The narrow corridor of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline exposed a number of sites, amongst them Böyük Kesik.192 Two clusters of architecture 40 m apart were cleared. One consists of a mud-brick building, almost square in plan, with an entrance in the north-west corner.A short pebble path led to the door.The only features inside the room were a circular hearth filled with ash, bones, cereal, and pottery fragments and, on the opposite wall, an oval pit.The other group comprised cell-like structures. Building 2 was clearly circular, but Building 3 had an irregular plan and combined mud brick with wattle-and- daub. Chaff-Faced vessels, some with simple linear potter’s marks, complement those at Leilatepe. A small number of them have a striated exterior decorated with a comb.The few pieces with notched rims recall the Sioni tradition, but the lack of grit inclusions reflects hybridity. Two hemispheroid stamp seals with a single horned animal figure engraved on the base, forelegs bent, are redolent of Gawra glyptics (Figure 4.24(1–2)). As at Leilatepe, metallurgy is well attested (Figure 4.24(8)). A stalk-like, female figurine (Figure 4.24(3)) is redolent of Neolithic simplicity. In every other respect, however, the many bone and ceramic implements are fairly standard (Figure 4.24(6,7,15)).

There is no need to detail further Chaff-Faced sequences; suffice to say that we have many and they include those in the Ararat Plain (Aratashen and Tekhut),Vayots Dzor region (Areni-1), Nakhichevan (Kültepe I and Sadarak), western Azerbaijan (Mentesh Tepe), and the Mughan steppe (Alikemek Tepesi). The exceptionally dry conditions of Areni-1 Cave have provided a wealth of evidence on organic remains, including the now famous leather shoe dated between 3653 and 3377 cal BC (Figure 4.25(1)).193 Equally significant is the information on foods – both their variety and the heavy exploitation of tree fruits – and wine production. Unearthed were a wine press for crushing grapes, fermentation and storage vessels, and remnants of the vines, grapes, and residues of red wine dating to 4100–4000 BC.194 The cool dry conditions of the cave would have been very well suited for wine production and storage.

The Treatment of the Dead

Funerary deposits have been recorded as pit graves, infant burials in ceramic jars, and barrow burials.195 Pit graves usually contained one individual, though up to four has been reported. In most instances the deceased was laid in a flexed position with no preference as to side. Tomb 2 from Godedzor, a late burial that two radiocarbon readings suggest most likely belongs to the late fourth millennium BC, is an exception.There, a female (older than 40 years of

192Museyibli 2007.

193Areshian et al. 2012;Wilkinson et al. 2012.

194Barnard et al. 2011. This discovery of malvidin, a chemical that is responsible for the

wine’s red colour, is strong evidence in support of this claim. According to McGovern (in Owen 2011), however, because malvidin is also found in other fruits, such as pomegranates, the presence of tartaric acid would substantiate the discovery.

195 Poulmarc’h 2014a; Poulmarc’h and Le Mort 2015.

Figure 4.24. Late Chalcolithic select objects: (1–8, 10) Böyük Kesik; (9, 11, 15) Leilatepe; (12–14) Agyly Depe (after Narimanov et al. 2007).

age) was laid on her back in a tightly contracted position with her legs bent abruptly to the left.

At Ovçular Tepe, in Nakhichevan, two jar burials contained rather special provisions. Three copper axes (Figure 4.25(3–5)) were placed in one, while two copper rings and a white pearl were deposited in the other.196 Both burials reflect the beginnings of the concept of ‘sacrificial’ metals – the disposal of wealth, perhaps to accord and strengthen status, which will be discussed in Chapter 10. Infants were often interred in ceramic containers. Four other infant burials were found at Leilatepe, placed in a flexed position in coarse ceramic vessels – either a wide-mouthed bowl, or a tall jar on its side.The vessels were sealed with a large pottery fragment. Single burials were the norm, though Leilatepe Burial 2 had the remains of two infants.The published plan suggests that each of the two storage areas had a burial beneath their floor. Infant burials were also found at Böyük Kesik. Burials 1–4 were similar to those at Leilatepe – bowl and jar inhumations – but Burial 5 was different: a cluster of disarticulated bones covered by a large bowl is indicative of a secondary burial.These infant jar burials draw on a tradition well known in Upper Mesopotamia, as is seen at Tepe Gawra and other sites.197

Mention should be made of Chobareti, a well-dated terrace site in the Akhaltsikhe region of Georgia, discussed in Chapter 5.198 In the late prehistoric period, Chobareti was an early Kura-Araxes site, but an infant jar burial (Burial 9) found below the floor of a large Kura-Araxes building (Structure 4) – burial in jars was not a Kura-Araxes custom – and a scatter of chaff-tempered sherds suggest lingering Late Chalcolithic traditions. Presently, radiocarbon samples place the earliest level at Chobareti within the period 3300–3000 cal BC.

Communities in the southern Caucasus began to bury their dead in barrows, which as we have seen, are amongst the earliest in the Caucasus.They are prominent at Soyuq Bulaq, with other examples from Seyidli, and Kavtiskhevi in Shida Kartli.199 Collectively,these earliest tumuli from the southern Caucasus represent a nexus of local and foreign traditions: Chaff-FacedWare mixed with fragments of Sioni ceramics, lapis lazuli, and carnelian from central Asia, and a stone sceptre that would be at home within the Maikop assemblage (Figure 4.25(2)). Twenty-seven barrow burials have been excavated at Soyuq Bulaq, with the majority investigated during the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan pipeline salvage operations. Of these, Nacef Museibli excavated twenty-one burials in 2005 and 2009, while six were excavated as part of an Azerbaijani-French

196Marro et al. 2011: 70, photo 14.

197Peasnall 2002: fig. A.6.

198Kakhiani et al. 2013.

199For Soyuq Bulaq, see Akhundov 2007, Lyonnet and Guliyev 2010, Museibli 2014a; for Kavitskhevi there is Makharadze 2007.

project in 2006.200 Diversity characterises the Soyuq Bulaq barrows: diameter size varied from 5 to 15 m and their height rarely exceeded 1 m; their burial chambers were either built on the surface or dug into the ground.201 The latter type was generally rectangular or horseshoe-shaped, and they were either simple pits, or built of mud bricks, following north Mesopotamian tradition. Certain graves were encircled with a band of riverine stones, or by a ditch that contained an ashy mixture, perhaps indicating there was once a wooden wall around the chamber.

Barrow 1, excavated by an Azerbaijani-French team during salvage operations, is both complex and rich in finds.A stone rectangular enclosure was built above an earthen pit that was lined with mud bricks, bonded with a yellow mortar (Figure 4.26).202 The distribution of small pebbles in the base of the pit is possibly indicative of a wooden roof that was covered with pebbles.A single adult skeleton, badly preserved, was found in the pit. Barrow 3, another mound excavated by this project, is distinctive for the four mounds that were encircled by a ring of stones and covered by a single mound (Figure 4.27(1)).

It is somewhat confusing that both projects that worked at Soyuq Bulaq started their numbering sequence with ‘Barrow 1’. The other Soyuq Bulaq Barrow 1, excavated by Museibli, had an adult burial. Badly preserved, the individual had been placed in a pit tomb, rectangular in shape (3 x 2.2 m) and situated at the centre of a barrow 8 m in diameter, which was also totally destroyed (Figure 4.27(5)).The pit had a mud-brick bench, three courses high, which ran along all four walls, but did not connect, thereby forming a niche.Three cupshaped pits were aligned in the niche, and along the opposite wall were two handmade pots – one placed in a corner and surrounded by stones. A thick layer of ash and charcoal covering the content of the tomb suggests that it was roofed with timber. Different chambers were uncovered elsewhere on the site. Beneath the mound of Barrow 3 was a horseshoe-shaped tomb, while Barrow 18 was rectangular and divided into two chambers. Both chambers were built with river pebbles, surrounded by a circular scatter of stone (a cromlech) and sealed by a low mound. Pottery vessels were again the main grave goods, this time associated with a handful of expedient stone tools.

Kavtiskhevi, situated in Georgia, had different features. It was a low-lying earthen mound (1.5 m in height) with a diameter of 25 m, defined around the circumference by a 3 m wide ring of stones. Importantly, it appears that the ring was completed in two stages. Originally, the barrow had a south-eastern

200Lyonnet et al. 2008.There appears to be some confusion over the exact number of barrows excavated by the Azerbaijan-French project with Museibli (2014a: 32–3) claiming that Kurgan 3 was, in fact, a cluster of four small kurgans whose mounds had eroded and merged together over time.The publish plan does look like four circular burial chambers delineated by stones.

201Museibli 2014a: 38–9.

202Lyonnet et al. 2008.

Figure 4.26. Soyuq Bulaq, Barrow 1 excavated by the Azerbaijani-French team (after Lyonnet et al. 2008).

entrance. It was eventually sealed and the ring was closed once access to the tomb was no longer required. The mound’s cross-section shows that it was purposely built up with layers of yellow and black earth, similar to the practice adopted at certain Maikop sites.At the centre of the mound was a square stone cist tomb (ca. 4.5 x 4.5 m) with walls 1 m thick. It had an earthen floor and was originally roofed with wooden logs sealed with a layer of stones. Along