page_title: Aşıklı Höyük
section_title: Hearths
hierarchical_section_title: Aşıklı Höyük / Hearths
caption_attribution_description: English: Reconstructed hearth
context_page_description: Aşıklı Höyük is a settlement mound located nearly 1 km south of Kızılkaya village on the bank of the Melendiz brook, and 25 kilometers southeast of Aksaray, Turkey.
  Aşıklı Höyük is located in an area covered by the volcanic tuff of central Cappadocia, in Aksaray Province. The archaeological site of Aşıklı Höyük was first settled in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period, around 8,200 BC.
  It is situated 1119.5 metres above sea level, a little higher than the region's average of c. 1000 metres. The site itself is about 4 ha, considerably smaller than the closely situated site of Çatalhöyük. The surrounding landscape is formed by erosion of river valleys into tuff deposits. The Melendiz Valley, where the Aşıklı Höyük is located, constitutes a favourable, fertile, and diverse habitat. The proximity to an obsidian source did become the base of a trade with the material supplying areas as far away as today's Cyprus and Iraq.
context_section_description: At Aşıklı Höyük the hearths are rectangular and usually placed in one of the corners of the rooms, ranging in size from 2.97 m2 to 0.48 m².
    Large stones with a suitable flat shape were used to create an upright edge that stood approximately 20 cm above the level of the floor. On the short side of the hearth the upright edge is missing to make a fire mouth. It is also here the ash is the most concentrated. Pebbles along the edges and base of the hearth seem to have been covered by a thin layer of plaster. Only in a few cases there is a trace of something recognized as a flue.
  An estimated 30–40% of all the rooms at Aşıklı Höyük have hearths. This estimate is based on partially damaged and eroded structures possibly giving a number lower than accurate. Based on a limited group of fully exposed buildings 54% of single room units contained a hearth, while only 29% of the multiple room units. The average percentage on base of these building units is 47%, probably a more realistic estimate for the site in total.
  Hearths do not occur in a courtyard context, and are more represented in single room dwellings than multiple room units. Still, multiple room units do have a substantial number of hearths. It has been suggested that the "multiroom dwellings may have functioned as 'incomplete' houses for new families still heavily dependent on the larger extended group". The buildings containing the hearths do not show particular characteristics that distinguish them from structures without hearths; neither do they differ in size or special orientation. Even the hearth itself does not follow an apparent norm in terms of size or location. The position varies considerably, but it always has one side to the wall. The positioning of the hearth does not seem to be determined by general macro-ecological factors, such as prevailing wind directions, nor determined by cultural norms regarding spatial features within buildings.
  The hearth does not seem to be subject to a random placement inside the buildings: it is consistently located at the same spot throughout a very long building sequence. This indicates that their positions were not chosen arbitrarily. When a location for the hearth was chosen it was important that the placement did not change in later rebuilding sequences of the structure (see picture: Deep sounding). There is no evidence for ladderpost scars due to the assumed use of freestanding ladders, making the location of the entrance uncertain. Aşıklı Höyük does not seem to have any evidence for ovens.
caption: Reconstructed hearth
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