Out of Range?

Abstract

Çatalhöyük is most well known for its Neolithic settlement, but the site also served as a cemetery during the Bronze Age, as well as the Roman, Byzantine, and Islamic periods. During the Neolithic, Çatalhöyük is distinctive as a place for both the living and the dead, but thereafter the site becomes more closely associated with the dead. This chapter discusses four examples of non-normative burials from different time periods at the site, including two Neolithic burials: one of a mature male buried with a sheep and another of a young male with a congenital deformity; a Roman period double burial with an atypical grave orientation; and an isolated twentieth-century burial of a woman from the local village, which represents the last known burial on the mound. Osteobiographical information and sociocultural context are used to assess the significance of each burial. We also question how normative and non-normative burials are typically defined in the archaeological record.