Consciousness, Creativity, and Self at the Dawn of Settled Life

Over recent years, a number of scholars have argued that the human mind underwent a cognitive revolution in the Neolithic. This volume seeks to test these claims at the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük in Turkey and in other Neolithic contexts in the Middle East. It brings together cognitive scientists who have developed theoretical frameworks for the study of cognitive change, archaeologists who have conducted research into cognitive change in the Neolithic of the Middle East, and the excavators of the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük who have over recent years been exploring changes in consciousness, creativity and self in the context of the rich data from the site. Collectively, the authors argue that when detailed data are examined, theoretical evolutionary expectations are not found for these three characteristics. The Neolithic was a time of long, slow and diverse change in which there is little evidence for an internal cognitive revolution.

Part I. Introduction to the Themes, Site, and Region: 1. Introduction to the themes of the volume – cognition and Çatalhöyük Ian Hodder; 2. Hunter-gatherer home-making? Building landscape and community in the Epipalaeolithic Lisa Maher; 3. When time begins to matter Marion Benz; Part II. Higher Levels of Consciousness: 4. Cognitive change and material culture – a disturbed perspective Michael Wheeler; 5. Conscious tokens? Lucy Bennison-Chapman; 6. Brick sizes and architectural regularities Marek Z. Baranski; 7. The meronomic model of cognitive change, and its application to Neolithic Çatalhöyük Chris Thornton; 8. Containers and creativity in the Late Neolithic Upper Mesopotamian Olivier Nieuwenhuyse; 9. Creativity and innovation in the geometric wall paintings at Çatalhöyük Ian Hodder and Nazli Gurlek; Part III. Greater Awareness of an Integrated Personal Self: 10. Personal memory, the scaffolded mind, and cognitive change in the Neolithic John Sutton; 11. Adorning the self Milena Vasic; 12. From parts a whole? Exploring changes in funerary practices at Çatalhöyük Scott D. Haddow, Eline M. J. Schotsmans, Marco Milella, Marin A. Pilloud, Belinda Tibbets and Christopher J. Knusel; 13. New bodies – from houses to humans at Çatalhöyük Anna Fagan.

Ian Hodder is Dunlevie Family Professor at Stanford University, California, and Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center. He is the author and editor of many books, most recently Religion in the Emergence of Civilization (2010), Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things (2012), and Religion at Work in Neolithic Society (Cambridge, 2014).