[extropy-chat] random caveman thought

[Amara Graps]

BillK:
>The natural caves and soft rock in Cappadocia
>caused the Hittite people to take advantage of the natural caves and
>also start excavating additional caves around 2000 - 1000 BC.

The area was settled much earlier than that, a few thousand years before,
in the Neolithic period, before the Hittites.

http://www.catalhoyuk.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk

The underground cities further north that I pointed you to before
were not used for storage, they were built for living for many months at
a time under the ground (without emerging on top of land).

I don't know when the local  people started building and using the
underground cities, and I doubt you know either. The Hittite culture was
based on agriculture, but before them were cultures engaging in a
vigorous trading activity (on a route to Mesopotamia) with horses and
lots of movement. The people who lived in Catalhoyuk in ~8000 BC were
agricultural perhaps, mixing (and fighting) with the travelling tribes.

Amara