Skulls and Animate Houses: The Development of Sedentism and Agriculture in Central Anatolia

Douglas Baird, Garstang Chair of Archaeology, University of Liverpool The Braidwood Vising Scholar Lecture One of the great things about an archaeological perspective is the ability to examine social developments and social practices at a range of temporal and spatial scales simultaneously. The Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures welcomes Douglas Baird for a lecture that explores the development of the Neolithic in the Konya plain, based on c. 20 years of excavations at the sites of Pınarbașı and Boncuklu, the later apparently a direct antecedent of Çatalhöyük. This lecture allows a focus the contemporaneous adoption of variable sedentary practices, small-scale cultivation and herding and in some cases avoidance of farming by early Neolithic communities. The role of the development of distinct community identities within such networks of diverse proximate communities will be evaluated, as will more intimate and specific household and individual histories and identities, ritual and ancestral practices within these longer-term developments. Our lectures are free and available to the public thanks to the generous support of our members. To become a member, please visit: http://bit.ly/2AWGgF7 2023, ISAC Music credit: bensound.com