The internal developmental sequence of the Maikop is no less difficult a task to pin down. According to the conventional view, there are two inter-related components that follow each other chronologically:the earlier,Phase 1,is focused on the Maikop burial mounds and was relatively short-lived, while the second, Phase 2, is centred on the nearby Novosvobodnaia burials. Consequently, the socalled Maikop culture is simply subdivided into Phase 1 (Maikop) and Phase 2 (Novosvobodnaia), or early Maikop and late Maikop.55

Sergi Korenevskii prefers a tripartite division based on radiocarbon dates and typology, especially changing ceramic styles from the settlements.56 His early Maikop (4000–3700 BC) incorporates the Galiugai-Sereginskoe cluster that stretches across the foothills of the northern Caucasus, especially in the central and Kuban regions. Middle Maikop (3700–3300 BC) includes all his variants, whereas Late Maikop (3300–3000 BC) is characterised by the Novosvobodnaia group.Within this chronological framework Korenevskii places changing ceramic and metal styles.

Alexei Rezepkin has a different slant again on the evolution of the Maikop culture. Using his extensive excavations at Klady, he suggests a fourfold chronological division.57 At the core of Rezepkin’s developmental scheme is the gradual elaboration of tomb architecture, developing from simple earthen pits through larger ones that were lined with wooden planks or pebbles to stone cist tombs, and finally monumental dolmen-like structures (Chapter 6). Rezepkin’s four chronological horizons (Klady I–IV) also chart the rise and fall in popularity of artefact types, with Klady III displaying the greatest variety of grave types and funerary goods.

Villages and Households

A very poor record of known settlements is the counterweight to the many burial discoveries.We owe much to early researchers such as Aleksandre Formozov and a new generation of archaeologists who dedicated their fieldwork to the study of villages.58 Most settlements are located in the north-west Caucasus within the drainage basin of the Kuban River, and in the Karbardino-Balkaria and Piatigorsk regions. Amongst the most important are Ust’-Dzhegutinskii, Dolinskoe, Prekupska, Sereginskoe, and Galiugai I.59 Villages are ephemeral

55Munchaev 1994b: 167, 178–89, followed by Lyonnet 2007 and Kohl 2007.

56Korenevskii 2004; 2011: 12–14. Korenevskii also distinguishes eleven types of Maikop burials.

57Rezepkin 2000: 3–4; 2012.

58Formozov 1965.

59Dolniski (Kruglov and Podgaetskii 1941: 147–212); Ust’-Dzhegutinskii (Korenevskii 2004; Rezepkin 2013); Galiugai I (Korenevskii 1995). Formozov 1965; Solov’ev 1958. For a list of radiocarbon dates for the pre-Maikop and Maikop sites, see Ivanova 2007: tables 1–3.

and small, averaging about 1–2 ha, and often clustered in groups.This has been determined from a handful of excavated sites, as settlement size is virtually impossible to determine from the scatter of surface finds. Settlements spread horizontally, without the vertical accumulation of cultural debris that leads to the formation of mounds typical in parts of the southern Caucasus and the Near East. The site of Galiugai I, for instance, extends about 600 m across a ridge, though its single building deposit is relatively shallow.60 Most Maikop settlements have a cultural deposit of little more than 10 cm, often well burnt.61 House plans are articulated not through foundations or postholes, but rather through the scatter and discard patterns of finds, especially ceramics, the positions of pits and hearths, and fragments of baked clay (Russian turluk) used to daub a flimsy structure.This suggests that Maikop villages were not intensively occupied and possibly reflects seasonal mobility.62

Maikop culture had none of the monumental buildings, shrines, or public structures that so typify the coeval centralised complex societies in the Near East. Although plans of structures are not always clear, villages comprised a complex of freestanding, rectangular, circular, or oval domestic dwellings built with wattle-and-daub walls and furnished with a fixed hearth embedded in a beaten earthen floor. They generally measured between 9 and 25 m2, with some that are larger. Settlements were not fortified, although some believe that the manufacture of swords reflects a militaristic society.63

Galiugai I has one of the clearest settlement plans. The contours of three houses were delineated, allowing some interpretation of activity areas within the domestic domain. They conformed to an approximately circular or oval plan and varied in size: House 1–38 m2; House 2–72 m2 (Figure 4.4(1)); House 3–21 m2. Impressions on baked clay daub from House 3 suggest that poles measuring 8–10 cm across were used in the construction.The floors of Houses 1 and 2 were littered with pottery sherds, fragments of hand grinders, and stone tools (flint sickles, projectile points, and debitage).The three houses at Galiugai I produced some 8,000 pottery sherds, as well as a number of substantially complete vessels. Bone tools, by contrast, were scarce. Other items included a metal hoe and knife, and spindle whorls. Hearths played an important role in Maikop houses. Scattered around the floors and around pits were baked hearth hobs (or portable andirons).64 With a domed or convex top, these hobs have a broad base and are perforated in the centre for easy manoeuvrability when hot

60Korenevskii 1995.

61Korenevskii 1993: 16. Cf. Munchaev (1994b: 174), who estimates that Maikop settlement deposits can be deeper, averaging between 20 and 50 cm.

62Munchaev 1994b: 176; Korenevskii 2004: 12–14.

63Korenevskii 2011; cf. Formozov and Chernykh 1964: 108.

64These items are sometimes misleadingly referred to as‘plano-convex bricks’,Korenevskii 2004: 13.

(Figure 4.4(1)). Their general shape and purpose foreshadow similar furnishings in the earliest Kura-Araxes houses, in the southern Caucasus.

More or less at the centre of House 2 is the largest of five hearths; another was located near it, about a metre away, whereas three further hearths were positioned around the perimeter of the dwelling.Also placed along the wall of the house were grinding stones, pits, and large ceramic vessels. Pits were common features in Maikop settlements, especially at Galiugai I and Dolinskoe. Circular in shape and averaging about 50 cm in diameter and depth, they were often discovered filled with a mix of animal bones, fragments of ground stone objects, and other debris that displayed no structured deposition. Korenevskii has reported that no animal bones were found on the floor of houses generally, and suggests that either the residents were conscious of hygiene and regularly disposed of their waste in pits, or meals were eaten outdoors. Looking at the discard pattern of finds within the House 2, it is clear that the work area was located in the centre of the building, while the uncluttered living areas were located near the entrance and at the back of the house. Much food preparation and other activities were clearly carried out indoors, but a scatter of sherds and a few in situ vessels outside the entrance of the house indicates that the work domain extended beyond the interior.

Houses could also be rectangular in plan – at Iasenova Poliana they measured 12 x 4 m – and were built using a post framework, which supported wattle-and-daub walls. A row of posts running down the centre of the house held up the roof.At Dolinskoe, excavators reported beaten earthen floors and walls that were several posts thick. But not all wattle-and-daub buildings had a post framework. Some, such as those at Chishko, for instance, had an in-fill of reed and twigs.65 At Sereginskoe, the largest structure approached 7 m in diameter; its fixtures included two clay rectangular ovens that were probably domed.66 Nearby was a sub-rectangular structure, about 4.5 m in length, also equipped with a hearth, and small freestanding storage facilities. Despite the wealth of Maikop metalwork, no traces of workshops have been recovered from the settlements, suggesting that these metal working activities were carried out away from the residential quarters.

We know very little about farming practices during the Maikop period. With no detailed archaeobotanical studies, we must rely on circumstantial evidence – tools and storage facilities. Flint sickle blades and ground stone objects both bear the characteristic sheen that comes with use, but determining what cereals were cultivated is difficult.67 A reasonable guess is broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum), a preferred crop across ancient Eurasia, followed perhaps by wheat.68 Information on stock-breeding is better, but still insufficient for a

65Riond 2007.

66Munchaev 1994b: 177.

67Hamon 2007.

68Hunt et al. 2011.

full understanding across the northern Caucasus. Nonetheless, it seems clear that these fourth-millennium villagers, whether in the foothills or the lowlands, preferred cattle herding to raising sheep and goats. At Novosvobodnaia, which has the largest sample of animal bones (n=2351), and at Pkhaguape, cattle are common.69 Pig bones are almost entirely absent, which is usually taken to mean a community was fully sedentary.Accordingly, transhumance, or some form of economic mobility, is seen as a viable option for these prehistoric farmers, given ethnohistorical evidence from the region. The ‘flimsy’ wattle- and-daub Maikop architecture has been put forward as supporting evidence for this view.70 But we need to be cautious when using circumstantial evidence such as architecture. Ultimately, unequivocal evidence of transhumance would require sets of age, sex, and mortality ratios of caprines to sustain a convincing case. A similar argument for mobility has been mounted for the southern Caucasus and the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition, which recent evidence suggests was probably less mobile than we once assumed.71

Barrows and Burials

Looking at the cultural expressions of the Maikop culture as a whole, their society appears to have been sharply divided into two levels, conspicuously reflected by the scale of their burials and the furnishings they contained. On one side was the ruling elite whose large barrows replete with riches displayed their power and wealth. Metalsmiths and artisans clearly catered for the tastes and needs of this group, who were buried with jewellery of precious metals and stones, weapons, and ceremonial items such as metal cauldrons and twopronged tools about the size of a pitchfork.Three burials with luxury provisions – the Oshdad burial at Maikop, and two at Novosvobodnaia – located in the western half of the culture province, reflect this social bracket.Then there was the rest of Maikop society, which, for the most part, was buried with scant possessions, usually a few items of pottery. Yet the Maikop social spectrum shared a similar mortuary custom.They buried their dead in a tomb that was almost invariably concealed under a barrow of earth (a kurgan). The re-use of a barrow was not uncommon and some contained as many as half a dozen burials. Flat graves, usually stone cist tombs, have also been found, mainly in settlements, but they are not as common.

Burials are found across the entire Maikop culture province, but are particularly concentrated in the Kabardino-Balkaria and in Adygea, in the Krasnodar region.Whether barrow burials represent an intrusive element in the northern

69Korenevskii 2004; Spasovskii 2008.

70Ivanova 2013: 70.

71Piro 2009.The literature on economic mobility and nomadism is large, see Potts 2014 for an overview and references.

Caucasus, possibly derived from the north Pontic and steppe area, or even further afield, has yet to be resolved. One view sees them as a local north Caucasian feature with roots extending into the fifth millennium BC, whereas another study, based on recent findings from Azerbaijan, argues that the use of barrow burials originated in the southern Caucasus, specifically with the Leilatepe culture, from where it spread north.72 Present evidence is too imprecise to argue conclusively one way or the other, and in any case, what is far more important is the reason behind the popularity of barrow burials, the variability in their modes of construction, and their associated grave goods.

We now have an increasing number of Chalcolithic barrow burials from the southern Caucasus (Soyuq Bulaq, Seyidli, and Kavtiskhevi) to which we can add Sé Girdan from north-west Iran.73 Although these monuments undeniably belong to a similar mode of burial practice, they do display diversity. Najaf Museibli is cautious about making a direct link between Maikop and the Soyuq Bulaq barrows.74 He argues that the traits which unite the northern and southern barrow burials are the mounds of earth, the orientation of the grave chambers (north-west to south-east), and certain grave goods, such as ceramics, that display comparable forms. But even here there are differences, with Maikop pottery showing none of the heavy chaff-tempering found further south. Other more notable differences include mud-brick burial chambers, a Mesopotamian trait, possibly reflecting an idealised house, that was adopted by Azerbaijani communities, but not by groups in the northern Caucasus, where pit burials are the norm.Then we have the size of the barrows, which tend to be larger in the northern Caucasus.

Most studies have interpreted the southern barrow burials as offshoots from the Maikop region, but Marya Ivanova has argued more recently that influences during the first half of the fourth millennium BC also travelled the other way.75 It was central Asia and northern Iran, according to Ivanova, that supplied the Caucasus not only with exotic commodities such as turquoise, silver, gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, and cotton, but also the concept of burying the dead in barrows. It would be prudent, however, to steer away from any unilinear approach. Instead, it makes more sense to view the Caucasus as part of a wide network of cultural interaction. It is clear that communities of the Maikop culture were receptive to external cultural trends, and, in turn, influenced contiguous lands with their own innovations. This exchange of ideas and commodities was neither homogenous nor uniform in scale.Whereas there is no

72Korenevskii 2004, 2012; for the Azerbaijani evidence, see Museibli 2014a.

73Muscarella (2003) re-dated Sé Girdan to the fourth millennium following the suggestions of Russian archaeologists Rezepkin and Trifonov, who first noted comparable elements with Maikop burials. See also Makharadze 2007 (Kavtiskhevi); Lyonnet et al. 2008 and Museibli 2014a (Soyuq Bulaq).

74Museibli 2014a: 69.

75Ivanova’s views are argued in 2012: 19 and 2013.

question that certain commodities were imported from the eastern lands into the Caucasus, the sheer quantity of barrow burials in the Caucasus makes it unlikely that this funerary practice also emanated from the east.We seem, then, to have a confl ation of cultural traditions – burial practices from the Caucasus and northern Mesopotamia, and funerary assemblages that reflect a wide range of exotic contacts.

Although the size of Maikop mounds and their shapes do not appear to be chronological markers, there is agreement that burial architecture generally became more elaborate with the passing of time. Most barrows today appear as small bumps on an undulating landscape. Excavated burial mounds range from as low as a metre in height to imposing structures that rise 12 m above the valley floor.76 The smaller mounds are comparable in size to those found in the steppes of Eastern Europe, but the larger mounds, with a height of 5 m or more, are a Maikop characteristic.The largest barrows, as yet unexcavated, are situated near the village of Urvan in the Kabardino-Balkaria region, where they tower between 17 and 24 m above the ground. Although it is not always possible to discern the way a mound was constructed, owing to the lack of detail in published reports, there is enough evidence to show that barrows were erected in a structured manner.

Mounds are mostly circular in plan or – in rare cases – oval (for example, Barrow 3 at Brut), often with a fl at top, which has been interpreted as a cultic platform of sorts.The spiral path that winds around Zamankul Barrow 2 to the top is certainly an intentional feature and not simply the result of weathering.77 Other features are suggestive of symbolism. A row or two of river pebbles, purposely chosen over more accessible field-stones, delineated the edge of a barrow (Figure 4.5).78 The outermost stone ring probably formed the barrow embankment and was once visible. Much energy was invested in the construction of the barrow. A stone girdle delineated its circumference. Amongst the widest is the one at Iastrebov, which was surrounded by a stone circle with a diameter of no less than 27 m.79 This barrow is also rather unusual in its internal structure, in that it had two tumuli – a smaller one nestled within the outer casing. Once completed, it rose 2.3 m above the ground. Although the exact meaning of these stone rings eludes us, it is possible, as Korenevskii has suggested, that they represent a liminal boundary associated with water.80 Unusual in this sense is the crescent-shaped stone feature found beneath Barrow 1 at

76Korenevskii (2010: n. 11) categorised them into three groups: small barrows no more than 1 m high; medium mounds that are between 1 and 3 m high; and large mounds exceeding 3 m.

77Korenevskii and Rostunov 2004.

78In later barrows of the Bronze Age, especially in Armenia, stone rings are a feature of ‘cromlechs’.

79Gei 2008: 179.

80Korenevskii 2010: 69.

Kishpek (Figure 4.5(2)).81 Intentional layering might also have symbolic meaning. The burial chamber of Bamut Barrow 15 was concealed by a mound of stones, which, in turn, was covered with earth. Even more intriguing is the stratigraphy of certain mounds, comprising a deposit of fertile black soil superimposed by a layer of yellow clay.

Turning to the Maikop-Novosvobodnaia horizon,the most complex mound in the Kuban region is Klady No. 11, a large fl at-topped mound measuring 148 m in diameter and rising to a height of 12 m (Figure 4.6(1)). Some sixty graves were incorporated within the barrow as it expanded over time.82 Rezepkin identified eight barrows (Kurgans 11 A–H) that were eventually sealed under a large barrow of earth. Most graves belonged to the Maikop-Novosvobodnaia horizon; the exception was Tomb 54. The reasons behind the community’s desire to seal under one ‘roof’ a number of smaller barrows situated within proximity to each other can only be guessed at, though the practice speaks strongly for the notion of connection to place – perhaps a large cemetery of related family members making a statement on the landscape.Another barrow with multiple burials is Kishpek, where two cromlechs surround seven graves (Figure 4.5(5)).83

Looking at the tomb chambers, four broad types are represented in the Maikop-Novosvobodnaia horizon:84

1. Rectangular, earthen pit within rounded corners, measuring no more than 1.9 m in length.The pit was edged around the base with stones and back-filled with either stones or clay, and sealed with a roof of timber logs (Figure 4.7(1)).The deceased was placed in a flexed position, almost invariably on their right side, with head pointing south. Their hands were usually in front of their faces, but occasionally their right hand was stretched along their body. Red ochre was ceremonially sprinkled on the deceased, a practice that was adhered to in all types of burials and throughout the culture’s existence. Children aged between one and seven years were commonly buried in these earthen pits.The late version of this burial type is larger in size, measuring up to 2.45 m, and is often paved with pebbles. In some of these graves, the walls are faced with stones, which, in turn, are lined with up to three horizontal rows of timber.

2. Burial on the ground surface. The tomb chamber was rectangular, or circular, and built of wooden planks or field-stones, or a combination of both. Pebbles or sand line the chamber floor.

81Korenevskii 2004: fig. 25.

82The plan of this Klady Barrow 11, reproduced in Rezepkin 2000: fig. 2 and 2012: fig. 10, is somewhat difficult to follow because six tomb numbers (4, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 18) are repeated twice. A few tomb locations have no numbers, whereas two others have been

misprinted (Tomb 15 is noted as Tomb 1, and Tomb 32 is printed as 33).

83Miziev 1984.

84Rezepkin (2012: 55–7, fig. 120) and Korenevskii (2004: 16) classify these tombs somewhat differently, but agree on the types. See also Munchaev 1975; 1994b: 178–88.

Figure 4.6. Klady: (1) Barrow 11, showing its various constructional features and the location of most of its graves; (2–3) Barrow 11, Grave 25 (after Rezepkin 2000, 2012).

Figure 4.7. Klady: (1) Barrow 11, earthen pit graves 34, 38, 43, 47–50, 52; (2) Barrow 11, Grave 8 (after Rezepkin 2000).