Catal Huyuk
Photo: a shrine room at Catal Huyuk by Ancient ManCatal Huyuk is a ruin today. This low hill lying amid wheat fields of central Anatolia was first identified by archeologist James Mellart in 1958. The earliest layer of this impressively organized site has been carbon dated at 6500 years. Around 6200 BCE an artist painted a twin-peaked erupting volcano on the wall of a shrine, thought to depict the stratovolcano Hasan Dag, or Mount Hasan, which was then active.
According to William Carl Eichman, Catal Huyuk, the forked mound in Turkish, was the world's first organized cosmopolitan city state. It flourished for two thousand years, supported a multi-racial population of 6000 people and had a great influence on later European civilizations.
Eichman believes Catal Huyuk was likely the source of the Mother Goddess religion that was widespread in the region before the rise of the later and better-known civilizations that developed in the fertile crescent.