One of the first cities on Earth, dating back to around 7500 BC, Çatalhöyük in modern Turkey was probably the largest settlement in the world at the time. This place is very important in the human social evolution. It was a breakthrough moment in history, when people adapted to sedentary lifestyle in large groups. Until then, the largest human settlements were villages with only a few hundred inhabitants, but in Çatalhöyük lived an estimated 5,000 to 7,000 inhabitants. People living here were gaining skills in agriculture and the domestication of animals.
It was a city of interconnected houses made of mudbrick. The entire settlement was a honeycomb-like maze, each house glued to several others with no space between them. There were no streets between the houses as we know today. People were walking on the roofs. This was because the houses did not have traditional doors. The openings in the ceiling served as entrances. There was a ladder going down from the roof to the house. From the main room, low openings in the walls led to other rooms. The interiors of the houses had plastered walls, often decorated with paintings.
Houses in Çatalhöyük were decorated with animal skulls, burial places were located under painted floors. Funeral rituals were quite complex. People of higher status were buried inside houses, but the head was separated from the body and may have been used in rituals. The other after the death were left in the open for the bones to be cleaned by wild animals.
