Technological choice or environmental constraints? Fuel use at Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük

Summary

By combining sediment micromorphology with microbotanical and geochemical analysis, we can gain insights into the archaeological record that are otherwise invisible. By characterising fuel deposits as a package of remains rather than focusing on a single class of material (including charcoal, ash, burnt sediments and associated artefacts) we are better able to reconstruct their formation processes, and thus the activities that produced them. Using examples from the early Neolithic settlements of Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük, this paper will discuss the contribution of microarchaeological approaches to the investigation of fuel use in prehistory, and how it can help disentangle technological choices versus environmental constraints on the selection and use of fuel resources.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Exploring social change in the Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic of the Near East

Keywords

Spatial Coverage