Last grain stores at Çatalhöyük found

Past Horizons, 14-01-2014

A cache of perfectly preserved Neolithic grain, the largest so far known in the Middle East, has been uncovered by Polish archaeologists working at Çatalhöyük in Central Turkey. Çatalhöyük is one of the centres of urbanisation of the earliest farming communities and one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world.

”In a small room with an area of ​​approximately 7 square metres we discovered four containers formed from packed clay containing a large quantity of multi-row grains” – explained Prof. Arkadiusz Marciniak from the Institute of Prehistory in Poznan. In total, between the two grain hoppers that were excavated  the archaeologists recovered  almost 5kg of grain. Such an amount in a well preserved state is of great importance to the investigation of early agriculture. Archaeobotanical research has shown that it was an extinct species of wheat – popular in Neolithic times in the Middle East and Europe. The room in which the discovery was made lay in the north-eastern part of the house group – which consisted of residential buildings constructed around 8,200 years ago.

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