The smells of Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey: Time and space of human activity

•Smell, a potential factor in social life, is presented in the archaeological context.•Evaluations of smell were performed on both the microscale and macroscale.•Butchery, processing, and use of animal products could affect the smell.•It is likely that bad smells dominated at Neolithic Çatalhöyük.•Some human behaviors may indicate an attempt to reduce the smell.

All current and past human societies are based on specific places, and one way of describing these locations is by smell. Smell may be transmitted through specific human acts linked to daily activities, and especially by human–animal relations. The results obtained from Çatalhöyük (Turkey), which are both zooarchaeological and archaeological and have ethnographic and sociological applications, offer the possibility of considering the smell of this Neolithic settlement. Smell, as a potential factor in social life, can be reconstructed indirectly in the context of various human activities. Butchery, processing, consumption, and use of animal products are discussed, as well as the disposal of food waste in middens and the influence of architecture and spatial structure of the settlement on the human activity. All of these could affect the smell. Evaluations were performed on both the microscale (house) and macroscale (settlement). Despite the fact that the type of smell cannot be clearly determined, as it results from subjective human evaluation, multiple lines of evidence suggest that it is likely that what we would consider rather bad smells dominated at Neolithic Çatalhöyük.