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items display reflect social processes? And what stimuli prompted these communities to network over long distances, much further than their Neolithic predecessors?
THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS: THE MAIKOP CULTURE
(CA. 3800–2800 BC) AND ITS PREDECESSORS
The Pre-Maikop Horizon (ca. 4500–3800 BC)
Before we turn to the Maikop culture, a review, however summary, of the northern Caucasus prior to the Early Maikop and the appearance of the wealthy barrows will place in context later developments. Our best evidence for this Early Chalcolithic (pre-Maikop) phase comes from the Meshoko settlement and rock shelter; the settlements at Svobodnoe, Agubekovo, and Ginchi; and the cave sites at Kamennomostskaia and Vorontsov; as well as the cemetery at Nal’chik.7 This prelude is generally assigned to the period from about 4500 BC to 3600 BC, or a little later, when it seems to overlap with Maikop proper. Recent radiocarbon dates from the Meshoko rock shelter, for instance, place the pre-Maikop Chalcolithic level at 3800–3600 cal BC, followed by a superimposed Maikop occupation.8 This invaluable sequence suggests that in the highlands, the local Chalcolithic continued on when Maikop communities had already established themselves in the plains and foothills, their preferred locations.
Both the settlement and the rock shelter at Meshoko were investigated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and new investigations have continued at the latter since 2011. A segment of a massive stone wall (4 m in width) built of irregular field-stones that once protected the settlement across a 150 m front is preserved to a height of 2 m. Svobodnoe had a similar wall encircling the settlement, which comprised up to 40 houses; at Ginchi, excavations exposed a 15 m-long wall. Ditches around villages were also a common feature. At Veselogo, for instance, excavators uncovered a ditch 2 m wide and 50 cm deep. In the Caucasus, ditches are usually interpreted as defensive in nature, and this is likely if they are associated with a large perimeter wall.As already mentioned (Chapter 3), the evidence of European Neolithic causewayed enclosures suggests it might be possible that in the northern Caucasus ditch digging was a ritual activity associated with the establishment of a village.9 This is a persuasive
7Krichevskii and Kruglov 1941; Kruglov and Podgaetskii 1941; Solov’ev 1958; Formozov 1965; Gadzhiev 1966: 55–61; 1975; Korenev-skii 1993; Ostashinskii and Cherlenok 2013. For a list of radiocarbon dates, see Ivanova 2007: tables 1–3; Korenevskii 2011: 21–31;
Rezepkin 2012: 90–93.
8 Ostashinskii and Cherlenok 2013, 2014.
9 Jeunesse 2011.
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argument, especially for those settlements fl anked by deep ravines that had no need to build defensive structures.10
Houses of these early stock-breeders are shallow and on the whole quite fugitive.11 They were usually freestanding wattle-and-daub structures. At Meshoko, however, they were built up against the defensive wall, so that one wall of the structure was stone and the rest built from posts. From Agubekovo, near Nal’chik, we know people lived in freestanding structures built on a light framework of posts, and at Svobodnoe the community ensured that the central area remained open, perhaps for shared activities.12 Their homes also had an elevated clay platform (4.7 x 3.6 m) inside, the purpose of which remains uncertain but could have served as a damp course.13 The houses at Ginchi, on the other hand, were quite substantial and diverse. Rectilinear buildings with walls 1.5 m thick were fitted with simple round hearths.These structures were found side by side with a few semi-subterranean circular buildings about 2.5 m in diameter and a series of pits.
Re-investigations at the Meshoko rock shelter have discerned six cultural levels (1–6 from top to bottom) with the third and fifth layers providing the richest finds.14 High quality ceramics, which comprise 15 per cent of several hundred fragments, distinguish Level 3, which was furnished with a shallow oven. Fine wares are generally polished and bear a distinctive ornamentation – raised knobs produced using the repouseé technique (pushed through from the interior wall) and geometric incisions in the upper part, with the occasional perfunctory pattern burnishing (Figure 4.3(4)). Otherwise, containers have simple profiles with no handles: they are handmade and ovoid with either a rounded or a pointed base. The paste for most ceramics is dark and quite coarse, and tempered with sand, shell, and chaff inclusions; the surface can be fired to a pale colour. Cone-shaped ceramic pot supports are amongst the portable items. Ginchi pottery has a similar coarse fabric that is also polished. Ornamentation is different, however, consisting of incised fishbone and a row of small impressed dots beneath the rim. A fine burnished red ware with a pierced lug attached to the shoulder, as well as a dozen painted sherds, are seen as imports, possibly from territories further south.15
Small copper knives provide a connection with Maikop.After a sterile layer (Level 4), Level 5 was replete with Maikop artefacts – ceramic containers, hearth hobs (Figure 4.4(2–4)), and even a knife, with a few pieces of the earlier knobbed ware.According to the excavators, Level 3 should be assigned to
10Formozov 1965: 96.
11Formozov 1965: 94–107, and personal communication, E. Cherlenok, Oct. 2015.
12Krichevskii and Kruglov 1941.
13Kruglov and Podgaetskii 1941: 170–71 (Dolinskii); Formozov and Chernykh 1964: 108; Nekhaev 1990: 7 (Svobodnoe).
14Ostashinskii and Cherlenok 2013; 2014; Ostašinskij and Cerlenok 2015.
15Munchaev 1982: 126.
Figure 4.3. Pre-Maikop phase: (1) Nal’chik, Burial 86 (after Munchaev 1994b); (2–4) Meshoko, a selection of artefacts (drawn by C. Sagona after Munchaev 1994b; Ostashinskii and Cherlenok 2014).
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Figure 4.4. Galiugai I: (1) Plan of House 2, showing the living areas (in white –A), around which are located features (hearths – H, pits – P, grinding stone – G) and cultural debris; (2–4) Perforated clay hearth hobs from Galiugai; (5) cylinder seal from Krasnovardeiskoe (drawn by C. Sagona after Korenevskii 2004; Nekhaev 1991).
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the period 3800–3600 cal BC on the basis of a radiocarbon reading, which necessarily means that Maikop is later. But this is not such an insurmountable problem if we move away from a unilinear view of cultural evolution. Surely it means that in the mountains the local Chalcolithic continued and for a few centuries was coeval with Maikop, which had established itself in the plains.
Amongst the crafts, stone and bone artefacts are plentiful and clearly distinguish the Meshoko-Svobodnoe period from the subsequent Maikop. At Meshoko alone, some 236 complete edge-ground axes (fl at and fl anged) and 587 fragments were recorded in just one excavation campaign.16 This large quantity of worked stone must surely suggest a production centre of some sort, possibly for exchange and trade. Most likely used for woodworking and for forest clearance, these axes have a Neolithic ancestry and by the late Maikop period were largely replaced by metal counterparts. Fine stone bangles vary in cross-section – round, rectangular, lenticular, and triangular (Figure 4.3(2)) – and are made from a variety of stone, such as slate and serpentine. They are particularly common in the Kuban region, where several hundred have been found at Meshoko and Iasenova Poliana; only one example is dated to the late Maikop.17 Like stone tools, bone products – awls, borers, fish hooks, perforated hammers, eyed needles, spindle whorls, and a spoon – continue the Neolithic tradition.18 The fl aked stone industry at Meshoko is characterised by distinctive triangular and sub-triangular projectile points (Figure 4.3(3)), and is associated with grinders and rubbers.19 At Agubekovo, chipped stone tools are mostly obsidian and share similarities with those from Dagestan, especially Ginchi.
Communities in the northern Caucasus had a metalworking tradition that differed from their southern neighbours over the mountains. Copper objects of this period are few in number, but quite important, representing the earliest stage of metallurgical activities in the northern Caucasus. Most objects are fragmentary – tools (knife blade and awls) and jewellery (ring, bracelet, and pendant) – and were recovered from Meshoko, Svobodnoe, and Vesiolaia Roshcha II.20 The forms of these artefacts are not of great artistic significance, but their chemical constituents and their age within the wider context of Eurasian cultural developments are of considerable interest.
That some objects, such as the bead from Svobodnoe, had no impurities (pure copper) has led Evgenii Chernykh to suggest that they were imported from the DanubeValley,in line with his idea that Carpatho-Balkan region was a metallurgical centre in the fifth millennium BC.21 Likewise, the pendants from Vesiolaia Roshcha II have minimal impurities.These chemical fingerprints plus
16Munchaev 1994b: 191. See Nekhaev 1990 for the serpentine examples from Svobodnoe.
17Formozov 1965: 70.
18Nekhaev 1990: 10; Munchaev 1994b: 197.
19Ostashinskii and Cherlenok 2014.
20Courcier 2007: table 1; Courcier 2014.
21Chernykh et al. 2002.
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a handful of sherds from Svobodnoe bearing Cucuteni-Tripolye elements have suggested to some researchers more than a coincidental relationship between the two regions situated on either side of the Black Sea. Indeed, Chernykh has made the bold, but tantalising suggestion that the collapse of the CarpathoBalkan Metallurgical Province (CBMP) around 4,300 cal BC stimulated the rise of another metalworking centre partly based in the northern Caucasus, namely the Circumpontic Metallurgical Province (CMP).22
Other evidence points to connectivity between the communities in the northern Caucasus and the north Pontic steppe.23 The polished stone axes and stone bangles, as well as cross-shaped mace heads and boar’s tusk pendants found at Meshoko and Svobodnoe find affinities with sites of Cucuteni A3 to Tripolie B1 date in the Danube River watershed. These external influences should not, however, overshadow local know-how. Courcier notes that most of the metal objects from the northern Caucasus in this period have up to 1.2 per cent arsenic, as well as nickel impurities.24 Together with the crucible from Veselogo, the evidence points to local experimentation with pyro-technology and extractive metallurgy.
Judging by the faunal remains at Meshoko – 217 pigs (52 per cent), 119 cattle (28 per cent), and 73 sheep and goats (18 per cent) – these early north Caucasian villagers were primarily stock-breeders, who also tilled the black soil of the piedmont.All the same, hunting and gathering was keenly practised, as is shown by the wild animal (90 per cent of the total sample) and fruit (wild pear) remains from the Meshoko rock shelter.25 Half of the animal bones from Svobodnoe belong to red deer and boar, suggesting the villagers certainly had a taste for game.
Within the vicinity of the town of Nal’chik, we have a settlement (Agubekovo) and a cemetery (Nal’chik), both investigated in the late 1920s and early 1930s.26 The cemetery provides a glimpse of mortuary practice. Covering an area of 300 m2, it consists of 147 burials represented by a series of low-lying mounds grouped in clusters that possibly reflect some sort of familial structure. Males were usually placed on their right side and females on their left, but with no particular orientation, although north–south aligned inhumations are more prevalent in the later burials.
Many skeletons, especially those placed along an east–west axis, were thickly covered with red ochre. This practice is also attested at Bamut, in Chechnia, where the deceased was laid to rest with beads and a circular stone pendant, and provided with retouched stone blades. Red ochre is a globally important
22Chernykh 1992: 35–53; 2011.
23Rassamakin 1999; Ivanova 2007: 10–13.
24Courcier 2014: 586.
25Ostašinskij and Čerlenok 2015.
26Kruglov and Podgaetskii 1941; Kruglov et al. 1941.