It was long understood that the origins of agriculture and stock breeding should be sought in those areas of the Middle East where the wild ancestors of modern food grains and the natural habitats of domesticable animals were to be found. This line of inquiry pointed to the well-watered uplands around the fringe of the Fertile Crescent: Iraqi Kurdistan, northern Syria, and the eastern Mediterranean coast. Indeed, the first discoveries of Neolithic farming communities were made in these regions. Until the 1960s it was thought that, apart from the coastal plain of Cilicia, Anatolia had remained uninhabited until the beginning of the Chalcolithic Period. Since then excavations have completely changed the picture, although none has yet revealed a settlement earlier than about 8000 bce. The earliest settlements were characterized not only by the domestication of barley and sometimes wheat but also by the absence of pottery and of domestic animals other than the dog. Hacılar, near Lake Burdur, shows an earliest occupation about 8000 bce by a people living in mud-brick houses with plastered walls and floors, painted and burnished like those in contemporary Jericho. Afterward abandoned for nearly a thousand years, Hacılar was reoccupied in the late phase of the Neolithic by villagers of a far more sophisticated culture having advanced agriculture and pottery. The houses were symmetrically arranged; the discovery there of a striking collection of seminaturalistic figurines shed new light on Neolithic art and symbolism.

The gap in the archaeological record between the widely separated Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods was filled by the discovery (1961–65) at Çatalhüyük of a Neolithic settlement that was occupied from the mid-8th to the mid-7th millennium. The discoveries at Çatalhüyük not only amplified but also transformed the whole conception of human behaviour in Neolithic times. In the town, houses were built of sun-dried brick, closely contiguous like the cells of a honeycomb, but each had several rectangular rooms similarly planned and was accessible only by a wooden ladder from its flat roof. The contiguous roofs provided space for the communal life of the inhabitants. Some of these buildings appear to have been religious shrines, elaborately ornamented with heads or horns of animals, either real or imitated in plaster. The walls were decorated with coloured murals, repeatedly repainted after replastering, and some designs closely resembled the cave paintings of the Paleolithic Period. As a source of information about the activities, appearance, dress, and even religion of Neolithic peoples, these paintings are of great significance. Other arts and crafts were well attested. Human and animal figurines were carved in stone or modeled in clay. Bone was used for tools and implements, sometimes with finely carved ornamentation. Weapons included polished maces, arrows, and lances with tanged obsidian heads. Impressions of mats and baskets were found, as well as implements used in spinning and weaving. Miraculously, fragments of actual textiles were recovered and preserved. The presence of Mediterranean shells and of metal ores and pigments not locally available suggests extensive trade. Undecorated pottery was in use throughout the life of the settlement, its shapes often imitating those of wooden vessels, examples of which were found intact.

Agriculture and dairy farming probably formed the main basis of the economy at Çatalhüyük. The location of the settlement on a river subject to regular flooding suggests that irrigation may have been practiced; the presence of bones of wild cattle, deer, and boar confirms the implication of the wall paintings that hunting was still widespread. The existence of other, less precocious Neolithic cultures shows that the peoples of the Anatolian plateau generally played a significant part in the spread of early farming.

The Chalcolithic Period

The transition from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic phase of cultural evolution is thought to have taken place gradually in the late 7th millennium bce. At most sites where its progress can be traced, no perceptible break occurs in the continuity of occupation, and there is little reason to assume any major ethnographic upheaval. Archaeologically, the most conspicuous innovation is the decoration of pottery with coloured paint, a widespread development in western Anatolia. Late periods at Hacılar were characterized by the production of some of the most competently and attractively decorated pottery in prehistoric Anatolia, and in the subsequent middle phase of the Chalcolithic Period polychrome wares were produced in south-central Anatolia and Cilicia. Village architecture of this period is undistinguished but provides evidence for the necessity of communal defense, which was accomplished by means of a circuit wall or—as in Hacılar—a continuous wall formed by the outside rear walls of contiguous houses. At Hacılar and Can Hasan, the heavy ground-floor chambers of these houses had no doorways and were evidently entered by ladders from a more fragile upper story. Improvements in architecture at this period, however, can be seen at Mersin, where one of its later phases is represented by a neatly planned and constructed fortress. The steeply revetted slope of the mound was crowned by a continuous defensive wall, pierced by slit windows and entered through a gateway protected by flanking towers. Inside, there was formally arranged accommodation for the garrison and other evidence of military discipline as conceived in 5200 bce.

Metallurgy was beginning to be understood, and copper was used for pins and simple implements. But there are occasional glimpses of a greater sophistication: a copper mace-head from Can Hasan, more developed tools and the first occurrence of silver at Beycesultan, and a stamp-seal in tin bronze at Mersin. Little is known about the late phase of the Chalcolithic Period; soundings into strata below settlements of the Early Bronze Age, which the period anticipates, indicate that in western and central Anatolia this late phase introduced simpler rectangular houses and dark burnished pottery with simple incised, jabbed, polished, or white-painted decoration.

Superficially, progress during the Chalcolithic Period may appear to have been slight. This apparent lack of development, however, may instead reflect the inadequacy of our present knowledge. The energetic flowering of the Early Bronze Age that followed must have been based on an increased confidence and ability in agriculture and stock breeding and, most importantly, on a growth in metallurgical skills that is largely invisible in the archaeological record.