Adopting a building and village biography approach combining archaeology and ethnography, we critically reevaluate the historical argument that Neolithic villages were occupied by many thousands of people. Focusing on the settlement at Çatalhöyük, Turkey, where it has been argued that 3,500 and 10,000 people lived in the village, we argue that this is a significant overestimate of the number of people that occupied this settlement. Drawing upon revised distribution of residential buildings across the mound, and employing archaeological and ethnographic data exploring building life-history, we estimate that between 600 and 800 people would have lived at Çatalhöyük East during an average year during the Middle (6700–6500 cal BC) phase. This research highlights the need to critically revaluate historical population estimates for Neolithic villages, the importance of developing explicit population modeling methods in archaeology, and to reconsider population-driven evolutionary models linking the Near Eastern Neolithic to urbanism.

中文翻译：

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世界上最早的村庄里住着多少人？重新考虑新石器时代加泰丘陵的社区规模和人口压力


采用考古学和民族志相结合的建筑和村庄传记方法，我们批判性地重新评估了新石器时代村庄被成千上万人居住的历史论点。重点关注土耳其 Çatalhöyük 的定居点，据认为该村庄居住着 3,500 至 10,000 人，我们认为这明显高估了该定居点的居住人数。根据修改后的土丘上住宅建筑的分布，并利用探索建筑生命史的考古学和人种学数据，我们估计，在中世纪（公元前 6700-6500 年）平均每年有 600 至 800 人居住在加塔霍裕克东部。 ） 阶段。这项研究强调了批判性地重新评估新石器时代村庄的历史人口估计的必要性、在考古学中开发明确的人口建模方法的重要性，以及重新考虑将近东新石器时代与城市化联系起来的人口驱动的进化模型。