Living in Paris as I do, my archaeology and anthropology journals often arrive fairly late. Thus I have just recently received the January 2005 issue of American Antiquity, which includes a very interesting exchange between Ron Adams of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia and Çatalhöyük dig director Ian Hodder of Stanford University in California. Adams suggests possible parallels in rituals and customs between the Neolithic villagers of Çatalhöyük and two traditional societies in Indonesia, West Sumba and Tana Toraja. The use of evidence from present-day societies to shed light on past societies is known as ethnoarchaeology, and, as described in The Goddess and the Bull (Chapter 5), Hodder made much use of the discipline in his early work in Africa. Enthusiasts of ethnoarchaeology have sometimes called it “living archaeology,” although some others would agree with the late British archaeologist David Clarke when he commented “I like my archaeology dead.”

The people of West Sumba and Tana Toraja, Adams points out, carry out a number of practices similar to those at Çatalhöyük, including strict rules about the use of space, ancestral burial practices, and ritual feasting that apparently accompanies the building or reconstruction of a house. In the Indonesian societies, the people feast on pigs and water buffalo, whereas at Çatalhöyük there is evidence that its settlers feasted on wild cattle and sheep, also in a ritual manner. Adams also suggests that the occasional removal of heads from bodies after burial seen at Çatalhöyük might suggest that its people engaged in headhunting of their enemies, a practice once common in Southeast Asia.

In a response in the same issue of the journal, Hodder notes that there are some similarities which might be useful in interpreting the prehistoric practices at Çatalhöyük. But he cautions that there are a number of differences as well, especially in the size and social organization of the houses, which would put any direct comparisons on shaky ground. Nor does he see any evidence for headhunting, as the skulls do not show signs of violence. And while Hodder acknowledges the importance of ritual feasting at the site, his own work has stressed the daily practices and lifestyles of the people who lived within the houses as the primary way in which social customs were transmitted and reinforced. “Ritual and daily life are intimately connected at Çatalhöyük,” Hodder writes.

Hodder’s response is also notable for citing, for the first time in print that I have seen, his own upcoming book about Çatalhöyük for Thames and Hudson, The Leopard’s Tale, which should be published late this year. Hodder’s book will focus on his detailed, up to date interpretations of the site, and—as he and I have often discussed—it will be the perfect companion to The Goddess and the Bull, the biography of this most wondrous of archaeological sites and of the archaeologists who have dedicated their careers to working there.