Bring back Çatalhöyük

There is no such thing as a new idea,” remarked American writer Mark Twain. Re-living the “easy-come-easy-go” hippy lifestyle, hanging custom-made wall hangings or growing organic food in the backyard are not new fads.

- ANITA PRATAP

The inhabitants of Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey have “been there, done that”—more than 9,000 years ago. Stone age people are seen as unwashed savages, clothed in rags, with uncombed hair and rotten teeth. But these bygone craft gardeners, artists and liberal aesthetes could teach us lessons in living, loving and governing.

Archaeological excavations reveal that the Neolithic Çatalhöyük had no chieftains, police, courts, public squares, temples or centralised administrative institutions to govern the people. This was a self-regulating, egalitarian, independent, non-hierarchical society. Unlike France today, this society lived the French ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. Marvels Edinburgh University professor Trevor Watkins, “How did a population of several thousand people live like this for over a millennium?” Çatalhöyük was so stable it survived continuously for 1,500 years. After it was abandoned, it lay undisturbed for nearly 8,000 years, providing a rich trove of artefacts and human bones that unveil intriguing secrets.