The Boncuklu Project, Turkey - Institute for Field Research


Location: Hayiroglu, Turkey

Season: 
July 14, 2019 to August 17, 2019

Application Deadline: 
Friday, April 5, 2019

Deadline Type: 
Rolling

Website: 
http://ifrglobal.org/program/turkey-boncuklu/

Program Type

Field school

RPA certified

no

Affiliation:

Institute for Field Research, Connecticut College, University of Queensland, University of Liverpool

Project Director:

Dr. Andrew Fairbairn, Prof. Douglas Baird

Project Description

The Boncuklu project is investigating the appearance of the first villages and farmers in central Turkey. At Boncuklu we are also exploring the origins of the remarkable symbolism seen in paintings and reliefs at the nearby famous Neolithic town of Çatalhöyük. The course will take place at the Neolithic site of Boncuklu, dating to c. 8500 BCE, the earliest village in central Anatolia and the predecessor of the famous Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük. The site is located in the Konya Plain in central Turkey, 40 kms east of the major city of Konya, a famous Medieval centre where the ‘whirling dervish’ sect was founded by the Medieval philosopher Celaleddin Rumi. There are many medieval buildings of the Seljuk period to visit in Konya, a booming city. The field school also includes visits to other sites and museums in central Turkey including Çatalhöyük, the Hittite capital Hatussas, the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara and the dramatic Neolithic site of Aşıklı, with evidence of repeated rebuilding of houses and an experimental village. Aşıklı is located about 3 hours east of Konya in Cappadocia, also famous for its underground cities and painted medieval churches which there will thus be an opportunity to visit. For the project website, go here.

Period(s) of Occupation: Neolithic Prehistory

Project size: 
1-24 participants

Minimum Length of Stay for Volunteers: Participants are required to stay for the full duration of the field school.

Minimum age: 
18

Experience required: 
No prior experience is required to participate in this field school.

Room and Board Arrangements

Students will spend 5 weeks at the Boncuklu Project excavation center. The first week there will involve five days of lectures and site visits around central Turkey including Hattusas. The last four weeks will be spent in the field in survey and excavation at Boncuklu with laboratory training as well.The dig house has good communal facilities with kitchen, several showers and toilets, washing machine, and laboratories. There is outdoor covered dining and social space. Field school students will be housed in shared dorm rooms on bunk beds. There is also the option of large well insulated project tents that offer more space.

All meals will be communal events and will provide plenty of nutritious but basic food in the tradition of local cuisine. The daily diet in Turkey is heavily based on pasta, rice, legumes bread other vegetables, with some meat. Vegetarians/Vegans are catered for.

Note: our website boncuklu.org gives a flavor of life for the team at the site, you are encouraged to visit the site.

Cost: 
Room and board are included in the cost of the field school.

Academic Credit

Name of institution offering credit: 
Connecticut College
Number of credits offered 8 Semester Credits
Tuition: 
$4,870

Location

Contact Information
Institute for Field Research
2999 Overland Ave. Suite 103
Los Angeles
CA
USA
90064
info@ifrglobal.org
Telephone: 
424-209-1173
Recommended Bibliography: 

Course readings will be posted as PDF files on the class Moodle website.

Sagona, A and Zimansky, P 2009 Ancient Turkey. Routledge

Baird D 2011 The Late Epipalaeolithic, Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the Anatolian Plateau, 13000-4000 BC calibrated. In D Potts ed. Blackwell’s Companion to Near Eastern Archaeology

Baird D, Fairbairn A, Martin L and Middleton C 2011 The Boncuklu Project; the origins of sedentism, cultivation and herding in central Anatolia, in Ozdoğan and Başgelen eds The Neolithic of Turkey; new excavations, new discoveries. Arkeoloji ve Sanat.

Baird D 2011 Pınarbaşı; from Epipalaeolithic camp-site to sedentarising village in central Anatolia, in Ozdoğan and Başgelen eds The Neolithic of Turkey; new excavations, new discoveries. Arkeolojive Sanat.

Collis J. 1996 Digging Up the Past – an introduction to archaeological excavation. (Available as a Kindle edition)

During, B 2011 The prehistory of Asia Minor. Cambridge University Press

Hodder, I 2007 The Leopard’s Tale. Thames and Hudson

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Baird D 2002 ‘Early holocene settlement in central Anatolia: problems and prospects as seen from the Konya Plain’ in F Gerard and L Thissen eds. The Neolithic of central Anatolia, 139-159.

Baird D 2006 The history of settlement and social landscapes in the Early Holocene in the .atalh.yük area in Hodder I ed. .atalh.yük perspectives. .atalh.yük Project Volume 6, 55-74. McDonald Institute/British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara Monographs

Baird, D 2007 The Boncuklu Project; the origins of sedentism, cultivation and herding in central Anatolia. Anatolian Archaeology Vol 13,14-17

Baird D 2008 The Boncuklu project; investigating the origins of sedentism, cultivation and herding in central Anatolia. Anatolian Archaeology Vol 14, 11-13

Baird D 2009 The Boncuklu project; investigating the origins of sedentism, cultivation and herding in central Anatolia. Anatolian Archaeology Vol 15, 9-11

Baird D 2010 The Boncuklu Project: investigating the beginnings of agriculture, sedentism and herding in central Anatolia. Anatolian Archaeology vol 16 11-13

Baird D 2010 ‘Was Çatalhöyük a centre; the implications of a late Aceramic Neolithic assemblage from the neighbourhood of Çatalhöyük’ in Bolger and Maguire eds in The Development of Pre-state Communities in the Ancient Near East. Oxbow books

Baird D, Carruthers D, Fairbairn A, and Pearson 2011 Ritual in the Landscape; evidence from Pınarbaşı in the 7th millennium BC cal Konya Plain. Antiquity 85, 1-16.

Baird D et al 2013 Juniper smoke, skulls and wolves tails. Levant

Hodder I and Meskell, L ‘A “Curious and sometimes trifle macabre artistry”’ Current Anthropology 52/2, 251-2

Lichter C 2007 ed. Die ältesten Monumente der Menschheit, 123. Badishce Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe.