A society of things: animal figurines and material scales at Neolithic Çatalhöyük

Abstract

Neolithic animals comprise more than half of the total figurine assemblage at Çatalhöyük (7400–6000 cal. BC), with some 741 horns and 449 quadrupeds, as opposed to only 187 human figurines. Many figurines, whether of wild cattle, boar or deer, are small, detailed, finely modeled and demonstrate anatomical knowledge and specificity. Their miniature quality allows them to do what real animals, plastered animal installations and wall paintings cannot – to socialize, and to facilitate embodied and immediate interaction between humans and wild animals. Figurines are active things in themselves and their small scale invites an intimacy, control and democratization of experience that was not possible with large-scale narrative paintings that were relegated to a few houses or with plastered bucrania retrieved from hunting. In this society of things, figurines are conduits between very different material scales and they effectively embody and communicate across the species divide in expedient and intimate ways.