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Intersecting the mineral and social worlds at the houses of Çatalhöyük

Serena Love (Stanford University)

Abstract

This paper asks the question of how the intentional use of the mineral world can contribute to a sense of ‘being-in’ a domestic space through a geoarchaeological study of mud-bricks. The process of house making is stressed with performance theory and how soils, bricks and houses are all interlinked, contributing to social identity. As ‘invisible’ objects, bricks possess social expression voiced in the non-verbal communication of architecture. By collapsing the nature/culture divide, the mineral world can be considered an integrated part of the social world, not separate from it. This multi-sensory approach does not assume materials are static and inert, rather it assumes an awareness and understanding of the landscape by those who lived within it. Playing off the idea that “persons make things and things make persons”, this paper explores how people create themselves through materials, visible in the Neolithic house of Çatalhöyük.