ABSTRACT

Andrew Sherratt’s ‘Water, soil and seasonality’, World Archaeology (1980), signposted a long-term debate surrounding early farming adaptations to riverine landscapes in western Asia and Europe. Recent research at Çatalhöyük in central Anatolia, a key case study in Sherratt’s ‘floodplain cultivation’ model, enables integrated, evidence-based assessment of the local hydrology and agroecology, and of farmers’ resilience over more than a millennium. In contrast to previous models, the agroecological niche at Çatalhöyük featured strategic planting of diverse crops across a range of hydrological conditions, within and beyond a broad ‘belt’ of small anastomosing river channels extending a kilometre from the site. Growing conditions likely depended on location relative to settlement, a nutrient-rich ‘hot spot’, with diminishing inputs of organic matter and mechanical disturbance away from the tell. This reconstruction contrasts with the original model of ‘floodplain cultivation’ and demonstrates the complexity with which agroecologies evolved through landscape affordances, creative cropping, and resilience.

摘要

安德鲁·谢拉特 (Andrew Sherratt) 的“水、土壤和季节性”，世界考古学 (1980)，标志着围绕西亚和欧洲早期农业适应河流景观的长期争论。最近在安纳托利亚中部的 Çatalhöyük 进行的研究是谢拉特“洪泛区耕作”模型的一个关键案例研究，它能够对当地水文和农业生态以及农民一千多年来的恢复能力进行综合、循证评估。与之前的模型相比，加泰土丘的农业生态位的特点是在一系列水文条件下战略性地种植多种作物，在距该地点延伸一公里的宽阔的小型河道“带”内外。生长条件可能取决于相对于定居点的位置，这是一个营养丰富的“热点”，有机物质的输入量不断减少，机械干扰也远离了人们的视线。