Project milestones and publications

4 June 2026: learning from the heritage programme

Steve Chaddock, Andrew Fairbairn, Douglas Baird and Gökhan Mustafaoğlu published Archaeobotanical storytelling in a landscape of the mind. The article considers how scientific findings were communicated through the visitor centre, replica houses, gardens, a pond and bilingual resources. It confirms that fieldwork ceased in 2023 while on-site interpretation continued. Read our guide to the paper.

2023: the final full field season was a study season

The Heritage Türkiye project review reports work on finds rather than a new excavation season. It also describes how investigation of the whole sequence extended the site’s known history beyond the interval most familiar from earlier publications. Its discussion of early occupation, sedentism and cultivation includes questions still requiring further analysis.

17 January 2023: mobility and kinship

A PNAS paper led by Jessica Pearson compared tooth-enamel isotope evidence from Pınarbaşı, Boncuklu and Çatalhöyük. It examined local and non-local origins within a regional framework. The findings concern sampled individuals and the reach of the method; they do not show that nobody at Boncuklu ever travelled.

2022: the last excavation season

The 2022 report identifies the sixteenth and final excavation season at Boncuklu. Results included evidence from earlier occupation and revised understanding of Building 22. The same report discusses renewed excavation at Pınarbaşı, a separate project location; those activities should not be attributed to Boncuklu.

Earlier research routes

The 2018 agricultural origins paper, 2019 ancient-genome study and 2021 kinship study remain important entry points. Their publication dates do not correspond directly to the dates when every sample was excavated.

This page is a research chronology, not a stream of invented field dispatches. Historical blog material belongs with its original date and context. Use the extended timeline and reading guide to follow how observations become analysis and published interpretation.

How to read a milestone

A date on this page identifies an event or publication, not the age of every observation it discusses. When following a milestone, ask whether it concerns excavation, analysis, education or the public release of results. The same find may be mentioned at several stages with increasing detail. A later article can revise an earlier interpretation without announcing a new discovery from the ground. Keeping those distinctions visible allows the project’s history to remain useful to readers who encounter an old page through a search engine.