Jericho and Çatal Hüyük: Two of the Oldest Ancient Cities

Learning Outcomes

• Describe what life was like in Jericho and Çatal Hüyük, two of the first ancient cities.
• Evaluate how agriculture led to the development of ancient cities.

Instructions

As you watch the videos ask yourself the following questions: What kind of government did Jericho and Çatal Hüyük have? Did they have social classes? What is unknown about the people of Jericho and Çatal Hüyük is almost as important as the evidence of their lives they left behind.   

Context

Archaeologists had discovered settlements dating as far back as 13,000 BCE. Known as Natufian villages (the name comes from the first of these sites to be found), they sprang up and ushered in a time when the region's climate became relatively warm and wet. The Natufians lived in permanent settlements and were foragers, not farmers, hunting gazelles and gathering wild rye, barley, and wheat. Natufian villages ran into hard times around 10,800 BCE, when regional temperatures fell some 12°F, part of a mini-ice age that lasted 1,200 years and created much drier conditions across the Fertile Crescent. With animal habitat and grain patches shrinking, people once again became wandering foragers, searching the landscape for remaining food sources. The Natufian photovoltages suggested that settlement came first and farming arose later, as a result of crisis. Confronted with a drying, cooling environment and growing populations, humans in the remaining fertile areas stayed where they were and subsisted, developing agriculture in the process. It may have taken humans hundreds or even thousands of years to transition fully from a lifestyle of subsisting on wild plants to keeping small gardens and later tending large crop fields. It then spread to India, Europe, and beyond. Most archaeologists believed this blossoming of civilization was driven largely by environmental changes: a gradual warming as the Ice Age ended that allowed some people to begin cultivating plants and herding animals in abundance.

Archeological evidence showed that early farmers learned to domesticate wheat and barley. The availability of these two cereal grains is another significant biological advantage enjoyed by this region. Of the hundred or so domesticated plants humans depend upon today, wheat is one of the most important. It is a superb example of a species genetically pre-adapted for domestication. It can grow in a wide range of environments, and it can generate new diversity at an incredibly rapid rate, which accounts for its tremendous global success as a food crop. 

Oldest Ancient Cities

The ancient cities of Jericho and Çatalhöyük are two of the earliest trading towns and the first large ancient cities. Both Jericho and Çatal Hüyük were very large Neolithic proto-city settlements, which existed from approximately 7100 BCE to 5700 BCE, and flourished around 7000 BCE. 

Jericho

Jericho is noted as the oldest city on the planet, situated today in the West Bank region of the Middle East; it was a permanent site of the culture of the pre-ceramic Neolithic. Jericho is located in the Jordan River Valley in modern Palestine. At an elevation of 864 feet below sea level. The location and long-term survival of the city is an excellent example of the impact of the environment on human history.

Jericho started as a popular settlement for the hunter-gathers of the Natufians around 14,000 years ago; it resulted from the same geographical and biological factors that led to the most significant revolution in all human history — the appearance of agriculture. The geological features form natural defenses because they rise up over a mile in height above the city. Jericho was enclosed by a wall built around 8,000 BCE shortly after the start of agriculture. Before Jericho was built people lived by hunting and gathering wild grains. Jericho was built on a spring and that enabled people to grow crops of wheat and barley. Jericho also had a tower, and a trench dug out of the solid rock to protect it. Jericho had a population of about 2,000 - 3,000 people.

Watch the video: Jericho - The Oldest Ancient City

After more than 10,000 years of continuous occupation, Jericho reached its apex in the Bronze Age, between 1700 and 1550 BCE. With a population of at least 50,000 people, the Sumerian city of Uruk would surpass the size or population for an astonishing 3,000 years later. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities on Earth, home to the oldest known standing city walls, Jericho was thought to have been home to the oldest stone tower in the world as well. Inside it was a powerful eight-meter tower, which, was used for ritual purposes. The name Jericho comes from a word with the meaning "smell" and "fragrance" - "Reich".

Çatal Hüyük

One of the best-preserved Neolithic settlements archaeologists have unearthed is Çatal Höyük in Anatolia, south-central Turkey, dating back more than 9,000 years. Çatal Hüyük (pronounced cha-tel hoo-yek, Chatal Hoy-ook, or Çatalhöyük in Turkish) is an archaeological site that has given historians and archaeologists great insights into how humanity decided to settle into towns. Archaeologists have unearthed more than a dozen mud-brick dwellings. The population is calculated to number about 5000, living in 1000 houses. In Çatal Hüyük, the houses were made of mud-brick and connected to each other. They did not have doors and houses were entered through hatches in roofs.  Inside houses were plastered and often had painted murals of people and animals on the walls. People slept on platforms. Studying Jericho and Çatalhöyük has given researchers a better understanding of the transition from a nomadic life of hunting and gathering to an agriculture lifestyle.

Çatal Hüyük is one gigantic building comprised of several smaller cells, almost like an anthill or honeycomb, with no streets. The residents of Çatal Hüyük chose to build their houses abutting each other on all sides, with entrances built under the ledge of each house. The homes did not have doors and houses were entered through hatches in roofs. The roofs of the homes acted as street through the town. The roof top entrances also served as ventilation for the cooking that happened below, as well as provided a vent for warm air to rise up while the cooler earth provided some level of natural air conditioning.  Inside walls and the floors of the houses are covered in plaster and often had painted murals of people and animals on the walls detailing the daily lives, as well as the ceremonial lives, of Çatal Hüyük. Each house in Çatal Hüyük had its own oven for the baking of bread. People slept on platforms. The exterior walls of the settlement were reinforced with wooden supports in addition to the mud-brick of the standard walls, as were the ceilings of each dwelling. Food was produced by agriculture, with the cultivation of wheat and barley, and by the breeding of cattle. In addition to meat and milk, the cattle provide transport as beasts of burden. A surplus of food enabled specialist crafts to develop. The community used pottery and woven textiles. The site said to have been in continuous occupation from about 6500 to 5700 BCE. 

Watch the video: Çatal Hüyük - One of the Oldest Ancient Cities