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The nature of political complexity in the Caucasus has emerged as a significant research question in Near Eastern archaeology. Until recently, archaeological developments in Azerbaijan have been left out of this discussion. Two seasons of survey and excavation undertaken by the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences and the University of Pennsylva...
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Context 1
... beyond the plain, however, in the low- intensity landscape of the steppe, the remains of for- tresses and cemeteries are numerous, composing an Iron Age landscape ( fig. 3). The fortified settlements are most likely related to defense and administration; their relationship to one another can provide some insight into the political organization of this region. Four fortresses with material from the Middle and Late Iron Age, located immediately northeast of Oğlanqala, were surveyed in 2006 by the authors ...
Context 2
... ceramics, their juxtaposition with two of the Iron Age fortresses may indicate an Iron Age date. Farther north, less than 1 km from the Arme- nian border, two other fortresses have been reported. Although it has not been possible to visit them, GIS analysis suggests that they would also have been inter- visible with the documented fortresses (see fig. 3). 13 The fortresses nearest Oğlanqala range in size from 1.6-3.0 ha and may form a lower tier in a settlement 9 Kashkai and Aliev 1945;Geografi i Institut Azerbaidzhanskoi SSR 1968;Azizbekov 1973;Coene 2010. 10 Talibov 2008 See the results of the fi rst three years of excavation at the fi fth-fourth millennium site of Ovçulartəpəsi in ...
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Citations
... In Nakhchivan il sito principale è il grande insediamento fortificato di Oğlan Qala, il quale pare solo brevemente abbandonato dopo il VII secolo a.C. Il livello successivo di occupazione risale Armeniaca e-ISSN 2974-6051 2, 2023, 9-38 28 intorno alla fine del V secolo a.C., quando una grande sala colonnata viene costruita sopra il cortile precedente (Ristvet et al. 2012). ...
This article aims to provide a general overview of settlement patterns in Armenia and neighbouring areas from the Early Bronze Age to Early Hellenistic times. The southern Caucasus presents unique features. For those approaching the subject for the first time, this paper aims to summarise the primary evidence for the development and transformation of the human landscape. Starting from the 4th millennium BC, it is possible to trace the outlines of a general process of sedentarisation of communities on the highlands, which took different forms and characteristics. Mobile villages dominated the Bronze Age settlement structure. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the highlands were characterised by a general development of fortified settlements, generally referred to as ‘cyclopean fortresses’, which will also be one of the main features of the later Kingdom of Urartu. Following the two centuries of Achaemenid rule, with its elusive settlement pattern, the last centuries of the 1st millennium saw the spread of Greek culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors. With the creation of large urban sites based on Hellenistic models, the concept and structure of the Mediterranean city spread across Armenia and adjacent areas.
... In Nakhchivan il sito principale è il grande insediamento fortificato di Oğlan Qala, il quale pare solo brevemente abbandonato dopo il VII secolo a.C. Il livello successivo di occupazione risale Armeniaca e-ISSN 2974-6051 2, 2023, 9-38 28 intorno alla fine del V secolo a.C., quando una grande sala colonnata viene costruita sopra il cortile precedente (Ristvet et al. 2012). ...
This article aims to provide a general overview of settlement patterns in Armenia and neighbouring areas from the Early Bronze Age to Early Hellenistic times. The southern Caucasus presents unique features. For those approaching the subject for the first time, this paper aims to summarise the primary evidence for the development and transformation of the human landscape. Starting from the 4th millennium BC, it is possible to trace the outlines of a general process of sedentarisation of communities on the highlands, which took different forms and characteristics. Mobile villages dominated the Bronze Age settlement structure. By the end of the 2nd millennium BC, the highlands were characterised by a general development of fortified settlements, generally referred to as ‘cyclopean fortresses’, which will also be one of the main features of the later Kingdom of Urartu. Following the two centuries of Achaemenid rule, with its elusive settlement pattern, the last centuries of the 1st millennium saw the spread of Greek culture following the conquests of Alexander the Great and his successors. With the creation of large urban sites based on Hellenistic models, the concept and structure of the Mediterranean city spread across Armenia and adjacent areas.
... NAP's research has focused on the archaeology of the Şərur Plain, a fertile alluvial plain in the Araxes River basin watered by the Araxes River and the Arpaçay, its tributary (Bahşeliyev [Bakhshaliyev] et al., 2019;Ristvet et al., 2012). The plain is located in the northwest corner of the Autonomous Republic of Naxçıvan and is bordered on its western and eastern edges by low hills. ...
... Qızqala is the local name for architectural remains perched atop a 90-meter-high hill on the north edge of the Şərur Plain. It overlooks the west side of the Arpaçay Gorge, and is directly across from the fortress of Oğlanqala (Ristvet et al., 2012(Ristvet et al., , 2013. We have extended the name to include the archaeological site at the base of the hill which extends onto the plain (Fig. 2). ...
... No pig remains were identified in the assemblages at Qızqala. Pigs are rarely incorporated as stock animals in the region, though they do appear in small quantities in IA 2, 3, and 4 deposits at nearby Oğlanqala (Lau, n.d.;Ristvet et al., 2012). Pigs are ill-suited for longer-distance transhumance and thus do not typically form a major component of semi-mobile or mobile pastoralists' herds in the broader region. ...
Excavations at the site of Qızqala in the Şərur Rayon of Azerbaijan’s Autonomous Republic of Naxçıvan have yielded evidence of a fortified settlement occupied from the Middle Bronze through the Early Iron Ages (2500–800 BCE), as well as a rich mortuary landscape of monumental kurgan burials dating to the Middle Bronze Age. This study describes the combined faunal and macrobotanical evidence for agropastoral production from the settlement at Qızqala and from animal offerings incorporated into nearby contemporaneous mortuary contexts. Such data provide a unique opportunity to elucidate the underlying subsistence system supporting the inhabitants at Qızqala, and to compare this system with the choices ancient people made when interring their dead in the nearby kurgans. While this dataset is modest, our goal is to integrate both plant and animal data stemming from different types of social practices in order to draw a more holistic view of agropastoral production and ritual practice during this period.
... LIX, fig. 3), Kol Pat (surface) (Hakobyan 2002: 291, Pl. 6.6), and Oglanqala (Ristvet et al. 2012: 20.7). ...
This paper advances an interpretive pottery typology for the northern Near Eastern highlands during early historical periods, or the mid-7 th to late 4 th centuries B.C. The study represents an effort to integrate intuitive approaches to pottery classification that use vessel form and surface appearance as discrimi-nant criteria with a consideration of craft technology as meaningful social practice. The central Armenian settlement of Tsaghkahovit provides the vantage for these investigations. Nine seasons of excavations at the site yielded a ceramic assemblage that bears upon three phases in the archaeology of the Iron Age: the enigmatic mid-7 th to mid-6 th century, the early Achaemenid period (ca. 550-430 B.C.) and the last Achaemenid century (ca. 430-330 B.C.). The paper offers an appraisal of pottery typology in each of these phases and examines stylistic shifts through the lens of craft learning. The primary concern is to discern those forces residing within the domain of pottery production that drove perceived typological changes in the mountainous region encompassing what is today northern Iran, eastern Turkey, and the South Caucasus. A catalogue of the Tsaghkahovit pottery corpus is included.
... This is of considerable significance, as it allows the development of a more refined pottery typology for the period that can reveal technological and social changes across the centuries of Achaemenid Persian rule in its northern province (Khatchadourian in press). When examined in the context of other emerging radiometric dating programmes in the region-at Oglanqala (Ristvet et al. 2012), for example-it becomes possible to envision a more rigorous archaeological understanding of early historic periods in the South Caucasus (Figure 10). ...
The South Caucasus occupies the divide between ancient Mesopotamia and prehistoric Europe, and was thus crucial in the development of Old World societies. Chronologies for the region, however, have lacked the definition achieved in surrounding areas. Concentrating on the Tsaghkahovit Plain of north-western Armenia, Project ArAGATS's multi-site radiocarbon dataset has now produced Bayesian modelling, which provides tight chronometric support for tracing the transmission of technology, population movement and social developments that shaped the Eurasian Bronze and Iron Ages.
Since the fifth century BCE Achaemenid jewelry, gold and silver vessels, glass, and seals are abundant in the Caucasus. Imports as well as local imitations signify an impressive process of acculturation. Genuine Achaemenid architecture at several sites demonstrates Persian presence. Some structures in Azerbaijan closely copy models from Persepolis.
Current debates about pastoralists’ role in the development of complex forms of political organization in the ancient Near East and the Caucasus revolve around questions about pastoralist production and mobility. This study investigates sheep birth seasonality at Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 b.c.) sites in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia, using δ18O data from the incremental analysis of tooth enamel and zooarchaeological age at death data. Incorporating age at death data in sampling and analysis, and analyzing larger datasets, makes it possible to use birth seasonality data to examine the organization of pastoralist production, labor, and mobility. Analysis reveals that sheep were born across multiple seasons (80% of the annual cycle) in the Tsaghkahovit Plain and that there are significant differences in the birth seasonality of sheep slaughtered at different ages. The data suggest that herders in the Tsaghkahovit Plain were actively manipulating sheep reproduction by both constraining and expanding it.
Isotopic methods of studying the geographic and seasonal movements of herd animals provide new data pertinent to ongoing scholarly re-consideration of the relationships between pastoralist mobility and the development of new forms of political organization. Radiogenic strontium and mass-dependent oxygen and carbon isotope analysis on a large sample of herd animals (sheep, goats, and cattle) from Late Bronze Age (1500–1100 BC) sites in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia indicate that long-distance movements across geological zones were not common, but that animals were drinking from a range of water sources. Connecting this variation to movement is complicated by limited intra-tooth variation in δ¹³C values. Data from the study provide preliminary evidence for foddering. These results reveal a gap between the emphasis on mobility in theoretical models of pastoralism and political organization and the way that animal diets mediate isotopic proxies for movement. These interpretive difficulties emphasize the need to consider herds’ seasonal and geographic movement within a wider range of pastoralist practices. These findings also highlight the need for large sample sizes in isotopic investigations of pastoralist mobility, in order to accurately identify and evaluate the diversity in both geographic and seasonal movements within a single ancient pastoralist system.
Bronze and Iron Age fortresses in South Caucasia have long been interpreted as evidence for the region's first territorial polities with complex bureaucracies, but it has only been through recent intensive survey and examination of settlements beside fortresses that archaeologists have developed a better understanding of the inhabitants of fortress-polities and their landscapes. Near-surface geophysical prospection near two hillforts overlooking the Arpaçay river valley, Naxçıvan Autonomous Republic, Azerbaijan, evaluated previously published hypotheses about Bronze and Iron Age fortresses. These two forts, Oğlanqala, a 12-hectare hilltop fortress inhabited in the Iron Age, and Qızqala 1, a 2-hectare fort with Middle Bronze Age and Iron Age pottery, were previously documented through survey and excavations as part of the Naxçıvan Archaeological Project (NAP). Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic gradiometry surveys focused on areas of potential significance identified in the NAP. Magnetic gradiometry survey in the plain between Oğlanqala and Qızqala located a fortification wall segment that connects to previously recorded surface features argued to date to the Middle Iron Age; the path of this wall lends support to the hypothesis that it enclosed least 324 ha surrounding Oğlanqala and Qızqala and limited access to a narrow mountain pass and fertile lands in the river valley. Geophysical prospection at a settlement site on a bedrock shelf near Qızqala 1 suggests that architectural remains are preserved within part of the large enclosure. Geophysical prospection elsewhere in the alluvial plain did not reveal evidence for preserved architecture within or outside of the hypothesized enclosure, though this could be a result of soil conditions. Magnetic gradiometry of a Middle Bronze Age kurgan field outside of the enclosure identified the potential locations of burials that were not identified during surface survey. New sources of historical satellite imagery aided interpretation of geophysics results from highly-disturbed alluvial areas.
