Abstract

Research on Neolithic western Asia evidences a long and complex co-evolutionary process for the beginnings of agriculture and sedentary life. This process reflects the entanglement of diverse dynamics and forms of interactions between people and environments across different geographic regions. Comprehensive archaeological research in central Anatolia, particularly the integration of different lines of evidence from archaeological sciences in the last decades, has demonstrated the importance of this region in the development of plant cultivation, domestication, herding and householding; the core components of Neolithic lifeways. This paper focuses on the macrobotanical results from the aceramic Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük (8400–7300 cal. BCE ) in the eastern part of central Anatolia, in volcanic Cappadocia. Aşıklı Höyük, uniquely in western Asia, allows to document in situ evolution of a sedentary community who gradually engaged with plant cultivation and caprine management. The paper will discuss the local dynamics that involved in plant management strategies at the site by outlining the diversity on crops and wild food plants and the patterns seen in plant domestication processes throughout the long and continuous occupation. The discussion will also include how such dynamics and patterns had an impact on the inhabitants’ life, influencing daily practices and shaping the evolution of households. The paper will finally assess the results from Aşıklı Höyük in comparison to other Neolithic sites (e.g. Balıklı and Çatalhöyük) with intensive archaeobotanical research to provide a wider and more diachronic perspective for the beginnings and development of agriculture and Neolithic lifeways in central Anatolia and beyond.

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