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In all four excavations
areas of the Çatalhöyük "umbrella"
project (Mellaart(South), Summit, North and Bach), a standardized
intensive reflexive style of excavation has been carried out
since 1995. The Berkeley Çatalhöyük Project
incorporates fully these standards into our excavations, not
only so that they are compatible with the other research at
the site, but also because this is our favored style of excavation.
The direction
of excavation is by Ruth Tringham and Mirjana Stevanovic.
Our labor-force in excavation comprises students
and archaeologists that are already skilled and experienced
in this work, from US, UK, Turkey, Yugoslavia, and Denmark,.
Local workers are employed in screening, flotation assistance,
washing and sorting finds, and sorting heavy fraction samples.
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Because of the
density of significant architectural and other features at
Çatalhöyük, excavation proceeds for the most
part by trowelling of the architectural features. Excavation
units are identified and recorded as depositional
events which are constructed into a stratigraphic sequence
using a Harris matrix.
The floor and
the platforms are excavated in meter squares. Each layer of
smooth polished floor plaster is removed as a separate unit
from its underlying packing, if it exists. Each unit is sampled
for a number of different purposes: clay material, phytolith
remains. and soil chemistry. The remaining unit material is
used as a flotation sample.
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Micromorphology
profiles are removed through floors and platforms at regular
intervals.
The excavation
of the building in this way is slow and painstaking but immensely
rewarding.
Microstratigraphic
excavation and observations combined with a variety of samples
from the building floors, plasters and walls provide the key
to addressing each of the
research aims of this project.
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