Mysteries of Çatalhöyük

This hands-on archaeology exhibit explored the ongoing work of an international research team investigating one of the oldest known permanent human settlements. Çatalhöyük, a 9000-year-old site in southeast Turkey, holds clues to the development of art, agriculture, and the beginnings of urban life. Each discovery there has led to new understanding and new questions about the human experience at the dawn of settled, communal life. Interactive components allow visitors to experience the painstaking work of modern archaeology. Arresting analogies help explain the lifeways of the past.

The exhibit addresses the questions that fuel the research at the site: Who were the people who lived at Çatalhöyük? Why did they choose to live together? How did they survive? What did they eat? Where did they sleep? How were their lives similar to or different from ours? The exhibit demonstrated how contemporary archaeological research produces questions as well as answers, and is shaped by researchers' perspectives as much as by what they find.

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