the archaeological site at Çatalhöyük

This Stone Age settlement took humanity's first steps toward city life

Settled more than 9,000 years ago in Turkey, Çatalhöyük focused on farming with the seeds of urban living planted at its heart.

Beginning in the 1960s, work at Çatalhöyük (in central Turkey) has unearthed numerous levels of close-knit households where a large community of people lived during the Stone Age as humanity began to reject nomadic life.
Photograph by MARION BULL/ALAMY/ACI
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