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Mellaart, now retired and living in London, believed that religion was central to the lives of Catal-
hoyuk’s people. He concluded that they had worshiped a mother goddess, as represented by a
plethora of female figurines, made of fired clay or stone, that both he and Hodder’s group have unearthed at the site over the years. Hodder questions whether the figurines represent religious deities, but he says they’re significant nonetheless. Before humans could domesticate the wild
plants and animals around them, he says, they had to tame their own wild nature—a psychological process expressed in their art. In fact, Hodder believes that Catalhoyuk’s early settlers valued spirituality and artistic expression so highly that they located their village in the best place to
pursue them.

Not all archaeologists agree with Hodder’s conclusions.

But there’s no doubt the Neolithic Revolution changed humanity forever. The roots of civilization were planted along with the first crops of wheat and barley, and it’s not a stretch to say that the mightiest of today’s skyscrapers can trace their heritage to the Neolithic architects who built the first stone dwellings.

Nearly everything that came afterward, including organized religion, writing, cities, social inequality, population explosions, traffic jams, mobile phones and the Internet, has roots in the moment people decided to live together in communities.

And once they did so, the Catalhoyuk work shows, there was no turning back.