SRA

Arguments have long been presented that early farming in the Near East and Anatolia was associated with a 'Mother Goddess' culture, but there has been limited evidence of a central female role in these societies. We studied social organisation in gender roles in Neolithic Southwest Asia using 120 paleogenomes from Çatalhöyük East Mound (7100-5950 BCE), a major site in Central Anatolia with an uninterrupted occupation and an apparent egalitarian structure. In contrast to widespread genetic evidence for patrilocality in Neolithic Europe, the Çatalhöyük individuals revealed no indication of patrilocal mobility. Analysing genetic kinship ties among individuals buried in the same house (co-burials) across 35 Çatalhöyük buildings, we identified close ties concentrated within buildings and among neighbors in Çatalhöyük's Early period, akin to those in the preceding Pre-Pottery Neolithic in Southwest Asia. This pattern weakened over time: By the late 7th millennium BCE, subadults buried in the same building were rarely closely genetically related, despite sharing similar diets. At the same time, genetic connections within Çatalhöyük buildings ran much more frequently through the maternal than the paternal line throughout the site's occupation. We also identified differential funerary treatment of female subadults compared to those of males, with a higher frequency of grave goods associated with females. Our results reveal how kinship structures changed while maternal links and key female roles persisted through thousand years in a large Neolithic community in western Eurasia.