The previous link is difficult to access, so I have cut and pasted the interview with Oxbow's online newsletter here:

Meet the Author - Michael Balter

For anyone who has studied or shown the slightest interest in Near Eastern archaeology, Catalhoyuk will be a familiar name. In his hugely readable biography of the site, Michael Balter examines the history of the mound and its excavators, allowing the reader to feel part of the excavation itself.

Michael Balter is a correspondent for the journal Science. His interests are mainly in the field of evolutionary biology, and he has contributed to the journal Science on a number of topics. Though not an archaeologist, he has clearly become infatuated with the site of Catalhoyuk, and his book, The Goddess and the Bull bears testament to this obsession. OxeN caught up with him to find out why Catalhoyuk is just so special…

OXeN: Catalhoyuk has received an extraordinary amount of attention from archaeologists and the wider public – what is it about this site that generates such interest?

Michael Balter: First of all, when Catalhoyuk was first dug by James Mellaart in the early 1960s, it was the first Neolithic site to turn up wall paintings and sculptures, and they were pretty spectacular. Other Neolithic sites had been dug earlier, of course, such as Jericho and Jarmo, and they had a lot to say about Neolithic architecture, early farming, and burial practices. But the art at Catalhoyuk gave us the first vivid glimpse into the symbolic and religious lives of these prehistoric peoples. More recently, excavations at other Neolithic sites such as Gobekli Tepe and Nevali Cori - both also in Turkey, interestingly enough - have also produced spectacular art, including monumental sculptures. But I suppose there is nothing like being the first. Also, Mellaart was a very flamboyant archaeologist who did not hesitate to promote himself and his findings. By the time he dug Catalhoyuk, he had gotten very good at it. This makes it all the more ironic that Catalhoyuk was the last site he ever dug, thanks to the murky Dorak Affair.

OXeN: The excavation of many Near Eastern sites, Catalhoyuk included, is suffused with romaticism. Is this legacy of importance to the site and our perception of it?

MB: I think that part of the romanticism attached to Near Eastern sites is linked to the very colourful characters who dug there, including Mellaart, Kathleen Kenyon, Dorothy Garrod, Seton Lloyd, and Max Mallowan, Agatha Christie's husband. But the Near East is also the so-called "cradle of civilisation" as well as the setting for the events related in both the Old and New Testaments. That infuses Near Eastern archaeology with a lot of historical baggage. A very recent example was the horror felt by archaeologists at the looting of the Baghdad Museum and thousands of sites across Iraq in the wake of the U.S.-led invasion. It was as if humanity's roots were being pulled right up out of the ground.

OXeN: Do you think that archaeologists should acknowledge the impact of politics on the sites they excavate?

MB: It is difficult to imagine an excavation that would not have political implications, and I think that archaeologists should acknowledge this directly. This is especially true when they are working in someone else's country. In the case of Catalhoyuk, the history of the dig since the 1960s has been wrapped up in British relations with Turkey, and the Turks have very definite motivations - including a desire to develop tourism in the area - for giving their blessing to the team's work. Even more politically charged, of course, are excavations in Israel and Palestine. Some years ago I wrote a series of articles for Science entitled "Archaeology in the Holy Land" which explored the relationship of archaeology not only to rival claims to the land between Israelis and Palestinians, but also to rival views among archaeologists about how literally the Bible should be taken as a guide to the past. And of course the saga of the Kennewick man in the United States touches directly on whether archaeologists and anthropologists will be allowed to do their work in the first place. So you might say that archaeology is always political, and politics is (often) archaeological!

OXeN: What do you personally think of the Mother Goddess cult?

MB: Although a few Mother Goddess worshippers have attacked my book, most others have accepted that I am a journalist relating the views of the current team working there, led by Ian Hodder. In contrast to Mellaart, who concluded not only that a Mother Goddess was worshipped at Catalhoyuk but that it was a matriarchal society - an idea that the late Marija Gimbutas helped to popularise - Hodder's team is very sceptical about Mother Goddess worship. I personally am an agnostic on the issue, because I find it more difficult than Hodder and co. to dismiss the stylistic similarities (pendulous breasts and big buttocks) that the clay figurines found at Catalhoyuk share with earlier Upper Paleolithic figurines and later Bronze Age Mediterranean imagery. But that does not mean that these represent Mother Goddesses. As I have said to the Goddess worshippers I have spoken with about my book, we must make a distinction between the question of whether a Mother Goddess was worshipped at Catalhoyuk - which is an archaeological question that can be addressed only with archaeological evidence - and the issue of whether such a deity actually exists, which is a matter of religious faith.

OXeN: You have written extensively on a number of scientific issues for the journal Science, among others, yet The Goddess and the Bull is a remarkably unscientific book – why did you choose to write a biography of the site?

MB: The journal Science has always had an uneasy relationship with archaeology, because our editors do not consider it to be a real science even if archaeologists use scientific techniques! And I think that many archaeologists would agree that the field as a whole is closer to history and the social sciences than to biology, physics and chemistry. But in recent years we have written much more on the subject, partly I think because our editors have come to accept that it is legitimate to try to reconstruct the past even if we cannot always be scientifically rigorous about it. I have visited Catalhoyuk every year since 1998, and I must admit that the post-processual ideas of Ian Hodder have had an influence on me. I always knew that science could not answer all questions, but I appreciate much more now that a broader notion of scientific approaches - as Hodder might put it, using scientific evidence to solve the puzzles of the past in a more holistic way rather than for narrow hypothesis testing - is sometimes the best way to increase our knowledge. And since archaeology is so much a group effort (no solitary scientists in white lab coats out in the field) telling the story of Catalhoyuk through the people who work there, in a biographical way, also seemed the most effective way to get archaeological concepts across to a general public.

OXeN: Are you really a frustrated archaeologist?

MB: I don't think I am a frustrated archaeologist! When I left biological research to go into journalism, nearly 30 years ago, I found a way to stay very involved in science without doing it myself. If I were an archaeologist I would be stuck working on one site, and maybe even one trench, for years, and that I would find very frustrating. As a journalist, I get to write about and feel part of many digs. And since I also cover human evolution for Science, I am intimately involved in some of the most important scientific questions of the day. As they say, I've got the best of both worlds.

The Goddess and the Bull is available to order in hardback. It will be out in paperback in June.