Ian Hodder is the leader of the Catalhoyuk Research project, which aims to illuminate on the development of one of the earliest societies in the world, the economic and social organization of the settlement, and the change from hunting and gathering to civilization and agriculture. In one of his recent works, “Towards Reflective Method in Archeology: The Example of Catalhoyuk,” Hodder created theories on how people’s entanglement with material things draws them down several historical and evolutionary pathways while pressuring choices that can be made(Hodder 154). Therefore, this paper proposes arguments from the works of Bruce Trigger, which will be used to assess, create arguments, and reveal its connections to Hodder’s book.

Currently, the land around Konya, south-central Turkey is flat and filled with barley and wheat. About 9,000 years ago, the land was flatter still, but it has no mounds(Hodder 150). However, today the word hoeyuek, which means ‘mound’ in Turkey, is everywhere. One of the most prominent mounds, Catalhoyuk, rises about 70 feet over the plains. Additionally, 9,000 years ago, Catalhoyuk was lone and the enormity it had only started to expand(Hodder). This time is dated as the Neolithic Period (the end of Stone Age), as people had just descended from the mountains to establish one of the initial vast settlements on earth.

Since 1993, Hodder has directed an international team of archeologists to Excavate Catalhoyuk. Although other sites document the Neolithic period, none are as rich as Catalhoyuk, as it is one of the first urban centers in the world(Hodder 167). Thousands of individuals resided in the vast settlement. The excavations are aimed at growing the knowledge of the life of Catalhoyuk’s inhabitants and put the artifacts and arts from the site in their actual social, economic, and environmental context.

About 10,000 people lived in mud-bricked boxes, with the roof made of reeds and wood beams, between 7000 and 6000 B.C. Although a huge space surrounded them, they built a dense town, as it lacked doorways and streets. Since the excavations began, they have unearthed over 400 skeletons buried under the houses. It was a common practice during the early agricultural villages in Catalhoyuk to bury the dead under the houses. Although rare, plastered skeletons have also been discovered in this site.

On the white plaster walls of the rank and smoky houses, the people of Catalhoyuk modeled lots of art. The walls are covered with paintings of men hunting cattle and wild deer and paintings of cultures devouring headless people. Additionally, the plaster walls have female figures, which are interpreted as goddesses. Hodder is assured that Catalhoyuk, one of the best-preserved and largest Neolithic sites ever exposed, has the key to one of the crucial questions about humanity: why humans initially settled in permanent communities(Hodder 140).

In the millennia prior to the flowering of Catalhoyuk, nomads occupied most of the Near East, and their activities were to hunt cattle and gazelle and gather cereals, fruits, and nuts. Several millennia later, about 10,000 people settled together in stone houses and invented farming(Hodder 90). For many years, archeologists have debated what caused the Neolithic revolution. Some academics stressed that environmental and climatic changes that occurred about 12,000 years ago, during the end of ice age, enabled agriculture(Hodder). Hodder, however, stresses the role played by transformations in human cognition and psychology.

Hodder argues that archeologists should interpret past societies through both idealistic and materialist ideas(Hodder 78). While past societies were mostly interpreted in a materialistic way, historical organizations have also greatly emphasized on ideology (such as religion) in interpreting their world and influencing their behavior.Previous archeologists such as Mellaart (who discovered the site) believe that religion was at the core of the lives of Catalhoyuk’s people. He claims that they worshipped a mother goddess, made of fired stone or clay that he and Hodder discovered at the site(Hodder 34). However, the works of Bruce Trigger, have revealed how the social elite manipulate ideology to maintain their economic and political control(Trigger, 132).  Thus, Hodder states that before people could domesticate wild animals and plants, they had to tame their world nature and the psychological evolution demonstrated in their art.

Bruce Trigger, an archeologist, agrees with Hodder’s conclusions, as he believes that archeology is subjective and processualistssuch as Mellaart impose their bias and views into the interpretations of archeological data(Trigger 129). Arguably, processualists believe that scientific approaches can apply to archeological investigation and archeologists can provide objective conclusions about the history of a society based on the evidence. In most of the cases, they maintain that the bias is political. Hodder holds that the processualist’s positive approach in believing that only event that which could be predicted, tested, and sensed was valid and provided technical knowledge that aimed at oppressing the ordinary people(Hodder).  Further, Trigger believes that by putting forth the notion that external pressures and influences modeled human societies, archeologists were agreeing to social injustice(Trigger, 132). Hodder and Trigger further criticize the fact that archeologists from wealthy countries were writing and studying histories of poorer nations(Trigger, 132). Hodder and Trigger hold that archeologists have no right to interpret the prehistories of other cultural and ethnic groups(Trigger, 133). Instead, they should provide these individuals with the opportunity to develop their views. In Trigger’s book, “A History of Archeological Thought,” he states that “cultural heritage ought to be legally acknowledged as the dual ownership of the descendants of the individuals who established it and all humankind whose cultural diversity and creativity it attests”(Trigger, 133).

While the viewpoints of Hodder were not universally accepted, there was sufficient to support opposing professional elitism, colonialism, and racism within the discipline. Trigger and Hodder undermine the claims of archeology to be the authoritative source of knowledge about our history(Trigger, 132). Arguably, the most crucial distinction in the development of archeology will not be in theoretical schools but between non-text- and text-based archaeologies. Trigger implies that it is only in non-text-based archaeology that anthropological theories can be entirely explored(Trigger, 132). On the other hand, text-based archaeologies can investigate long-term sociocultural transformation, a task that is its main contribution to the social sciences and which only archeology can undertake.

In conclusion, Ian Hodder has illuminated on the development of one of the earliest societies in the worldand the change from hunting and gathering to civilization and agriculture. Hodder directed an international team of archeologists to Excavate Catalhoyuk, which is one of the first urban centers in the world. Hodder stresses the role played by transformations in human cognition and psychology as the cause of the Neolithic Revolution. However, he stresses, with the support of Bruce Trigger, that archeologists have no right to interpret the prehistories of other cultural and ethnic groups, as it would lead to social injustice.

Works cited

Hodder, Ian. “Towards Reflexive method in archaeology: The example at Catalhoyuk.” McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research (2000).

Trigger, Bruce. A history of archeological thought. 2nd. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

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