It is in fact quite likely that what we are seeing in the surviving remains of Çatalhöyük’s built environment are largely the social arrangements prevalent in winter, with their intense and distinctive ceremonialism focused upon hunting and the veneration of the dead. At that time of year, with the harvest in, the organization required for agricultural labour would have given way to a different type of social reality as the community’s life shrank back towards its houses, just as its herds of sheep and goats shrank back into the confines of their pens.
