I don’t know if any of the three words “anarcho communist city” are any more than vague approximations when it comes to Çatalhöyük.
how would you describe it? a no street settlement? a roof way village? a gigantic family house?
“Proto-city settlement” is generally what it is referred to as by archaeologists.
And it was as “anarcho communist” as pretty much all other human societies at the time. That was just the state of humanity as a whole at the time as far as we know. Hunter/gatherer groups, small farming settlements, and the occasional larger farming settlement like this one. Hierarchies of power hadn’t become a thing yet.
Kind of a stupid decision to call something pre-currency and pre-codified laws “anarcho communist”.
It’d be like calling something born before animal life “vegan” because it doesn’t eat animals.
Technically correct, maybe, but very much missing the point of the label.
i needed your comment to realize I forgot to put the wiki link. You can forward your complaint to Bookchin ;)
Noting the lack of hierarchy and economic inequality, historian and anti-capitalist author Murray Bookchin has argued that Çatalhöyük was an early example of anarcho-communism.[40]
Out of curiosity, do you know if any other historians/archaeoanthropologists who would make that same claim?
Not to say it’s wrong, but I can see how it would be tempting as a self-declared anti-capitalist to want to interpret the findings in a way that conforms to (and thereby confirms) my worldview.
I heard about Catalhoyuk yesterday… So i have no clue how scientist are perceiving it. But the construction: all together under the same roof, with no street, is pretty striking.
Obviously this dude calling it “anarcho communist” is biased… the wiki article seems to purposely avoid a neutral tone to make it clear.
But I can see why he came to that conclusion. I dont think we have any other settlement even remotely resembling this one, to make a more informed guess
