linguistic:paraphrasing
Archaeology

The site was first excavated by James Mellaart in 1958. He later led a team which further excavated there for four seasons between 1961 and 1965. These excavations revealed this section of Anatolia as a centre of advanced culture in the Neolithic period. Excavation revealed 18 successive layers of buildings signifying various stages of the settlement and eras of history. The bottom layer of buildings can be dated as early as 7100 BC while the top layer is from 5600 BC.

Mellaart was banned from Turkey for his involvement in the Dorak affair, in which he published drawings of supposedly important Bronze Age artifacts that later went missing. After this scandal, the site lay idle until 1993, when investigations began under the leadership of Ian Hodder, then at the University of Cambridge. The Hodder-led excavations ended in 2018. Hodder, a former student of Mellaart, chose the site as the first "real world" test of his then-controversial theory of post-processual archaeology. The site has always had a strong research emphasis upon engagement with digital methodologies, driven by the project's experimental and reflexive methodological framework. According to Mickel, Hodder's Çatalhöyük Research Project (ÇRP) established itself as a site for progressive methodologies - in terms of adaptable and democratized recording, integration of computerized technologies, sampling strategies, and community involvement."

New excavations are being directed by Ali Umut Türkcan from Anadolu University.