Every summer since 1993 I have returned to central Turkey to work on the archaeological excavation of a mound nearly seventy feet high. As I tread over its soil, I feel a tingling in my feet, knowing that buried beneath me are the abundant remains of a town inhabited from 9,400 until 8,000 years ago. Rising just 500 feet to my west is a second, smaller mound, which was occupied from about 8,000 until 7,700 years ago. The archaeological site made up of the two mounds is still no more than 5 percent exposed. Until the digs began, an old footpath made a fork at the mounds, and so the larger one became known locally as Çatalhöyük (pronounced approximately cha-tal-HU-yuk), which means “fork mound.” The archaeological site has adopted that name.
Entire article from Natural History.