Çatalhöyük
7500–5700 BCE
Çatalhöyük is a 9,500-year-old Neolithic settlement in Turkey that challenges everything we thought we knew about early human society. With a population of up to 10,000 people, it is one of the world's first true cities — yet it had no streets, no central authority, no temples, and no social hierarchy. Every house was identical. People entered their homes through holes in the roof. The dead were buried under the floors of the living.