Fig 4 - uploaded by Bertille Lyonnet
Content may be subject to copyright.
Neolithic pottery, Period I, phase 1 Group 2, hole-mouth vessel with its opening partly closed

Neolithic pottery, Period I, phase 1 Group 2, hole-mouth vessel with its opening partly closed

Source publication
Chapter
Full-text available
This chapter deals with the pottery finds from Mentesh Tepe (Azerbaijan). Three main periods are concerned: the Neolithic (first half of the 6th millennium), the Chalcolithic (two phases in the 5th millennium), and the Early Bronze Age (two phases in the 3rd millennium).

Similar publications

Article
Full-text available
This study focuses on the cultural attribution of a distinct category of Early Bronze Age burials in the eastern piedmont of the Lesser Caucasus, northwestern Azerbaijan, known as “tombs under kurgans” or “kurgans with collective burials in tombs”. There was an opinion that such burials belong to the early period of the Kura-Araxes (or proto-Kura-A...

Citations

Article
The factors and dynamics that initiated the Neolithisation process in the South Caucasus between the very end of the 7th and the beginning of the 6th millennium BCE are still unclear and hotly debated. It is within this framework that the excavations at Kiçik Tepe, in the middle Kura river valley of Western Azerbaijan, aim to offer new data and new perspectives on the complex interplay of environmental, social and cultural factors that contributed to this process. Excavations at Kiçik Tepe uncovered two main phases of occupation consisting of circular buildings dating to the first centuries of the 6th millennium. Architectural remains allowed us to highlight an evolutionary architectural trajectory hinting at social and productive changes in the role and structure of the households. The subsistence strategies that rely on species domesticated elsewhere show at once a series of specificities highlighting adaptation to the local environment and the exploitation of wild species possibly resulting from previous Mesolithic practices. Simultaneously, while the almost aceramic way of life at Kiçik Tepe outlines a local dialectic between Mesolithic and Neolithic cooking practices, lithic and macrolithic tools pinpoint broadly shared regional elements as well as very localised traits framed into both long and short distance contacts. As a whole the new evidence from Kiçik Tepe highlights that the Neolithisation in the South Caucasus was not a straightforward process that consisted of the abrupt and homogenous adoption of an exogenous ‘package’ but most probably of a gradual and complex process of change resulting from dynamics of resistance and innovation between old and new socio-economic and cultural models.
Article
The cave of Getahovit-2 is situated in north-eastern Armenia, in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus which dominate the valley of the Kura. The excavations (2011–2017), carried out by the Armenian-French mission ‘Caucasus’, have revealed several phases of occupation – Upper Palaeolithic (ca 22,000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 4700-4050 cal BC), and early Middle Ages (ca. 900–1200 cal AD). Although the cave is near outcroppings of flint (lower valley of the Aghstev river), the artifacts found there are mainly in obsidian, whatever the period of occupation. During the Chalcolithic period (levels IV-III), the cave served as a shelter for herds, as seen in the succession of coprolite deposits, that were regularly burned to clean the floor of the cave. The origin of the populations that sheltered their herds in this cave is difficult to determine. LA-ICP-MS analyses have been carried out to study the provenance of the obsidian artifacts found in level III. Corroborated by the techno-typological study of the artifacts, they have enabled the differentiation of two assemblages: the first, coming from deposits situated on Armenian territory (Geghasar, Gutansar, Arteni, Tsaghkunyats) and consisting of blanks knapped by percussion (flakes above all), and the second coming from deposits situated in Georgia (Chikiani) or Turkey (region of Sarıkamış) and consisting of pressure-flaked blades. In the lower part of level III (ca 4700-4400 cal BC), the provenance of the obsidian (mainly Gutansar) suggests links with the south, the Ararat plain. For the upper part of level III (ca. 4400-4050 cal BC), it is the outcrops situated farther north (Tsaghkunyats) that were the origin of almost 60% of the pieces analysed. Based on environmental, cultural and ethnographic data, we discuss the role of the cave of Getahovit-2 and the mobility of the human groups who occupied it in the 5 t h millennium BC.
Article
Full-text available
Here, we report genome-wide data analyses from 110 ancient Near Eastern individuals spanning the Late Neolithic to Late Bronze Age, a period characterized by intense interregional interactions for the Near East. We find that 6 th millennium BCE populations of North/Central Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus shared mixed ancestry on a genetic cline that formed during the Neolithic between Western Anatolia and regions in today’s Southern Caucasus/Zagros. During the Late Chalcolithic and/or the Early Bronze Age, more than half of the Northern Levantine gene pool was replaced, while in the rest of Anatolia and the Southern Caucasus, we document genetic continuity with only transient gene flow. Additionally, we reveal a genetically distinct individual within the Late Bronze Age Northern Levant. Overall, our study uncovers multiple scales of population dynamics through time, from extensive admixture during the Neolithic period to long-distance mobility within the globalized societies of the Late Bronze Age. Video Abstract eyJraWQiOiI4ZjUxYWNhY2IzYjhiNjNlNzFlYmIzYWFmYTU5NmZmYyIsImFsZyI6IlJTMjU2In0.eyJzdWIiOiI1Yzc5NGYzYTFiYTU5NDdmYWI1NGI5OGVhYzEyZTNmZSIsImtpZCI6IjhmNTFhY2FjYjNiOGI2M2U3MWViYjNhYWZhNTk2ZmZjIiwiZXhwIjoxNTkwNzEzNzI4fQ.Jdh02-sQMsYVqM6IrXehfAdXlX0xWXHr2x6pIAACdpmfSo9M5xQFjmWtc4fHnkiyR0J-IattJaRTZ0mIhx3IxFhhiVFhGSvN2WAi-K-rmrm1fIFgKVTTzj1VRv-gnM4ladKJ4MrIdJcdnyfJz1DRcrgQUlV_hnaRDamNGJ8XpxJnans6oNh95AMBSaZ3VxaesnCmepVxJgMqzBTanZDwiLJpA4ZPcADfAf8W0KsVq9Ge-IFevVdW_V1RyytZfDXLov_u2QP64advphHOJ36Lq055R-T3vgDrvSM80eTMAFrBmt3g8CbCGA9X81gZD-vOqSfKeJWRPNH7-5boAMTYaQ (mp4, (28.32 MB) Download video
Article
The region that is known today as Syunik in the south/southeastern part of Armenia is geographically a close neighbour of the southern part of the Araxes river basin in today Iran. Political upheavals and boundaries hindered fieldwork in these areas for many years. The archaeological project of the Araxes valley (APAV) is one of many other projects that launched in 2013 in this region and focused on the southern basin of the Araxes River. The results of the excavations of two sites, Kohne Pasgah Tepesi and Kohne Tepesi, and the intensive survey carried out in this area, enable us to shed more light on the settlement dynamics, material culture and economic/social networks of this area and its neighbors. The period from the 6th up to the middle part of the 4th millennium BC represents the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods in this region. The material culture of both periods shares many common characteristics with contemporary traditions at sites of the southern Caucasus. Later, in the last part of the 4th millennium BC, a cultural tradition that originated in the southern Caucasus, known as the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition, expanded over a vast area, including the southern part of the Araxes river basin. Based on the study of the pottery styles and obsidian, the patterns of interconnection between regions, communities, and sources, and commodity flows are examined. The role of the Araxes River and its tributaries in this interplay over the stated time span is the other inquiry of this article. Furthermore, I will investigate whether spatial propinquity had any impact on commodity flows and exchange, and if so, did this impact affected the material culture and technological practices or not.
Article
The cave of Getahovit-2 is situated in north-eastern Armenia, in the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus which dominate the valley of the Kura. The excavations (2011–2017), carried out by the Armenian-French mission ‘Caucasus’, have revealed several phases of occupation – Upper Palaeolithic (ca 22,000 cal BC), Chalcolithic (ca. 4700-4050 cal BC), and early Middle Ages (ca. 900–1200 cal AD). Although the cave is near outcroppings of flint (lower valley of the Aghstev river), the artifacts found there are mainly in obsidian, whatever the period of occupation. During the Chalcolithic period (levels IV-III), the cave served as a shelter for herds, as seen in the succession of coprolite deposits, that were regularly burned to clean the floor of the cave. The origin of the populations that sheltered their herds in this cave is difficult to determine. LA-ICP-MS analyses have been carried out to study the provenance of the obsidian artifacts found in level III. Corroborated by the techno-typological study of the artifacts, they have enabled the differentiation of two assemblages: the first, coming from deposits situated on Armenian territory (Geghasar, Gutansar, Arteni, Tsaghkunyats) and consisting of blanks knapped by percussion (flakes above all), and the second coming from deposits situated in Georgia (Chikiani) or Turkey (region of Sarıkamış) and consisting of pressure-flaked blades. In the lower part of level III (ca 4700-4400 cal BC), the provenance of the obsidian (mainly Gutansar) suggests links with the south, the Ararat plain. For the upper part of level III (ca. 4400-4050 cal BC), it is the outcrops situated farther north (Tsaghkunyats) that were the origin of almost 60% of the pieces analysed. Based on environmental, cultural and ethnographic data, we discuss the role of the cave of Getahovit-2 and the mobility of the human groups who occupied it in the 5th millennium BC.