Çatalhöyük, East Mound: eighteen levels and two dates

The explanations distinguish finds, interpretations and open questions. Sources appear at the end of the page.

What the source says

According to the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük covers 37 ha on the Southern Anatolian Plateau and comprises two tells rising up to 20 metres above the Konya plain. The taller eastern mound contains eighteen levels of Neolithic occupation between 7400 and 6200 BC, including wall paintings, reliefs, sculptures and other symbolic and artistic features. The settlement is described as a unique streetless settlement of houses clustered back to back, with roof access into the buildings. Source 1.

Two ranges for one site

The Met's timeline for Anatolia gives Çatalhöyük, in its list of periods and cultures, a different range: "ca. 6900-6500 B.C.". According to the key events on the same page, in the later Neolithic the site of Çatalhöyük has buildings with elaborate wall paintings and modeled reliefs, with animal skulls attached to the walls. The Met does not mention the two mounds, so its page does not tell us whether its range refers to the East Mound alone. Neither source explains the difference. Sources 1, 2.

How this maps onto the timeline

On this site the Pottery Neolithic of Anatolia is 6900-6400 BCE, following the Met's timeline. The range the Met gives for Çatalhöyük lies entirely within it. UNESCO's range for the East Mound begins 500 years before its start, within the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the same scheme, and ends 200 years after its end, within the Chalcolithic. The article is placed in the Pottery Neolithic only: no source says which of the levels predate 6900 BCE or postdate 6400 BCE, and both sources call the settlement Neolithic. UNESCO's range is given in full and is not trimmed to fit. Sources 1, 2.

How eighteen levels are dated

The sources read give the result, one range for the whole sequence, and not the method: they give no date for any single level, no dating method, and no explanation of why one range is three times as long as the other. The two ranges are best read as two statements by two sources, not averaged. UNESCO mentions over forty years of well-documented research and excavation at the site, which was first discovered in 1958; the dates of individual levels are to be sought in that research. Source 1.

UNESCO's interpretation

According to UNESCO, Çatalhöyük is a testimony to a moment of the Neolithic in which the first agrarian settlements were established in central Anatolia and developed over centuries from villages to urban centres, "largely based on egalitarian principles". In its words, the comparable sizes of the dwellings throughout the city illustrate an early type of urban layout based on community and egalitarian ideals. These are UNESCO's interpretations and are attributed to it here. The West Mound is discussed in the article "Çatalhöyük, West Mound: the Chalcolithic continuation". Source 1.

Scope of reading: the Çatalhöyük page of the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Met timeline page "Anatolia and the Caucasus, 8000-2000 B.C." were read on 24 October 2026. The Çatalhöyük excavation reports and dating publications were not read, so this page gives no date for any single level, house or wall painting.