Domestication and inequality? Households, corporate groups and food processing tools at Neolithic Çatalhöyük

At Çatalhöyük, Neolithic households exhibited both egalitarian traits and emerging social complexity. Analysis of 2429 ground stone artefacts from 20 buildings and 9 outdoor yards revealed that while households had private property and relatively equal access to cooking features and some tools, large millstones (querns) were likely shared due to their high cost and deliberate destruction, suggesting taboos on inheritance. Lorenz curves indicated that storage units, unbroken querns, and unfinished roughouts were the most unequally distributed food preparation facilities, pointing to subsistence intensification, craft specialization, and early factional competition.

Wright, K. I. (. (2014). Domestication and inequality? Households, corporate groups and food processing tools at Neolithic Çatalhöyük. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 33, 1–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2013.09.007