Settlement system and hydrology of the southern slopes of the Mount Aragats and the problem of Vishap stone stelae//Vishap between fairy tale and reality, Yerevan 2019, pp. 625-637 (in armenian, with russian and english summary) (original) (raw)
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In: Natur und Kult in Anatolien, Viertes Wissenschaftliches Netzwerk an der Abteilung Istanbul des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, edited by Benjamin Engels, Sabine Huy and Charles Steitler, 283-302, 2019
This paper deals with prehistoric stone stelae called »vishaps« or »dragon stones«. Vishaps are impressive basalt stelae sculpted with animal reliefs. They originally stood upright in secluded, water-rich, high-altitude meadows in the mountains of East Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, and the Azerbaijani exclave Nakhichevan. Since 2012 an Armenian-German-Italian team has been conducting field research in modern Armenia, primarily in the Geghama Mountains and on Mount Aragats, in order to understand who produced these monuments in a seemingly remote and hidden setting, when and why. Though cardinal questions related to vishaps remain open, it is argued in this paper that dragon stones were monuments integrated into prehistoric sacred landscapes bestowing specific significance to mountain peaks and water springs, certainly pre-dating the Late Bronze Age and perhaps going back as early as the Chalcolithic period.
Landscape archaeology study of the Urartian presence in the Lake Sevan Region, Armenia
2003
A landscape archaeology study concerning the Lake Sevan southern region (Armenia) is being carried on with aim at investigating settlement location choices of the Urartian populations and of the preexisting communities. The research is based on the analysis of thematic maps generated by processing Digital Elevation Models (DEM); these DEMs have been created by interpolating isolines digitized from classical topographic maps and by processing through interferometric techniques a couple of ERS-SAR scenes. A comparison between the two data sets has been, then, performed to highlight mutual differences and possible errors in the two derived elevation distributions. Major height underestimation of the ERS based DEM with respect to the map derived one has been noticed; however, due to the more natural altitude distribution of the former data set, this one has been selected for subsequent analysis in areas where sites were located and still reliable elevation values were present. The most significant by-products of DEM processing have been the shaded relief maps. These thematic data have been the basis to give insight to Urartian land control during their eastwards expansion, by applying also 3D analysis and computing the mutual distances among peculiar fortresses. Pre-existing forts and fortresses have been, instead, studied to better define their organization, in the territory, according to a hierarchical setting, by drawing elevation profile between an outstanding site and the other ones and by calculating a viewshed map starting from a peculiar fort.
The neolithic and chalcolithic phases in the Ararat Plain (Armenia): The view from Aratashen
A view from the highlands: …, 2004
The Armenian part of the plain of Ararat, situated on the great east-west route joining the region of Erzerum in Turkey to that of Tabriz in northwest Iran, is characterised by a mountainous, seemingly restrictive environment. Except for this large natural axis (which follows the course of the Arax to Nakhichevan, then turns south towards Lake Urmia), the traditional itineraries which might insure contact with the other neighbouring regions of eastern Turkey, Transcaucasia or the northern Near East are much more rare. They should not, however, be dismissed (map). The Anatolian zone of Lake Van remains accessible, at least in summer, by a route which must cross a pass at an altitude of 2500 m. To the north, the middle valley of the Kura can be reached by skirting the Aragats range, either in the west by following the Akhurian river and then crossing the high plateaus of northern Armenia to southern Georgia, or in the east by the Razdan valley, then that of the Agstev which flows to northern Azerbaijan. To the east of the plain of Ararat, the mountain ranges of Gegham, Vardenis and Sjunik present obstacles to communication with the more southern steppes of Azerbaijan. However, today as well as in the past, the populations of these steppes and those of the plain of Ararat summered their herds in these very mountains, thus favouring contact and exchange. This potential for contact with regions which have been occupied since the Neolithic or the early Chalcolithic (Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture of the Kura basin and the Karabakh plain, Kül Tepe of Nakhichevan culture in the lower basin of the Arax), even the Palaeolithic (western Georgia), is in total contrast to the lack of information observed in the plain of Ararat 1. For the periods before the Early Bronze (Kura-Araxes culture or Early Transcaucasian Culture), information is very fragmentary. A single site, Tekhut, was excavated at the beginning of the 1970's and published. This site produced circular mud brick habitations, as well as a lithic industry and pottery attributed to the late phase of the 1 We wish to thank the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for funding the project, the armenian Ministry of Culture and A. Kalantaryan, director of the Institute of Archaeology at Yerevan, for their administrative support. We are most grateful to all the researchers who took part in the excavations and in the study of the material : G. Artine, A. Hayrapetyan, S. Melkonyan, I. Gagnon (excavators), J. Chabot (lithic specialist), H. Sarkissyan (architect), J. Chekyan (topographer), L. Manoukyan (restorer), A. Karakhkhanyan and V. Trifonov (geologists). We thank also G. Poplevko (St Petersburg, Russia) and B. Lyonnet (CNRS) for information about the data coming from Aslanian's sounding and kept in St. Petersburg Museum.
The Project ArAGATS Kasakh Valley Archaeological Survey, Armenia: Report of the 2014–2017 Seasons
American Journal of Archaeology, 2022
During four field seasons spanning 2014 through 2017, Project ArAGATS (Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies) expanded our long-term research on the origins and development of complex political systems in the South Caucasus with a comprehensive study of the upper Kasakh River valley in north-central Armenia. The Kasakh Valley Archaeological Survey employed both systematic transect survey of 43 km 2 and extensive satellite-and drone-based reconnaissance to accommodate the complex topography of the Lesser Caucasus and the impacts of Soviet-era land amelioration. Though our survey was animated by questions related to the chronology and distribution of Bronze and Iron Age fortifications and cemeteries, we also recorded Paleolithic sites stretching back to the earliest human settlement of the Caucasus, Early Bronze Age surface finds, and historic landscape modifications. Concurrent to the survey, members of the ArAGATS team carried out test excavations at select settlement sites and associated burials, and a series of wetland core extractions, with the goals of affirming site occupation sequences and setting them within their environmental context. This report provides an overview of the results of these multidisciplinary activities. 1
Neolithic water management and flooding in the Lesser Caucasus (Georgia)
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2018
Highlights • In the Lesser Caucasus, some evidences of Early Neolithic river management have been discovered. • We report a preliminary data set indicating that the river management was made 5900 cal. BC ago and led to Neolithic village flooding, destruction and local abandonment of the hydraulic infrastructures between 5750 and 5430 cal. BC. • We carried out isotopic analyzes on the seeds in order to characterize or not the occurrence of irrigation. • We highlight the possibility of a development in the Caucasus of the oldest known water management practices. • We also present an original focus on the potential effects of torrential palaeo-floods in Neolithic water management structures and riparian habitats. River management is generally thought to have started at 5500 cal. BC within the development of eastern Neolithic societies. In the Lesser Caucasus, evidence of early river management has been discovered around the famous Neolithic sites of Shulaveri, Gadachrili Gora, and Imiris Gora in Georgia. Here we report a preliminary data set indicating that river management was set up at 5900 cal. BC leading to the flooding, destruction, and local abandonment of the hydraulic infrastructures of the Gadachrili village between 5750 and 5430 cal. BC. The hydraulic infrastructures were developed during a more humid period encompassing the 8200 cal. BP (6200 cal. BC) climatic event, probably to optimize agricultural yield. It potentially led to the first prehistoric engineering accident for which there is evidence, which may have been followed by the reorganisation of the occupation and/or to architectural modifications.