Çatalhöyük in the context of "Venus figurines"

The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations (Turkish: Anadolu Medeniyetleri Müzesi) is located on the south side of Ankara Castle in the Atpazarı area in Ankara, Turkey. It consists of the old Ottoman Mahmut Paşa bazaar storage building, and the Kurşunlu Han. Because of Atatürk's desire to establish a Hittite museum, the buildings were bought upon the suggestion of Hamit Zübeyir Koşay, who was then Culture Minister, to the National Education Minister, Saffet Arıkan. After the remodelling and repairs were completed (1938–1968), the building was opened to the public as the Ankara Archaeological Museum.

Today, Kurşunlu Han, used as an administrative building, houses the work rooms, library, conference hall, laboratory and workshop. The old bazaar building houses the exhibits. Within this Ottoman building, the museum has a number of exhibits of Anatolian archeology. They start with the Paleolithic era, and continue chronologically through the Neolithic, Early Bronze, Assyrian trading colonies, Hittite, Phrygian, Urartian, Greek, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuq and Ottoman periods. There is also an extensive collection of artifacts from the excavations at Karain, Çatalhöyük, Hacılar, Canhasan, Beyce Sultan, Alacahöyük, Kültepe, Acemhöyük, Boğazköy (Gordion), Pazarlı, Altıntepe, Adilcevaz and Patnos as well as examples of several periods.

Agriculture in West Asia can be traced back to the early Neolithic in the Near East, between 10,000 and 8,000 BC, when a series of domestications by human communities took place, primarily involving a few plants (cereals and legumes) and animals (sheep, goats, bos, and pigs). In these regions, this gradually led to the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry and their expansion to other parts of the world. The Neolithic is commonly defined as the transition from a "predatory" economy of hunter-gatherers (or "collectors") to a "productive" economy of farmer-breeders, which places the question of plant and animal domestication at the heart of the upheavals brought about by this period.

Farming and livestock breeding appeared in areas of rich biological diversity, where domesticated plants and animals were found in the wild. These regions also contain a large number of food resources in their natural state. Before their domestication, domesticated plants and animals were exploited in the form of gathering and hunting, with the methods and techniques required for domestication already known at the end of the Palaeolithic. Between 9500 and 8500 B.C., "pre-domestic" forms of agriculture were introduced; plants still had a wild character, but their reproduction was controlled by humans. Control of wild animals also began in the same period. These practices gradually led to the emergence of domesticated plant and animal species, which are distinct from the wild forms from which they derive. From a biological point of view, these domesticated species undergo a transition from natural selection to artificial selection by humans. This indicates the conclusion of the domestication process in the period between 8500 BC and 8000 BC. From this point onwards, village communities relied more on the "agro-pastoral" system, combining agriculture and animal husbandry, and less on hunting, fishing, and gathering practices.

A weapon dance employs weapons—or stylized versions of weapons—traditionally used in combat in order to simulate, recall, or reenact combat or the moves of combat in the form of dance, usually for some ceremonial purpose. Such dancing is quite common to folk ritual in many parts of the world. Weapon dancing is certainly ancient; among the earliest historical references we have are those that refer to the pyrrhichios, a weapon dance in ancient Sparta, in which the dance was used as a kind of ritual training for battle.

Related to weapon dances and war dances is the dance of the hunt. A very early reference to a weapon dance of the hunt comes in the form of a rock carving at Çatal Höyük, the large neolithic settlement in south-central Anatolia. It depicts a hunting ritual involving dancers holding their bows; one figure has a bow in each hand, two perform artistic leaps and another holds a horn-shaped stick and is striking a frame drum.

A Venus figurine is any Upper Palaeolithic statue portraying a woman, usually carved in the round. Most have been unearthed in Europe, but others have been found as far away as Siberia and distributed across much of Eurasia. The island of Sardinia located on the east side of Italy, had a different version, most famously called Venus of Macomer and other Mother Goddess figurines were found. These statuettes, which date from the Neolithic period, share stylistic and iconographic similarities with the Upper Paleolithic Venus figurines found elsewhere, though they are often identified as representations of a "Mother Goddess" linked to fertility and the afterlife.

Most date from the Gravettian period (26,000–21,000 years ago). However, findings are not limited to this period; for example, the Venus of Hohle Fels dates back at least 35,000 years to the Aurignacian era, and the Venus of Monruz dates back about 11,000 years to the Magdalenian, and the Catalhoyuk figurine, 8000 years old. Such figurines were carved from soft stone (such as steatite, calcite or limestone), bone or ivory, or formed of clay and fired. The latter are among the oldest ceramics known to historians. In total, over 200 such figurines are known; virtually all of modest size, between about 3 and 40 cm (1.2 and 15.7 in) in height. These figurines are recognised as some of the earliest works of prehistoric art.

Mount Hasan (Turkish: Hasan Dağı) is a volcano in Anatolia, Turkey. It has two summits, the 3,069 metres (10,069 ft) high eastern Small Hasandağ and the 3,253 metres (10,673 ft) high Big Hasandağ, and rises about 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) above the surrounding terrain. It consists of various volcanic deposits, including several calderas, and its activity has been related to the presence of several faults in the area and to regional tectonics.

Activity began in the Miocene and continued into the Holocene; a mural found in the archeological site of Çatalhöyük has been controversially interpreted as showing a volcanic eruption or even a primitive map. It was the second mountain from the south in the Byzantine beacon system used to warn the Byzantine capital of Constantinople of incursions during the Arab–Byzantine wars.

Cybele (/ˈsɪbəliː/ SIB-ə-lee; Phrygian: Matar Kubileya, Kubeleya 'Kubeleya Mother', perhaps 'Mountain Mother'; Lydian: Kuvava; Greek: Κυβέλη Kybélē, Κυβήβη Kybēbē, Κύβελις Kybelis) is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest Neolithic at Çatalhöyük. She is Phrygia's only known goddess, and likely, its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the sixth century BC.

In Greece, Cybele met with a mixed reception. She became partially assimilated to aspects of the Earth-goddess Gaia, of her possibly Minoan equivalent Rhea, and of the harvest–mother goddess Demeter. Some city-states, notably Athens, evoked her as a protector, but her most celebrated Greek rites and processions show her as an essentially foreign, exotic mystery-goddess who arrives in a lion-drawn chariot to the accompaniment of wild music, wine, and a disorderly, ecstatic following. Uniquely in Greek religion, she had a eunuch mendicant priesthood, the Galli. Many of her Greek cults included rites to a divine Phrygian castrate shepherd-consort Attis, who was probably a Greek invention. In Greece, Cybele became associated with mountains, town and city walls, fertile nature, and wild animals, especially lions.

A proto-city is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of planning and centralized rule. The term mega-sites is also used. While the precise classification of many sites considered proto-cities is ambiguous and subject to considerable debate, common examples include sites of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B culture and following cultures in the Fertile Crescent such as Jericho and Çatalhöyük, sites of the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in Southeast Europe, and of the Ubaid period in Mesopotamia. These sites pre-date the Mesopotamian city-states of the Uruk period that mark the development of the first indisputable urban settlements, with the emergence of cities such as Uruk at the end of the Fourth Millennium, B.C.

The emergence of cities from proto-urban settlements is a non-linear development that demonstrates the varied experiences of early urbanization. Whilst the proto-urban sites of the Ubaid period in northern Mesopotamia anticipate the social and political developments of the first Sumerian cities, many proto-cities show little correlation with later urban settlements. The development of cities and proto-cities and the transition away from hunting and gathering toward agriculture is known as the Neolithic Revolution.

The 8th millennium BC spanned the years 8000 BC to 7001 BC (c. 10 ka to c. 9 ka). In chronological terms, it is the second full millennium of the current Holocene epoch and is entirely within the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) phase of the Early Neolithic. It is impossible to precisely date events that happened around the time of this millennium and all dates mentioned here are estimates mostly based on geological and anthropological analysis, or by radiometric dating.