A Neolithic Mortuary
At the archaeological site of Çayönü Tepesi, about 40 kilometers northwest of Diyarbakır, stands a unique structure from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period. Known to archaeologists as the Skull Building, this structure was a public space for complex mortuary rituals that lasted for generations. The building itself underwent numerous phases of reconstruction, but its function remained consistent: it was a repository for the community's dead. Inside a series of cellar-like rooms beneath a large stone slab floor, archaeologists discovered the disarticulated and neatly arranged remains of as many as 400 individuals.
The remains include skulls and long bones from men, women, and children. This was not a mass grave resulting from a single event. Instead, the evidence shows a sustained practice of secondary burial. The inhabitants of Çayönü would periodically open the building's chambers to deposit the remains of their recently deceased. One cellar alone contained the skulls and bones of 90 different people. This ongoing engagement with the dead suggests a form of ancestor veneration where the deceased remained a physical part of the community's central structures.
Skeletons and Society
The Skull Building dates to a period of change for human society, roughly between 9,300 and 8,500 years before present. The people of Çayönü were among the first to transition from nomadic hunting and gathering to a settled agricultural lifestyle. The site provides some of the earliest evidence for the domestication of einkorn wheat and the pig. The mortuary practices seen in the Skull Building reflect this new permanence. Instead of leaving the dead behind, settled communities developed elaborate rituals to keep their ancestors close.
Analysis of the skeletal remains shows the population faced hardships, including blood disorders related to iron deficiency and infectious bone diseases. The average life expectancy was just 29 to 30 years. The funerary rites were not limited to humans. Mixed among the human bones were the skulls and bones of aurochs, the large wild ancestors of modern cattle. The inclusion of these powerful animals in the human mortuary space points to their symbolic importance in the community's belief system. This practice of complex, multi-stage burial involving both humans and animals was a social mechanism for early Neolithic societies navigating the challenges of a settled existence.