Has anyone here heard about Catalhoyuk in central turkey. It's an old city from 7 to 6000 bc. It housed about 8000 people at it's peak. The houses were built from a clay or adobe and had kind of conglomerated with the growth of the city. There weren't any roads. They moved across the roofs. It was kind of like one big house. It says there are 18 different levels of habitation, when they needed to rebuild, they'd use the walls of the old structure as a foundation. So they just kept building up.
But the really crazy part is what they do with their dead. The houses are from 11 to 48 square meters. They think families lived together in a house. About halfway up from the floor, they made a floor out of logs and whatever. The dead were placed under the floorboards. They think that staying close to one's dead was one of the main reasons why the city existed in the first place. At least the overgrown structure anyway.
It says that air circulation was really poor inside the dwellings and they were probably full of smoke most of the time. There is carbon deposits on the ribs where their lungs decayed onto them because of the smoke they inhaled. I bet they had some pretty sever smokers coughs. Probably cut down on the smell of grandma rotting under the floor though.
It also says they would go under the floor after a couple of years and cut off some of the heads. Probably from important family members. Men and women heads were cut off about equally, alluding to a sexual equality. There were other clues to a sexually equal society as well.
I find this to be just amazing. Maybe the weirdest culture that I've ever heard of.
I'm not sure if this should go in here or in Human Science. So I put it here.
My source is jan 2004 scientific american.
But the really crazy part is what they do with their dead. The houses are from 11 to 48 square meters. They think families lived together in a house. About halfway up from the floor, they made a floor out of logs and whatever. The dead were placed under the floorboards. They think that staying close to one's dead was one of the main reasons why the city existed in the first place. At least the overgrown structure anyway.
It says that air circulation was really poor inside the dwellings and they were probably full of smoke most of the time. There is carbon deposits on the ribs where their lungs decayed onto them because of the smoke they inhaled. I bet they had some pretty sever smokers coughs. Probably cut down on the smell of grandma rotting under the floor though.
It also says they would go under the floor after a couple of years and cut off some of the heads. Probably from important family members. Men and women heads were cut off about equally, alluding to a sexual equality. There were other clues to a sexually equal society as well.
I find this to be just amazing. Maybe the weirdest culture that I've ever heard of.
I'm not sure if this should go in here or in Human Science. So I put it here.
My source is jan 2004 scientific american.
