Embodiment and 3D Archaeology: a Neolithic House at Çatalhöyük

Maurizio Forte (*), Vittorio Gallese (**)

(*) Duke University, USA, Dept. of Classical Studies, Art, Art History and Visual Studies
(*) University of Parma, Italy, Dept. of Neuroscience

Introduction

Çatalhöyük (Turkey, 7400-6000 BCE), World Heritage site since 2012, is one of the most
famous archaeological sites worldwide and known as “the first city of the world” (fig.1). It is
famous because of the rituals, the figurative wall paintings and the pre-urban organization of the
site and as well the domestication of plants and animals, which is widely known as the first
agricultural revolution (Hodder, 1999; 2006).
The site was excavated by the British archaeologist James Mellart in the 50s and 60
(Mellart,1967). Later, in the 90s, Ian Hodder (Cambridge, then Stanford University), transformed
the research on site in a large scale experimental fieldwork lab, whereas diggers and specialists
collaborate at multidisciplinary level (Bergreen et al. in press). In this context also the digital
research and data recording on site was able to generate new research questions well matching
the goals of reflexive archaeology. In fact the work done on virtual excavations and digital
records multiplies the potential of the interpretation rather than forcing an objective/unique view
of the excavation. In other terms it is a reflexive digital.
With these premises, in 2010, a new digital project, the 3D-Digging Project, started with the
scope to record in 3D all the phases of excavation and the stratigraphy of a Neolithic house, the
building 89. The final goal was to digitally and visually reconstruct the entire excavation of a
building in order to improve the archaeological interpretation and open new research
perspectives.
This was possible thanks to the combined use of laser scanners, computer vision techniques and
photogrammetry (fig.2). These simulated archaeological models have raised new questions about
depositional and post depositional layers of the building and made the excavation, somehow, a
reversible process. This digital content is available in virtual immersive systems and holographic
devices, such as the DiVE (Duke Immersive Virtual Environment, fig.3), Oculus Rift (fig.4) and
Z-Space (fig.5) at Duke University (Dig@Lab).
An archaeological research based on 3D modeling at different scales is particularly appropriate
to the investigation of Neolithic houses at Çatalhöyük, which show repetitive patterns and similar
social dynamics for several generations. In fact the house is a social unit ruled by a virtual
trigger, able to transform a domestic unit in a ritual space and vice-versa. Domestic and ritual can
coexist at the same time and in the same space because of the affordances, that is the potential
relationships generated by ornaments, sculptures, architectural features, burials, wall paintings,
textures and colors and all the objects designed to create an imaginative world inside the

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building. It is a very complex taxonomy and it is based on the role of the embodiment connecting
the social mind to potential activities running within the building in different spaces/time. The
authors approach the investigation of this kind of embodiment by analyzing the role of embodied
cognition and embodied mind in the use, reuse and interpretation of the building as social trigger.
Embodiment theories in archaeology, phenomenological approaches, the role of human body and
related topics were inspired by several authors in the past such as Connerton, Bourdieu, Douglas,
Foucault, Merleau-Ponty (Lesure, 2005). First studies were focused on gender archaeology,
human bodies and sexuality, art and embodiment (Conkey and Gero 1991; Yates 1993; Shanks,
1995; Meskell 1996, 1997).
Starting from the 90s (Meskell, 1996, 1999), “archaeologists have explored the production of the
lived body and the performance of identity by assembling disparate strands of evidence” (;
Crossland, 2012, 2). Comparative analyses of human representations, materiality and iconicity in
fact could be the symbolic indicator of the relationships between body and environment and how
different ancient societies perceived them (Crossland, 2012).
More recently, the study of embodiment in archaeology involved also the digital worlds,
cyberspaces, virtual reality and immersive systems (Forte, Bonini, 2010; Forte, Kurillo, Matlock,
2010; Flynn, 2012; Forte, 2014).
Of course there is a cultural gap between modern and Neolithic societies, but we assume that the
human embodiment involves genetic universals: for example genetically based forms of neural
encoding and processing (Wheeler, Clark, 2008). These universals, such as perception,
behaviors, sensorimotor experiences, might be reproducible in a virtual simulation whereas the
brain is analyzed by high density EEG. We are not yet at this stage of research, but the
theoretical premises drive our work in that direction.

The 3D-Digging Project

The methodological approach was focused on 3D data recording on site combining different
technologies such as optical, time of flight, shift-phase scanner, and computer vision
technologies (camera-based, shape from motion). Image-based modeling techniques were used at
intra-site/micro-scale level for data recording of buildings, layers, units, features and burials; 3D
laser scanning for large-scale excavation areas (South, North, TPC, GDA areas and East mound).
More specifically, for archaeological stratigraphy the following laser scanners were used:
Minolta Vivid 910 (optical), Trimble GX (time of flight), Trimble FX (shift-phase) and Faro
Focus 3D (shift-phase) (Forte et al., 2012). The main difference of the two approaches is that
time of flight and shift-phase scanners generate clouds, while computer vision techniques create
meshes and geometrical models. For this reason, in the building 89 the two methods were used
simultaneously: shift-phase scanner (Faro Focus 3D and a combination of uncalibrated DSLR
cameras and image-based modeling techniques based on Structure From Motion and Multi-view
reconstruction software (Photoscan Pro and Stereoscan). All these models are georeferenced
according to the grid coordinates of excavation and are implementable for GIS applications.

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In terms of accuracy and quantitative comparison, point clouds by scanners include more details
and information than camera based models (but they need more post-processing). On the
contrary, models made by computer vision are immediately usable and they consist of meshes; in
short they are ready for any computational and quantitative analysis or virtual reality
applications.
The standardization of this approach involves a quasi-real time processing on data interpretation:
a discussion in front of what is in situ and on what is interactively experienceable in a 3D
simulation in the first phase of data-entry.
The digital product is a 3D-multilayered model of stratigraphic units (fig.6) recorded according
to the single context method of excavation and based on the law of superposition (Harris, 1976).
3D reconstruction and visualization of all the layers recorded in the sequence of excavation
foster a critical review of the Harris matrix and, more in general, of the single context system. In
fact 3D simulation shows stratigraphic data in a holistic view and not limited to direct
stratigraphic relations (by the law of superposition). For example, there are depositional and
post-depositional activities recognizable in the room infill, or in the burials, which show 3D
connections not identifiable or visible in the usual matrix. In fact the 3D digital recording
includes much more than a single stratigraphic unit (as suggested by the single context method).
The accuracy of digital recording in 3D has a great potential in the 4D analysis of developments
and transformation activities inside the house. This approach is in fact able to emphasize the
diachronic embodiment of the building and its multiple affordances in the same space but in
different timeframes. The possibility of capturing the dynamic modularity of the house, explores
the nature of the cognition and process and “multimodal” mind of the Neolithic.
3D data recording was also very beneficial for osteologist analyses addressed to identify
complex sequences of multiple burials and skull retrieval pits (Haddow, et al. 2013). A good
example is the excavation of the Space 77, Feature 3686 (sk.20430, Haddow et al.). A headless
primary burial (sk.20430) was identified by the virtual removal of overlying layers of
disarticulated bones (fig.7). Specific ritual activities, such as skull removals, burials and human
depositions are easier identifiable by virtual simulation rather than by on site empirical
interpretation. This because of the difficulties to recognize burials and disarticulated skeletons
inside pits and platforms.
In 2014, Duke University has developed specific software, Dig@IT, able to manage all the 3D
units recorded on site (fig.5). In this case the users can simulate the entire archaeological
excavation with the capability to analyze in detail stratigraphic relations, architectural structures,
finds and any item georeferenced in the same space. The final step is the visualization and
interaction of data and models in immersive systems, such as the DiVE (Duke Immersive Virtual
Environment) and Oculus Rift. In both cases there is a high level of virtual embodiment. The
first experiments with Oculus Rift show that perception of spatial information in 3D increase the
potential of the simulation, since all the layers are better contextualized in the same space and in
high resolution. Every movement of the users head is tracked in real time and the spatial
perception is quite natural and intuitive.

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The Neolithic House at Çatalhöyük: an Embodied Unit

Embodiment constitutes the backbone of any informational and communicational process: we

are embodied in the world, we have embodied minds. In the ecological vision the human
learning depends mainly on the capacity to produce difference between organisms and
ecosystems; the mind is immanent in the world (Bateson, 1972; Forte, Bonini, 2010). This
difference is produced in terms of activities, affordances (Gibson, 1979), and interactions mind-
body-environment. In other words, this difference creates firstly information, then knowledge. If
this “difference” is the focus of embodiment, the main question is how to create it. Again, for
Bateson, an individual mind is but one part of a larger and interconnected web of mental
processes (Bateson, 1962). In other terms, “knowledge begins with enaction” (Bruner 1962),
therefore any action implies an inter-action with the environment (Maturana, Varela, 1980;
Varela, 1997). This means that cognition is embodied and embedded in the context of human
relations and affordances with the environment (Varela, 1997).
This short theoretical overview might help to explain the importance of the embodiment in the
Neolithic in general and, more specifically, at Çatalhöyük. What’s the main purpose of this
embodiment? What kind of social outcome?
In the Neolithic houses of Çatalhöyük there is a repetitive and strong emphasis of embodiment
and every building plays like a human body; that’s why we can define a house an embodied-
interactive unit. This embodiment is recognizable by several patterns, repetitive set of
affordances related with objects and meaningful elements of the house, able to generate new
transmittable knowledge. Here a paradigmatic list of recurring patterns.
- Spatial organization. The space is mostly organized in the same way: industrial activities
in the S part of the house. Ritual platform and burials, NE. Paintings E walls.
- Wall paintings. Typically recognizable in the E side of the building.
- Ritual platforms. Located in the NE corner, they can usually host a sequence of several
depositions. In the building 77 they are associated with horn corned pillars and a
plastered sheep head on the north wall (fig.8).
- Replastering. Re-plastering is a recurring activity recognizable in all the house walls and
floors. In fat all the buildings were re-plastered for the last time before the final
abandonment. In the last phase they are all clean and white: there is a sort of
“neutralization” of colors, decorations and textures.
- Sculptures. Several buildings are decorated with sculptures and zoomorphic shapes.
- Colors. Red and white are the colors used in the paintings and in any other kind of
decoration. The red recalls the color of the blood (Hodder, Meskell, 2011), the white
plaster the cleanness of the house (and on the walls this makes possible decorations).
- Orientation. Several patterns show the orientation of the buildings.
- Figurines. Ritual figurines can have the shape of wild animals, hybrid figures,
anthropomorphic, zoomorphic (fig.9). They can have detachable heads. They might be

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 identifiable as “puppets” or players used for a very short time during ritual performances
(Meskell et al. 2008).
- Interior vs exterior. The core of these activities, social, ritual, domestic industrial, is
apparently contextualized inside the buildings. Remarkable features are always inside and
not outside the houses.

All these patterns and affordances have to be contextualized in their temporalities since they
don’t act all simultaneously and not necessarily in the same spatial context. They act in specific
spaces and time frames and they can change status. For example a figurine can be a performer in
its original status, but it doesn’t show specific affordances when it is in situ (like in a midden
areas or in infill layers.). This lost of “status” and affordances canceled very likely its symbolic
power and context: figurines after the use could be simply sherds or trash or something else not
connected with the original menaning. The embodiment in the house deals continuously with this
kind of dynamics: on/off/different. A re-use is always possible, but in a different context and
with a different embodiment: for example a figurine might be a simple toy; or a symbolic
decoration can change its status in simple ornament and so on. In short, different embodiments
and affordances are core part of the Neolithic multimodality.
More in general, these recurring patterns at Çatalhöyük, play as virtual triggers, because the
interpretation is based mainly on the affordances. Burials underneath floors and platforms, the
iconography of wild animals, the red color (the blood?), recall fear, ancestral powers, death and
violence (Hodder, Meskell, 2011). The construction of the embodiment process is likely aimed at
developing a social memory of the ancestors, of family members and of the importance of a
transmittable pattern. The house is the pattern able to connect past, present and future. The
trigger is a way to remind all these different activities and complex meanings in the same
environment. This embodied information save and spread mind codes linking them with the
surrounding environment. Recurring patterns remind the power of all the affordances inside the
buildings and their potential meaning. For instance, a platform might be ritual and/or functional
or both. In the building 89 we are still digging several burials underneath the NE platform: every
grave and burial sequence is sealed by white plaster. Here plastering is a functional activity
aimed at reshaping the platform as part of the floor. In fact the white plaster covers extensively
all the house floors, with no distinction. The embodiment on the platform is perhaps recognizable
with the following meanings: white-domestic-exterior; pit-burials-interior. The interior part is
ritual, the exterior, white, is domestic/functional. During the long life of the settlement, it is
possible that some original ritual items became just decorative and functional, after a sort of
pragmatic standardization. The white systematic replastering recognizable in several buildings in
the phase of abandonment of the house seems to recall a sort of cancellation of the embodiment,
a return of the house to its original neutral body (white=no affordances, no embodiment, so
powerless).
Archaeology at Çatalhöyük is necessarily house-centered; there are no identifiable public spaces
(with the exception of the “midden” areas) and all the recognizable social, ritual and daily

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activities are contextualized within the house. Although James Mellart, tried to attribute a rank to
some categories of houses he called “shrines”, more accurate excavations and research reviewed
and corrected this interpretation (Hodder 2010). There are no “shrines” at Çatalhöyük and it is
also difficult to recognize specific and organized ranking, but for sure there are different
typologies of houses integrated in the same urban plan. Different types of ornaments and
decorations were possibly aimed at stimulating specific kinds of embodiment and social
memories. Hodder redefines these most elaborated houses of the site (with figurative decoration
and more elaborated features) “History houses” (Hodder, Pels, 2010) because they show a
complex and figurative narrative and they have “ many burials and a history of at least four
rebuilds. They also tend to have more internal art and elaboration” (Hodder, 2010). The
chronology of wall paintings shows an evolutionary pattern from geometric to figurative and
geometric again. More in detail, geometric paintings predominate in Early Neolithic (Levels XII
to VII; South H-M; North F) and in the transition period (Levels VIA & VIB; South N-O, North
G). Figurative decoration emerged in Late Neolithic (Levels V to I; South P-T; North H-J; TP
M-R; Marciniak et al. 2015). The last excavations of the Poznan team (TPC, Marciniak et al.
2015) over the top of the East mound unveiled a burial with geometric incised decoration dated
to Late Neolithic (constructed around 6230–6160 cal BC). Why do the history houses have
figurative paintings and other houses (before and later) have just geometrical decorations? Is this
a recognizable evolution of the artistic, ritual and religious apparatus of the Çatalhöyük houses?
Why do geometrical decorations co-exist with figurative paintings in the same period?
The use of complex figurative narratives could imply a different kind of embodiment and a linear
way of communication: for instance, storytelling, myths and events (magic, real, hyper-real; the
need to tell stories). These could be associated to “special” houses and it would involve a more
narrative embodiment. In spatial terms, it is mostly a bidimensional embodiment because it is
focused on walls and painting affordances rather than three-dimensional. The wall figurative
paintings show a sort of performance based on a frontal view and interaction. On the contrary,
buildings decorated by zoomorphic features, sculptures, shaped walls, bucrania (bull horns),
printed hands, involve 3D embodied spatial relations in different directions. Diverse
embodiments might suggest different narratives: mythic-historical for the figurative paintings,
magic-shamanic for the 3D ornamental features.
These visual and multi-sensorial spatial patterns stimulate the embodied mind to reconnect the
affordances. The repetitiveness of the patterns across generations and in different buildings
indicates the pressing need of an entire community to elaborate a high fidelity cultural and social
transmission.
In fig.10, related to the plan of the B.89 (see paragraph below), the house is split in areas
dedicated to potential activities in different spaces/time: domestic, social, ritual, industrial and so
on. The overlapping shows how embodiment and affordances play in sharable spaces (fig.10).
What we call “industrial area” is related with “dirty floors”, food preparation, cooking, storing
and similar activities. No ritual can be linked with this part of the building.

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A very interesting case study is the burnt building 77 (figs.11-12), which has a platform with
horn corned pillars (bucrania) and a plastered sheep head on the north wall. On the same wall
there are 12 red- painted hands in different sequences of plastering and decoration. Here every
single feature has multiple affordances around the same ritual area of the house (North and East);
no decoration in the storage rooms and in the “industrial” part of the house.
This house “enrichment” was mostly addressed to increase the level of embodiment, by
paintings, sculptures, and molded features. The recall to death, violence, wildness, is another
way to increase the embodiment and to sacralize the relationship mind-environment: embodied
minds in embodied houses. Actions, activities, dynamic interactions can allow different
performances inside the house, ruled by ritual-magic and/or domestic-social triggers. Colors
should have an important role in this context. The red in the paintings (mainly walls, but also
platforms in some cases) is linked with visual narrative (history houses) but also geometrical
decorations, while the white is linked with plastering-re-plastering activities. The white is also
the color of the abandonment of the house, of the burials sealing.

The Building 89

The excavation of the building 89 is the core of the digital experiment of the 3D Digging Project
and it is the only archaeological area at Çatalhöyük systematically and stratigraphically
documented by 3D digital technologies (laser scanners, computer vision, photogrammetry). The
accuracy of 3D data capturing allows a dynamic and diachronic reconstruction of the life of the
Neolithic house.
It was excavated since 2011 (figs.13-14) and it is situated in the East mound, South Shelter. It is
a very large house originally richly decorated. This is assumable by several traces of removal of
decorative architectural elements, by traces of red paintings in the walls and in general by a first
analysis of the room infill. The size of the house, about 51 sq., is also remarkable, in comparison
with other buildings of the same phase.
3D models of the stratigraphy of the building and in general the virtual simulation as well are
extraordinary tools for a scientific reconstruction of the life cycle of the house, its embodiment
and possible affordances. All this research is still at embryonic level (most of the work will be
done during the publication of the excavation) but its potential is already recognizable. For
example, the 3D virtualization of the Unit 19807 (a molded architectural element, figs.15-16), in
its stratigraphic context and in transparency (x-ray simulation, fig.16), proves the affordances
among room infill, the walls and other architectural decorations. The interpretation in this case is
more addressed to depositional and post-depositional “activities” inside the building rather than a
taxonomic classification of the stratigraphic units. In other words, 3D data recording and
simulation give us a holistic vision of the excavation beyond the constraints of the Harris matrix
and single context system of excavation.
Additional interesting results come from the digital representation of the sequence of floors and
in general of the microstratigraphy associated with this kind of layers. Currently, we are able to

7
estimate a sequence of over 50 floors and a life span of 55-60 years for the house (in line with
other excavated buildings).
A possible example of ritual embodiment is identifiable in the discovery of a human mandible
(fig.17) with plaster and red pigment in a retrieval pit near the NE platform of the house (very
likely this mandible was originally attached to a similarly modified cranium). The fact that the
mandible is close to the burials (i.e., the platform) and to the foundation wall of the building
could indicate the goal to protect the house and its ancestors.

Embodied minds, embodied vision and embodied buildings

What does it mean to look at an artifact? For many years aesthetics and cognitive science shared
a similar attitude towards vision when accounting for the perceptual representation of the world
and the ensuing aesthetic experience. Both approaches endorsed a sort of ‘visual imperialism’,
conceiving vision as the mere outcome of the so-called ‘visual brain’, while neglecting the
multimodal nature of vision. Neuroscientific evidence on the relationship between the motor
system, the body and the perception of space, objects and the actions of others, showed that such
notion of vision doesn’t hold anymore.
Observing the world is more complex than the mere activation of the visual brain. Vision is
multimodal: it encompasses the activation of motor, somatosensory and emotion-related brain
networks. Any intentional relation we might entertain with the external world has an intrinsic
pragmatic nature; hence it always bears a motor content. The same motor circuits that control our
motor behavior also map the space around us, the objects at hand in that very same space, thus
defining and shaping in motor terms their representational content (for a review, see Gallese
2000; Rizzolatti, Fogassi and Gallese 2002).
The space around us is defined by the motor potentialities of our body. Motor neurons also
respond to visual, tactile and auditory stimuli. Indeed, premotor neurons controlling the
movements of the upper arm also respond to tactile stimuli applied to it, to visual stimuli moved
within the arm’s peripersonal space, or to auditory stimuli also coming from the same peri-
personal space (Fogassi et al. 1996; Rizzolatti et al. 1997). This evidence shows how looking at
an architectonic 3D space always implies the embodied simulation of the movements we could
perform in the very same space. The visual inspection of a confined space, like an altar, a burial
site or a Neolithic house, also implies the activation of a performative level of experience of the
same images, allowed by the embodied simulation those images are able to trigger in beholders’
brain and bodies.
The same applies to artifacts, like three-dimensional objects. The manipulable objects we look at
are classified by the motor brain as potential targets of the interactions we might entertain with
them. Premotor and parietal ‘canonical neurons’ control the grasping and manipulation of objects
and also respond to their mere observation (Murata et al. 1997; Raos et al. 2006). Finally, mirror
neurons, motor neurons activated during the execution of an action and its observation performed
by someone else, map the action of others on the observers’ motor representation of the same

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action (di Pellegrino 1992; Gallese et al. 1996; Rizzolatti et al. 1996; Rizzolatti, Fogassi and
Gallese 2001). More than twenty years of research demonstrated also in the human brain the
existence of a neural mechanism directly mapping action perception and execution, here defined
as the Mirror Mechanism (MM). Similar mechanisms were described for emotions and
sensations. Embodied simulation was proposed as a candidate unified theoretical framework for
all of these phenomena (Gallese 2014; Gallese & Cuccio 2015). Embodied simulation is also
triggered during the experience of spatiality around our body and during the contemplation of
objects. The functional architecture of embodied simulation seems to constitute a basic
characteristic of our brain, making possible our rich and diversified experiences of space, objects
and other individuals, being at the basis of our capacity to empathize with them. Empathy,
recently explored by cognitive neuroscience, can reframe the problem of how art works and
objects and architectural spaces are experienced, revitalizing and empirically validating old
intuitions on the relationship between body, empathy and aesthetic experience. This perspective
also offers the possibility to connect the perception of architectonic spaces, objects and artifacts
to bodily practices, which can be investigated by cognitive neuroscience.

The contribution of neurosciences to archaeological research

In this paper we emphasized that cognitive neuroscience might be relevant to 3D Archeology

because it enable to connect, by means of the body, the archeological record with the behaviors
and practices connected to the making of archeological artifacts and the type of experiences they
afforded, thus enabling an ‘empathic’ evaluation of the same artifacts. The idea that the body
might play an important role in visual experience is pretty old. In modern times the notion of
empathy (Einfühlung) was originally introduced in aesthetics by the German philosopher Robert
Vischer in 1873, thus well before its use in psychology. Vischer qualified Einfühlung, literally
“feeling-in”, as the physical response generated by the observation of visual forms. The
conformity of visual forms to the design and function of the muscles of the body, from those of
the eyes to our limbs and to our bodily posture as a whole, arouses beholders’ particular
responsive feelings. Developing Vischer’s ideas, August Wölfflin (1886) speculated on the ways
in which observation of specific architectural forms engage the beholder’s bodily responses.
According to Wölfflin if we were only visual creatures the aesthetic appreciation of art works
and architecture would be precluded, because it is just because of our bodily nature allowing us
to experience gravity, force and pressure that we can enjoy contemplating a doric temple or feel
elevated when entering a gothic cathedral.
The empirical findings of neuroscience have indeed demonstrated the important role played
by the cortical motor system and body actions in visual perception. When looking at objects we
simulate some of the actions they afford. We build the map of the space around us on our bodily
motor potentialities. Neolithic rooms and houses, all afforded a variety of behaviors, practices,
performances that relate these man-made artifacts to the people who lived in these spaces and
used these artifacts. Our contemporary experience of the same spaces and artifacts made possible

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by the approach of 3D Archeology can establish a link between those practices and our analysis
of them by means of embodiment. Furthermore, when looking at both symbolic and non
symbolic hand signs, like hand-written scribbles, letters, pictograms, cuts and brushstrokes, we
simulate the action required to produce them. The prolonged activation of the neural
representation of motor content in the absence of movement, likely defines the experiential
backbone of what we perceive or imagine perceiving. This allows a direct apprehension of the
relational quality linking space, objects and others’ actions to our body. The primordial quality
turning space, objects and behavior into intentional objects is their constitution as the objects of
the motor intentionality our body’s motor potentialities express (Gallese 2000; Gallese and
Sinigaglia 2010; Gallese 2014, Gallese and Cuccio 2015). This multimodal, praktognosic way of
understanding vision, on the one hand links artifacts to their making and, on the other, links the
same artifacts to their beholders.
Thus, the analysis of archeological records, particularly when acquired in 3D and enabling a true
immersive interaction, naturally lends to a ‘performative’ study of the acquired evidence,
enabled by the possibility to empirically document the relationship between a given object, be it
a wall, a depiction, a vase or a Neolithic house, and the body activity, practices, and habits it
evokes by means of the embodied simulation triggered by its vision or exploration. As the
anthropologist Thomas Csordas wrote: “the body is to be considered as the subject of culture, or
in other words as the existential [as opposed to the cognitive] ground of culture” (1990, p. 5). In
a similar vein, the anthropologist Tim Ingold argued that : “We can now see how, by adopting a
dwelling perspective – that is, by taking the animal-in-its-environment rather than the self-
contained individual as our point of departure – it is possible to dissolve the orthodox
dichotomies between evolution and history, and between biology and culture.” (2000, p. 186-
187).
Since the beginning of the cultural development of our species, for a consistent proportion of
human beings cultural expression consists of performing activities, intimately related to the
acting body. According to this perspective, it is the acting body to generate culture, seen as a
series of ‘cultural performances’ (Taylor, 1993). The investigation of the neural mechanisms
underpinning human bodily action and perception can shed new light on human cultural
expression and apply it to archeological research.

Neuro-archaeology: future works and perspectives

3D archaeology at Çatalhöyük, from data recording to virtual simulation, is opening new and
unexplored research perspectives for the interpretation of archaeological excavation (“empirical”
data) and for the study of human embodiment in the Neolithic times (mediated experience, by
virtual tools). Digital Data collection, interpretation and simulation give us a holistic vision of
fieldwork archaeology and its inferential methods. This heuristic approach is in fact at the
intersection between a purely theoretical empiricism, the idea that we deal with real data in the
field, and the simulation generated by virtual interaction and 3D modeling. There is no

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opposition between real data and simulation because both are part of a mediated process in
different kind of environments (the Real, the Virtual). Actually the data collected on site are
processed and mediated by our sensorial and visual interpretation and every approach has to deal
with a certain component of subjectivity.
The study of ancient embodiment can be correctly approached by virtual reality because in a
digital ecosystem it is possible to visualize and study potential activities and affordances in 4D.
These items cannot be included in a traditional archaeological taxonomy. In a taxonomic
approach, in fact, the interpretation is quite peremptory (and not dynamic) since we say: burial,
pit, infill, wall, floor and so on, and related descriptions. The law of superposition, for example,
in the Harris matrix connects direct stratigraphic relations and not other kinds of connections or
activities. On the contrary, embodied relations are ruled by multiple meanings and actions: in a
house, an object can be linkable with other objects and/or activities but it can act differently
according to space, time and related object. As we showed in the previous sections, a substantial
body of empirical evidence enables us to connect such embodied relations with their
neurophysiological correlates, like those exemplified by the parieto-premotor cortical networks
mapping space, objects and actions and with the correlated functional mechanism of embodied
simulation. Universals expressed by embodiment in the Neolithic period can be still studied
today by virtual simulation and ECG. The key question is to evaluate if there are similarities in
the environmental and spatial embodiment (i.e. visual patterns, symbols, colors, shapes, textures)
between ancient and modern minds.
The space of a Neolithic house is somehow hyperreal because it embraces empirical-domestic
views of the daily life but correlated with the hyper-reality of the magic, religious, ancestral and
ritual aspects. The building is a performing space at least for its entire life and perhaps even
after.
Çatalhöyük houses act like complex social and ritual units, “living active bodies” (Bailey 1990;
Tringham 1991) ruled by different levels of embodiments and virtual triggers. The trigger creates
and transforms the affordance between objects and activities, humans and objects; it “turns on”
the affordance for activating in a specific time and space. The “things” in the house develop new
forms of embodiment and recall the patterns, which have to be transmitted generation by
generation.
For Çatalhöyük, the long life of the site involves the development of different kinds of
embodiments, and narratives, whereas the pattern remains but the informative codes change and
the cultural transmission as well. The relatively short period of figurative art and mainly limited
to history houses, seems indicate the need to preserve some social memories and narratives in
dedicated buildings and spaces: a special visual grammar for a more linear kind of embodiment.
The representation of figurative wall paintings forces the interaction on a special performing
view of the house, at least in a specific space/time. In all the other cases and mostly, after these
figurative embodied houses, the embodiment is distributed in several elements of the interior:
bucrania, sculptures, architectural elements, burials, platforms. This embodiment recalls death,
violence, wild animals, hybrid and ancestral figures and myths. This imaginary world, still

11
mysterious to us, might perhaps represent a social priority for a correct communication and
information processing. Violence and death are inseparable elements in this embodied
iconography aimed at increasing visual interactions and performances within the same space.
The persistence of patterns and repetitive cultural models at Çatalhöyük seem to face some
changes in the late phases (Marciniak et al. 2015), whereas shapes and decorations of the houses
are different. Maybe this might be due to a minor emphasis on embodiment or at least to a less
rigid interpretation of the pattern (social and ritual changes?).
Finally, the biggest question behind this preliminary methodological cross-disciplinary
experiment, is about the role of cognitive neuroscience for the study of the ancient mind and
material culture. Can we define this area of research neuro-archaeology? Is it possible to study
the embodiment by our embodiment in virtual models and how?
We believe that a biocultural approach to archeology can shed new light on the meaning of
archeological artifacts. This approach implies acknowledging the centrality of performative
aspects of sociality and culture, which so far have not been thoroughly investigated. To this
purpose, collaboration between archeology and neuroscience can be very fruitful.

Acknowledgments

The 3D-Digging Project is supported by the Bass Connection grant (Duke University), by the
Department of Classical Studies, Dept. of Art, Art History and Visual Studies, Duke University.
Special thanks to Arek Marciniak for his input and productive discussions about some of the
research topics included in this paper. The software Dig@IT for the 3D digging was developed
at Duke University in collaboration with Emmanuel Shiferaw, Regis Kopper and Nicola Lercari.

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