R05 - Death, Ritual and The Social Transformations In The Near Eastern Neolithic

Session Organisers: Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Marin A. Pilloud

Category: Anthropology / Burial Practices

Session Abstract: For a long time, archaeologists and anthropologists have studied the perception of death in the Neolithic Near East populations with very different types of evidence. Among the striking results observed in these studies is that rituals related to death show similarities in communities that seem to have adopted the new lifestyle, but also have many differences. It can be estimated that the intra-regional and inter-regional evaluations of the similarities and differences observed in death practices are useful in understanding the worldview and social structures of the Neolithic people, as well as in discussing the relations between settlements in different geographies. In addition, the use of pigments observed in funerary practices, the diversity in terms of different burial types and grave goods continue to be important issues worth examining, while the examinations made in the settlements show that people lived with their dead in most Neolithic settlements and their remains were used in the rituals of the living. Post-burial interventions (secondary burial practices, dismemberment) or plastered skulls seem to emphasize the functionality of rituals related to death in maintaining order in these communities, dealing with the dead and their remains, or that rituals related to death are deeply involved in life. In addition to all these, bioarchaeological information about Neolithic human societies reveals important lines of adaptation to the natural environment and social transformation. Therefore, it would be appropriate to include the results of the bioarchaeological research on lifestyles in our session. In this context, the main purposes of this session are to showcase the local characteristics of the practices, and to examine the evidence of rituals related to death as a tool of socio-cultural transformation in these societies, along with other bio-cultural adaptations that generate the new lifestyle.

Room: F

08/11/2024

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
10:00 - 10:15	Michelle Bonogofsky, Gary Rollefson	Transforming the skulls of males, females, and children in Neolithic Anatolia and the Levant
10:15 - 10:30	Andrew Mccarthy	Burying Memories: A Ritual Pit Complex at Neolithic Prasteio Mesorotsos, Cyprus
10:30 - 10:45	Bogdana Milic, Juan José Ibáñez, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Alice Vinet, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Luca Campione, Emanuela Cristiani	Towards the interpretation of cut marks on plastered skulls from Neolithic Tepecik-Çiftlik, Central Anatolia (Türkiye) through a new programme of combined use-wear analyses
10:45 - 11:00	Marin Pilloud, Scott Donald Haddow, Christopher J. Knüsel, Clark Spencer Larsen	Social memory and mortuary practice in Çatalhöyük
11:00 - 11:15	Eline M.J. Schotsmans, Gesualdo Busacca, Sam Lin, Milena Vasic, Ashley Lingle, Rena Veropoulidou, Camilla Mazzucato, Belinda Tibbetts, Scott Donald Haddow, Mehmet Somel, Fatma Toksoy-Köksal, Christopher J. Knüsel, Marco Milella	Commemoration of the dead through mortuary and architectural use of pigments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

Lunch Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
13:00 - 13:15	Dana Allan	Investing in the Dead: Exploring Funerary Treatments in the Levantine Epipalaeolithic-Neolithic Transition
13:15 - 13:30	Corine Yazbeck, Tania Zaven	A unique early-middle PPNB funerary area from the Lebanese coast : Tabarja Wata Slam 41 (TWS41)
13:30 - 13:45	Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Özden Ormancı, Burak Falay, Fabio Cavalli, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Erhan Bıçakçı	Evaluation of the results of archaeometric studies of plastered skulls found at Tepecik-Çiftlik
13:45 - 14:00	Peter Magee, Noura Hameli, Richard Cuttler, Kevin Lidour	Life and Death on the Fertile Coast: New Evidence For Neolithic Lifeways and Burials On The Islands Of The United Arab Emirates.
14:00 - 14:15	Hakob Simonyan Nanar Kalantaryan	Architecture of the Voskehat burial ground

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
14:45 - 15:05	Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Serpil Eroğlu, Özlem Ekinbaş Can, Fabio Cavalli, Ekim Gümeler, Özden Ormancı	Mortuary Practices of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Period at Gre Fılla, Diyarbakır, Türkiye
15:05 - 15:25	Jo-Hannah Plug	Mortuary Pathways at Late Neolithic Tell Sabi Abyad, Syria
15:25 - 15:45	Yasemin Yılmaz	Archaeotanatological Analysis of the Graves found at Pendik Höyük in İstanbul
15:45 - 16:05	Yaren Emmez, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya	Mortuary Rituals in Neolithic Anatolia: New insights into Social Change and Cultural Interactions

Coffee Break

Start Time - End Time	Authors	Title
16:30 - 16:50	Kameray Özdemir, Benjamin Titus Irvine, Handan Üstündağ, Joris Peters, Necmi Karul	Palaeodietary Analysis of the Gusir Höyük Neolithic Population utilising Stable Isotope Analysis
16:50 - 17:10	Handan Üstündağ, Donald Kale, Necmi Karul	Physiological Stress in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Population of Gusir Höyük
17:10 - 17:30	Kameray Özdemir, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya, Benjamin Titus Irvine, Turhan Doğan, Furkan Kulak, Can Yümni Gündem, Yasin Gökhan Çakan	Determination of Dietary Patterns in the Tepecik-Çiftlik Neolithic Population through Stable Isotope Analysis
17:30 - 17:50	Benjamin Irvine, Kameray Özdemir, Turhan Doğan, Furkan Kulak, Yasin Gökhan Çakan, Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya	Sub-adult diet and the weaning process at Neolithic Tepecik-Çiftlik