Genetic Clues From Anatolia Suggest Women Anchored Neolithic Households

A major archaeogenetic study of social organisation at Çatalhöyük, the Neolithic settlement on UNESCO’s World Heritage List, has shed new light on how people lived and formed families 8,000 years ago.

The research, conducted as part of the Çatalhöyük Research Project led by the archaeologist Ian Hodder, analysed skeletal remains from nearly 400 individuals. The team was led by Dr Füsun Özer of Hacettepe University’s Department of Anthropology, Prof. Dr Mehmet Somel of Middle East Technical University’s Department of Biological Sciences, and Dr Eren Yüncü of the same department.

In findings published in Science, the researchers used genetic evidence to examine how kinship ties helped shape social structure in the settlement.

The team found that most individuals buried beneath the same house were related through the maternal line. In practical terms, households appear to have consisted mainly of women and their children. The pattern suggests that men left their family homes as they grew older, while women remained.

Anthropologists refer to such communities as matrilocal: after marriage, couples live with or near the woman’s family rather than the man’s. While uncommon today, matrilocal arrangements have historical precedents across different societies.

The researchers stressed that their findings point to a women-centred social organisation — not necessarily a matriarchal, female-dominated society.

“It is not yet possible to characterise Çatalhöyük as a matriarchal society,” the team said, “but we can say that women were at the centre of the social structure.”

The idea that women held an important place at Çatalhöyük is not new. James Mellaart, the archaeologist who led the first excavations at the site, argued that female figurines and other artefacts suggested women played a significant social role.

A report by the popular science outlet IFLScience also points to additional archaeological evidence consistent with a women-centred structure. Female figurines found throughout the site may reflect the symbolic value the community placed on women. Researchers have also found that burials of girls contained more grave goods than those of boys — a difference that may indicate gendered patterns of status or social recognition.

The researchers say their work does not stop at Çatalhöyük. New projects aim to determine whether similar patterns appear in other Neolithic settlements across Anatolia — and whether this social model was unique to Çatalhöyük or more widespread.

By contrast, in parts of Europe during the same period, researchers have observed the reverse pattern: women tended to leave the household, while men stayed. The contrast underscores how kinship systems and household structures varied across regions.

The team noted that smaller, more closed communities in Asia have also shown evidence of women-centred organisation. Agricultural communities, they added, spread from Anatolia into Europe, but the timeline and causes of changes in kinship rules remain unclear.

“We know that agricultural communities spread from Anatolia to Europe,” the researchers said. “However, it is currently difficult to definitively establish how social organisation and kinship rules changed, and when and why this change occurred.”

The study relied on petrous bones — part of the temporal bone — which can preserve DNA even in hot and dry climates. That approach expanded the range of genetic analysis and helped produce one of the most comprehensive archaeogenetic datasets yet assembled for Neolithic Anatolia.

Beyond reconstructing the past, the researchers said the findings can also deepen contemporary discussions about gender roles, family structure and cultural diversity by grounding them in long-term historical evidence.

The team said it plans to continue investigating whether the social structure identified at Çatalhöyük appears elsewhere in Neolithic Anatolia.

“We are working on new projects aimed at understanding whether the social structure we observed at Çatalhöyük is also found in other settlements,” they said. “In doing so, we aim to determine how widespread this social structure was in Neolithic Anatolia.”