James Mellaart

James Mellaart ( born November 14, 1925 in London, † 29 July 2012) was a British prehistorians, who was particularly known for his work on the Neolithic Tell of Çatalhöyük in Turkey.

Life

Mellaart studied Egyptology in Leiden and London. Beginning of the 1950s, he received a grant for archaeological fieldwork in Anatolia. He traveled two years the Anatolian highlands, learned the Turkish language, took notes and made sketches. He learned from the locals, what possible sites can be identified. He gathered to isolated finds, to determine the age of the respective upper occupation layer can. From the mid- 1950s, he taught at the University of Istanbul. He could not find a job as assistant director of the British Institute of Archaeology in Ankara and was involved in excavations in the Middle East. It is worth mentioning, among other excavations under Seton Lloyd in Beycesultan.

In 1957, he learned by talking to locals of finds near the city of Burdur. He found one already dug graves by black culture hill Chalcolithic finds on site. He earned the excavation permit and initially found a Chalcolithic settlement and this in its lasting until 1961 excavations has become known as a Hacılar Neolithic town-like settlement.

1961 Mellaart began with the assistance of his Turkish wife excavations in the 8,000-10,000 year old Çatal Höyük, which he ran until the mid -1960s. In 1964 he started at the Institute of Archaeology of the University of London to teach Anatolian archeology after the excavation permit had been taken from him in connection with the Dorak affair.

Mellaart 2005, retired from teaching. He lived with his wife in North London.

Writings (selection )

• Anatolian Chronology in the Early and Middle Bronze Age. In: Anatolian Studies 7, 1957.
• Early Cultures of the South Anatolian Plateau. The Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Ages in the Konya Plain. In: Anatolian Studies 13, 1963.
• Çatalhöyük. A Neolithic Town in Anatolia, London, 1967. German Title: Catal Huyuk. City from the Stone Age. 2nd edition, Luebbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1973, ISBN 3-7857-0034-2.