in length. From this
floor, the remains of two standing stones emerge opposite
the buttressses of the back wall.
The following considerations may be taken into account
in the interpretation of building activities on (iayonu. In the
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256 Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in SE TurkeylBraidwood, (:ambel, Schirmer, et al.
southern half of the plan, or even elsewhere on the site
cannot yet be determined.
Each of the building types, described above in some de-
tail, was of a well thought-through and planned construc-
tion. One is indeed tempted to suppose that the builders of
the older grill-plan structures had a more developed com-
prehension of building techniques, and of building vis-a-vis
climatic relationships than did their successors. The post-
grill context of the terrazzo building shows, on the other
hand, that its builders had a very thorough knowledge of
the complicated processes involved in achieving the terrazzo
floor itself. Furthermore, the fact that the colored material-
evidently especially desirable but not immediately available
and therefore even more valuable is confirled to the up-
permost thin layer of the terrazzo floor, shows a most eco-
nomical use of building materials.
The evolved comprehension of the art of building, which
the (iayonu evidence yields, is truly remarkable. We ask
ourselves, where are its forerunners?
Plant and Animal Remains
The exposures made during the 1978 and 1979 seasons
clarified some of our preliminary understandings of the
(iayonu villagers' utilization of plant and animal resources.
Unfortunately, as had also been the case in earlier seasons,
the presence of plant and animal evidence was relatively
modest in the near-surface depths of each new operation.
This circumstance, coupled with the fact that the exact na-
ture of a transition from the cell-plan sub-phase to that of
the uppermost sub-phase still remains unclear, presents a
problem: we cannot yet be fully specific as to whether an-
imal domesticates appeared during the later aspects of the
cell-plan sub-phase or were restricted only to the last sub-
phase. Our earlier conclusions, however, do still remain:
during the main prehistoric phase at (iayonu, domesticated
plants appeared appreciably earlier than did animal
domesticates.
The Botanical Evidence
The 1978-79 botanical studies were singularly unpro-
ductive, reminiscent of the 1968 efforts. The sampling was
apparently made either too close to the surface for good
preservation, or in areas where little food processing was
done. Only two plants were found, a single fruit each of
pistachio and hackberry. Both of these species have been
reported from our earlier excavations and add little to our
understanding. As we review and reconsider the evidence
of agricultural activities at (iayonu presented in 1976 4,
however, we believe that there are two outstanding features.
4. Robert B. Stewart, "Paleoethnobotanical report Cayonu 1972,"
Economic Botany 30 (1976) 219-225.
First is the absence of barley as a cultivated crop. This
absence is important because there is a tendency to lump
all prehistoric sites and to consider the evolution of agri-
culture as monophyletic, that is to say that at a given village
a plant was taken into cultivation and thereafter all cultivars
of a particular crop derived from that event. Actually, a
species may well have been domesticated several times in
different places. Another version of this idea suggests that
the entire known agricultural inventory would have been
adopted (where environment permitted) as the concept of
cultivation was accepted. Our findings at CJ ayonu show that
this was not the case. The inhabitants of CJayonu clearly
rejected barley while cultivating both emmer and einkorn,
although at other Near Eastern sites both were being cul-
tivated at the time. Unfortunately our results do not tell us
why barley was rejected.
There is another anomaly at our site that deserves more
thought and study. One might expect that, since it is gen-
erally agreed that people were first hunters and gatherers,
the lowest sub-phase of occupation would show a greater
animal dependence than the upper sub-phases and, con-
versely, less early dependence on cultivated plants and in-
creasing plant dependency later. Our evidence suggests just
the opposite. Our earlier interpretation of this relationship 5
concerned itself primarily with fat sources and the likely
distance to a reliable source of vegetable fat (pistachio was
the primary oil seed recovered). While this may well be the
case, we are now thinking that these data may suggest a
much more significant concept: did the decline of animal
resources (game?) accelerate, if not initiate the expansion
of crop production? The unreliability of 14C dating for
fixirlg short time intervals, and the paucity of prehistoric
sites where relative dependencies have been studied, com-
plicate a more general application of this concept. Never-
theless, further considerations of animal versus plant
dependencies as "the goad" in the shift from hunting-gath-
ering to village farming seems warranted. Even if it cannot
account for the shift itself, the concept might be useful in
explaining the spread of agriculture.
The Faunal Evidence
As regards a dependence on domestic animals by the
people of the main CJayonu prehistoric phase, our original
basic concept remains unchanged. Save for the dog, which
appeared early, domestic animals, mainly sheep, appeared
only in the final aspects of the phase. The point has already
been made above that we still lack precision in understand-
ing exactly what went on, both as to building activity and
stratigraphy, towards the very end of the cell-plan sub-phase
and during the final sub-phase. The bones of domesticated
5. Ibid.
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Journal of Field ArchaeologylVol. 8, 1981 257
sheep come from these later contexts. As we see the situation
now, the appearance of domestic animals seems to have
happened swiftly and with no strong connection with what
preceded it.
From the deeper and fully standardized cell-plan contexts
and before, animal bones are relatively abundant and it is
clear that dependence was on wild game, especially large
artiodactyls. In the areas where the building types now ex-
posed are well defined, the relative abundance of ovines to
a higher proportion of large artiodactyls is found to be the
same for both the cell-plan and the grill-plan sub-phases.
From these well-defined cell-plan and earlier contexts,
the bones of the artiodactyls Bos and Cervus seem to be
fairly evenly distributed. What is more, a very preliminary
survey (not a detailed bone count) of the different elements
of Bos and Cervus skeletons suggests that whole carcasses
were being utilized.
Considering the bones of wild sheep and goats from these
contexts, the situation appears to have been different and
needs further study. There are variations in relative bone
counts of these animals and also of the particular elements
of their skeletons from different contexts. The meanings of
these differences are not yet clear.
Other aspects of the faunal evidence also require further
study. Sus, which throughout the occupation was very im-
portant, needs to be fitted into the picture. So do represen-
tatives of such open country animals as Equus and Gazella.
Returning to the specific point of the appearance of animal
domestication, it is only in the final aspects of the main
(iayonu phase that sheep, primarily, are attested as domes-
ticates. For earlier contexts, the bones of Capra, and to a
slightly lesser extent, those of Ovis, have dimensions that
average greater than those of the mean for wild goats and
wild sheep. Furthermore, the remains of the sheep from the
earlier contexts seem preponderantly to have come from
fully adult animals. The artiodactyls were clearly wild game.
Thus, unless far broader exposures of the earlier horizons
should change this general picture, animal domestication
may be taken as clearly later at (iayonu than was plant
domestication.
Conclusion
In many ways, the most important results of the 1978-79
seasons' excavations were the clarification of our earlier
understandings, which had been based on more limited ex-
posures and evidence. Indeed, the preliminary report on the
most recent field season before 19786 proposed a sequence
of as many as six sub-phases, although this report did admit
that these six were not encountered in fully sequential stra-
tigraphic order. This lack of a whole stratigraphic sequence,
without unconformity, in one single excavation unit, is still
with us as unfinished business. We now feel certain, how-
ever, that the scheme proposed herewith for a total of only
four now available sub-phases corresponds to present evi-
dence. It was, for example, in 1978 that we were able to
establish that the special (terrazzo and flagstone) building
plan appeared in more than one of the sub-phases of essen-
tially domestic plan-types, and thus should not be counted
as a sub-phase in its own right.
Whether or not evidence for more than the four sub-phases
available at present will yet appear, only further excavation
will tell. At an absolute elevation between remains of cell-
plan and grill-plan buildings in a fair-sized portion of the
central exposure on the site, there is a broad area composed
of several horizontal beds of burned mud-brick debris, rel-
atively free of stones and artifacts. Its exact extent and
possible meaning are still unclear. It probably signifies some
special kind of feature and not an overall sub-phase.
Thus, our present understandings still leave much to be
desired. The mostly fragmentary building remains of the
uppermost sub-phase and their possible relationship with
the later aspects of cell-plan sub-phase building activity are
still unclear to us. We are still worse off with the limited
evidence so far available from the lowermost sub-phase.
It is with reference to the limited evidence we now have
from this lowermost sub-phase that a difference in emphasis
in reporting may be noted. The architectural colleagues here-
with, restricting their general observations quite objectively,
speak (see above in the second section) of "....a few
remains of buildings....the burned remains of a wall of
poles, branches and clay. . . ." for building fragments that
the prehistorian colleagues would allow themselves to see
as a curved segment of wattle and daub wall. Such differ-
ences of emphasis in reporting are entirly appropriate and
especially so in a preliminary report such as this. Had the
excavations at C, ayonu been restricted to one season's work
in one S m. x S m. pit alone, with only prehistorians as
excavators, all would have seemed quite simple and clear!
We return, in closing, to certain provocative considera-
tions posed especially by the (;ayonu building remains, cer-
tainly more sensitive indicators of change than is the small
object inventory. Considering that we must be dealing with
the remains of a cultural group apparently upon the very
threshold of effective food-production, what does it mean
that:
a) there is such a remarkable degree of standardization
and distinctiveness already achieved by the builders of
the grill and cell-plan types, but no ready explanation of
the meaning of the change from the earlier of these plan
types to the later?
b) Even more significantly, what meaning has the early
appearance and persistence, over at least two sub-phases, 6. Braidwood, Cambel et al., op. cit. (in note 1) 568.
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258 Beginnings of Village-Farming Communities in SE TurkeylBraidwood, (;ambel, Schirmer, et al.
of the very evidently non-domestic and quite special ter-
razzo-flagstone type, which undoubtedly implies some
community-wide activity (whether sacred or secular), but
of a purpose not yet clear to us?
And, again, who, where, and what were the forerunners of
the (iayonu cultural achievement?
Robert J. Braidwood, Oriental lnstitute and Department
of Anthropology Professor Emeritus, University of
Chicago, and co-director (with Halet (:ambel) of the joint
excavations at (:ayonu, has excavated in lraq, lran, and
Syria as well as in Turkey. He is a joint author (with
Linda Braidwood) of Excavations in the Plain of Antioch,
I and of the forthcoming Jarmo, etc., final reports.
fIalet (;ambel, professor and head of the Prehistory
Section, lstanbul University, and co-director of the joint
work at (;ayonu, was born in Berlin of a Turkish
diplomatic family and educated at Robert College, the
Sorbonne, and lstanbul. Her field work began in the
early 1940s at Arslan Tepe and Kara Tepe. She is the
editor of The Joint Istanbul-Chicago Universities'
Prehistoric Research in Southeastern Anatolia I (1980).
Wulf Schirmer, professor and director of the lnstitut fur
Baugeschichte at Karlsruhe University and associate
director of the excavations at /;;ayonu, has had long
experience in the exposure and interpretation of
architectural evidence from various German excavations
in the Near East. He is a co-author of the reports
Bogazkoy IV (1969) and Yazilikaya (1975), and is a
member of the central committee of the Robert Koldewey
Society of architectural history.
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