Shaping clay, transmitting knowledge: Division of labor in the 7th and 6th millennia in Western Anatolia

Clay was an essential raw material for daily life in the Neolithic communities in the seventh and sixth millennia in western Anatolia. In addition to using clay as building materials, the Neolithic people made all sorts of objects out of clay, and their relationship became increasingly entangled through time. Despite ample research on clay objects from this period, the social aspects of the technology of making clay objects, such as how labor division was organized and how this technological knowledge was transmitted through the generations, have been neglected in the scholarly work that focuses on Anatolian Prehistory. To fill this niche, this dissertation explores how labor division in making clay objects was formulated in western Anatolia in the seventh and early sixth millennia (until 5700 BCE) with a specific focus on Barcın Höyük, Ulucak Höyük, and Ekşi Höyük. By using paleodermatoglyphics, the study of ancient fingerprints on archaeological materials, this study analyzes fingerprints left by the producers of these objects in the Neolithic period to estimate their age and sex. The results show that labor division based on age and sex unquestionably existed at all three sites. While very young children were probably not a part of the production, adolescents and adults of both sexes seem to be involved in making different types of objects at each site. Building on these interpretations, this study also proposes how social memory was formed and cultural knowledge was transmitted at these sites.