Halaf structures at Fistikli Höyük fall into four main categories. Apart from the well-known tholoi, there are cell-plan buildings, “earthworks” and dome-shaped ovens. Types of buildings can be linked to particular functions. Tholoi were living spaces, earthworks had some protective purpose, and ovens were used for heating, probably of food. The excavations from Fistikli Höyük do not reveal a specific function for cell-plan buildings, although a comparison to sites such as Yarim Tepe II points towards a storage-related use.
People made use of a variety of building techniques in the construction of edifices. Tholoi were, with one exception, built on stone foundations, usually two or more stones wide. Foundation stones were mostly the locally available calcareous stones, although in some cases, broken grinding stones and heavy boulders transported by the Euphrates were used. The only material used for the walls was pisé. The combination of stone foundations and pisé walls was also applied in the construction of cell-plan buildings and some of the ovens. All ovens were covered on the inside by a smooth, fire-hardened sandy floor. Earthworks consisted of a massive pisé core, bell-shaped in cross-section.
At Fistikli Höyük, tholoi had a domestic function, as indicated by their internal installations and artifacts that had been left leaning against the walls, as if the buildings had been abandoned with the intention of returning. Due to the lack of wall fall in the buildings, it seems that the pisé walls did not reach up very high, not much more than 1 m, and that the roof was neither a dome of clay lumps nor a flat clay layer applied to a branch-and-twig structure. We rather imagine a light structure using plant material.
Tholos I was the largest such building found at Fistikli Höyük. The stone foundations were 2-3 rows wide. Several poorly preserved surfaces were found in the interior, consisting of compact silt with flat-lying artifacts. There were also several installations inside the tholos, including a narrow bench along the northern part of the wall, and a wider socle along the southern part. A partition wall was partially preserved. During an early phase of use there was a fire installation in the center of the tholos. No entrance was found in the exposed section of this building.
Tholos II was smaller than Tholos I, measuring three meters in interior diameter. The foundation stones were placed in a shallow foundation trench. A layer of pisé was pressed against the wall from the outside, anchored by several stones. This probably functioned as additional support for the wall. In the northeast part of the tholos, a small section of the foundation was one course lower than the rest, and a pivot stone indicated that this served as a door. There were five surfaces preserved inside the tholos, three of which were of packed earth with few artifacts on them, followed by two baked clay surfaces.
In Unit L, Tholos IV with a variety of interior installations was discovered. This tholos contained two hearths and a narrow partition wall. A rectangular hearth, lined with a raised edge of clay, was located slightly off the middle of the room. A deep, U-shaped pit was placed directly south of it, the edge of which was covered with sherds from a cooking pot. The second hearth had an elongated shape. Near it, two large, flat calcareous disks were found leaning against the wall. At least three interior surfaces, all made of tamped earth, could be discerned. A bench ran along the inner wall.
Tholoi I and IV in Units D and L were clearly associated with cell-plan buildings. In several other places in the excavation, fragments of walls were found that suggest that more of these buildings existed at Fistikli Höyük, often adjacent to a tholos. In both cases where a close spatial relationship between tholos and cell-plan building is apparent, the tholoi did not undergo major changes whereas the cell-plan structures were entirely rebuilt.
Cell-plan Building I (Unit L) was constructed at the northwestern corner of Tholos IV, subsequent to a stage in which the tholos existed as a freestanding structure. The cell-plan building had at least two rooms. Foundations were of stone, and only fragments of the pisé superstructure remained. Upon discovery, the interiors of these rooms were clean, suggesting an intentional abandonment before the construction of a later phase of this structure. The later-phase cell-plan building was in use during the latest stage of the adjacent tholos.
Another cell-plan building in Unit D was constructed before Tholos I. Later on, it became necessary to extend the storage building significantly. A slightly curved wall, following roughly the outlines of the tholos, was constructed, whereas some of the other walls were set on top of the earlier phase of this building. At least one row of cubicles was added to the south of the earlier building.
In Units I and K, two massive structures were found, both bell-shaped in cross-section. We assume that they had protective functions, probably against flash floods from the slopes to the east of the site. Earthwork I was oriented more or less north-south, as would be expected if protecting from floods coming from the slopes to the east. Only a few Halaf remains were found east of the earthwork, among them two poorly preserved walls. Directly west of the earthwork, a pit was dug which contained large quantities of ash and in which the bottom of a large vessel was found. Just outside of the vessel was a coarse clay stand, probably used as a cooking support.
Earthwork II in Unit I was similar in shape and size. It had a large number of additional, thin coats of pisé applied over the original core. Some of the coats were separated by bands of pinkish sand. In a late phase of the earthwork, a flimsy wall had been built on top in the usual technique of stone foundations and pisé superstructure.
We found a total of eight ovens in varied states of preservation. All of them were located on outside surfaces with signs of intense activities, as indicated by a high density and variability of finds. The ovens have walls of varying width, which are, wherever preserved, bricky red on the inside from use. Judging by a particularly well preserved example in Unit I and parallels at other sites, they were dome-shaped and probably open on the top. They all had a very smooth, burnt clay floor of greyish-buff color. The ground plan of the ovens is always round, with a diameter of ca. 1 m. In one instance, scratch marks were found radiating from the center of the oven’s floor. It is not easy to determine exactly how the ovens were used. They were certainly not kilns related to the production of ceramics. In the vicinity of the ovens, a lot of ash was found, but not a single waster. A hint at their potential use can be derived from the finds in layers above those ovens. In two instances, we found on top of the destroyed remains of ovens simple fireplaces, roughly circular concentrations of highly burnt pebbles. If the location of these fireplaces is due to continuity in the use of space, then the hearths fulfilled at least in part a similar function to the ovens.