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I have attended many a BBQ. They are rather filling affairs with baby back ribs, steaks, briscuit, pigs-feet, and grease dribbling from the mouth to the elbows. The end result is a strong inclination for a toothpick and an intractable wish for a slow, dyspeptic death. To that end, I would like to talk about four things related to feasting at Catalhoyuk. And then I’d like to propose a modest study to hypothesis-test one or two of these:
1. Scale
2. Place-making
3. Timing
4. Unintended consequences
Space 87 is currently on its 21st cluster of auroch bones. These include many a tasty-bit, including legs, ribs, vertebrae, and toes, as well as "other" parts that may have been desirable to some Catalhoyuans: heads and jaws, pelvis and horns(!?). Throw in a few sheep, goat and pig, and it’s a party.
In Texas, festivities with meat require the chef to allot approximately a pound of meat per person. (A bit more if you’re having ribs). That means a good-sized pig can feed about 100 folks. I’ve never seen a whole cow cooked (I don’t have that many friends), but a decent heifer could probably amply feed 400-500 people.
Of course, Longhorns have NOTHING on Aurochs: the BAMF of their day. (Even Julius Caesar wrote about how awesome they were, particularly in their ability to gore German prisoners and fight off Polish wolf packs ß a more or less direct quote).
Some things to note:
• Aurochs horns aren’t often found in feasting contexts (<30%)
• When they are found, they tend to be male and fully adult
• Limited number of aurochs were consumed (in general), but they are disproportionately represented in feasts.
According to Twiss and Russell (2010), between 1995 and 2010, 12,000 bits of horns have been found on site, 716 fragments have been clearly identified, and of those in special contexts (like feasting), there is a minimum of 71 individuals.
This afternoon, Space 87/Bld 114 uncovered our 13th auroch horn. Minimum number of individuals = 6. So, essentially, this one building, in three weeks, has contributed 8% of the auroch horns to the site inventory. SWEET! Preliminary analysis (and these are my words: the faunal team is blameless with respect to any of the following assertions), indicates that more than half, and likely ¾ of these come from male aurochs. So. Let’s take this BBQ theme out for a spin.
A full-grown male auroch weighed about 2000 pounds. Gals and juveniles and the domesticated versions a bit less. Without thinking too much about the math, and regardless of sex or size, if 6 (or 3 or even 2) auroch were dismembered and munched in Space 87/Bld 114, that was one happenin’ party on the Konya Plain. Of course, that’s if the point was consumption. Which if it were, then one would assume that these gatherings were affairs to behold, held atop rooms that had been either recently or long abandoned, by people who were likely participating for reasons beyond partaking of a greasy snack. But the point is: they were probably on a grand scale. Or if they weren’t, then that becomes something veeery, veeery interesting, no?
If these events weren’t so much about food and full tummies, as they were about something else, then the meat processing (low) and sheer volume (high) calls to question a "feast"of a non-utilitarian function. For instance, how often might feasts have happened? The "leavings" of a BBQ of this nature must be something horrible to behold and worse to smell. Catalhittes were likely strong of stomach when it came to smells (I am gradually growing accustomed to the multitude of odors emitted in the dig house), but the nature of the trash shoved into and under walls, left out long enough to be gnawed on by rodents, partially cooked or left entirely raw, may suggest that there had to be protracted period of time between orgies that would allow for a modicum of freshness to be restored. But if that is the case, aren’t there some "unintended consequences" associated with such behavior? Might this "marking" on the landscape, in this "place" be an intended or an unintended consequence of the feast? Could it be that some group was claiming or affiliating or identifying itself with the area, the mound, or the region? A gathering atop a tell with dozens or hundreds of people around a bonfire would be quite a sight/site: and the stench of the after-party likely lasted weeks. What a way to make a place!
So we can’t know what these feasts were about (people have postulated feeding frenzies, integrative social events, ritual offerings, some combination therein, or possibly something else entirely). So that’s a "big-picture" question that may be beyond the scope of a mere diary entry. But we could ask some modest question, yes? Might we correlate these bbq "events" in time and place, thereby shedding new light on feasting at Catal?
So with that: a number of questions:
We have a number of feasting events (or places, or localities, or spaces) on site.
Did they occur when occupation was still ongoing? It’s likely that they did. The 4040 occupation stopped before the South shelters. Were incidents of feasting occurring at the same frequency in both places? Did the nature of the North’s post-occupational-use change? And is this demonstrable with mid- to - late Neolithic feasts? Could we test the hypothesis that the North may have been unoccupied but continued to be used, or "claimed"by some unidentified group via feasting and its aftermath? Could we test the idea that Auroch consumption was actually dropping (from 30% in early contexts to 10% in later contexts), thereby indicating that late feasts with massive, wild, male auroch and auroch waste, might be significant? To butcher and feast and waste a commodity that was so obviously rare? Could we develop this as an intra-site question(s)? Could the unintended consequence of the pain-in-the-butt-to-excavate (and this diary entry goes out to the Faunal and Conservation Crews, bless their hearts) Space 87/Bld 114 may be a reason or an impetus to test post-occupational feasting behavior between the two chief Neolithic occupations at Catal. Methinks yes. |
