But nobody “lost” Çatalhöyük. Even when the old city was completely empty, people still used it as a cemetery. “In a way the site was never abandoned,” Hodder said. “There are huge numbers of burials up until the Byzantine and early Islamic period [in the 11th century]. People remembered it and used it.” Newcastle University archaeologist Sophie Moore recently found evidence that cemeteries at Çatalhöyük were still being used regularly up until about 300 years ago.1
