Bioarchaeology of Neolithic Catalhoyuk reveals fundamental transitions in health, mobility, and lifestyle in early farmers

Clark Spencer Larsen and colleagues' bioarchaeological study of Neolithic Catalhoyuk, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is a peer-reviewed empirical study analyzing skeletal remains from the famous Anatolian site to trace changes in health, mobility and lifestyle across the settlement's long occupation as farming intensified and population density grew. Its authority rests on rigorous osteological and isotopic methods applied to a large excavated skeletal sample. Its scope is specifically physical health and lifestyle indicators, workload markers, diet, infection rates, and it does not itself make claims about Catalhoyuk's often-discussed symbolic art or possible goddess-focused ritual life, a separate and more interpretively contested area of Catalhoyuk scholarship that this particular study's bioarchaeological method was not designed to address.