so not too far from the Turkish city of Chania lies one of the world's oldest known settlements it's actually a relatively recent discovery a Neolithic town that in Turkish is known as cha-cha Hyeok what the original name of the settlement was is anybody's guess as it was quite long ago ten thousand years ago and no writing that may be able to describe the settlement has to this day been found there it's just so old but also quite sophisticated in fact many until its discovery didn't think that humans could have lived in such an organized way so many thousands of years ago so plus one for our ancestors chattel Hyeok was excavated over several years pretty much from its discovery in 1958 to 1964 by a team of archaeologists led by James Maillard himself from the UK excavations stopped for a while due to some sort of scandal Millar was involved in but resumed again in the early 1990s since its excavation chattel Hyeok has become one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world due to its age sheer size and the amazing artwork found there in the form of wall paintings and what are presumed to be religious objects now after the discovery of chattel Hyeok several similar villages from around the same time period have also been found in other parts of the world proving that the growth of such communities were not isolated incidents what these settlements demonstrate is the ship from hunter-gathering to a more sedentary agricultural lifestyle think about it if you were moving around a lot in search of food then why would you go through all the trouble of making permanent settlements like chattel Hyeok I mean that's a lot of work especially if you're not planning on living in that area for too long such settlements all started what we call the Neolithic Revolution which took place in many parts of the world between the years 10,000 to 7000 BCE the Neolithic Revolution is that transitional phase when our ancestors made the move from foraging to farming chattel Hyeok is just one example of a community that over several hundred years was in the process of making that transition archaeologists have been able to see through the ages how the size of the settlement expanded probably averaging a population of 5,000 people although during some generations this number may have gone up to 10,000 people in either case these villages must have spent considerable time and effort in planting and cultivating various crops as well as storing any surpluses for use during winter or non harvesting months so how do these people live well housing wise the people of chattel Hyeok lived in dwellings that were clustered together in a sort of honeycomb like maize they were so tightly packed together that there were few if any streets to get inside these houses or dwellings one would have to enter through holes in the ceiling and then use a ladder to go down or up if you were leaving these openings were also the main source of ventilation for each house in a sense the rooftops of the houses were the streets inside the house was a basic kitchen area where a small fire could be built as well as sleeping quarters and in a few cases rooms for storage now the fire could also have been used during cold weather for heat the smoke from the fire would exit through the hole in the ceiling which along with being a point of entry and exit acted like a chimney as you can probably imagine the place was a bit crowded however it definitely beat living in a tent especially when the weather was bad outside what's also interesting is that the people of chattel Hyeok had their own sanitation system apparently they kept their houses very clean but outside of town archaeologists found what they could only determine to be trash heaps for garbage you know what else is really interesting about the people of chattel Hyeok they seemed to have had a relatively egalitarian culture meaning that there were no social classes or hierarchies at least none that can be determined this conclusion has been made because all of the houses the hundreds of them that they've unearthed are more or less the same basically there was no palace for any chieftain or king no special quarters for any type of priests or those with special status this doesn't mean that high status people didn't exist but if they did then they weren't awarded any special privileges in terms of better housing as far as we can tell the daily diet of these people consisted of wheat barley lentils peas and other legumes they also herded sheep and goats and given much of their artwork cattle as well now one of the really cool things about farming is that it can free up time for many people when you can't or don't have to constantly be searching for or growing food because you have surpluses stored away you actually have time to think about the meaning of life or come up with hobbies such as painting or sculpture now without writing it's hard to really know what their religious beliefs entailed but from the many female figurines that have been found it seems that they worshiped some type of goddess or maybe goddesses there may have also been male deities and perhaps even spirits of animals whom they worshipped but statues and figurines of females definitely outnumber the latter two and it's believed that these statues were used for worship or that they represented divine beings many heads of bulls were also mounted on walls leading some to believe that these could have been objects of worship as well either that or they were hunting trophies we'll probably never know for sure anyway that was a quick look at chat Ohio one of the oldest settlement communities to have been discovered so far thanks so much for stopping by the channel if you found this video useful please hit that like button because it helps out a lot thanks and have a great day you