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Ian Hodder was trained at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London and at Cambridge University where he obtained his PhD in 1975. After a brief period teaching at Leeds, he returned to Cambridge where he taught until 1999. During that time he became Professor of Archaeology and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1999 he moved to teach at Stanford University as Dunlevie Family Professor in the Department of Anthropology and Director of the Stanford Archaeology Center. His main large-scale excavation projects have been at Haddenham in the east of England and at Çatalhöyük in Turkey where he has worked since 1993. He has been awarded the Oscar Montelius Medal by the Swedish Society of Antiquaries, the Huxley Memorial Medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Fyssen International Prize, the Gold Medal by the Archaeological Institute of America, and has Honorary Doctorates from Bristol and Leiden Universities. His main books include The leopard’s tale: revealing the mysteries of Çatalhöyük (2006 Thames and Hudson).

The aim of this course is to reflect back on 25 years of research at the 9000 year old site of Çatalhöyük in central Turkey. Over the past decades, the instructor has been leading a large team of about 160 people as they try to make sense of this intriguing mound or tell site. Çatalhöyük has 21 meters of occupation deposits consisting of multiple layers of houses with under-the-floor burials, roof entries, and elaborate wall art and symbolism. In this one-hour course, the instructor will explain the changes in methods over time as the archaeologists moved to paperless, digital techniques. He will also explain some of the main interpretive challenges for the archaeologists and how they solved them – what we now think about life at Çatalhöyük. But the instructor will also raise the question of if we have been successful in creating a shared past in which multiple stakeholders participate, and in applying community based participatory research. He will ultimately raise questions about whether it is really possible to decolonize archaeology.

The Knowledge Series seminars are opportunities to learn from prominent archaeologists as they share their experiences and expertise.