12 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Neolithic Age Adults and Children Buried Under Family Homes were not Relative

An international team of scientists found that Children and adults buried next to each other in one of the oldest cities in the world, Catalhoyuk, are not related.

Between 7100 and 5950 BC, the archaeological site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey was continuously inhabited for nearly 1,200 years. It is estimated that at its peak of growth, the heavily built-up city with an area of several hundred hectares was home to approximately 6,000 people.

The dead were buried under the floors of their homes, prompting historians to ask whether they were linked.

The international team of scholars, which included scientists from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, analyzed 22 genomes collected from the deceased buried in Anatolia’s prehistoric cities of Aşıklı Höyük and Catalhöyük.

According to the researchers, houses acted as burial places for members of relatives’ communities in some prehistoric settlements, while adults and children buried under one house in other sites, such as Çatalhöyük, were not related to each other. The study’s findings were published in Current Biology.

According to archaeologists, the people who lived in the Middle East during the Neolithic period were the first settled farming groups who not only constructed permanent homes but also buried their dead beneath them.

Catalhoyuk
Catalhoyuk

The researchers said: “This custom has been known for a long time, but the way it was related to the social organization of the residents of these settlements was a matter of guesswork. Some researchers assumed that the buried persons were members of biological families, while others considered more complex structures, not based on genetics.”

To solve the issue, the researchers examined scores of burials from various Neolithic settlements. Dr. Maciej Chyleski of the Institute of Human Biology and Evolution at the Faculty of Biology at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan was one of the leading researchers. In 2019, he demonstrated the absence of maternal ancestry among people buried beneath the floors of houses in çatalhöyük using mitochondrial genomes.

The researchers said: “In the continuation of the project, it was important to extend the research to other sites from the region, but most of all to use nuclear DNA, which enables research in much higher resolution, even despite the poor preservation of genetic material in the tested samples. We analyzed more than 60 samples from two sites, Aşıklı Höyük and Çatalhöyük, but genetic material of adequate quality could be obtained only for 22 samples, most likely due to unfavorable environmental conditions.”

Aşıklı höyük
Aşıklı Höyük

The researchers applied these results to genomes collected from the deceased at three other Anatolian sites: Boncuklu Höyük, Barcın, and Tepeciftlik, and then used them to approximate the degree of kinship between people buried inside or near individual houses.

According to the researchers, the later settlements Çatalhöyük and Barcın yielded more intriguing findings (approx. 8,500 years old). Human populations greatly expanded and stabilized during that period. Researchers were able to collect DNA mostly from the burials of children and babies in these two villages.

The researchers said: “It turned out that in buildings with several such burials, biological relationships between the buried children were relatively rare.”

The findings back up Dr. Chyleski’s earlier findings that there is no proof that these individuals belonged to biological families based on mitochondrial genomes. According to the researchers, the social system in Çatalhöyük, as well as probably other settlements from the time span, was not dependent on genetic relatedness.

The publication’s co-author Professor Arkadiusz Marciniak said: “We are still far from fully understanding the early Neolithic communities, but their organization was certainly significantly different from the structure based on biological kinship or patriarchal kinship relations. The basis of social organization was probably a complex system of socially regulated dependencies and connections linking individuals and groups of people living in individual households.”

Source: PAP

Related Articles

Hidden Gods of Kurul Castle: Dionysus and Pan Figurines Capture Spotlight as Dig Resumes

10 July 2025

10 July 2025

Excavations are set to resume next week at the ancient Kurul Castle in Ordu, the first scientifically excavated archaeological site...

Iraq’s historic Arch of Ctesiphon undergoes restoration work

28 November 2021

28 November 2021

Iraq’s Arch of Ctesiphon, the world’s largest brick-built arch, is having restoration work to return it to its former splendour,...

Divers Discover 2,500-Year-Old Shipwreck and anchors Off the Coast of Sicily

23 January 2025

23 January 2025

A shipwreck dating back to the 5th and 6th centuries BC was discovered in the waters of Santa Maria del...

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after a re-examination of a mummified teen mom who died in childbirth

29 December 2023

29 December 2023

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after re-examining the mummified remains of a teen mom aged just 14-17 who died...

Stone Age Loved to Dance to the Rhythm of the Elk Tooth Rattles

4 June 2021

4 June 2021

Thousands of years ago, people danced frequently and to the rhythm. This is the conclusion of the discovery of elk...

The 6,000-year-old settlement found in island of Corsica

2 May 2023

2 May 2023

Archaeologists in a French municipality recently excavated the slopes of Punta Campana (island of Corsica) in preparation for a construction...

Celtic gold rainbow cup coin discovered in Bavaria

12 September 2023

12 September 2023

An extremely rare “rainbow cup” Celtic coin dated to the second or first century B.C. has been discovered next to...

Centuries-old boardwalk discovered

22 December 2023

22 December 2023

During construction work in November 2023, road construction workers in Fürth came across an archaeological sensation: a centuries-old boardwalk under...

‘Remarkable Archaeological Find’ Metal detectorist unearths Roman cavalry swords in North Cotswolds

18 September 2023

18 September 2023

Authorities announced Monday that two incredibly rare Roman cavalry swords were uncovered in the Cotswolds, England, during a metal detectorist...

Ancient Roman Fast Food: Songbirds Were a Popular Snack in 1st-Century Mallorca

11 June 2025

11 June 2025

Roman fast food, ancient Roman cuisine, song thrush consumption, Roman street food, Mallorca archaeology, Pollentia findings, Roman bird bones, ancient...

Ritualistic Dog Burials Associated with the Goddess Gula Unearthed at the Harran Archaeological Site in Southeastern Türkiye

15 December 2024

15 December 2024

Excavations at the Harran archaeological site in Şanlıurfa, one of the world’s oldest settlements and listed on UNESCO’s Temporary World...

Unique finds unearthed in the ancient city of Olba in southern Türkiye

16 August 2023

16 August 2023

In the excavations carried out in the ancient city of Olba, located in the Silifke district of Mersin, in the...

New study reveals Dog ancestry can be traced back to two separate wolf populations

30 June 2022

30 June 2022

An international group of geneticists and archaeologists with participation of the University of Potsdam have found that the ancestry of...

Thousands of ignored ‘Nummi Minimi’ Coins Found in the Ancient City of Marea in Egypt

11 December 2023

11 December 2023

Numismatists from the Faculty of Archaeology at the University of Warsaw have examined thousands of previously ignored small coins (Nummi...

1600-Year-Old Rare Roman Glass Diatreta with Gladiator Scene Unearthed in Doclea, Montenegro

13 June 2025

13 June 2025

An extraordinary archaeological discovery has been made in the ancient Roman city of Doclea, located near Podgorica, Montenegro. During recent...