Village, Fortress, and Town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia: a Preliminary Report on the 2003–2006 Investigations Of

Home , Hovit, Stone circle, Tsaghkasar, Tsilkar

Village, fortress, and town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia: A preliminary report on the 2003–2006 investigations of Project ArAGATS on the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Republic of Armenia

By Ruben Badalyan, Adam T. Smith, Ian Lindsay, Lori Khatchadourian and Pavel Avetisyan With appendices by Belinda Monahan and Roman Hovsepyan

Keywords: zzzzzzzzz ˇß æº: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Between 2003 and 2006, the joint Armenian-Ameri- the Medieval Period (c. AD 300–1220).5 While the can project for the Archaeology and Geography of hiatuses between these occupational eras are quite Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS) intriguing and highly relevant to the archaeology of conducted three major field seasons (2003, 2005, southern Caucasia in general, in this article we fo- 2006) of archaeological investigations on the cus on the three phases of intensive settlement in Tsaghkahovit plain (Aragatsotn Marz) of central Ar- the region from the initial Early Bronze Age, through menia (Fig. 1).1 The Tsaghkahovit plain is a high the Late Bronze Age, to the end of the Iron III elevation intermontane plateau set between the phase. Our investigations have been principally northern slope of Mt. Aragats (4090 m), the south- guided by an overarching effort to describe the western slopes of the Pambak range, and Mt. Kol- emergence, and re-formulation, of social and politi- gat (a.k.a. Mets Sharailer, 2474 m) in central wes- cal institutions in the region. This concern with in- tern Armenia. It is the smallest and the highest stitutional formation initially arose from an abiding (2100 m a.s.l.) of the three major plains – along interest in the unique constellations of authority with the Ararat and Shirak – that nestle at the base that forwarded the emergence of early complex po- of Mt. Aragats.2 lities in southern Caucasia at the beginning of the Our investigations in the region began in Late Bronze Age. However, these concerns soon 1998 when we initiated a systematic intensive sur- broadened to envelope both the constitutive prac- vey that ultimately covered 98.31 km2 of the moun- tices of Early Bronze Age village life and the re- tain slopes surrounding the plain.3 With the survey markable political re-structurings attendant to the complete, in 2002 the ArAGATS research program virtually unknown world of post-Urartian towns. shifted to intensive excavations at the region’s ma- Even as we continue to develop a sense of the spe- jor sites.4 While our work to date has concentrated cific institutions that shaped social, economic, and primarily on intensive excavations at the multi-com- political life over three millennia in the Tsaghkaho- ponent sites of Tsaghkahovit and Gegharot, it has vit plain, it is clear that authority in the region was also included investigations at five mortuary sites produced within a shifting landscape dominated by and test soundings at several associated fortresses, the distinctive built environments of the village, the including Hnaberd, Aragatsiberd, Poloz-Sar, Ashot fortress, and the town. Yerkat, Tsilkar (Top Kar), and at the settlement of Tsilkar. These investigations have revealed the broad Excavations at Gegharot: from village to contours of regional occupation with four major fortress eras of settlement (Fig. 2) prior to the crystallization of the modern landscape: the Early Bronze Age Our attention was initially drawn to the site of Geg- 3500 2600 1500 (c. – BC), the Late Bronze Age (c. – harot by test excavations at the site that revealed 1200 600 200 BC), the Iron III period (c. – BC), and well-preserved occupation levels associated with the emergence of fortified settlements in southern 1 Several previous, more limited, reports have detailed aspects of Caucasia during the Late Bronze Age. Fortresses, ty- the findings gathered here for the first time, including `º' pically high rock outcrops reinforced by one or Ł. 2004; `º' Ł . 2005; Hayrapetyan 2005; Lindsay more cyclopean stone masonry walls encircling the 2004; ¸ŁæŁ 2005; Monahan 2004a. 2 There is considerable variability in transliterations for ‘Tsaghka- citadel, were fundamental to the initial emergence hovit’. In the last few years, we have come to use Tsaghkahovit as the most accurate transliteration of the Armenian. 3 5 Avetisyan et al. 2000; Badalyan et al. 2003; Smith/Badalyan in The dates assigned here for the medieval period extend from press.; Smith et al. 1999; Smith et al. 2005. the adoption of Christianity (AD 301) up to the Mongol invasi- 4 `º' Ł . 2005; Smith et al. 2004. ons of the Caucasus which commenced in 1220/21.

Fig. 1 Regional Map of the of socio-political complexity in the region and Geg- was to continue the operations initiated during the Tsaghkahovit Plain harot appeared to be a promising site for examin- previous season.7 Thus we resumed excavations in ing the conditions of their production. However, our operation T02E on the western terrace and investigations since 2003 have also revealed re- expanded work in T02D on the southern edge of markably well-preserved remains of a previous Early the summit to the south to include a new quadrant, Bronze Age village on the site including multi-room T-2D/e (90 m2). On the lower western slope of the domestic spaces and mortuary complexes. Thus our hill, we excavated a series of exploratory trenches: investigations have expanded to explore the socio- operations T11 (44 m2), T12 (54 m2) and its satellite cultural constitution of these early settlements. trenches 12,T12´, and T12 (a total of Excavations at the site of Gegharot between 47.5 m2), T13 (30 m2), and T14 (18 m2). In 2005, 2003 and 2006 opened a total area of 929.5m2 we initiated operations T15 (75 m2) and T17 (Fig. 3).6 Our first priority during the 2003 season (50 m2) on the western edge of the summit. On the western terrace, work continued in T02E and a new operation, T16 (75 m2), was set just to the north. In 6 For a discussion of our initial excavation strategy at Gegharot, 2006, work continued yet again in T02E (reaching a see Badalyan et al. 2003. Due to limitations of space, we have chosen in this report to focus primarily on excavation units that reached completion as of the 2006 season to the exclusion of those that will be continued during subsequent work at the site 7 planned for 2008–2009. Smith et al. 2004.

Fig. 2 Chronology and Period- ization of Southern Caucasia final extent of 194 m2), as well as in T16 and T17. ducted our first exploration of the eastern side of New excavations were inaugurated in T18 (50 m2), the summit, opening T20 (80 m2) near a particularly 1 m north of T17, and in T19 (75 m2) on the wes- well-preserved segment of the northeastern fortress tern terrace. During the 2006 season, we also con- wall.

Fig. 3 Map of Gegharot

The investigations conducted at the base of preceding Early Bronze Age levels. As a result, Late the western slope identified occupation levels dating Bronze Age floors are often found set into, and solely to the Karnut-Shengavit phase of the Early even below, layers deposited by their predecessors Bronze Age.8 While these investigations did recover over one millennium earlier. The repeated cycles of Late Bronze Age (Lchashen-Metsamor horizon) mate- construction and destruction that appear to have rials, they revealed no evidence of a second millen- continually re-shaped the site during both its Early nium BC occupation. On Gegharot’s summit, all of and Late Bronze Age occupations created consider- the operations uncovered clear evidence of both able complexities in the micro-stratigraphy of each Early and Late Bronze Age occupation levels (in some phase. Furthermore, opportunistic development of places beginning directly under the topsoil). The the site during the Late Bronze Age left intact some thickness of the subsurface deposits on both the ter- areas of the preceding occupations while clearing race and summit ranged from just 0.15 m to as much away others, resulting in a rather inconsistent hori- as 2.75 m depending on three primary factors: the zontal stratigraphy. slope of the underlying bedrock substrate, the engi- As a result of the excavations conducted be- neering used to prepare the bedrock prior to con- tween 2003 and 2006, we now have assembled a struction, and the preservation of architecture that complete stratigraphic picture of the site. In particu- encouraged the build-up of soil deposits. lar, the 2006 investigations succeeded in finally ex- The stratigraphy of the summit is complicated posing the initial Early Bronze I occupation levels by the building activities of the Late Bronze Age oc- that previously had only been hinted at by occa- cupants of the site who repeatedly dug into the sional ceramic sherds from disturbed layers. This discovery has not only stimulated a reconsideration of our previously held understandings of the re-

8 gion’s Early Bronze Age settlement history but also Adjacent to these occupation levels, along a scarp at the bottom of the slope, were several contemporary extramural tombs that has forced us to revise our understanding of the have been destroyed by the expansion of the modern village. chronology, periodization, and dynamics of the

4 3 4 Fig. Kura-Araxes horizon in the territory of modern Ar- floors ( a, a) most likely from the later Karnut-Shen- a – Gegharot. Opera- menia as a whole (see discussion below).9 gavit phase and two lower floors (6a, 10) from the tion T02E South The stratigraphic columns of operations T02E earlier Elar-Aragats phase. Section and T17 provide the most succinct encapsulation of the vertical sequences at the site. In T02E(Fig. 4,a), layers 4a and 4b appear to mark the Late Bronze Age The Early Bronze Age village at Gegharot occupations at the site. Layer 6, a packed surface The Early Bronze Age village at Gegharot appears filled in over an extended time by wind and water to have been established on the summit and upper borne sand, appears to have been deposited over terrace of the hill and subsequently expanded onto the course of Gegharot’s extended Early Bronze Age the lower western slope. The growth of the Kura- settlement. This may be evidence of a hiatus in set- Araxes horizon village suggests a late fourth and tlement between phases of Early Bronze Age occupa- early third millennium occupation at the site of tion. The southern section in T17 (Fig. 4,b) provides some duration, perhaps, as noted above, inter- a more detailed record of this Early Bronze Age set- rupted by at least one hiatus.10 Nevertheless, it is tlement with four stratified living surfaces: two upper

10 For a general discussion of the extent and materials of the 9 Cf. Smith et al. 2004. Kura-Araxes horizon, see Sagona 1984.

Fig. 4 b – Gegharot. Opera- clear from the stratigraphy of the site, the material horizon (Elar-Aragats group) in operations T17 and 17 tion T South Section assemblages, and the available radiocarbon deter- T18 on the summit and T02E on the western terminations (Tab. 1) that the Early Bronze Age village race. Undisturbed by the later constructions of the at Gegharot was occupied during two phases of the Late Bronze Age fortress, the early Kura-Araxes oc- Kura-Araxes horizon: an early occupation beginning cupations in operations T17 and T18 (Fig. 5) are re- in the latter half of the fourth millennium BC presented by a well-preserved two-room complex in (c. 3500/3350–2900 BC) defined by an Elar-Aragats the western portion of the trench, constructed on material assemblage and a later occupation from bedrock. The complex was bound by single-faced, the early third millennium BC (c. 2900–2700 BC) dry stone masonry walls (W1803,W1804,W1805, marked by a Karnut-Shengavit assemblage.11 W1701,W1702). The walls join at approximate right angles creating roughly rectilinear interior spaces. The western walls of the structures were not pre- The Early Kura-Araxes (Elar-Aragats) village served, presumably destroyed by the erosion of the In the course of the 2006 excavations at Gegharot, hill slope, subsequent constructions, or both. The we uncovered well-preserved contexts from the doors into the rooms would presumably have been early phase of the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes in these western walls since no entryways were preserved elsewhere. Atop wall W1701, in the southeastern corner 11 `º' 1997; `º' 2003. of the complex, we uncovered a small Kura-Araxes

OxCal v4.0.3 Bronk Ramsey (2007); r:5 IntCal04 atmospheric curve (Reimer et al 2004)

Ar/Ge.T10.3.C14.1 [AA52898] 4314 ±60

Ar/Ge.T02.C10.C14.1 [AA52900] 4197 ±40

Ar/Ge.T02D/e.6.C14.1 [AA56968] 4105 ±41

Ar/Ge.T12.2.C14.1 [AA56969] 4285 ±43

Ar/Ge.T15.C14.C14.1 [AA66888] 4313 ±39

Ar/Ge.T2.E565.C14.2 [AA66894] 4130 ±45

Ar/Ge.T2.E565.C14.1 [AA66895] 4104 ±47

Ar/Ge.T2.E659.C14.2 [AA72045] 4077 ±41

Ar/Ge.T2.E665.C14.1 [AA72046] 4492 ±41

Ar/Ge.T2.E631.C14.1 [AA72047] 4523 ±49

Ar/Ge.T16.114.C14.1 [AA72053] 4171 ±37

Ar/Ge.T17.104.C14.1 [AA72060] 4346 ±38

Ar/Ge.T17.104.C14.2 [AA72061] 4371 ±38

Ar/Ge.T18.13.C14.1 [AA72066] 4201 ±37

Ar/Ge.T18.13.C14.2 [AA72067] 4080 ±38

Ar/Ge.T18.26.C14.1 [AA72069] 4402 38

Ar/Ge.T18.32.C14.1 [AA72070] 4389 37

Ar/Ge.T2.E669.C14.1 [AA72213] 4293 44 Tab. 1 Gegharot. Early Bronze Ar/Ge.T2.E670.C14.1 Age radiocarbon deter- [AA72214] 4286 42 minations (samples analyzed by the AMS laboratory at the Uni- versity of Arizona and 4000 3800 3600 3400 3200 3000 2800 2600 2400 calibrated using OxCal 4.0; Bronk Ramsey Calibrated Date (cal BC) 1995, 2001). jar containing 21 fragments of obsidian. The floor eastern wall, near the northern corner, was an oven in this southern room of the complex, an area of (5 cm deep, 60–64 cm in diameter), set into the 3 2 m just 0.18–0.33 m below surface, was con- floor, with discolored, fired clay walls, in the center structed of a layer of clay 2–3 cm thick. Against the of which was a small pit (10 cm deep, 16–20 cm in

Fig. 5 Gegharot. Plan of op- diameter). Atop the oven, directly against wall fragment of a horn-shaped andiron. Near the center erations T17 and T18 W1701, were the fragmentary remains of a large, of the room, lying on the floor amidst a deposit of (Early Bronze Age archi- flat-bottomed brazier. carbonized seeds, we uncovered a bronze spear- tecture shaded in grey) On the floor of this room were found in situ head (see below). The artifact inventory of this several whole and fragmentary ceramic vessels as- room also included a flint sickle blade, a bone ar- sociated with a deposit of carbonized seeds (see rowhead (Fig. 6,g), and a bone awl. appendix 2, below). In addition, two clay andirons The northern room (bounded by W1803, in the form of truncated pyramids and a small col- 1804, and 1805) has a slightly more trapezoidal lection of ceramic vessels were found on the east- plan, roughly 2.6 2.7 m in extent. This room con- ern side of the room (Fig. 6). Around the oven were tained two superimposed floors. The upper floor, found three bone spindle-whorls, a cone shaped stepped 10–15 cm below the floor of the southern groundstone tool made from porous basalt, and a room, was covered with fragmented limestone flag-

Fig. 6 Gegharot. Elar-Aragats materials from operations T17 and T18 (a–e, g–j – ceramic; f bone; h – obsidian). – a. ext.: mottled brown (10YR 5/3) to dark grayish brown (10YR 4/2), int.: mottled brown (10YR 5/3)to very dark grayish brown (10YR 3/2); – b. ext.: brown (7.5YR 5/4) to very dark gray (5YR 3/1); int.: brown (7.5YR 4/2); – c. ext.: brown (7.5YR 5/4), int.: very dark gray (7.5YR 3/1); – d. ext.: reddish brown (2.5YR 5/4), int.: reddish brown (2.5YR 5/4); – e. ext.: weak red (10R 5/4), int.: weak red (10R 4/4) stones 4 cm thick. The remains of several ceramic scorched clay that was bordered to the northwest vessels were concentrated in the northeast corner by a stripe of yellow clay mixed with sand. Just of the room. Just 10 cm below this upper surface southwest of the oven was a group of shattered was a second floor littered with carbonized grain ceramic vessels, including a small cylindrical, flat- seeds and fragments of charred wood. In the center bottomed cup. Just to the east of the oven was a of the room was a cylindrical clay oven built into vessel filled with carbonized seeds. On the floor of the floor (23 cm in diameter and 10.5 cm deep) the room was also found in situ a large obsidian with a flat rim (3 cm wide) decorated with incised spear head (12 cm long, 71 g; Fig. 6,i), bone spin- geometrical ornaments. The oven was surrounded dle whorls and awls, and 13 flint sickle blades by a wide circle (75 cm in diameter) of blackened, (Fig. 7). The sickle blades were uncovered still ar-

marked by an exceptional diversity of artifacts (in terms of both material and function) related to an array of social practices that shaped daily life for the early Kura-Araxes era inhabitants of Gegharot. The bronze spearhead (Fig. 8) found on the floor of the southern room warrants a few additional words. The spearhead is 30.3 cm long and weighs 176 g. It has a leaf-shaped blade with a pronounced central rib that flows into a shank (circular in cross-section) and a semi-spherical guard or quillon 2.5 cm in diameter. Directly below the guard, the tang is circular in section, but becomes more square farther down the shaft, eventually tapering to a narrow, slightly bent point at the proximal end. The spearhead is broadly similar to a number of finds from the South Caucasus.13 Unfor- tunately, the majority of comparanda were recovered without secure archaeological contexts and so do not have reliable chronological determinations. The closest analogy is a bronze spearhead Fig. 7 from Gavar (Kamo) with a similar guard and tang.14 Gegharot. Sickle blades in situ on Early Bronze Comparable spearheads are also attested from Age lower floor of op- well-documented early Early Bronze Age mortuary eration T18 contexts in the Upper Euphrates region, including Hassek Ho¨yu¨k, Carchemish, Birejik (Apamea Zeug- ticulated in four distinct half-moon shaped align- ma), and Kara Hassan. The largest group of spear- ments representing the remains of four individual heads with parallels to the example from Gegharot sickles. Next to the blades was a small piece of car- comes from Arslantepe where twelve bronze spear- bonized wood, possibly a handle fragment. heads were recovered from the period VIA palace Near the southeast corner of the north room, complex (Building III) and nine from the so-called 15 cut into the bedrock, was a bell-shaped pit (18-01), ‘‘royal’’ burial of period VIB1. 85–90 cm in diameter at the opening, 1.36 m in dia- In addition to the Elar-Aragats assemblages meter at its base, and 1.38 m deep. The upper layer from T17 and T18, the 2006 excavations at Gegha- of fill within the pit contained a large collection of rot uncovered the remains of early Kura-Araxes mor- carbonized seeds (see appendix two). Several lime- tuary practice in a collective tomb found in the low- stone flagstones were uncovered lower in the fill. At est levels of operation T02E(Fig. 9). The tomb was a depth of 88 cm we came upon a thick layer of a square stone crypt, 1.2 m long, 1.0 m wide, and smashed ceramics covering the full extent of the pit. 0.95 m deep with an entryway, or dromos, 60 cm At the bottom of the pit, was a rectangular ceramic high and 50 cm wide in the southern wall (Fig. 10). andiron with a single handle in the center, a large The chamber was constructed from local unworked groundstone, a small semi-spherical tripod cup granite with limestone blocks used for the north- (Fig. 6,a),12 and three bone spindle whorls, one of west and southwest cornerstones. Similar large which was ornamented with incised hatched lines. blocks outlined the jambs and threshold of the dro- Four additional bone spindle whorls were found on mos. Closing the entryway was an upright, shaped the floor of the room around the edge of the pit. Both rooms are quite clearly part of a domestic complex. 13 The ceramic assemblages from the T17–T18 In southern Caucasia, there are three basic types of Early Bron- room complex included primarily red and brown ze Age spearheads. The first, like the example from Gegharot, wares characteristic of the early Kura-Araxes Elar- has a tang with a stop at the junction with the shank. The second type has a distinctive bent tang while the third type is Aragats group (Fig. 6,a–e). The extensive evidence more bayonet-shaped. Analogies are discussed below. 14 of burning across the complex suggests that this in- The Gavar spearhead, now in the collection of the Shirak Mu- itial Early Bronze occupation was terminated by a seum (inventory #386), was published by Łæ' 1964, 29 fig. 46 and ¯æ' 1966, 3 fig. I,1. However, in both publica- significant fire. As a result of the rapid abandon- tions (and in later sources such as ˆŒ' 1980 fig. IV,16; ment of the building, the inventory of the rooms is Khanzadyan 1967 fig. VII; ˚ł/ÆŁŁłŁºŁ 1970 fig. Fig. 8 42,6; 1994 fig. 12,47) the drawing of this spearhead Gegharot. Early Bronze is incorrect, representing the guard as apple-shaped instead of 12 Age spearhead from Interestingly, a defect in the lip of the cup had been repaired semi-spherical. 15 operation T17 using bitumen. Frangipane et al. 2001, 108; 130.

9 16 1993 4 1963 Fig. Badaljan et al. , ; ˇıŒ . Gegharot. Plan of 17 1993 4 1975 1989 Badaljan et al. , ; Łıº ; ˇæ' , operation T02E (Early 37 45 1996 2002 1963 – ; Petrosyan ; Petrosyan ; ˇıŒ ; ˇı- Bronze Age architecture 1976 Œ . shaded in grey)

into the southern balk of the trench; the northern wall (W207)is5.6 m in length, cutting perpendicu- larly across the terrace from its acute angle join with W206 to meet the supporting terrace wall (W209). Near the center of wall W207, a Late Bronze Age pit (2E-02) was cut into the preceding levels, destroying a portion of the masonry. The western limit of the room was defined by a double-faced terrace wall (W209), 6.75 m long and 0.9–1.2 m wide. Paralleling W209, just 35– 95 cm down-slope, is a second wall (W210) built of a single line of large stones. Wall W210’s lowest course of stones appear to be similar in masonry style to the Early Bronze Age walls described above, employing granite blocks set with their long axis paralleling the slope of the hill. But the masonry of the upper stones appears to be quite different, with larger granite blocks set perpendicular to the hill slope. It is possible that the lower course of stones belongs to an Early Bronze Age wall that Fig. 10 18 supported the terraces at the site, which was sub- the chamber. When occupation subsequently re- Gegharot. Operation sequently rebuilt using slightly different building T02E Early Bronze Age sumed in this part of the site, the construction of techniques during the Late Bronze Age. tomb the earliest terrace and terrace wall in the area (W208) incorporated part of the tomb’s western Built on the floor, against the eastern wall, was a stationary hearth or oven with a trough- wall and effectively sealed the interior. The accumu- shaped clay foundation bordered on the west side lation of colluvial deposits within the tomb there- by a line of small stones. The floor was littered with fore strongly suggests that some time elapsed after ceramic vessels ( 12 ), whole and in frag- the tomb had fallen into disuse prior to the later Fig. ,a–g ments, lying (including a broken jar neck Kura-Araxes (Karnut-Shengavit group) occupation. in situ [Fig. 12,g] that appears to have been reused as a pot-stand), ceramic andirons (Fig. 12,h), basalt The Later Kura-Araxes (Karnut-Shengavit) village grinding stones, and ground stone tools. Fragments of similar ceramics were found lying on a lower clay 02 2005 The enlargement of operation T Ein and sub-floor level, indicating that the upper floor repre- 2006 to the west, toward the outer edge of the sents the final episode of a sustained Kura-Araxes upper terrace, uncovered a Kura-Araxes level di- occupation at the site. rectly underneath the southwestern corner of the The ceramic material from the room was quite 2003 Late Bronze Age shrine recorded in (see be- homogenous, neatly diagnostic of the later Early 1 20 1 15 low), at a depth of . to . m below surface Bronze Age Karnut-Shengavit artifact group with 9 (Fig. ). This Early Bronze Age room was defined to clear parallels to assemblages from sites including the east and north by stone masonry constructions Karnut, Horom (upper level), Harich (late complex), 206 207 (walls W and W ) and included a remarkably Sepasar, Karmrakar, Lusakhpyur, Takavoranist, well-preserved domestic artifact assemblage. The Kosi-Choter, Nor Khachakap, Shengavit III–IV, Elar wall foundations were built of a single line of P3, and Dvin.20 The artifact assemblage from this 40 60 stones ( – cm thick), preserved to a height of domestic complex also included a zoomorphic pro- 1 3 55 60 19 – courses (a maximum of – cm). The east- tome from a horseshoe-shaped andiron (Fig. 13) 206 4 3 ern wall (W ) extends . m before disappearing which appears to have subsided from the room floor into the eastern edge of pit 2e-02. Similar an- 18 dirons (whole and fragmentary) have been found in This natural infill accumulated through the same lithological processes that created T2E’s stratigraphic level 6a(Fig. 4a). operations all across Gegharot, from the lower wes- 19 It is important to note that in a previous publication `º' Ł tern slope (operations KW-01,T10A) to the eastern . 2005, 112 we described the constructions of W206 and its summit (T20), as well as at contemporary sites such northern continuation (W205) as part of the Late Bronze Age building associated with the reconstruction of the shrine. Our as Karnut, Harich, Amasia, Sepasar, Shirak, Lusakh- further work has clarified that both of these walls are in fact attributable to the upper Early Bronze Age occupation. Howe- ver, while it is clear that W206 and W207 represent a single construction, W205 appears to be more closely associated with 20 W1601. Smith/Badalyan, in press.

Fig. 11 Gegharot. Elar-Aragats ceramics from operation T02E Early Bronze Age tomb. – undecorated pot with a flat bottom, a black polished exterior surface with red interiors (exterior: black [Gley 12.5/N]; interior: red [2.5YR 5/6] with grey and brown [7.5YR 5/4] blotches), a biconical body and a cylindrical neck with two ‘‘false’’ pinch handles on opposite sides of the shoulder; – b. small beaker with a biconical body and a short cylindrical neck (exterior: very dark grayish brown [10YR 3/2] with discolorations of black to red [2.5YR 4/8]; interior: mottled light red [2.5YR 6/6] and yellowish brown [10YR 6/4]); – c. a single-handled bowl with a pair of breast-like applique´ knobs on opposite sides of the body (exterior of the neck: red [2.5YR 5/8]; exterior of the body: black [10YR 2/1]; interior: from red [2.5YR 5/8]to brown [7.5YR 5/4]); – d. a bowl with a black polished exterior (Gley 12.5/N), red interior (2.5YR 5/6), a biconical body, and a low rim pyur, Kosi-Choter, Aparani-berd, Aragatsi-berd, Dov- W1601 exposed in T16 produced a homogenous ri, Shengavit, and Agarak.21 Karnut-Shengavit assemblage.22 Well-preserved living floors associated with While it would appear that the end of Gegha- Karnut-Shengavit assemblages are know from rot’s later Kura-Araxes village was relatively precipi- across Gegharot, from the lower western slope to tous, with complete domestic assemblages left in the east edge of the summit (T20). Indeed, a sec- place on the floors in most areas (like, for example, ond floor may have been associated with wall at Karnut), the forces or events leading to this W205 in T02E. While the Early Bronze surface in abandonment remain unclear at present. The end this area appears to have been largely destroyed of the Kura-Araxes village at Gegharot does, how- by the Late Bronze Age constructions (except for a ever, mark a more widespread era of abandonment circular clay oven), a portion did survive in the ad- across the Tsaghkahovit plain as materials from the jacent operation, T16. Wall W205 extends under succeeding Middle Bronze Age remain, at present, the north wall of the Late Bronze Age shrine unknown in the region. Not until almost a millen- (W204) to intersect at a well-carpentered right angle with W1601. The floor embraced by W205 and 22 At present, the relationship between the late Early Bronze Age room circumscribed by W205,W207, and W209 and that outli- 21 Most of these were accidental finds or were published without ned by W205,W1601, and, perhaps, W209, is unclear. But it situational or stratigraphic contexts pace the in situ zoomor- seems most likely that W205 is slightly older than W206/W207 phic andiron found at the site of Karnut (`º' 1985; since the corner of the latter construction appears to have dis- `º' 1986). placed stones from the former.

Fig. 12 Gegharot. Karnut-S˘en- gavit ceramics from operation T02E. – a. ext.: black (gley 12.5/N), int.: brown (7.5YR 4/2); – b. ext.: red (2.5YR 5/ 6), int.: red (2.5YR 5/ 6); – c. ext.: black (gley 12.5/N), int.: brown (7.5YR 4/2); – d. ext.: yellowish red (5YR 5/6), int.: reddish brown (5YR 5/4); – e. ext.: black (gley 12.5/N), int.: brown (7.5YR 4/2); – f. ext.: mottled black (gley 12.5/N) and brown (7.5YR 5/4), int.: mottled red (2.5YR 5/6) and black (gley 12.5/ N); – g. ext.: mottled red (2.5YR 4/6) and very dark gray (gley 1 3/N), int.: reddish brown (5YR 4/3)

nium later, during the mid-second millennium BC, Tsaghkahovit on the north slope of Mt. Aragats, does clear evidence of regional occupation re- and Gegharot, Aragatsiberd, Ashot-Yerkat, Poloz- emerge with the construction of large cyclopean Sar, Top-Kar, and Berdidosh in the foothills of the walled fortresses at Hnaberd, Aragatsi Berd, and Pambakh range.

The Late Bronze Age at Gegharot The Late Bronze Age occupation at Gegharot appears at present to have been concentrated solely on the summit and western terrace of the hill, although the earliest Late Bronze Age remains from the area presently come from a single large kurgan (a tumulus burial or barrow) excavated below the fortress, on the northeast slope of Mt. Vardablur. The Late Bronze Age fortress of Gegharot occupies an area of only 0.36 ha, making it the smallest of the major Late Bronze Age fortresses (along with Tsaghkahovit and Hnaberd) in the Tsaghkahovit plain. Yet our excavations have shown that Gegha- rot was the best preserved of the three thanks largely to the lack of subsequent occupation at the site. Fig. 13 Gegharot. Early Bronze kurgan appears to have been disturbed since sev- Age zoomorphic andir- A Late Bronze Age Kurgan below Gegharot fortress eral stones were absent from this area. The surface on from the upper Early of the tumulus was covered by a layer of small Bronze Age room in 02 The kurgans on the northeast slope of Mt. Varda- stone cobbles; judging from several well-preserved operation T E 2003 blur were shown to us in by Dr. Gregory Are- areas, this layer of cobbles was then covered by shyan, in an area that had not been covered by our clay. The kurgan enclosed three distinct chambers, previous Vardablur survey quadrant due to inter- 23 containing burials of varying ages. vening areas of intensive land amelioration. How- In the western sector of the kurgan we uncov- ever, the vicinity of the surviving kurgans appears ered a rectilinear construction consisting of three to have been spared the heavy earth-moving activ- stone masonry walls surrounding an earthen pit ity that appears to have destroyed kurgans in the (1.5 0.85 m, depth 0.50 m) oriented on a north- 24 2004 adjoining cultivated fields. In , we conducted east-southwest axis. The pit was covered by three a transect survey in the area of the surviving kur- capstones of pyroclastic ignimbrite tuff which lay 17 gans and recorded intact mounds in two primary askew, partially collapsed into the chamber. At the 01 02 burial clusters (denoted GK BC and ), covering bottom of the chamber lay four complete animal 6 25 an area just over ha. skeletons, three sheep and one goat, 6–12 months 1 01 Gegharot Kurgan is located within GK BC in age, while the ribs and vertebrae of a large mam- 14 (Fig. ). The mound (tumulus), constructed of a mal lay scattered among the other grave offerings 1 44 homogeneous soil, was . m high. The encircling (Fig. 15).27 The chamber also included 22 ceramic single ring of stones (or cromlech) circumscribes an vessels ranging in size from large pots to small 11 5 area . m in diameter. The cromlech consists pre- cups. Within this ceramic corpus, 21 vessels had dominantly of blocks of stone quarried from the black polished exterior surfaces while one had a nearby intrusive granite strata (known geologically yellowish brown exterior. Of the black burnished as the Gegharot intrusion) and occasionally, grano- wares, 14 were decorated with punctate ornaments, diorite porphyry. The northernmost stone in the cir- three had polish decorations, and four were unor- cle was a block of tuff (the only piece of tuff used 26 namented. No human remains were found in the in the cromlech). The northwestern sector of the chamber. Amongst the vessels, under the southwest 23 Land amelioration here refers to the large Soviet-era irrigation wall of the chamber, was a hollow cylindrical cera- and land reclamation projects that deployed mechanized units mic pedestal (or pot stand) with flared ends, on to clear agricultural land. 24 which had been placed a large pot with four small In the spring, tell-tale signs of these demolished kurgans can still be seen as circles of intensely green vegetation. protruding platforms on the shoulder. Near each of 25 In 2005, we extended this survey area into the territory of the these platforms was a small beaker, or drinking western half of the modern village of Gegharot. There we docu- vessel. Overall, the inventory of the western cham- mented 13 preserved cromlechs – pit or chamber tombs sur- ber suggests a transitional late Middle Bronze Age rounded by a built stone circle – in the yards and gardens of the adjacent homes. assemblage with elements clearly diagnostic of the 26 According to geologists from the Institute of Geology in Yere- initial Late Bronze Age, placing the construction of van, the granite blocks were quarried from the adjacent Pam- bak range while the tuff is most likely from Mt. Aragats or Mt. 27 Kolgat deposits near the western edge of the Tsaghkahovit The faunal analysis was completed by Dr. Belinda Monahan plain (Karakhanyan pers. comm.). (see appendix 1).

Fig. 14 Gegharot. Plan of GK BC 01 Kurgan 1 the chamber sometime during the late 16th or early of the bowl, and of the burial, is at present diffi- 15th centuries BC. cult to assess. The bowl is not particularly diag- In the northern sector of the kurgan was an nostic and can only narrow the likely date of con- earthen chamber (0.58 0.90 m and 0.55 m deep) struction to sometime during the Late Bronze or, oriented on a west-east axis. This chamber was more likely, the Iron Age. In any case, it is clear closed by a single tuff slab (1.6 1.2 m) and a that the northern chamber was cut into the pre-ex- small cluster of stones encircling the north and isting kurgan. east edges of the pit. In the chamber were only a The central chamber of the kurgan was cov- few small fragments of human long bones, five ered by a pyramidal mound of rock (1.7–2.1 min milk teeth of a child (6–7 years old) and, in the diameter and 0.95 m high), clearly distinguished southeast corner, a single ceramic bowl. The date from the surrounding tumulus. Under this rock

Gegharot’s Late Bronze Age fortress The Late Bronze Age occupation of Gegharot’s fortress appears at present to have consisted of a ser-

28 The deeply set chamber had been cut into an upper layer of soil (0.50 m thick) rich in organic materials, an underlying colluvial layer of light brown loam (0.40 m thick) with stone peb- ble inclusions, a sloped deposit of clay with carbon inclusions Fig. 16 0 35 ( . m thick), and finally a gray lake or riverine sand with len- Gegharot. Central ses of larger coarse-grained sediments. 01 29 chamber of GK BC Human skeletal data provided by Dr. Ruzan Mkrtchyan. Kurgan 1

Fig. 17 Gegharot. Artifacts from the central chamber of GK BC 01 Kurgan 1. – a–b bronze; c–i obsidian

rain, thinning toward the edges of the hill where height of six courses (1.85–2.0 m).30 This wall ap- erosion has taken a toll, destroying much of the pears to join with wall W1502, on the northern side Late Bronze Age fortification wall that once ringed of T15, to circumscribe the east and north sides of the summit. While a number of constructions dating what would have been a rather large stratum IIa/b to the Late Bronze Age have been uncovered across room. However, this original room suffered a signifi- the summit and western terrace, operations T15 cant destruction episode followed by a subsequent and T02E present the most complete picture of Ge- re-construction (stratum IIc). During the re-building gharot’s Late Bronze Age occupation. in the area, destruction debris was pushed against The western half of operation T15 (Fig. 18) 30 was occupied by stone building complexes created The eastern third of T15 (Fig. 18) was largely devoid of built as a result of two distinct Late Bronze Age construc- constructions; the natural substrate of the hill had been leve- tion episodes, denoted as Tsaghkahovit strata IIa/b led in this area and a diagonal channel (1.7–2.0 m wide and 0.4–0.8 m deep) appears to have been cut into the bedrock (early) and IIc (late) in the regional sequence. In during the Late Bronze Age (the edge of which was partially the central sector of T15, west of the lower termi- lined with stones). Inside the channel was an exceptionally lar- nus of the carved channel, the bedrock substrate ge collection of 841 animal bones, a situation quite similar to the large cache of bones found between the room and terrace was cut to form a scarp that served to support a walls behind the shrine uncovered in operation T2 in 2000 dry stone masonry wall (W1501) preserved to a (See contribution by Monahan in Smith et al. 2004, 30–32).

Fig. 18 Gegharot. Plan of operation T15

Fig. 19 Gegharot. Late Bronze Age artifacts from operation T15. – a. stone; b–f. ceramic; g–k., m.–n. bone; l.-obsidian

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) Village, fortress, and town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia 65 wall W1501 and wall W1503 was constructed against this midden of blackened soil, burned beam fragments, and material culture.31 Artifacts found within the midden include a shattered Late Bronze Age pithos, a square carved tuff object (perhaps an idol or threshing stone), and an intriguing ceramic statuette (Fig. 19,b) that appears to depict a horned human figure with a cloak (or skin) covering its head and shoulders (height 6.6 cm). The curvilinear line of wall W1503 and the reuse of wall W1502 outlined an upper, stratum IIc, Late Bronze Age room, approximately 4.3 3.95 m in area. The floor of this room was also sealed by a thick destruction level saturated with charcoal, indi- cative of a second, final, destruction episode at the site. This stratum IIc floor lies at a depth of 2.65– 2.68 m below surface. Below this level we uncovered the remains of the original stratum IIa/b floor built on bedrock, associated with the construction of wall W1501 at a depth of 2.85 m. While the stratum IIc floor was relatively bare except for a collection of Late Bronze Age ceramics, Fig. 20 Bronze Age shrine. The construction history of the Gegharot. Operation stratum IIa/b included a remarkable Late Bronze area during the Late Bronze Age is complicated by T02E Late Bronze Age Age assemblage of artifacts (Fig. 19) and pits that the same series of destruction and construction epi- Shrine appear to have been associated with metal work- sodes documented in T15. The first construction in 32 ing, including a stone mould for making metal the area (stratum IIa/b) appears to have been a ter- jewelry (from pit 15-01; see Fig. 19,a and below), a racing wall (W201) which braced a carved bedrock fragment of a second stone mould for casting foundation, and three architectural walls (W202, bronze axes, and a ceramic ladle or crucible W203 and W213) which established the confines of (Fig. 19,c). This assemblage also included a large the living areas. As in T15, this initial occupation collection of stone tools (24 mortars, pestles, ham- appears to have been burned down and subse- merstones, and anvils) and bone tools (Fig. 19,g– quently reconstructed. As a result of the stratum IIc k.m–n; note in particular the numerous items asso- reconstruction, there are only faint indications of ciated with spinning wool, including spindle whorls the original function of the stratum IIa/b building, and possibly the bone comb). Finally, of particular including several artifacts associated with metal- interest from this level were two similar circular working found amongst the debris near pit 2E-03.33 stone objects (7.0 and 3.7 cm in diameter respec- As in operation T15, the stratum IIc reconstruc- tively) with flat bases, 4.0 and 1.5 cm tall and tion entailed the deposition of destruction debris weighing 299 g and 28 g that effectively repeat one against wall W213 (and perhaps into pits 2E-01 and another, at approximately a 10 : 1 scale. The discov- 2E-02) and the erection of a new eastern wall (W203) ery of these objects in an area where we have such built against, and on top of, the accumulated midden strong evidence of metal working may suggest the of blackened earth, charcoal, and artifacts (in particu- use of a system of standardized weights and meas- lar, a large storage jar was found underneath wall ures. W203). During the stratum IIc occupation, walls W202,W203, and W204 enclosed a room that appears to have served as a shrine.34 The shrine in- The Late Bronze Age Terrace Shrine cluded a curvilinear clay altar or basin set atop a clay As noted in a brief postscript to our 2002 prelimin- platform (Fig. 20). On the eastern side of the altar ary report, the 2003 excavations in T02E(Fig. 9) was a single standing stone stela.35 revealed an extraordinarily well-preserved Late

33 Due to the nature of the deposits in the area of pit 2E-03, 31 Unfortunately, none of the beams were sufficiently well-preser- where most of these metal-working artifacts were recovered, it ved for dendrochronological analysis, however they are current- is uncertain whether they belong to the lower (IIa/b) Late Bron- ly being studied for species identification by the project paleo- ze occupation or to the upper (IIc) level of the shrine. 34 botanist, R. Hovsepyan (Institute of Archaeology, Yerevan). No evidence was found of the shrine’s western wall. 32 35 Pit 15-01: 1.4 m in diameter and 0.90 m deep; pit 15-02: Two adjacent overturned stones may also have been standing 0.55 m in diameter and 0.5 m deep. stela but their original position is uncertain.

Fig. 21 Gegharot. Late Bronze Age ceramic vessels and artifacts from the T02E shrine. – a. ext.: dark gray (2.54/1), int.: very dark gray (10YR 3/ 1); – b. ext.: grayish brown (10YR 5/2), int.: very dark gray (10YR 3/1)

The floor of the shrine was littered with a cluded numerous large storage jars (Fig. 22), bowls wide array of ceramic vessels (Figs. 21–23), (Fig. 23,j.l), cups (Fig. 21,d.e), pots (Fig. 23,g.k.m), smashed, but in situ. The ceramic inventory in- smaller jars of various forms (Fig. 23,a–f.h.i), and

OxCal v4.0.1 Bronk Ramsey (2006); r:5 IntCal04 atmospheric curve (Reimer et al 2004)

Ar/Ge.T2D/a.24.C14.1 [AA56967] 2973 ±38

Ar/Ge.T2E.208.C14.3 [AA56970] 3020 ±35

Ar/Ge.T2E.210.C14.2 [AA56971] 2925 ±35

Ar/Ge.T2E.218.C14.1 [AA56972] 2903 ±34

Ar/Ge.T2D/a.26.C14.1 [AA56973] 3012 ±43

Ar/Ge.T2D/e.11.C14.1 [AA56974] 2848 ±37

Ar/Ge.T2D/b.4.C14.1 [AA56975] 2397 ±40

Ar/Ge.T15.B3.C14.1 [AA66886] 3081 ±37

Ar/Ge.T15.B6.C14.2 [AA66887] 2921 ±37

Ar/Ge.T15.C25.C14.1 [AA66890] 2988 ±37

Ar/Ge.T15.C12.C14.1 [AA66891] 2897 ±40

Ar/Ge.T16.A11.C14.1 [AA66892] 3166 ±43

Ar/Ge.T16.A7.C14.1 [AA66893] 2990 ±42

Ar/Ge.T2.E522.C14.1 [AA66896] 3082 ±35

Ar/Ge.T2.E524.C14.1 [AA66897] 2946 ±41

Ar/Ge.T2.E513.C14.1 [AA66898] 3001 ±40

2200 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400

Calibrated Date (cal BC)

Tab. 2 Gegharot. Late Bronze Age radiocarbon determinations (samples analyzed by the AMS laboratory at the University of Arizona and calibrated using OxCal 4.0; Bronk Ramsey 1995; Bronk Ramsey 2001).

3 tite jewelry mould (see Fig. 24,a and discussion below), a crucible (Fig. 24,b), and several bronze Fig. 22 artifacts, including a pin and a bracelet (Fig. 24,c–d). Gegharot. Late Bronze Age storage jars from the T02E shrine (a, d, In addition, T02E produced the most extensive glyptic e, f, k, l: Late Bronze I; all others, Late Bronze). – a. ext.: black Gley repertoire from the site including a single faience cy- 12.5/N (polished; patched and deformed because of fire), int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – b. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: linder seal (Fig. 25,b) and two clay stamps (Fig. 24,m– very dark gray, 10YR 3/1; – c. ext.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1 – black, Gley n), one circular and one square, with embossed sty- 12.5/N, int.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1 – black, Gley 12.5/N; – d. ext.: lized swastika motifs on their bases.38 black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1; – e. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – f. ext.: As in operation T15, it is clear from the strati- dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1 – brown 7.5YR 5/3 (patched), int.: very dark graphy, architecture, and ceramic remains of T02E gray 5YR 3/1; – g. ext.: dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1 (patches brown 7.5YR that the area was occupied twice during the Late 5/3), int.: very dark gray 10YR 3/1; – h. ext.: light brownish gray, 2.5Y 6/2 – dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1, int.: dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1; – i. ext.: Bronze Age. The initial stratum IIa/b occupation, dark gray, 10YR 4/1 – very dark gray 10YR 3/1, int.: brown, 7.5YR 5/ marked by Late Bronze I (Lchashen-Metsamor I) 4; – j. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1; phase ceramics including large storage jars with – k. ext.: brown, 7.5YR 5/2 – dark gray 7.5YR 4/1 (patched), int.: dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1; – l. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N – reddish brown punctuate ornamentation, ended with a large-scale 2.5YR 5/4 (patches – grayish brown 2.5Y 5/2), int.: very dark gray conflagration. A new, stratum IIc room was subse- 5YR 3/1 (patches) quently built to house the shrine with new walls established atop the destroyed interior during the Late Bronze II (Lchashen-Metsamor II) phase. The ‘‘ritual’’ or ‘‘cultic’’ vessels (Fig. 21,a–b).36 The cera- entirety of the shrine floor was itself then closed by mic repertoire also included several crude hand- a burnt level 20cm thick which marks the final made cups and small jars that may have been as- destruction and abandonment of the fortress. This sociated with metal working (Fig. 21,c–e). Amongst final blaze was so intense that the heat warped the storage jars was a singularly large pithos sherds from several of the vessels (e.g. Fig. 22,a), (Fig. 22,l) decorated with vertical punctate lines on making restoration quite difficult. the shoulder and a single raised belt (also deco- The radiocarbon dates (Tab. 2), artifacts, and rated with pairs of vertical punctate lines) at the ceramics from Gegharot indicate that the Late Bronze shoulder-body break. The decoration on this pithos Age occupation at the fortress extended from the late recalls the set of vessels with punctate ornament 15th through the 11th centuries BC. Radiocarbon de- from the western chamber of kurgan 1. In addition, terminations from the distinct destruction levels in two of the cultic vessels (Fig. 21,a–b), perhaps best operations T15 and T02E do appear to capture the described as censors, found within the altar are temporal phasing of the two calamitous destruction also diagnostic of the final phase of the Middle events, with the destruction of the stratum IIa/b oc- Bronze and the initial period of the Late Bronze cupation dated between the late 15th and early 13th Age.37 centuries BC and the final destruction of the stratum The inventory from the shrine also included IIc occupation assigned to sometime between the three clay ‘‘idols’’, two with lateral ‘‘horns’’ and rec- mid-13th and late 11th centuries BC. tangular bodies and one with an hourglass figure with The forces behind Gegharot’s ultimate de- a circular base and curved horns (Fig. 21,f–h). In addi- struction are not entirely clear at present; however, tion, several polished oval stone pendants, 55 carne- two Late Bronze Age obsidian arrowheads found lian beads, numerous bone tools (such as awls and against the external face of wall W210 and two spindle whorls) and personal ornaments (pins), a unburied human skeletons uncovered in operation number of cut antlers, and several striated astragali T2d/E suggest a violent military attack may well along with numerous clay spools, and a bronze tack have been the cause of the site’s rapid abandon- were also found in the room (Fig. 24). As in operation ment. Whatever its cause, the final conflagration at T15, the Late Bronze Age layers of T02E also included Gegharot appears to have been contemporary with an extensive repertoire of finds associated with me- a similar destruction event at the fortress of Tsagh- tal-working, including the central portion of a tri-par- kahovit which also marked the final Bronze Age oc-

36 This inventory reflects the vessels that we have been able to 38 restore to date, but work with the pottery from the shrine con- A series of later Early Iron Age shrines uncovered in the 1960s tinues. at Metsamor, in the Ararat plain, represent the closest parallels 37 Although the terms ‘‘ritual’’ and ‘‘cultic’’ are occasionally misu- to the shrine at Gegharot (Khanzadyan et al. 1973). Though se- sed in archaeology to designate items without clear economic veral centuries later than Gegharot’s shrine, the shrines at Met- functions, here we use the terms to describe vessels, like cen- samor provide excellent testimony to the endurance of forms sors, with strong formal analogies to items known both histori- of ritual and belief throughout the late second and early first cally and ethnographically to have been critical to religious ri- millennia BC under the auspices of the Lchashen-Metsamor tuals. Analogous vessels were recovered from burial 43 at horizon. See also ˚ł 1977; ˇŁıºŁ 1979; Pitsk- Treli: ÆŁºŁæŁ 1978 fig. 19. helauri 1984; Łº 2003.

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) Fig. 23 Gegharot. Other Late Bronze Age ceramic vessels from the T02E shrine (k. Late Bronze I; d, e, l. Late Bronze II/III; all others Late Bronze). – a. ext.: polished black (10YR 2.5/1), int.: black (10YR 2.5/1); – b. ext.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1 – black, Gley 12.5/N, int.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1; – c. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N, int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – d. ext.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1, int.: dark gray, 5YR 4/1; – e. ext.: gray, 10YR 5/1-black, Gley 12.5/ N, int.: gray, 10YR 5/1; – f. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; - g. ext.: very dark gray, 10YR 3/1 (patches brown 7.5YR 5/4), polished triangles, int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – h. ext.: black, 2.5Y 2.5/1-dark gray, 10YR 4/1, int.: dark gray, 10YR 4/1; – i. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N-dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1, int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – j. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: dark gray, 7.5YR 4/1; – k. ext.: brown, 7.5YR 5/4 (patches – black 2.5YR 2.5/1), int.: brown, 7.5YR 5/4; – l. ext.: black, Gley 12.5/N (polished), int.: black, Gley 12.5/N; – m. ext.: reddish brown 5YR 5/4, int.: red 2.5YR 5/6

Fig. 24 Gegharot. Late Bronze Age artifacts from the T02E shrine (a, k, l. stone; b, m, n. ceramic; c, d. bronze; e–j, o–q. bone)

Fig. 25 Gegharot. Cylinders seals. – a. faience seal from operation T20;b. faience seal from operation T02E

cupation there. The contemporaneity of these events The diverse engravings on the two moulds re- suggests the possibility of widespread violence in the present more or less conventional ornaments known region that not only destroyed the flourishing commu- from bronze and gold artifacts from contempora- nities of the Late Bronze Age in the Tsaghkahovit neous sites in Armenia.39 Similar moulds are known plain as a whole, but also contributed to the region’s from practically all phases of the Lchashen-Metsamor abandonment for several centuries until the return of sequence and all of the comparanda from secure ar- sustained settlement during the Iron III period. chaeological contexts are either associated with shrines (e.g., Dvin) or were recovered from special status burials (e.g. Lori-Berd, Qanagegh).40 Metallurgy at Gegharot

The distinctive assemblages related to metal-work- Seals from Late Bronze Age Gegharot ing recovered from the Late Bronze Age fortress of Gegharot merit a brief note. Undoubtedly the most While the shrine and metallurgical materials from direct evidence of metal-working comes from the Gegharot have provided considerable testimony to two stone jewelry moulds noted above, one from the emergence of institutions centered on craft pro- the lower levels of T15 and one that appears to duction and ritual practice within the confines of have been within the shrine in T02E(Figs. 19a and the fortress, the discovery of several seals from the 24a, respectively). The latter of the two, with de- site have also provided tantalizing evidence of po- signs carved on both sides, was most likely the tential administrative procedures at the site. A se- middle piece of a tri-partite mould. The piece has parate article on the glyptic remains from Gegharot rounded corners (10.8 8.3 cm, 1.0 cm thick, is currently in preparation so here we limit our- 210 g) and was made from argillite. In diagonally selves to a brief discussion of the two cylinder opposite corners, a single hole was drilled through seals discovered at the site in 2006 (Fig. 25). the stone in order to affix the three pieces of the The first cylinder seal (Ar/Ge.T20.4.Gl.1), mould, most likely with some kind of pin or dowel. 1.4 cm in diameter, 2.7 cm in length, and made of Engraved on each face of the stone are distinct mo- faience, was found on the eastern side of the sum- tifs (on the obverse a minimum of 6 designs, on mit in operation T20 (Fig. 25,a). Although excava- the reverse a minimum of 14) associated with chan- 39 nels for molten metal that run to the edge of the Interestingly, one of these designs on the first mould (near the stone. In addition, there are also several engravings right-hand edge of the obverse side) is closely reminiscent of a which do not have such channels, perhaps evi- gold plated frog (1.75cm long) from kurgan 2 at Lchashen (Œ' 1961, 70 fig. 24,1). 40 dence of the application of molten metal directly Most of the comparable Lchashen-Metsamor horizon moulds onto the surface of the open mould. The second come from sites within Armenia (Gevorkyan 2002). At present, mould (from pit 15-01) also has rounded corners two moulds from Qangegh appear to be chronologically clo- 8 8 6 0 2 0 224 sest to the Gegharot samples (Piliposyan et al. 2002). In additi- ( . . cm, . cm thick, and g) and was on to the moulds, the Qangegh complex contained a crucible made from a quartz diorite native to the Gegharot analogous to the one found in the altar in the shrine at Gegha- intrusion of the Pambak range. With engravings of rot (Piliposyan et al. 2002, tab. 2,3). Two additional analogous fragments of crucibles were found in a Late Bronze Age shrine seven to eight motifs on only one surface, this was on the first terrace of the settlement at Harich (inventory of the likely an end piece of a two or three part mould. Yerevan State Historical Museum number 1979/19).

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) Village, fortress, and town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia 73 tions in this area are not complete, the seal ap- south lower town, and the west settlement. Re- pears to have been found at the base of a wall, mains from two major periods of occupation – the just outside of a Late Bronze Age building. The Late Bronze Age and the Iron III (Achaemenid) peri- design centers on three figures. At left a figure od – were encountered in each area of the site ex- dressed in a long robe and wearing a stylized cap cept for the terraces which appear to have been oc- faces a more elaborated central figure facing left cupied only during the Late Bronze Age. wearing a tiered robe who stands with arms raised and hands clasped. Between the two figures is a vertical spear and a circular orb surrounded by five The Late Bronze Age and Iron III period fortress at or six dots. The frontal female figure at right also Tsaghkahovit has her hands clasped and looks to the left. To the right of this figure, the composition is divided into The largest fortified Late Bronze Age site in the Tsagh- two registers separated by a single running spiral kahovit plain is the eponymous fortress of Tsaghka- strand punctuated by four dots. The upper register hovit. Tsaghkahovit fortress occupies a tall rock out- shows a quadruped (perhaps a goat) with head crop known as Kalachi Tepe that was sculpted into a down to graze; the lower register shows two reclin- citadel and a series of descending terraces. Excava- ing bulls, back to back with tails entwined. Both tions on the summit and terraces of the fortress con- look back over their shoulders toward one another. ducted in 2003 opened a total area of 313.5m2 The second cylinder seal (Ar/Ge.T2.E640.Gl.1), (Fig. 26). Our first priority in these investigations was 1.1 cm in diameter, 2.15 cm in length, and made of to continue the exploration of the east side of the cita- white faience, was found near the bottom of pit 2E- del begun in 2002. These excavations were particu- 03, amidst the blackened earth and charcoal depos- larly concerned to explore the monumental architec- its associated with the destruction of the stratum tural remains (wall WC301) located in 2002 and to IIa/b occupation at the site (Fig. 25,b). The seal is chart the stratigraphic relationship between the Late divided into two frames separated by vertical her- Bronze Age and Iron III levels in the area (Fig. 27). We ringbone bands. Across the top of the larger frame therefore established four trenches along WC301, is a horizontal herringbone band. Inside the frame, southeast of the original 2002 operation (C3): opera- two reclining stags face one another, with their tions C7 (5 5 m), C8 (5 5 m), C10, and C11 (the heads turned away, looking back over their latter two were both irregular operations, 5 3.50/ shoulders. In the second section are three poorly 4.25 m and 5 6.50 m respectively, due to the curva- preserved motifs that may represent human heads ture of the fortification wall which marked their south- shown in profile facing toward the top of the seal. eastern boundary). We also established a large opera- Both cylinder seals are of the Mitannian Com- tion, C6 and C9 (a total area of 10 11.5 m), to mon Style that gained considerable popularity investigate WC301’s northwestern extension. In order across much of ancient southwest Asia and the to continue sampling the Late Bronze Age construc- eastern Mediterranean during the fifteenth and four- tions on the terraces of the site, we excavated one op- teenth centuries BC.41 As Collon notes, Mitannian eration (NT02, 5 15 m) on the upper northern ter- Common Style seals were mass-produced and race (just east of trench NT01 excavated in 2002) and traded widely.42 In the Caucasus, several examples one on the uppermost southern terrace (ST01, of Common Style seals are known, including those 7 3 m). In 2003, excavations were initiated in the recorded from the Late Bronze Age tombs at Artik, area of the south lower town. In 2005 and 2006, work just 25 km west of Gegharot.43 on the citadel was discontinued as the focus of investigation shifted to detailing the Late Bronze Age and Iron III lower towns (described below). The stratigraphy of the citadel is generally Excavation at Tsaghkahovit: rather straightforward with three superimposed pri- From fortress to town mary occupation levels marked by both distinct architectural complexes and material culture assem- Excavations at the site of Tsaghkahovit between blages. The uppermost building level dates to the 2003 and 2006 concentrated on four distinct areas early and developed Medieval periods of the 5th– of the site: the citadel, the descending terraces, the 14th centuries AD Materials from this period have been found across the citadel but the constructions of this era appear to be rather ephemeral, consist- 41 Our thanks to Dr. Dominique Collon for examining the Gegharot ing primarily of basalt blocks set in irregular lines. cylinder seals and sharing her encyclopedic knowledge of the The most robust remains on the eastern citadel Near Eastern seals. 42 Collon 1987, 62. date to the mid-first millennium BC and are contem- 43 ' 1979. porary with the site’s extensive Iron III period lower

Fig. 26 Map of Tsaghkahovit with inset map of the West Settlement complex

town (see below). Set on prepared bedrock founda- C7,C8,C9, and C10 exposed the entire 25 m length tions, the lowest occupation level on the citadel of wall WC301, including well-carpentered corners was constructed during the Late Bronze Age. The on both ends. C6 and C9 (Fig. 27) traced wall Late Bronze Age levels at the site are particularly WC301 to the northwest where a perpendicular wall well-preserved on the terraces of the site, where (WC601) turns a right-angle to the southwest. Walls there appears to have been little subsequent reoc- WC301 and WC601 are adjoining constructions with cupation. Significant portions of Late Bronze Age interlaced stones indicating that they were built si- architecture remain well-preserved on the citadel as multaneously as part of a single structure. The cor- well, and the vast majority of the material assem- nerstone of the structure was an immense basalt blages from the citadel date to this period. How- boulder with dressed faces. Wall WC601, just 4.3m ever, the subsequent Iron III constructions on the long, ends abruptly at its distal end, apparently de- citadel appear to have dug into preceding levels stroyed by subsequent building activity in the area. and reused Late Bronze Age walls. As a result, de- Indeed, no Late Bronze Age floors associated with spite the remarkable assemblages and architecture WC301/WC601 were located. It appears that Iron III from the mid-second millennium BC, there are few period construction on the citadel dug into pre-exit- well-preserved contexts. ing levels, reusing the massive earlier wall as a sup- As noted above, the primary goal of our cita- port for several irregular walls or partitions (such as del excavations in 2003 was to track the large WC602 and WC302). stone masonry wall (WC301) uncovered in opera- Operations C7,C8,C10, and C11 tracked tion C3 in 2002 and define its construction history WC301 southeast of operation C3 (Fig. 26). These op- by opening associated floor levels.44 Operations C6, erations opened a similar right-angle corner at the construction’s southeastern end where it adjoins with 44 1001 601 1001 Smith et al. 2004, 5–7. a perpendicular wall, WC . Like WC ,WC

OxCal v4.0.1 Bronk Ramsey (2006); r:5 IntCal04 atmospheric curve (Reimer et al 2004)

Ar/Ts.C6.13.C14.1 [AA56977] 2921 ±35

Ar/Ts.C7.19.C14.1 [AA56978] 3094 ±35

Ar/Ts.C8.6.C14.3 [AA56979] 2949 ±34

Ar/Ts.C10.12.C14.1 [AA56980] 3023 ±34

Ar/Ts.C11.5.C14.1 [AA56981] 3045 ±40

Ar/Ts.SLT1.46.C14.1 [AA56982] 3012 ±35

Ar/Ts.SLT1.64.C14.1 [AA56983] 2981 ±34

Ar/Ts.SLT1.65.C14.1 [AA56984] 2861 ±36

Ar/Ts.SLT2.10.C14.1 [AA56985] 3008 ±35

Ar/Ts.SLT3.13.C14.1 [AA56986] 3058 ±35

Ar/Ts.SLT1.60.C14.1 [AA56987] 3102 ±41

Ar/Ts.SLT4.14.C14.1 [AA66873] 2972 ±35

Ar/Ts.SLT5.4.C14.2 [AA66874] 2668 ±39

Ar/Ts.SLT5.7.C14.2 [AA66876] 2869 ±39

Ar/Ts.ST2.4..C14.1 [AA66878] 3138 ±37

Ar/Ts.ST2.11.C14.1 [AA66879] 3070 ±40

Ar/Ts.WSC2.13.C14.3 [AA66881] 3193 ±38

Ar/Ts.WSL.13.C14.1 [AA66883] 3134 ±37

Ar/Ts.WSL.7.C14.2 [AA66884] 3100 ±38

Ar/Ts.WSL.20.C14.1 [AA66885] 3269 ±47

2200 2000 1800 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600

Calibrated Date (cal BC)

Tab. 3 Tsaghkahovit. Late Bronze Age radiocarbon determinations (samples analyzed by the AMS laboratory at the University of Arizona and calibrated using OxCal 4.0; Bronk Ramsey 1995; Bronk Ramsey 2001)

The Late Bronze Age Lower Town at Tsaghkahovit In 2003 and 2005 excavations were initiated at a Late Bronze Age settlement at the base of the fortress hill’s southern slope, an area designated as the South Lower Town.45 The aim of this comple- mentary research program has been to locate and uncover a Late Bronze Age lower town and elucidate the impact of sociopolitical developments in the Tsaghkahovit Plain on grassroots populations, that is to say, communities at the lower echelons of the social order that comprise the bulk of the popu- lace. The ultimate goal of this ongoing initiative is to forge an understanding of elite/non-elite relations that will help to inform the underlying principles of political and economic organization of southern Caucasia during the mid-second millennium BC. During the 2003 field season, three initial soundings, denoted South Lower Town (SLT) 1, 2, and 3, were undertaken to find subsurface evidence of occupations outside of Tsaghkahovit’s fortification walls. The 2005 season was dedicated to the large scale expansion of the initial exposures of the lower town with operations SLT 4 and 5. Thus far, remains of three distinct constructions, Structures 1–3, have been uncovered within the SLT complex offering a rare glimpse of domestic life during the Late Bronze Age and subsequent reuse of the site during the Iron III period (Fig. 28). The three lower town constructions, Structures 1, 2, and 3, incorporated natural bedrock outcrops into walls, foundations, and grinding features, a common building technique in southern Caucasia during the Late Bronze Age.46 An examination of the construction sequences and ceramic assemblages from each structure provides a unique view on the occupation history of the lower town. SLT Structure 1 is contained by walls constructed of variably sized, poorly worked basalt stones. The exposed walls stand to a height of four courses in places, or approximately 1.5 m, and are built atop a natural bedrock outcrop that serves as a foundation. Thin traces of prepared clay surfacing were visible on portions of the interior wall stones, parti- 27 Fig. cularly along the bottom edges near the floor. The Tsaghkahovit. Plan of disappears after just 3.55m. All three integrated Late Bronze Age living surface was a clay floor pre- the Citadel operations walls, WC301,WC601, and WC1001 are constructed pared on top of leveled yellow clay substrate which of cyclopean dry masonry with well-dressed stones incorporated portions of the natural bedrock. A ba- set in regular courses supplemented by a cobble fill. salt outcrop in the northwest corner of the exposed As noted in our previous report, the weight of evi- room, carved with a basin 40 cm in diameter and dence, including the extant radiocarbon determina- 24 cm in depth, was used as a stationary mortar. tions (Tab. 3), indicates that these walls were con- A later reoccupation of the structure, most structed during the Late Bronze Age, suggesting the likely during the mid-first millennium BC, is inti- presence of an authoritative political institution able to draw on considerable wealth, skill, and labor. How- ever, the subsequent Iron III occupation cleared away 45 See Lindsay 2006 for a complete discussion of the excavations much of the Late Bronze level, leaving few clues to in Tsaghkahovit’s Late Bronze Age lower town. 46 the institutions that once occupied the structure. Kafadaryan 1984; Smith 1998.

Fig. 28 Tsaghkahovit. Plan of the South Lower Town complex mated by the strong presence of Iron III period subsequent Iron III period reoccupation. The south- sherds (36.4% in sub-topsoil loci) and may account ern wall of Structure 1 parallels a cyclopean defen- for repairs to the stone wall visible in the struc- sive wall constructed of single-faced, basalt stones, ture’s southeast corner. The flagstone floor found and the 50–75 cm space between the defensive in the room may have been laid (or re-laid) at this wall and Structure 1 is filled with cobble core. time, paving over a stone-filled pit in the south end A number of features from the floor of SLT struc- of the room. All of the diagnostic sherds recovered ture 1 provide clues about the formal and functional from the pit were Late Bronze Age (n ¼ 18), sug- attributes of the room. Three storage pits were dug gesting it was part of an earlier living surface and into the floor at the northern and southern edges of was filled in with stone and paved over during the the room. Two clay-lined pits near the north wall were

Fig. 29 Tsaghkahovit. Ceramic vessels from the South Lower Town complex

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) Village, fortress, and town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia 79 each 1 m diameter and dug 1m deep. A third pit, located against the room’s south wall, was slightly smaller in size and also exhibited the remains of a clay lining tempered with chaff and other organics. A series of parallel vertical stone slabs laid into the floor along the northern wall may have served as supports for structural beams; this would account for the lack of evidence for post holes on the clay floor. While there remains the possibility that the structure was open and unroofed, it seems unlikely the occupants would leave three storage pits exposed to pests and precipitation. Structure 2, Room B is a much smaller room measuring approximately 3.5 8 m. A doorway in the southeast corner of the room allows access to Room A, and a second doorway in the northwest corner serves as an egress to the structure’s exterior (Fig. 28). The southern portion of Room B is paved with the remnants of a stone floor built against a bedrock outcrop, with no traces of the floor in the northern half of the room. A hearth was excavated in the center of the room from which sizeable pieces (1 cm) of wood charcoal were collected and dated to the end of the thirteenth century BC (sample AA66873). A second, smaller burnt feature was located in the doorway between Rooms A and B, and dated to a century later (sample AA66876). There is less evidence of reoccupation in Structure 2 relative to Structure 1 given the much lower quantities of mid-1st millennium BC ceramics. The presence of four broken, in situ Lchashen-Metsamor vessels on the clay floor of Structure 2, Room B, indicates that the living surface may not have undergone major renova- tions such as those noted in Structure 1. The room designated Structure 3 has only been exposed along its northwestern corner. The standing walls, two to four courses high, were built of large, shaped basalt stones enclosing a prepared clay floor. There is a visible symmetry between the architecture of Structure 3 and Structure 2 that belies a disjunc- Fig. 30 ture in the ceramic sequences of the neighboring Tsaghkahovit. Late light of the apparent Iron III period reoccupation. In Bronze Age artifacts structures. Of the total ceramic sherds collected from terms of storage capacity, partial restoration of se- from the South Lower Structure 3, 64% of sherds from sub-topsoil loci date lect vessels indicate that the volumes of lower town Town complex to the mid-1st millennium BC, compared to 36% Late pithoi are considerably less than those unearthed Bronze sherds. The total quantity of sherds is still within the walls of either Tsaghkahovit or Gegharot small for this structure (n ¼ 97), and no site furniture fortress. It also seems that the quantity and size of has yet emerged to provide an indication of how and the cooking vessels from the lower town would not when this space was used. sustain large-scale feasting events, nor are large lo- A wide variety of pottery forms have been col- calized agglomerations of sherds present in the set- lected and catalogued from the South Lower Town tlement that might indicate disposal commonly as- (Fig. 29). The range of Lchashen-Metsamor horizon sociated with episodes of mass consumption. forms from the settlement excavations represent The quantity of groundstone and other lithic the full spectrum of domestic processing and con- tools uncovered in all operations of the South Lower sumption activities including jars, bowls, cookpots, Town particularly in Structures 1–3 further support cups, pithoi, bread moulds, and fragments of thick an interpretation of the structures as loci of domes- clay ovens. No whole vessels were collected from tic-scale production and consumption (Fig. 30,a–b). the excavations, though this is not unexpected in Of the 16 ‘‘mano’’ fragments recovered from the

South Lower Town operations, half were collected The role of status differentiation within the from Structure 2. In addition, 15 small mortars and lower town is at present impossible to discern. Only fragments were recovered, nine of which also were two bronze items – what might be considered from Structure 2. Only two metal artifacts were found wealth items – were recovered in the lower town, recovered from the settlement, a bronze pin and a neither of which were from secure contexts and bronze pendant (Fig. 30,c–d); however, these finds neither of which is particularly diagnostic of Late are not particularly good temporal markers since Bronze age metal-working. Indeed, there are few bronze items with similar forms from sites in Armenia recognizable differences in the quality and formal have been attributed to the second-millennium attributes of portable artifacts to suggest a highly through the first millennium BC. Other artifacts in- regulated social boundary divided the south lower cluded in the SLT ceramic assemblage include clay town from the occupants of the citadel. spindlewhorls (though without further evidence of

cloth production, these may simply represent large 47 buttons, model wheels, or even beads) (Fig. 30,e). The Iron III Period town at Tsaghkahovit Ten charcoal samples collected from all of the In Armenia, as in much of southwest Asia, the foun- South Lower Town operations (SLT 1-5) were sub- dation for the archaeology of the Achaemenid peri- mitted for AMS dating, eight of which fall in the od (which in local historical terms is often referred second half of the second millennium BC demon- to as the Yervandid or Early Armenian period) was strating an initial occupation contemporary with the laid by large-scale investigations of monumental ca- Late Bronze levels of the Tsaghkahovit citadel and pital cities, such as Erebuni and Armavir.48 Beyond upper terraces (Tab. 3). The diagnostic ceramics re- the Ararat plain, the Ijevan region of northeastern covered from the three structures (n ¼ 3969) are Armenia is host to a dense network of fortress sites heavily represented by Lchashen-Metsamor sherds dating to this period.49 Systematic investigations of (59, 2%), corroborating the radiocarbon dates. settlements have been limited to the site of Karch- How well the Tsaghkahovit South Lower Town akhpyur on the south coast of Lake Sevan50 and represents the range of variation in Late Bronze the sites of Shirakavan and Beniamin on the Shirak Age settlements on the Tsaghkahovit Plain and plain.51 In 2005 and 2006, a program of intensive elsewhere will be the topic of continued investiga- investigation into the Iron III period occupation of tion. However, the excavations and analyses con- the Tsaghkahovit plain was organized under the ducted to date allow us to draw for the first time auspices of Project ArAGATS. The systematic survey the broad outlines of Late Bronze Age life beyond conducted in 1998 and 2000 had signaled the re- the fortress walls. Although no other settlements settlement of the plain during the mid-first millen- have been systematically examined to discern the nium BC, a conclusion that was reinforced by lim- economic relations between towns, the evidence ited test excavations in those same years on the from household contexts and instrumental neutron citadels and lower slopes of both Tsaghkahovit and activation analyses of ceramic assemblages suggest Hnaberd.52 Subsequent excavations on the Tsagh- that the South Lower Town was economically self- kahovit citadel in 2002 and 2003 pointed unam- sufficient (or, alternatively, was largely excluded biguously to its substantial reoccupation beginning from the regional economy). Pottery at the lower in approximately the sixth century BC, after five town was made almost exclusively from local clay centuries of abandonment following the destruction and the scale of domestic artifact assemblages suggests production and consumption at the house- 47 hold scale. Due to limitations of space, this report necessarily presents the The community members of the lower town results of the excavations in the Iron Age III town at Tsaghka- were likely engaged in a mixed agro-pastoral econ- hovit in brief. For a more detailed and interpretive discussion of these investigations, see Khatchadourian 2008. 48 omy based on cereal grain farming and herding The excavations of the Urartian fortress of Erebuni in the 1950s sheep, goats, and cattle. The consumption patterns revealed a substantial, if largely neglected, post-Urartian occu- of fauna show that the occupants were harvesting pation which included a colonnaded hall that has led many to postulate Erebuni as the seat of the 18th Achaemenid satrapy mostly full-grown animals in an attempt to maxi- (Tiratsyan 1960). The recently renewed excavations at the site mize the size of their herds, apparently for their promise to elucidate further the scale and form of this reoccu- own consumption and, perhaps, for transport pation (-Łæ 2005). The long settlement history at Armavir has made it challenging to isolate the Iron Age IIIa oc- across the plain to Gegharot. In addition, domesti- cupation (-Łæ 1974). Nevertheless, Armavir stands cated resources were likely supplemented by an ar- closest to being a ‘type site’ for this period in the archaeology of Armenia. ray of wild plants available on the plain. Hunting 49 ¯æ' 1976. game may have periodically contributed to the diet, 50 ˚' 1978, 1979. 51 but very few wild animals were identified in the fau- -Łæ/˚ı' 1998. 52 nal assemblage (see appendix 1 below). Avetisyan et al. 2000; Smith et al. 2005.

Fig. 31 Tsaghkahovit. Plan of operations WSC, WSC2, WSC3

of the Late Bronze Age fortress. Although the con- stones to partition internal spaces. Such features tours and duration of this reoccupation remained were recorded in operations WSM, WSL, and WSC2, uncertain, early evidence suggested that it ex- the latter of which (C2.F2) ends in a flattened, tended to the fourth century BC, embracing much semi-rounded stone or column base (C2.B1) of the Achaemenid era. As the scale of this resettle- (Fig. 31). Results of the 2005 excavations could not ment became clear, so too did its potential signifi- address the question of functional variation within cance for the study of this little understood period or between units; however, the architectural config- in the archaeology of southern Caucasia and the uration of the west settlement suggests that units K wider region.53 and J, by virtue of their significantly larger size, served purposes that are distinct from the remaining units. It is quite possible that these are court- 2005 The season yards, or spaces for public gathering, a suggestion Previous investigations of the Iron III lower town at offered some support by the extremely low quanti- Tsaghkahovit had consisted of two small test ties of bone, lithics, and ceramics in WSK and WSJ. trenches in unit 34 of the south settlement and Of the many questions presented by the 2005 room A of the west settlement (Fig. 26).54 The latter excavations, two were particularly critical. First, it boasted two basalt stone walls preserved to four remained unclear whether the discrete spaces visi- courses, an intact clay floor, and a small but diag- ble from the surface comprised rooms within a sin- nostic ceramic assemblage of the mid-1st millen- gle architectural complex or a series of adjacent, nium BC. Based on these promising results, the free-standing structures. Second, uncertainty still goal of the 2005 season was to focus more inten- surrounded the precise dating of the settlement. sively on this agglutinative architectural complex The ceramic repertoire, although substantially repre- st within the west settlement, a 0.54 ha complex set sentative of mid-1 millennium BC pottery, was on a gently sloping terrain. A series of eight test nevertheless limited in scale. A select number of trenches – WSJ (6 2 m), WSC (4 2 m), WSC2 handle-less bowls, particularly shallow ones with (5.3 4 m), WSE (4 3 m), WSK (7 2 m), WSL everted rims and red or brown burnished surfaces (8 3 m), WSAR (2 2 m), WSM (3 3 m) – were as well as deeper, half-egg shaped forms, are diag- laid across this area. The sampling strategy em- nostic of Iron Age III (Fig. 32,g.h.l.m.s). Also notable ployed was designed to test for variability across are fragments of plates, one with a concavity in the the west settlement as a whole and between dis- center (Fig. 32,n) as well as jars (Fig. 33,i) and pots 56 tinct room sizes by targeting large (J, K), mid-sized (Fig. 33,q.r). Alongside such forms with clear mor- (M, E, C, L), and small (AR) units at considerable phological parallels with Iron III assemblages, how- distances from one another (Fig. 26 inset).55 ever, were a collection of unfamiliar, local forms Broadly speaking, the excavations testified to which recalled – but did not represent – earlier a single-occupation in the west settlement. Cultural repertoires of the first millennium BC. This fact, deposits consisted of packed clay floors, as in WSL, coupled with the absence of a destructive burning WSK, and WSC, and well-made, basalt flagstone event at the site, left open questions at the end of floors, as in WSC2 (C2.F1, 3.0 m 1.5 m) (Fig. 31) the 2005 season concerning the period of the site’s and WSM (M.F1, 3.0 m 2.5 m). In the remaining initial occupation and eventual abandonment. trenches, floors were ephemeral. Extant floors corre- sponded to the stone walls of their rooms, which The 2006 season were preserved, depending on the trench, in three to four courses, with heights ranging from one to The aims of the 2006 season were to address the ba- two meters. Our test trenches provided only sic architectural and chronological questions raised glimpses of room interiors (in all cases less than in 2005 through larger, adjacent exposures that 25 percent of the room was exposed), but did serve might also begin to shed light on the activities that to highlight the repeated use of short lines of gave social meaning to the agglutinative architectural complex at the heart of Tsaghkahovit’s west settlement (Fig. 26). The results, detailed below, testify 53 For synthetic treatments of this period in the archaeology of that the structure was built as a single, semi-subter- Armenia, see Ł' 1969; Ł' 1988 and Karapetyan ranean complex of interconnected rooms. This large 2003. 54 Avetisyan et al. 2000, 51. complex, along with its ceramic and other artifact as- 55 Consideration was also given to the condition of the surface semblage, signals a locus of authority and elite prac- architecture, and the representation of a range of architectural perspectives, including corners (WSC, WSC2), walls possibly shared in common between two rooms (i.e. between WSJ, 56 WSC), as well as apparently single-faced (WSAR, WSE) and Khachatryan 1970; Ł' 1965; Ł' 1971a; Ł' double-faced (WSK) walls. 1971b.

Fig. 32 tice that might have included feasting, command rooms were separated into self-contained units Tsaghkahovit. Bowls over, or access to, a standardized ceramic production through door blockages. and plates from the industry, and networking with elites beyond the Four trenches were excavated in 2006, cover- west settlement Tsaghkahovit plain. There are some architectural in- ing the entirety of room H (WSH, 10 m 13 m), room dications, corroborated by the ceramic repertoire, G (WSG, 10 13 m), two thirds of room I (WSI, that the life of the settlement continued into a sec- 13 13 m), and half of room C (WSC3, 13 9 m) ond phase, possibly extending until the second cen- (Figs. 31; 34). In addition, twenty 0.5 0.5 m probes tury BC or Iron IIIb, when previously interconnected were placed at 5 m intervals along cardinal axes in

Fig. 33 Tsaghkahovit. Jars and pots from the west settlement

Fig. 34 Tsaghkahovit. Plan of operations WSH, WSG, WSI

decreasing wall heights from the southeast to the northwest is exhibited in WSG, WSI, and WSC3. That the rooms belonged to a single, semi-subterranean complex became clear with the discovery of doorways. Rooms generally contained two doorways which connected them to two neighboring rooms. Thus room H provided access to I and G, room G to H and D, and room I to K and H.59 All of these openings were blocked off at some point after the original planning and construction of the complex, a conclusion clearly signaled by the comparatively irregular masonry in these sections of the walls.60 Given that inter-room access and traffic flows are often constitutive of the social significance and/or functions of spaces, room I sets itself apart. Not only is it considerably larger than the rooms that surround it to the northeast and southeast,61 but it also provides direct access to the presumed public space of room K, through a doorway on the northwest wall. Aligned with this doorway is a flagstone floor or path (I.F1, 6.7 0.74–1.25 m), which seems to lead to a recep- tacle (I.F2, 2.3 0.5 m) in the south corner of the room, recalling the features in WSL and WSM.62 A Fig. 35 Tsaghkahovit. Ceramic third doorway in the west corner of room I opens onto and bone artifacts from a short passage (3 m), which leads to a smaller room west settlement (3 1.6 m). As in WSC2, room I also contains a stone feature (I.F3, length, 1.8 m) that juts off from the room K (WSKa–t), to further test our hypothesis con- 57 northwest wall and ends in a roughly hewn flat stone cerning the public function of this space. which appears to have served as a column base (I.B1, 2006 The excavations of resolved the architec- 4 0.37 m). I.B1 is aligned with another such column 2005 tural uncertainties that had emerged from the base to the southeast (I.B2, 0.5 0.5 m). A similar 3 investigations. Trenches WSG, WSH, and WSC were pattern of aligned column bases is seen in WSH backed on their southeast sides by massive single- (H.B1, 0.5 0.37 m; H.B2, 0.4 0.4 m) and WSG faced walls, which clearly served as a terrace con- (G.B1, 0.3 0.3 m; G.B2, 0.4 0.4 m). The shallow struction against the slope that rises behind the pit in the east corner of WSI (d ¼ 1.10 m), just as the complex to the southeast. The rooms of the west pit in the east corner of WSH (d ¼ 0.8 m), was largely settlement are therefore semi-subterranean, whose empty. wall foundations did not stand freely above the The column bases found across the complex ground surface but rather lined the edges of an 58 are embedded within the packed clay floors of the excavated dugout. The rooms are divided by inter- rooms, such that the tops of the bases align with or nal buttress-like constructions, such as wall HG are just beneath the living surfaces. The exception to 6 2 3 6 3 3 8 3 6 ( . m), wall GD ( . m), wall IJ ( . m), this pattern is WSH, the one trench with multiple 4 5 1 8 7 4 2 4 wall IH ( . . m), and wall IG ( . . m) floor surfaces.63 In this room, the lowest, or earliest (Fig. 34). The height of the wall foundations de- pends upon the severity of the slope. To illustrate 59 The average width of these doorways is 0.9 m. with an example from WSH, the southeast terrace 60 wall is 1.9 m high, the northwest wall is 0.7 m high, Most door blockages were opened through excavation after re- cording, with the exception of the blockage between rooms G and wall HG begins in the south at 1.5 m high and and D and the lowest course of the blockage between H and ends in the west at 0.9 m high. A similar pattern of G. See fig. 34. 61 The internal dimensions of room I is projected to be 17m 8 m, compared with the internal dimension of room G at 6.7 m 57 As with the excavation in WSK in 2005, these probes revealed 4.5 m and room H at 8 m 6.6 m. 62 extraordinarily low quantities of materials. Most were excavat- Another such feature was encountered in the west corner of ed to a depth of 1 m. Five ended in a packed clay floor; eight WSH (H.F1). 63 bottomed out on a large stone, perhaps bedrock; and seven It is not possible to associate with certainty the upper floor in could no longer be excavated after 1 m depth due to space room H with the phase in which the doorways were sealed. limitations. First of all, other rooms whose doorways were boarded did not 58 It is for this reason that when the space between walls was exhibit multiple floors. Secondly, the section beneath the walls excavated (as between L and O and J and C), the correspond- in WSH reveals a succession of re-floorings, more suggestive of ing walls threatened to collapse. periodic repair rather than distinct occupations.

64 For a typology of the ceramics from Tsaghkahovit, see Khatcha- 69 dourian 2008. Curtis/Tallis 2005, fig. 115.147.212; Schmidt 1957. 65 70 53 percent of the diagnostic vessels in WSC were bowls, plates This iron knife hilt, perforated with nails that would have sup- or cups; 62 percent in room G; 67 percent in room H; and 56 ported a bone or wood exterior piece, finds close parallels in percent in room I. Armenia from the sites of Berd and Karchakhpyur (Karapetyan 66 Kurtz/Boardman 1971, 99. 2003, 52–53). 67 71 Root 2000. Karapetyan 2003, 79. 68 72 Chemical and mineralogical analysis of this plate point to a Curtis/Tallis 2005; 137–143. 73 provenance in the Zagros mountains. Karapetyan 2003 figs. 46,6.7).

OxCal v4.0.1 Bronk Ramsey (2006); r:5 IntCal04 atmospheric curve (Reimer et al 2004)

Ar/Ts.C3.A7.C14.1 [AA52904] 2499 ±38

Ar/Ts.SLT1.22.C14.1 [AA56988] 2453 ±34

Ar/Ts.SLT5.4.C14.2 [AA66874] 2668 ±39

Ar/Ts.SLT6.5.C14.1 [AA66875] 2483 ±42

Ar/Ts.WSC2.10.C14.1 [AA66880] 2494 ±40

Ar/Ts.WSE.3.C14.3 [AA66882] 2491 ±56

Ar/Ts.WSG.12.C14.04 [AA72366] 2460 ±34

Ar/Ts.WSG.12.C14.05 [AA72367] 2438 ±34

Ar/Ts.WSH.18.C14.01 [AA72368] 2517 ±34

Ar/Ts.WSH.30.C14.02 [AA72369] 2442 ±34

Ar/Ts.WSH.18.C14.03 [AA72370] 2455 ±34

Ar/Ts.WSH.40.C14.01 [AA72371] 2542 ±42

Ar/Ts.WSI.20.C14.01 [AA72372] 2522 ±34

1200 1000 800 600 400 200

Calibrated Date (cal BC)

Tab. 4 Tsaghkahovit, Iron III period radiocarbon de- artifacts, we discovered a pendant or toy in the pus suggests the possibility of a later occupation in terminations (samples form of a stylized quadruped (possibly a horse) on the Iron IIIb period, and it is tempting to correlate analyzed by the AMS laboratory at the the floor in room I, with a hole bored through the this with the evidence for the secondary building University of Arizona animal’s midsection (4.2 cm 2.7 cm 1.0 cm) activity that entailed door closures; however this and calibrated using (Fig. 35,b). hypothesis cannot currently be proven. A separate OxCal 4.0; Bronk Ramsey 1995; Bronk The ceramic repertoire from Tsaghkahovit floor associated with the later building phase was Ramsey 2001) coupled with key small finds such as the zoo- not identified, and the supposed later sherds were morphic vessel, iron fibula, bronze bracelet, and not in any way distinguished stratigraphically. stone plate provide strong stylistic evidence for the Radiocarbon determinations have provided dating of the Tsaghkahovit settlement to the Iron limited but important data for refining the chronol- IIIa period. A small percentage of the ceramic cor- ogy of occupation. Nine C14 samples from the west

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) Village, fortress, and town in Bronze and Iron Age Southern Caucasia 89 settlement provided determinations that fall within Discussion the well-known intractable plateau on the radiocarbon curve covering the eighth through fifth centu- The purpose of this preliminary report has been to 74 ries BC (Tab. 4). Cognizant of the dangers of cir- present the primary data that have resulted from cular reasoning, we submit that archaeological the last three field seasons of research by Project knowledge of central and regional Urartian pottery ArAGATS in the Tsaghkahovit plain. A great deal of sequences makes an eight and seventh century analysis and interpretation of course remains to be occupation at Tsaghkahovit highly unlikely. Bearing done and our investigations at both Gegharot and this in mind, the dates can be classified broadly Tsaghkahovit continue. In one sense it is as yet too into two groups. At approximately 90 percent early for conclusions and indeed the role of a preli- probability, the first group provides a range roughly minary report is to present work in progress, not 800–500 B.C (AA66880,AA66882,AA72367, final results. Yet we do want to call particular atten- AA72371,AA72372). At between 55 and 70 percent tion to the significance of the Early Bronze Age probability, the second group provides a range of materials and radiocarbon determinations from Geg- roughly 600–400 BC (AA72366,AA72367,AA72369, harot since these have made a significant contribu- AA72370). Regrettably, there are no stratigraphic re- tion to an ongoing debate over the periodization lationships between samples in each of these and chronology of the Caucasus and eastern Anato- groups. Based on radiocarbon analysis, we can go lia during the late fourth and third millennia BC.75 no further than to say that the settlement was likely As noted above, these data necessitate a broad re- occupied for some period within the sixth and fifth consideration of the traditional periodization and centuries BC. Although this casts some doubt on chronology of the Kura-Araxes horizon in Armenia. the evidence for a fourth to third century presence Practically all of the current systems ordering the suggested by a small percentage of the pottery, it Kura-Araxes materials of Armenia developed out of is important to emphasize that, in the absence of a observations of several typologically distinct cera- destruction level at the site, none of the radiocar- mic complexes. These complexes were considered bon samples provide a terminus date. These are to be chronological phases and were put into a among the first radiocarbon dates from post-Iron II temporal sequence, one after another, to extend Armenia. There is much work to be done in further across the entire chronological range of the Kura- refining ceramic chronologies for these historical Araxes era. Disagreements over the ordering of phases in the archaeology of the region. Bayesian these complexes were made possible by the lack of analysis of the radiocarbon samples is currently un- objective measures of their temporal relations derway. (either stratigraphic sequences or absolute dates) Tsaghkahovit’s significance rests not only in and was furthered by highly subjective (and often the sheer size of the Iron III settlement (approx. contradictory) assumptions regarding the evolution- 40 ha), itself suggestive of a substantial town. Its ary tendencies of ceramic development. importance emerges from the opportunity pre- When the ‘‘Elar-Aragats’’ complex was deter- sented by the site’s well-preserved architecture and mined to belong to the first period of the Early the comprehensive assemblage of artifacts to inves- Bronze Age based on calibrated radiocarbon deter- tigate the material imprint of local authority and so- minations,76 the periodization of the Kura-Araxes cial differentiation in a small, contained region lo- horizon was re-ordered within a traditional tri-par- cated beyond the heartland of the Ararat plain. The tite sequence – Elar-Aragats, Shresh-Mokhrablur, archaeology of Tsaghkahovit signals a community Karnut-Shengavit – encompassing the period from embedded within larger cultural and political phe- the mid 4th millennium BC to sometime between nomena, both of the Armenian highland and of the the 24th–22nd centuries BC.77 In this sequence the Achaemenid ecumene, as well as one vested in a ‘‘Karnut-Shengavit’’ pottery was assigned to the local past of the Late Bronze Age, whose legacy third and final phase of the Early Bronze Age. The was at least as visible on the landscape then as it absolute dates for this phase (the 26th to 24/22nd is now. The site provides fertile ground on which to centuries) were based on two radiocarbon determi- explore the materiality of sociopolitics within dynas- nations from the settlement of Karnut and two from tic and imperial polities, as well as the practices of the settlement of Shengavit IV. However, it should daily life that bind a community within such re- gimes. 75 For background to current problems in the chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the region, see Kushnareva 1997, 1994; Sagona 2004; Sagona/Kiguradze 2003. 76 `º' 1997; `º' 2003. 74 77 For a concise summary of the problem see The final date for the Kura-Araxes horizon is a matter of much http://www.arts.cornell.edu/dendro/2003News/ADP2003.html. debate at present but solid dates are few.

be noted that two samples, one from Karnut and Shirak, Lori-Pambak and north-eastern Armenia one from Shengavit (AA-7787 and LE-672), indi- (Aghstev-Taush), it is reasonable to suggest that cated dates in the second half of the third millen- the Early Bronze II phase (Kura-Araxes II) on the ter- nium BC,78 while two other samples (AA-7555 and ritory of Armenia was represented by two contem- LE458) returned date ranges in the first half of the porary local ceramic complexes – Shresh-Mokhra- third millennium BC. The privileging of the former, blur in the Ararat Valley and Karnut-Shengavit to later, dates for the Karnut-Shengavit complex was the north and the east. In other words, the Karnut- suggested by the traditional chronological frame- Shengavit pottery does not belong to an Early work which assigned the materials to the Early Bronze III phase but rather represents a geographi- Bronze III phase, after the Shresh-Mokhrablur cally distinct complex of the Early Bronze II. As a phase.79 However, the series of radiocarbon deter- result, the periodization of the Kura-Araxes horizon minations obtained as a result of the 2003–2006 in Armenia should include just two temporal excavations at Gegharot raised a new problem with phases. Phase I extends from 3600/3500 to the traditional approach to periodization. 2900 BC while phase II ranges from 2900 to 2600/ The majority of the Kura-Araxes assemblage 2500 BC. from Gegharot represents a complex typologically While this formulation currently represents our attributable to the Karnut-Shengavit group. Yet the best understanding of the extant data, we antici- radiocarbon dates associated with these occupation pate that future work in the Tsaghkahovit plain will levels (AA-52900, AA-66894, AA-66895, AA-72045) contribute to further temporal refinement even as are confined to roughly the four centuries between important new investigations in other parts of the 2900 and 2500 BC. As a result, they are closely syn- South Caucasus provide much needed geographic chronous with the formerly rejected pair of dates comparisons. from Karnut (AA-7555) and Shengavit (LE-458) and articulate closely with the Early Bronze I dates from Gegharot (AA-52898, AA-56969, AA-66888, AA- 72046, AA-72047) and from Armenia more broadly Appendix 1: The faunal remains (Horom, Aparan III, Talin etc.). These absolute dates by Belinda H. Monahan place the Karnut-Shengavit occupation at Gegharot as contemporary with Shresh-Mokhrablur com- Faunal analysis for Project ArAGATS was begun in plexes, 2900–2600 BC. 2002 and has continued for five seasons; nearly It appears then that in dating the Karnut- 48,000 specimens from securely stratified contexts Shengavit group, the dates from Gegharot and the have been examined. This report is a summary of elder pair of dates from Karnut and Shengavit the on-going analysis, presenting conclusions to should be privileged. It is also significant that two date as well as suggestions for future research. The new dates from Shengavit80 (Bln-5526: 4462 47, research has been focused on the shifting roles that 3350–2920 BC at 2 sigma; and Bln-5527: 4116 animals played in the region’s political economy 38, 2860–2580 BC at 2 sigma),81 although without (including the fluctuating degree and nature of pas- stratigraphic context, also support a date for the toral nomadism) and the control over production Karnut-Shengavit group in the early third millen- and redistribution of goods. This report focuses on nium BC. these two questions, attending particularly closely Given that the extant Shresh-Mokhrablur to sheep and goat remains – by far the most com- group assemblages appear to be limited geographi- mon animals in the plain in all time periods cur- cally to the Ararat Valley while Karnut–Shengavit rently under examination. complexes have been found primarily in Aragatsotn, Since this is a report on on-going research a few caveats are necessary, mainly related to sample size. The faunal remains were analyzed according 78 It should be noted that the Karnut dates were obtained from to spatial and temporal context, and, unsurpris- two different types of material recovered from the same ar- ingly, sample sizes for different periods and areas chaeological context: AA-7555 was bone while AA-7787 was burnt bone (Badaljan et al. 1992). An analogous situation has varied. also arisen with dates from Gegharot. Samples AA-52898 (bo- While in most cases, the samples were suffi- ne) and AA-52899 (burnt bone) come from the same locus, but ciently large to be comparable in terms of the num- while the former falls well within an expected chronological range, the latter corresponds to the Middle Bronze Age for ber of identified specimens, several of the samples which there is no archaeological evidence at the site. This dis- were sufficiently small that characterizations of the agreement most likely testifies to a systematic error introduced minimum number of individuals would have been by the use of burnt bone for radiocarbon dating. 79 misleading. As a result, this measure is not in- Badalyan 1996. 80 From the excavations of Simonyan in 2000. cluded in this report. Kill-off patterns presented a 81 Go¨rsdorf 2004. similar challenge. Some of the assemblages were

Sample size Unidentified Identified to genus

Gegharot Early Bronze Age 6517 4455 928

Late Bronze Age Gegharot citadel 2430 457 1028

Late Bronze Age Gegharot terrace 8734 4060 2225

Late Bronze Age Tsaghkahovit citadel 8617 1251 2785

Late Bronze Age Tsaghkahovit lower town 10.296 6370 1354

Yervandid Tsaghkahovit citadel 6606 1864 1692

Yervandid Tsaghkahovit lower town 3199 789 840 Tab. 5 Tsaghkahovit Medieval 1578 368 434 Sample size and identifiability

Gegharot Early Late Bronze Age Late Bronze Age Late Bronze Age Bronze Age Gegharot citadel Gegharot terrace Tsaghkahovit lower town

Bos Cattle 39.70% 33.75% 31.82% 36.85%

Bufo Toad 2.48% 0.00% 0.00% 0.07%

Canis lupus Wolf 0.11% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Canis domesticus Dog 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.52%

Canis 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Capra Goat 1.29% 1.85% 1.80% 1.18%

Capreolus Roe deer 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Cervus Red deer 0.00% 0.68% 0.45% 0.44%

Dama Fallow deer 1.19% 0.00% 0.04% 0.00%

Equus caballus Horse 0.21% 0.01% 0.00% 0.00%

Equus asinus/hemionus Ass/onager 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Equus Horse/ass/onager 0.54% 0.97% 0.94% 2.66%

Gazella Gazelle 0.21% 0.01% 0.13% 0.14%

Lepus Hare 0.00% 0.00% 0.04% 0.00%

Martes Marten 0.11% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Meles Badger 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 1.11%

Ovis/Capra Sheep/goat 44.34% 56.13% 53.44% 49.48%

Ovis Sheep 9.49% 4.86% 10.29% 6.13%

Spermo-philus Ground squirrel 0.00% 0.19% 0.00% 0.96%

Sus Pig 0.21% 1.36% 1.03% 0.44%

Ursus Bear 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% Tab. 6a þ b Vulpes Fox 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% Number of Identified Specimens by percent sufficiently large to calculate reliable kill-off for cat- kill-off was calculated despite this handicap and tle.82 However, since many were not, these data stages which were unreliable were noted. Due to were not included here. In some cases, even sheep these sample size issues, all kill-off patterns were and goat samples were insufficiently large to be re- compiled using epiphyseal fusion data; each stage liable. In these cases, for the sake of comparability, represents a rough age of the animal (see table W).

82 See Lyman 1987 for a discussion of sample size as related to kill-off patterns.

Late Bronze Yervandid Yervandid Tsaghkahovit Age Tsaghkahovit Tsaghkahovit Tsaghkahovit Medieval citadel citadel lower town

Bos Cattle 32.53% 30.44% 35.00% 40.32%

Bufo Toad 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Canis lupus Wolf 0.00% 0.06% 0.00% 0.00%

Canis domesticus Dog 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Canis 0.00% 0.00% 0.12% 0.00%

Capra Goat 2.08% 1.77% 1.43% 1.15%

Capreolus Roe deer 0.00% 0.06% 0.00% 0.00%

Cervus Red deer 0.18% 0.53% 0.95% 1.15%

Dama Fallow deer 0.04% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Equus caballus Horse 0.00% 0.00% 1.79% 0.69%

Equus asinus/hemionus Ass/onager 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.69%

Equus Horse/ass/onager 1.83% 2.19% 3.21% 1.15%

Gazella Gazelle 0.32% 0.18% 0.00% 0.46%

Lepus Hare 0.04% 0.06% 0.00% 0.00%

Martes Marten 0.00% 0.06% 0.00% 0.00%

Meles Badger 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Ovis/Capra Sheep/goat 50.88% 48.29% 47.98% 41.93%

Ovis Sheep 10.59% 6.80% 2.26% 3.46%

Spermo-philus Ground squirrel 0.04% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00%

Sus Pig 1.47% 9.57% 6.67% 8.99%

Ursus Bear 0.00% 0.00% 0.12% 0.00%

Vulpes Fox 0.00% 0.00% 0.48% 0.00% Tab. 6b

Even with these caveats in mind, it has been possi- (Tab. 5). Sheep and goats are the most commonly ble to use the faunal data to examine some aspects represented taxa; making up more than 50% of the of political economy during various periods in the sample (Tab. 6). Although this is a higher propor- Tsaghkahovit plain. tion of sheep and goats than in the previously analyzed Early Bronze sample, it is still smaller than in later Gegharot assemblages. The sheep to goat ra- Early Bronze Age tio is the highest of all samples (7.69 : 1); a differ- Although the Early Bronze Age fauna have been ence which may be related to climate, since sheep published elsewhere,83 further analysis has in- require more and more frequent water than do creased the sample size by nearly 50%. With the goats. The ubiquity of red deer in the sample sug- increase in sample size, the observed patterns have gests that the area was more wooded than it is pre- changed somewhat but the overall picture presently. Equids are also fairly common. Of these, sented provides the same impression. Questions re- two are identifiable as domesticated horses, five garding the degree and nature of nomadism in are not identifiable. Pigs are present in extremely Kura-Araxes era communities remain at the fore- low proportions. front of Early Bronze faunal analysis. As with the Kill-off of sheep and goats also differs slightly previously published sample, a large proportion of from previously published results (see Fig. 37). Kill- the assemblage was unidentifiable, less than 15% off in the first four stages is extremely low; kill-off of the sample was identified to the level of genus in the final stage, however, is considerably higher than in previous stages. This peak was absent in the previous kill-off curve, leading to the suggestion 83 Monahan 2007. that the animals may have played a role in a pres-

Late Bronze Age

Late Bronze Age faunal assemblages have been re- Fig. 37 covered from the citadels and terraces at both Geg- Gegharot. Early and sized ruminants and two ground-squirrels (Spermo- Late Bronze Age Sheep harot and Tsaghkahovit as well as the lower town philus). The limited sample size, despite the high and Goat Kill-off at Tsaghkahovit (see above). The construction of level of identifiability, make it difficult to say any- these walled and terraced citadels in the Tsaghka- thing else definitive about this sample at present. hovit plain during the Late Bronze Age represents a Sheep and goat kill-off measures, however, dramatic shift in the ways in which power and are relatively reliable. Only two stages are too small authority were being asserted. The goals of the fau- to be reliable. These two stages (stages C and D) nal analysis are to examine the roles which animals also have high rates of kill-off compared to other and their products played in this newly organized Late Bronze assemblages; they can perhaps be dis- political economy. The construction of the citadels counted due to sample size. Given, however, that in themselves represent a sedentarization of at the final stage of kill-off is above 60% and that it is least a portion of the population following a Middle unlikely that a kill-off of more than 50% as the ani- Bronze Age traditionally assumed to have been mals reach sexual maturity would result in a repro- dominated by nomadic pastoral economies. How- ductively viable herd, this kill-off pattern, along ever, the role of pastoralism within Late Bronze Age with the lower than expected number of taxa and communities remains uncertain even though it is the predominance of large ruminants, suggests that critical to understanding the dynamics of second the inhabitants of the Gegharot citadel were being millennium BC socio-political transformations. provisioned with meat and were not actively participating in the production process. But the extremely small sample size renders this conclusion very ten- Gegharot Citadel tative. The assemblage from Late Bronze Age citadel at Gegharot was by far the smallest Late Bronze as- Gegharot Terrace semblage, but also had the highest proportion of the sample identified to the level of genus, at just Despite the fairly large sample size, the Gegharot over 40%. The assemblage is dominated by sheep terrace had unusually low number of taxa present. and goats, but the sheep to goat ratio is the lowest It also had the largest proportion of sheep and in the Late Bronze Age (2.63 : 1); it is not clear why goats of any of the analyzed samples and the high- the proportion of sheep to goats is so much lower est sheep to goat ratio in the Late Bronze Age than in the other Late Bronze assemblages. Pigs (5.88 : 1). Cattle comprised over 30% of the assem- are the third most commonly represented taxon, blage. The only other animal which was present at followed closely by equids, yet neither one of them a level of more than 1% were pigs. All other ani- make up more than 2% of the assemblage. Only mals present were large ruminants in extremely low one of the equids was identifiable as horse. The proportions. The limited range of species present in only other animals present were large to medium- this assemblage as well as the strong predomi-

the Late Bronze Age since goats are more suited to drier or over-grazed environments. Cattle are the second most commonly represented taxon at nearly one-third of the sample. No other taxon makes up more than 5% of the sample. Pigs are more common than in the Early Bronze Age, but are outnumbered by equids, none of which were distinguish- able to the level of species. The only remaining taxa were three types of large ruminants possibly hunted for meat and a single specimen of ground squirrel. The large sample of sheep and goats ensures that all of the kill-off stages have a sufficiently large sample to be reliable (Fig. 38). Kill off remains below 40% until stage D where it increases slightly, peaking at just under 60% in stage E. As with the Gegharot assemblage, this kill-off pattern, along with the lower than expected number of taxa and Fig. 38 the predominance of large ruminants, suggests that Tsaghkahovit, Citadel. nance of only three types of animals suggests that the inhabitants of the Tsaghkahovit citadel were Late Bronze Age, Iron the animals which arrived on the terrace served a being provisioned with meat and were not actively III, and Medieval period sheep and goat kill-off very specific function. participating in the pastoral production process. This conclusion is supported by kill-off; the high proportion of kill-off in the final two stages is highly suggestive of provisioning; a conclusion Tsaghkahovit Lower Town reached in an earlier analysis of a subset of this 84 sample. The earlier conclusions were reached on The Tsaghkahovit lower town had the largest ana- the basis of a survivorship curve generated on the lyzed sample, but also had the lowest proportion of basis of mandibular tooth wear; the construction of specimens identified to the level of genus. As this curve was possible because of the extremely always, sheep and goats form the majority of the high proportion of sheep and goat mandibles in the assemblage, although in a lower proportion than sample; maxillae (upper jaws) were also present in on the citadel. The sheep to goat ratio is identical larger than expected quantities. Given the presence to the Late Bronze citadel. Cattle make up more of the cultic building on this terrace, and the nature than one-third of the assemblage, a high proportion of the faunal assemblage from this area, it seems when compared to other Late Bronze samples. To- likely that many of the animals present were ritual gether these taxa comprise over 90% of the assem- offerings. blage; only equids make up more than 1%ofthe sample. Pigs make up less than 0.5% of the sample, a possible indication of a higher degree of no- Tsaghkahovit Citadel madism than in later periods. The relatively high The fauna from the Tsaghkahovit citadel is remark- proportion of small mammals, including dogs, mar- ably well-preserved – less than fifteen percent was tens and ground squirrels, may be the result of the unidentifiable – while nearly one-third of the sam- intensive screening program undertaken in the low- ple was identified to the level of genus. The sample er town excavations. Conversely, it may indicate the was strangely homogenous though. With one of the consumption of available, but not high status ani- largest sample sizes, it had fewer taxa represented mals, by the inhabitants of the lower town. than would be expected. Of the specimens identi- The low proportion of identifiable specimens fied to the level of genus, sheep and goats made along with the lower proportion of sheep and goats up the majority of the sample. Where identifiable, means that, despite the original large sample size, sheep outnumbered goats more than five to one two of the sheep and goat kill-off stages are insuffi- (5.26 : 1) a much higher sheep to goat ratio than in ciently large to be reliable. Nevertheless, the lower later periods, but lower than in the Early Bronze town kill-off pattern strongly resembles the citadel Age. This may indicate that the environment of the pattern, except that the increase in the last two plain was either wetter or less over-grazed during stages is not as high as in the citadel; kill-off never reaches 50%(Fig. 39). This suggests that the inhabitants of the Tsaghkahovit lower town were self- 84 Monahan 2004b. sufficient in terms of meat production. The peak,

Iron III Period Iron III faunal remains have been recovered in substantial numbers from both the citadel and the lower town at Tsaghkahovit (see above). Since the Iron III occupations at Tsaghkahovit appear to have Fig. 39 been simultaneous, one of the goals of faunal ana- Tsaghkahovit. Late citadel compared to the lower town. Since in all Bronze Age Lower lysis is to help define the nature of the relationship cases, however, such small mammals make up a Town and Iron III west between the inhabitants of the two parts of the minimal proportion of the sample, the loss is prob- settlement sheep and site, as well as the documenting the roles which an- ably not significant. goat kill-off imal and animal products played in the construction The sample size for sheep and goat kill-off is and maintenance of the local community. sufficiently large that only two of the kill-off stages have smaller than optimal samples (Fig. 39). Kill-off for the last two stages is extremely high, over 60%. Citadel The high proportion of kill-off in phase D may be a Just over 25% of the Iron III citadel assemblage function of the small sample size. The high propor- was identifiable to the level of genus. The majority tion of kill-off in Phase E is similar to that in the 60 of the assemblage was made up of sheep and Medieval period; with a kill-off rate of over %, goats. Where identifiable, the sheep to goat ratio shortly after the animals reach their sexual maturity, was 3.85 : 1, midway between the Medieval and however, it is unlikely that the herd was viable. It is Late Bronze Age citadel faunal assemblages. Cattle possible that the inhabitants of the Tsaghkahovit were slightly less common than in either the Late citadel were being supplied with meat. Bronze or Medieval samples, while pigs were more common. As with all the samples discussed here, Lower Town these four animals make up over 90% of the identified assemblage. Hunting played a very small role As with the citadel, the most commonly represented in the economy of all of the inhabitants of the taxa in the lower town were sheep and goats, Tsaghkahovit plain. The high proportion of pigs unlike the citadel, however, they represent just over when compared to the earlier phases may indicate 50% of the sample. The sheep to goat ratio is a higher degree of sedentism than in earlier peri- extremely low (1.59 : 1), compared to all other ods. Much of the remaining assemblage was com- phases; sheep are far less common in this sample prised of large ruminants: equids which could not than in other samples. As with most of the other be distinguished, but which were probably domesti- samples, cattle are the second most commonly re- cated horses or asses, red deer, and the only speci- presented taxon, followed by pigs. As with the cita- men of Capreolus (roe deer) found in the plain. The del sample, pigs are more frequent than in the ear- latter two were probably hunted for their meat. lier periods. These four taxa, however, make up a Another unique specimen was the single wolf speci- smaller portion of the sample than any of the other men. The relative paucity of smaller mammals com- samples. A higher than usual proportion of equids pared to the Iron III west settlement and Late may provide part of the explanation for this, just Bronze Age lower town samples may be the result over 1/3 of which were identified as domesticated of the low proportion of screened deposits on the horses. Given that Armenia is known from historical

sources as a provider of horses to the Achaemenid faunal remains from this time period, then, provide empire,85 it seems likely that these animals were a unique glimpse into daily life. 1 used for transportation and exchange rather than Just over 4 of the sample was identifiable to consumption. There is also a higher than expected the level of genus . Of these sheep and goats were proportion of red deer in the faunal assemblage the most commonly represented taxa followed clo- which may have been hunted for food. The lower sely by cattle. Among identifiable sheep and goats, town sample also contains a surprisingly high pro- the sheep to goat ratio was 3.03 : 1; a slightly, portion of carnivores such as canids, bears and fox; though not significantly higher proportion of goats these animals are rarely hunted specifically for than in either the earlier citadel occupations at the food, but rather may have been killed in order to site. This may indicate a gradual drying out or over- keep the inhabitants of the settlement safe, or grazing of the plain, goats being better suited to hunted for sport by an upper class with time for desiccated conditions than sheep. Pigs comprise al- leisure activities. most 10% of the sample, an extremely large pro- Due to the low proportion of sheep and goats portion when compared to the samples from the in the samples, only a single stage in the kill-off two other eras represented on the citadel. This may curve is sufficiently large to be reliable (Fig. 39). indicate the Medieval inhabitants of Tsaghkahovit Nevertheless, the kill-off curve is similar to that were less mobile than previous occupants of the from the citadel, with a single spike in the final site. It may also suggest that food was being used stage. At the very least this evidence suggests that to separate practitioners of different religions given the inhabitants of the west settlement were not that the Medieval period in Armenia marks the providing the citadel with meat. adoption of Christianity as the national religion. Analysis of the Iron III period faunal remains Among Christians pigs were not considered taboo, from the west settlement is on-going. Augmenting in contrast to many other Near Eastern religions. the size of the assemblage will provide for a more Conspicuous consumption of pigs, then, may have direct comparison between areas within the Iron III served to mark these communities of Christians as occupation at Tsaghkahovit. In addition, calculation distinct from their neighbors. Equids are present in of cattle kill-off and tooth-based sheep and goat extremely low proportions. As with all of the sam- survivorship will allow a comparison with the extant ples, identification to the level of equid species sheep and goat survivorship which may provide was attempted only on teeth. Of the six teeth pre- more information about the production and distri- sent, three had evidence of caballine morphology, bution of animals and their associated commod- three did not. These may be either onagers or do- ities. Examination of body part representation and mesticated asses, most likely the latter. The only butchery practices may ultimately provide details other animals present are a few red deer and ga- not only about the distribution of meat within and zelles, almost certainly hunted for their meat. between different areas of the site, but may also The sample size for sheep and goats was too help clarify epiphyseal fusion based kill-off pat- small to examine kill-off patterns. Yet to facilitate terns. It may also allow for an analysis of the de- comparison with other time periods, a kill-off curve gree of specialization of labor among butchers and was constructed. Sample size issues render this curve herders. Using all of these lines of evidence should extremely difficult to interpret. The only stage in which provide a clearer picture of the nature of Iron III po- the sample approached a sufficient size was stage E. litical economy. The proportion of kill-off in this phase is roughly what one would expect from a strategy in which all of the males are being killed as they begin to reach their full Medieval Period size, a strategy in which local meat consumption was likely the focus of herding strategy. This suggests that The Medieval period has been found only in iso- the Medieval inhabitants of Tsaghkahovit were self- lated patches on the Tsaghkahovit citadel; due to sufficient in terms of meat consumption, neither sup- the limited exposures the faunal sample from this plying nor being supplied by someone else. More- period is by far the smallest. The Medieval deposits over, it suggests that their animal herding practices from Tsaghkahovit are dated by a single radiocar- were focused on a subsistence economy rather than bon date and a coin to the 5th–14th centuries A.D being specialized in the production of wool or milk. (Smith et al. 2004 and above). Despite extensive ar- These conclusions, however, must remain tentative chaeological investigations at Medieval sites such given the extremely small sample size. as Dvin, Vagharshapat, and Ani, comparatively little The lack of robust medieval levels at sites is known about the era’s productive economy. The currently under investigation by Project ArAGATS has to date restricted our view on this period. Fu- 85 e.g. Strabo XI.14.9; Xenophon Anabasis IV.5. ture research at Medieval sites in the Tsaghkahovit

Conclusions It is evident that faunal analysis is proving to be an area of fruitful research for Project ArAGATS. Exam- ination of number of identified specimens and kill- off patterns for sheep and goats indicates that the Fig. 40 political economy of the Tsaghkahovit plain varied nutlets of Nonea pulla were documented from Concentration of carpo- 87 logical material inside considerably over time. During the Medieval period Elar. Archaeobotanical finds from Tsaghkasar in- 100 g soil and Early Bronze Age, the sites appear to have clude Euphorbia, Scleranthus and Chenopodium been relatively self-sufficient in terms of meat pro- species and some poorly preserved grains of barley duction. This is not true for either the Iron III period and wheat.88 The situation was somewhat better at or the Late Bronze Age. During the Iron III period, the sites of Aparan III, Aygevan, Shengavit and Vos- neither the citadel nor the west settlement appears kevaz. Naked wheat and barley were found in to have been practicing a self-sustaining herding Early/Middle Bronze Age layers of the settlement at strategy. Animals, either live or in the form of meat, Aygevan (barley predominates in all the samples).89 must have been provided for the inhabitants of the Ghandilyan also examined the vessel contents from site. Where those animals were coming from and Aparan III, identifying two and six-rowed barleys, what the impetus for the provisioning may have bread wheat, and club wheat.90 The purity of grain been remains to be determined. Evidence for social mass in the Aparan III samples is notable – only differentiation also appears in the faunal record. Hordeum murinum is reported as a weed. Only During the Iron III period, the west settlement may wheat species were reported from Voskevaz: Triti- have housed the more elite area of the site while cum aestivum, T. compactum, T. cf. spelta, T. dicoc- during the Late Bronze Age, the lower town appears cum.91 Lastly, large quantities of Triticum sphaero- to have been largely autonomous in terms of ani- coccum and round grained six-rowed barley were mal production. The Tsaghkahovit citadel, conver- reported from Early Bronze Age Shengavit.92 sely shows fairly strong evidence for having been supplied with meat during the Late Bronze Age, as do both the citadel and the terrace at Gegharot. As Methods and Materials with the Iron III settlement, the organization and As noted above, the 2006 excavations at Gegharot authority under which this provisioning took place uncovered Early Bronze Age domestic floors in op- is not well understood. Further analysis and integra- erations T17 and T18 littered with charred macro- tion of the faunal data with other archaeological da- botanical remains. Four samples were taken from 3 tasets will provide answers to many of the remain- locations for paleobotanical analysis: T18 locus 32 ing questions. (an Early Bronze Age pit), T18 locus 13 (an Early Bronze floor), and two samples from T17 locus 104 (an adjacent Early Bronze floor). A total of 12.2 kg Appendix 2: The palaeobotanical remains of soil was analyzed. The plant remains were sepa- from Early Bronze Age Gegharot rated from the soil by flotation using sieves with by Roman Hovsepyan 0.25 mm mesh (since most of the plant remains were charred, wet sieving was ineffective). The se- At present, seven Early Bronze Age archaeological parated plant remains were comprised almost en- sites in Armenia have yielded well-preserved macro- tirely by well-preserved, charred grain material. Ap- botanical remains: Aparan III, Aygevan, Elar, Mokh- 87 rablur, Shengavit, Tsaghkasar, Voskevaz. Only nut- Khanzadyan 1979. 88 Hovsepyan 2006a. lets of Lithospermum arvense were recorded from 89 86 Gandilyan 1997 Mokhrablur, while unidentified cereal grains and 90 `º' 2003. 91 Janushevich 1984. 86 92 Areshyan 1979. ' 1944; 1948.

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) 98 R. Badalyan et al. 4 4 6 3 6 4 6 5 7 4 3 8 6 1 3 8 2 9 3 5 6 5 7 8 4 2 7 0 1 ...... 89 2 Average % . 471 93 938 97 083 12 403 87 423 , , , , units 010 04310 213 410 420 813 0 292 71 4912 010 430 21 0458 8189 6 467 3 010 040 0 109 30 2 239 2 812 0808 7327 31915 410 020 473 031 030 0 410 ...... (II) All samples 100 512 . 104 /L 10 0 10 17 550 95 560 95 439 92 , , , 61 000 600 011 81 811 6 10 100 511 000 711 2 112 7 200 145 800 400 94058 2694 91 500 068 034 011 700 211 700 000 4 011 ...... 1 ...... (I) T 97 60 . 104 /L 17 T 860 92 129 97 662 95 , , , 262 34 000 472 000 85 010 7 163 60 532 000 021 3 204 4 4228 165 5 269 5 010 110 06655 2 118 2 84 57427 02622 300 000 020 154 021 000 6 000 ...... 65 13 52 . /L 18 61 019 98 112 99 587 92 , , , 400 23234 000 56 000 74952 0545 100 000 8 436 7 955 119 1931 000 111 300 5110 75 066 000 7327 000 000 019 400 7 300 000 ...... 94 /pit EB T 63 . 5 32 44 00 00 00 11 00 717 00 22 37 00 00 00 00 00 12 30 12 00 /L 70 73 18 18 95 8 41 3 13 31 90 137 96 331 31 716 68 042 88.5 6 18 , , T Units % Units % Units % Units % Total 1 1 (Perc.) MacKey vulgare (Host) MacKey (L.) Thell. (L.) Koern. convar. (Vill) MacKey convar. spelta L. vulgare monococcum vulgare compactum distichon distichon sphaerococcum small (some mm lenght) grained cf. L. /turgidum L. L. (L.) Johnst. L. L. L. aestivum monococcum spurium cf. aparinae Asperula sp. Secale sp. cf. Poaceae gen. sp.1 Thlaspi sp. Triticum aestivum Poaceae gen. sp.2 Hordeum vulgare Rumex sp. Hyoscyamus sp. Galium G. Bromus sp. cf. Lolium sp. Buglossoides arvensis Triticum/Aegilops sp. Chenopodium sp. cf. Locus Crops Mass of samples (kg) Family Genus Species Subspecies Brassicaceae Brassicaceae Brassicaceae gen. sp. Gramineae Polygonaceae Solanaceae Rubiaceae Weeds Poaceae Boraginaceae Chenopodiaceae

proximately 15,000 carbonized grains, seeds and fruits of flowering plants were recovered (Tab. 7). 9 9 4 4 1 0 ...... The concentration of common carpological material

2 40 Average % . varied between samples (Fig. ). The recovered carpological material was then observed and identified under a light microscope 177 ,

units (x15-100) utilizing both standard reference works and a comparative reference collection of modern 93 2177 930 410 410 044 031 ...... carpological material from Armenia. The nomen-

(II) All samples clature and taxonomy forwarded by Lukjanova et al. 512

. and Zohary and Hopf were applied to barleys and 104

/L wheats, while the system developed by Czerepanov 17 629 14 , and Erhardt et al. was applied to the remains of wild plants.94 557 822 011 011 000 700 ...... (I) T Results and discussion 60 . 104 /L

17 The predominant mass of the recovered materials T 247 1 , represents cereal grains with some mixture of weed seeds and fragments of charcoal (Tab. 8). The cer- 032 010 000 000 100 021 96 100 ...... eal grains, which comprise about – %ofthe carpological material, primarily consists of barley 13 52 . /L with a mixture of wheat grains (i.e., mixed cultiva- 18 tion of cereals was employed) (Fig. 41). The extraor- 123 5 , dinary preservation of the seeds appears to have been in large measure a result of burning, marked 000 000 000 000 319 400 ...... by swollen, cracked and deformed grains (Fig. 42). The barley grains from the samples belong to /pit EB T 63 . 5 32 cultivated, hulled varieties of Hordeum vulgare. The 922 00 00 00 37 12 /L presence of lateral asymmetric grains (less than 2/3 178 6 18 , T Units % Units % Units % Units % Total 1 21in all 175 samples) suggests 202 that two 326 hulled subspecies 116 of common barley represented in the samples include hulled two-rowed barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. distichon convar. distichon) and hulled six- rowed barley (H. vulgare subsp. vulgare convar. vulgare). Two-rowed subspecies predominate in all samples (Tab. 7). Barley is known to have been cultivated in southern Caucasia since the Neolithic period (early 6th millennium BC) thanks to remains from sites such as Aratashen and Aknashen in the Ararat plain. However, almost all of the samples of barley recovered from Neolithic and Eneolithic con- 95 g soil texts are primarily naked varieties. Hulled barley L. 100 varieties appear to have been cultivated beginning only in the Early Bronze Age. Today, only hulled barleys are cultivated in Armenia. arvensis

cf. The wheat grains from the Gegharot samples are more heterogeneous. They comprise about 0.6–8.4%(4% in average) of the grain mass of the samples (Tab. 7). This ratio was probably optimal Vaccaria sp. Convolvulus Salvia/Stachys sp. (e.g., the wheat admixture within a barley crop sample from Urartian Karmir Blur comprised ap-

93 ˜Æı 1961; ı' 1954–2001; Zohary/Hopf 2000. 94 1995; Erhardt et al. 2000; ¸Œ' Ł . 1990; 7 Zohary/Hopf 2000. Locus Mass of samples (kg) Total Caryophyllaceae Family Genus Species Subspecies Concentration of carpological material inside Convolvulaceae Lamiaceae Cyperaceae Cyperaceae gen. sp. Fabaceae Fabaceae gen. sp. Unidentified (different species) 95 Hovsepyan 2004; Hovsepyan 2006b; Hovsepyan 2006c. Tab. The list of recovered plants and quantities of finds

Locus T18/L32/pit EB T18/L13 T17/L104 (I) T17/L104 (II) Total n Average %

Cereal n % n % n % n %

Barley 1,042 91.6 6,019 98.5 4,860 94.8 1,550 99.4 13,471 96.1

Wheat 95 8.4 93 1.5 269 5.2 10 0.6 467 3.9

Total cereal grains 1,137 100.06,112 100.05,129 100.01,560 100.013,938 100.0

Tab. 8 Wheat/barley grains ratio in studied samples proximately 5 % of the total grain mass,96 1,3%in the Gegharot samples are known since the Neolithic a sample from Urartian Argishtihinili, and 1–20%in and Eneolithic period sites.98 The identified species 3rd–2nd millennia BC layers from Aygevan.97 The have a wide geographic distribution across Eurasia wheat grains belong primarily to various subspecies and have been recorded from an array of environ- of bread wheat (Triticum aestivum). The following ments, including semi-deserts, steppes and mea- subspecies of bread wheat were identified amongst dows.99 wheat grains: common bread wheat (Triticum aesti- No awns, rachis, glumes, complete ears or vum subsp. vulgare), club wheat (T. aestivum ssp. spikelets were detected in the samples, suggesting compactum), round-grained wheat (T. aestivum ssp. that the recovered samples belonged to a pro- sphaerococcum). Two grains (T17/L104 (I), Tab. 7) cessed and cleaned crop which was ready for use seem to be Triticum aestivum subsp. spelta. One at the time the settlement was abandoned. Char- grain of einkorn (Triticum monococcum) was found coal fragments are rare in the samples and most as well (T18 locus 32). likely come from the soil. The purity of the crop While no other cultigens were found, the sam- (barley and wheat) is very high, even in comparison ples from Gegharot did include a small number of with modern evaluations. According to modern eva- seeds (0.2–3.9% of the total carpological material) luations of crop material, the samples from T18 lo- from approximately 20 taxa of weeds. Representa- cus 32 and T17 locus 104 would be evaluated as tives of Galium, Bromus, Lolium, and Rumex genera third class in quality (the purity of the sample from are predominant amongst the weed seeds. The pre- T17 locus 104 is slightly lower, approximately 96%) sence of seeds and fruits of Buglossoides arvensis, while the sample from T18 locus 13 would be as- Vaccaria sp., Hyoscyamus sp., Chenopodium sp., sessed as a first class crop (Tab. 7).100 Thlaspi sp., Convolvulus cf. arvensis, lamiaceous, This level of crop purity could only be cyperaceous, and fabaceous plants are less com- achieved through the application of periodic agro- mon in crop material and are rather rare to find. technical procedures (e.g. the removal of weeds The main species/genera of weeds repre- from fields) or/and by an accurate selective harvest. sented in the Gegharot samples are quite typical Although similarly pure crops were previously 101 Fig. 41 for archaeological sites across Armenia and south- known from the Early Bronze Age site Aparan III 102 Concentration of ern Caucasia. In Armenia, the weedy plants from and the Urartian site of Karmir-Blur, the data cereals and weeds from Gegharot indicate that agricultural villages as inside samples early as the early 3rd millennium BC already pos- sessed the technical skills necessary to produce very pure crops. Interestingly, the varying ratios of weed to crop seeds as well as the evident hetero- geneity of the crops and weeds represented in each sample, strongly suggests that the samples were collected from different fields. Given the large quantity of grain harvesting and processing tools recovered from Gegharot’s Early Bronze Age layers, continuing investigations of the social-technology of agricultural production promise to yield new insights into the nature of

98 Hovsepyan, 2004; Hovsepyan 2006b; Hovsepyan 2006c. 99 ı' 1954-2001; Mkrtchyan 2003. 100 Gjulkhasyan et al. 1975. 96 101 ' 1948. Examined by P. A. Ghandilyan (see `º' 2003). 97 102 Gandilyan 1997. ˇŁæŒŁØ 1950; ' 1948.

Acknowledgments

The 2003–2006 research of Project ArAGATS was supported by grants from The National Science Foundation (grant no. 0507370), The Dolores Zoh- rab Liebmann Fund, The National Geographic So- ciety (#7804-05), The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (ICRG-47), and the Ameri- can Councils for International Education (ACTR/AC- CELS)/National Endowment for the Humanities Collaborative Research Grant program. Investiga- tions in Tsaghkahovit’s lower towns were supported by NSF dissertation grants awarded to Ian Lindsay (BCS-0327043) and Lori Khatchadourian (BCS- 0624877). Lindsay’s 2005 research was also supported by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation (#7194). Khatchadourian’s 2005 research was also assisted by a grant from the Eurasia Program of the Social Science Research with funds provided by the U.S. Department of State under the Program for Re- search and Training on Eastern Europe and the In- dependent States of the Former Soviet Union and by a summer research grant from the Center for Russian and East European Studies and the Arme- nian Studies Program at the University of Michigan. We extend our gratitude to these organizations for their support. In addition to the authors of this report, the 2003–06 Project ArAGATS field teams included Eliza- beth Fagan, Alan Greene, Armine Hayrapetyan, Ar- mine Harutyunyan, Maureen Marshall, Madeleine McLeester, Belinda Monahan, Dmitri Narimanishvili, Jennifer Piro, and Laura Popova. We want to particularly thank Hasmik Sargsyan, our project artist and Fig. 42 architect, for her hard work and dedication, and Ru- 1–7. Charred grains of wheats: 1–3. Triticum aestivum ssp. vulgare; 4. T. aestivum ssp. zan Mkrtchyan for her assistance with human osteo- sphaerococcum; 5–7. T. aestivum, small grained (Tr. 17, ˜104); 8–10: Charred grains of barley 8 18 13 9 10 9 10 logical materials. Our warm appreciation is also ex- (Hordeum vulgare); . middle grain (Tr. , ˜ ); – . lateral grains, right grain, left grain (Tr. 18, ˜32, pit EB). – 11–16: Weeds; 11. charred grains of Lolium sp. (Tr. 17, ˜104, I); tended to Vartan Vartanyan, Lilit Manukyan, and 12–13. Galium charred mericarpia halves, 12 Galium aparine type, 13 Galium spurium type (Tr. Lena Atoyan for their help with the restoration and 17, ˜104); 14 charred seed of Thlaspi sp. (Tr. 17, ˜104); 15 mineralized nutlets of Buglossides conservation of the finds from Gegharot and Tsagh- arvensis (Tr. 17, ˜ 104); 16 charred seeds of unidentified cruciferous plant (Tr. 17, ˜ 104). v – ventral side view, l – lateral side view, d – dorsal side view kahovit. Thanks are also due to Inessa Karapetyan, Goderzi Narimanishvili, and Mkrtich Zardaryan for sharing with us their extensive knowledge of the archaeological materials of the region. The authors want to extend their thanks to Aram Kalantaryan, for- Bibliography mer Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Eth- nography, Armenian Academy of Sciences, Yerevan Areshyan 1979 for his support of our investigations. Lastly, we wish G. E. Areshyan, Nor nyut’er Hayastani m.t’.a. 3-rd haza- to thank the members of our field crews from Geg- ramyaki erkragorcakan tekhnikakan kulturaneri masin. harot and Tsaghkahovit villages for their energy and In: B. N. Arakelian (ed.), Haykakan SSH-um 1977–1978 skill and our friends and hosts in Aparan for their un- t’t’. dashtayin hnagitakan ashkhatank’neri ardyunk’nerin flagging support and hospitality. nvirvats zekutsumneri t’ezisner (Yerevan 1979) 12–14.

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Ruben Badalyan Kelsey Museum of Archaeology Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography The University of Michigan of the National Academy of Sciences 434 S. State St. of the Republic of Armenia Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109 15, Charentsi str., Yerevan, 0025 Armenia E-Mail: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Pavel Avetsiyan Adam T. Smith Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography University of Chicago of the National Academy of Sciences Department of Anthropology of the Republic of Armenia 1126 E 59th St. 15, Charentsi str., Yerevan, 0025 Armenia Chicago IL 60637 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected]

Roman Hovsepyan Ian Lindsay Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Purdue University of the National Academy of Sciences of Department of Sociology and Anthropology the Republic of Armenia 700 W State St. 15, Charentsi str., Yerevan, 0025 Armenia West Lafayette IN 47907 Email: [email protected] E-Mail: [email protected]

Belinda Monahan Lori Khatchadourian 7430 N. Ridge Blvd. University of Michigan Chicago, IL 60645 Interdisciplinary Program in Classical Art and Archaeology E-Mail: [email protected]

Summary —

This preliminary report details the findings of three field ˝æ'øŁØ æº' æß ºß seasons of excavations conducted by Project ArAGATS be- Æ, ßı '-ŁŒæŒØ ýŒæŁŁØ tween 2003 and 2006 at the multi-component sites of Œı ˇŒ ArAGATS 2003, 2005–2006 ªª. Gegharot and Tsaghkahovit on central Armenia’s Tsaghka- ªæºØßı 'ŁŒı Æª Ł ºª hovit Plain. These investigations have exposed stratified Œ ıŒŁæŒØ Łß ıŒŁ Ł ˆı occupation sequences and rich material assemblages from ºØ æŁ ŁŁŁ —æÆºŁŒŁ Ł'. the late fourth through the mid-first millennia B.C. With —æŒŒŁ ß'ŁºŁ æºæŒŁ æºŁ æ ŁºßŁ, Ł- settlement levels and mortuary remains from the Early æßŁ Ł ŒºßŁ æØŒŁ, æøŁ- Bronze Age, Late Bronze Age, and the Iron III (Achaeme- Ł ÆªßØ Ł ÆßØ Ł, Œ nid), excavations at the two sites have yielded remarkably ªÆºß ŒºŒæß ª Æª (Œ-Œ- intact material culture repertoires that provide a robust æŒ' Œº), ª Æª (ºł-æ- foundation for revising current archaeological sequences Œ' Œº) Ł ºª ('æŒŁØ/ı- and outlining local institutions and regional interactions ŁæŒŁØ Ł) Œ. ÝŁ Łºß æ' that shaped the South Caucasian socio-political landscape. ºß ŒŒŁß ŒŁ æŁºßı, - ºŁŁæŒŁı Ł ýŒŁæŒŁı ææ, ŁłŁı æ- ªŁ æ æŁß IV æŁß I ß- æ'ºŁ' . ý. Ł' Łªºßı º' ºŁ Œ þ æŁþ ŁŁ- Ł-ıºªŁæŒØ łŒºß Œ-ŒæŒŁı - Łº ŁŁ.

2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType) 2091448 AMIT Band 40/2008 Trennprogr.: DeutschNeu u:/p_1/ai/18ai_v2/003/18ai003u.3d Stand vom: 22.5.2009 Satzprogramm: 3B2, in Universal CS3 bearbeitet insgesamt 62 Seiten Bearb.: Lier Verwendete Schrift: Meta (TrueType)