As many as 10,000 people lived in Çatalhöyük in what is now south-central Turkey some 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, making it the largest known settlement from the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. Çatalhöyük appears to have been composed entirely of domestic buildings; no obvious public buildings have yet been found among the 18 layers of settlements identified.
     Excavations by Professor Ian Hodder of Stanford University and colleagues between 1993 and 2017 unearthed several pieces of cloth between 8500 and 8700 years old. Lise Bender Jørgensen, an archaeologist and specialist in archaeological textiles, along with Swiss colleague Antoinette Rast-Eicher and their team, have helped confirm what the clothes were made from.
     Jørgensen says that "In the past, researchers largely neglected the possibility that the fabric fibres could be anything other than wool or linen, but lately another material has received more attention. Bast fibres were used for thousands of years to make rope, thread, and in turn also yarn and cloth."
     Bast is soft, woody fibre found between the bark and the wood in trees such as willow, oak, or linden. The people from Catalhöyük used oak timber for their homes, and oak bark for their textiles. No large quantities of flaxseed have been found in the region, and people in Çatalhöyük do not seem to have cultivated flax, nor did they import it from elsewhere.

Edited from PhysOrg (9 November 2021), Science Tech Daily (15 November 2021), ZME Science (17 November 2021)