Stone Age farmers’ households passed from mother to daughter in ancient Turkey

The age old question about matriarchy versus patriarchy!

"Beginning more than 9000 years, people living in what is today central Turkey built dozens of elaborately decorated, adjoining houses, piling ever more on top of the collapsed ruins of earlier dwellings every few decades. Into this architectural layer cake, residents also incorporated human remains, burying family members beneath the dirt floors of their homes and sometimes repurposing their skulls into ornaments or ritual objects ...

Now, DNA from the humans buried there suggests these early farmers organized their families along the mother’s side, researchers report today in Science. In the settlement’s later phases, households were made up of genetically unrelated children and adults, indications people practiced widespread adoption or fostering. ..."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Ancient DNA has played an important role in archeological studies in recent years, particularly in assigning chromosomal sex to remains to aid in understanding historic sociological structures. A pair of studies now present an analysis of stable isotopes and skeletal remains from 395 ancient individuals who lived 8000 to 5800 BCE, from whom DNA from 131 individuals could be sequenced (see the Perspective by Arbuckle). Yüncü et al. found that kinship patterns changed over time in this settlement, but individuals from the same houses or nearby ones were primarily related through the maternal line. In a broader geographic sampling, Koptekin et al. describe population dynamics, including the spread of cultural practices without admixture. ...

Structured Abstract

INTRODUCTION

Çatalhöyük is a Neolithic settlement in Anatolia and a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. Occupied for 1000 years (7000 to 6000 BCE), it is renowned for its size, apparent egalitarian social structure, and subfloor burials, where children and adults were buried within houses during their use. It is also known for its large corpus of female figurines, which were long debated as possible representatives of a “Mother Goddess” cult and signs of a matriarchal society.

RATIONALE

In this work, we studied social organization at Çatalhöyük, fusing rich archaeological data with a paleogenomic dataset of 131 individuals buried in 35 houses. We focused on identifying genetic ties between individuals buried together inside the same buildings.

RESULTS

Comparing genetic ties within and between buildings, we found that the maternal lineage had a key role in connecting Çatalhöyük household members, as represented by burials within each building. We estimated that 70 to 100% of the time, female offspring remained connected to buildings, whereas adult male offspring may have moved away. We also discovered preferential treatment of female infant and child burials, with five times more grave goods offered to females than to males.

Our data further show how social organization patterns changed over time in Çatalhöyük. In the early phases of the settlement, individuals buried together within houses frequently represented extended family members. Through time, the genetic composition of house burials became less homogeneous. In later periods, we found groups of neonates who were genetically unrelated but buried in the same house. Meanwhile, their mothers appear to have had similar diets. This implies that genetic relatedness became less central to social organization over time, which could be explained by fostering and adoption-like mechanisms becoming widespread, which is also observed today in various societies. Despite this shift, female-centered practices continued at Çatalhöyük through the occupation.

CONCLUSION

Our results reveal the malleable nature of social organization in Neolithic villages, with the composition of households possibly changing within a few dozen generations. We also found the first direct indication of female-centered practices in Neolithic Southwest Asia, a question of frequent debate. This female focus identified in Çatalhöyük is in sharp contrast to patterns observed in later European Neolithic sites, which have their origins in Anatolia. Many of these European societies show evidence of patrilocality—where males stay within their natal community upon attaining adulthood and females move out—and elaborate burial treatments that are frequently associated with males. The Çatalhöyük evidence now shows that such male-centered practices were not an inherent characteristic of early agricultural societies."

Stone Age farmers’ households passed from mother to daughter | Science | AAAS "Moms and daughters were at the center of the family in ancient Çatalhöyük, ancient DNA and archaeological evidence suggest"

Genomic insights into social life in Neolithic Anatolia "Matriarchs and foragers emerge as important players in early farming villages"

Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük (no public access)

Female lineages and changing kinship patterns in Neolithic Çatalhöyük (preprint, open access)

Female statuettes found at Çatalhöyük led some researchers to guess it was a matriarchal society.

Female-centered practices and changing kinship patterns over time in Çatalhöyük.