Louise Martin

Louise Martin is an archaeologist from University College London who, along with Nerissa Russell, is Co-Director of the team that studies the faunal (animal) remains at Çatalhöyük. This field of archaeological specialty is called zooarchaeology or archaeozoology (the archaeological study of animal remains). By studying animal bones researchers try to determine what kinds of animals were being used for resources like food or bone tools, their approximate age and the season of the year at death, their sex, signs indicating how they were butchered and what types of tools may have been used. However, the central issue for the team is the question of what role Çatalhöyük may have played in the early domestication of such animals as sheep, goats and cattle.