Houses and Households in Central Anatolia in multi-regional perspective

Models of prehistoric social change have relied on ethnographic observations relating house plans and family structure. Originally proposed by Flannery in the 1970s, extended family organization were linked to circular hut compounds, while nuclear families lived in rectangular houses. More than simply a transition from circular to rectangular house plans, the model proposes that changes in social organization and production between late foragers and early farmers are materialized through domestic structure construction. This paper summarizes several approaches that make use of data coming from Anatolia, a critical region that was not originally included in the model's articulation. Available evidence suggests that Central Anatolia exemplified a unique form of social organization that has been characterized by some as a "House Society" marked by clustered neighborhood settlement plans. Evidence for the development of an in situ social and settlement organization contrasts with diffusionist models that argue instead for demic diffusion from the northern Levant