Çatalhöyük: A Town Without Streets
The excavated mudbrick houses of Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, occupied from around 7100 BC and entered through the roof rather than from a street.
Çatalhöyük held several thousand people at a time when writing, kings and temples did not yet exist. Its houses were packed wall to wall with no streets between them, so residents walked across the rooftops and climbed down ladders into their own homes. Burials lay beneath the floors and the walls carried paintings and plastered bull skulls. It is one of the strongest cases that dense settlement came long before the state. Read the full story in our article on Proto-Cities before Writing: Jericho, Çatalhöyük, and the Trypillia Mega-Sites.
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