on average, was used to produce 69 per cent of the total lithic assemblage. Even so, the main concentration of Arteni obsidian was found at the northern sites (Aratashen,Ada Blur, Mashtots Blur, and Masis Blur), with villages in the south-eastern area of the Ararat Plain preferring Gutansar and Hatis obsidian. Most of the obsidian in Georgia derives from the Chikiani source, except in the case of the Alazani valley, where communities also exploited Armenian sources.Analyses have also shown that the inhabitants of Alikemek Tepesi used Kelbadzhar obsidian from some 300 km away.

This pattern changed during the Early Bronze Age. Hatis obsidian was increasingly exploited by villagers in the Ararat Plain, with a commensurate drop in the utilisation of the Arteni. In the southern part of the Ararat Plain, however, the picture is more varied, with communities acquiring obsidian from Geghasar as well. In the Shirak Plateau,Arteni remained the main source overall and amongst the southern sites, although at the northern site of Keti villagers obtained most of their obsidian (66.7 per cent) from the unidentified TCUNK 1 source.136 About 2,000 years later, in the early Iron Age, Arteni obsidian is the predominant type across the Shirak region.The sites of Berdshen (settlement) and Verin Naver (cemetery), situated no more than 4 km from each other, clearly reveal that sites in close proximity did not necessarily share similar resources.The deceased were buried atVerin Naver with tools primarily knapped from Arteni obsidian (40 per cent), whereas the Berdshen villagers exploited the Damlik and Ttvakar sources from the Tsaghkuniats volcano. On the fringes of Lake Sevan, inhabitants of sites preferred sources along the Gegham ridge.

CONCLUSION

A feature of the Neolithic of the Caucasus is the careful siting of settlements to take advantage of soils for cultivation and grazing.With no apparent local antecedents, the agrarian groups of the Kura-Araxes interfluve reflect their Near Eastern origins – they built mud-brick or pisé architecture, they cultivated domesticated cereals and practised animal husbandry, and they manufactured a range of tools – such as ground stone objects – that are commonly associated with farming communities.Although these pioneers have long been viewed as immigrants from further south, in northern Mesopotamia or Iran, the degree to which they might have interacted with the indigenous Late Mesolithic communities is a matter for future research to determine. Likewise, the discussion of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic must await more detailed evidence.

Evidence for interconnectivity in the Late Neolithic periods is growing. The interplay that existed in Anatolia between the polities south of the Taurus Mountains and settlements located along the Turkish Upper Euphrates and its

136 Badalyan 2010: 31.

tributaries is well known.137 It is quite likely that the southern Caucasus was drawn into this network of trade and interaction, even though the nature of the interaction has yet to be determined. In Upper Mesopotamia, craft production flourished to satisfy the demands of an emerging elite. Long-distance trade networks and a formative organisational system, reflected in the use of seals, were established to cope with the demand for raw materials.These systems were by no means as uniform and intensive as those that were to appear later in the Uruk period, but they were nonetheless far-flung.To what extent the southern Caucasus was part of this network is not clear.Although present evidence does not indicate that Armenian obsidian travelled to distant lands, its rich sources were a desirable target for communities in the immediate environs.We can say that contact between Anatolia and the south Caucasus would not have crossed over the highlands of north-eastern Anatolia, because there is a singular lack of evidence along that route, but instead people followed the arc of theTaurus Mountains and then turned northwards towards Armenia and Azerbaijan.The earliest firm link with surrounding regions is represented by fragments of unequivocally Halaf pottery.

Conceptually, these south Caucasian Neolithic settlements call to mind the ‘keyhole plan’ of the Middle Halaf, leading some to conjecture a northern origin for the Upper Mesopotamian round house tradition.138 The eventual evolution from round to rectilinear houses is significant because it is not simply one of shape and design, but the change also underpins shifting social behaviour and altered economic structures.At its core are different approaches to risk management. Initially, each individual in the Neolithic south Caucasus probably had a round hut, and preferred to share food and store commodities in a communal area; as a community, they shouldered rewards and risks together. Rectilinear dwellings that were already in use in Anatolia, on the other hand, focused on the nuclear family within a closed house plan and private storage facilities were the norm.

137Sagona and Zimansky 2009: 125–7; Castro Gessner 2011.

138Dzhavakhishvili 1973; Mellaart 1975: 203.

CHAPTER 4

FAR - FLUNG NETWORKS : THE CHALCOLITHIC (50 0 0/ 48 0 0 – 350 0 BC)

Two decades or so ago, the Chalcolithic period in the Caucasus was difficult to grasp. It was an elusive period, characterised by fuzzy concepts, multiple traditions,and an array of patchy evidence weakly glued together by a small number of radiocarbon readings.Added to this were some striking differences in character between the northern and southern Caucasus sequences.1 To the south of the Caucasus ridge, regional expressions, represented mostly by settlements, chronologically sandwiched between the earliest farming communities and the appearance of the well-known Kura-Araxes complex, were ‘fl at-planed’ into a segment of time with little sense of connectivity. Our understanding of the northern Caucasus and its spectacular Maikop culture fared little better. In contrast to southern Caucasia, the drainage basin of the Kuban and Terek rivers, the heartland of Maikop culture province, was represented through scores of tomb assemblages that overshadowed the importance of its typically shallow and indistinct settlements. This combination of a tomb-dominated northern Caucasus and a settlement-focused southern region resulted in a vacillating and uncertain chronology.

Regional perspectives further complicated the dilemma: should the northern Caucasus be coupled primarily to the Near East, or to Eastern Europe? We are still grappling with this quandary that sets arguments in favour of art historical connections with the literate societies in Mesopotamia against presumed parallels with the Russian steppes. Soviet archaeologists referred to this stretch of fifteen centuries or more in the Caucasus as the Aeneolithic or Eneolithic period, a term still widely used in south-eastern Europe to denote a period when copper metallurgy was adopted by cultures essentially Neolithic

1For regional overviews of this prehistoric interlude, referred to by some as Chalcolithic and by others as the Early Bronze Age, see Munchaev 1982, 1994b; Chataigner 1995; Ivanova 2013: 50–129;Wilkinson 2014a.

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Figure 4.1. Map showing the cultural boundaries of the Maikop, Chaff-Faced Ware, and the Sioni traditions.The dolmen area shows its relationship with Maikop, even though many dolmens were constructed after Maikop (drawn by C. Jayasuriya).

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Figure 4.2. Map showing the key sites of the Maikop, Sioni and Chaff-Faced traditions (drawn by C. Jayasuriya).