Stone and Bone Tools and Metalwork

to maces, mostly crafted from basalt and dolerite, which have a wide distribution through the Caucasus.

Projectile points were manufactured from obsidian and flint, and come in three basic types.The first is triangular in form and has a notched base; occasionally the notch is missing.They are particularly common in the north-east Caucasus and northern Georgia, areas that bordered the Maikop cultural province, where they were characteristic.169 A central tang distinguished the second type. Both an elongated and a short, broad variant of this type were knapped, and they are found across the entire Kura-Araxes province.The third is a spearhead. It is long (up to 8 cm) and leaf-shaped, and examples are quite rare in the southern Caucasus, occurring at Chobareti, Khizanaant Gora B, and Tiselis Seri.170 They do occur in western Georgia as well, and in the Near East they are referred to as the ‘Tell Brak’ type.171 Bone was also used to produce arrowheads.They are circular in cross-section and have a shouldered elongated head and shorter shaft. At Sos Höyük, they belong to the latter part of the Early Bronze Age, which is also where the Shengavit examples probably belong.172 The large quantity of round stone projectiles found at Agarak is noteworthy.173

The most common bone tools are awls and borers crafted from sheep and goat bones, which differ little from earlier and later examples.Textile industries are attested by the abundance of bone (rarely stone) spindle whorls, and perforated pebbles that may have been used as loom weights.174 As we have seen, impressions of these textiles have been detected between slabs of clay used to build certain ceramics.

Much attention has been focused on the metalworking skills of the KuraAraxes, which are generally seen as novel for the time. Many sites have yielded evidence of metallurgical activity – moulds, crucibles, tuyères, and samples of slag – and a great many analyses of constituent elements have been undertaken, especially during the Soviet period, which are now rather out-dated.175 The concentration of metallurgical equipment and residues at certain sites, such as Amiranis Gora, Baba Dervish II, and Khizanaant Gora, are suggestive of workshops.176 Even so, metal production during this period was small scale and, like other craft activities, home-based.177 The quantity of metal items is less a

169Munchaev 1961: 64–5.

170Kikvidze 1972: 20, figs 4–5; Gogochuri and Orjonikidze 2010: pl. VI: 4.

171Nebieridze 1986: pl. XXXIV; 2003: pl.VIII.4; see also Schmidt 1996: pl. 60: 752 for the example from Norşuntepe Level 6.

172Sardarian 1967: fig. 46: 3–5.

173Tumanian 2012: 116.

174Munchaev 1961: fig. 12: 1–3.

175For a list of sites with metallurgical evidence, see Munchaev 1994a: 38–9; Courcier 2007. Analytical results have been synthesised in Abesadze 1969, Gevorkian 1980, and more recently Gambashidze et al. 2010. See also Peterson 2003 on Dagestan.

176Courcier 2010: 86.

177Tedesco 2006.

distinguishing feature in the Early Bronze Age than the evidence for experimentation. Drawing on the metallurgical skills developed by their predecessors in the Chalcolithic period, Kura-Araxes metal smiths were particularly adept at transforming the attributes of copper ore by adding arsenic, lead, silver, antimony, and even the occasional quantity of tin.178

Bronze tools include axes, awls, and daggers. The small curved objects are often referred to as ‘sickles’, though they are likely to have been used for the removal of fatty tissue in leather processing – a common practice in modern taxidermy (Figure 5.13(9)).179 There are several types of metal axes. The fl at, trapeze-shaped variety with a folded top is fairly rare, but found in Georgia, Armenia (Prierevan hoard), and eastern Anatolia (Karaz).180 More common is the axe with a short, curved blade, a lowered butt, and a shaft hole that is offcentre (Figure 5.13(10)).181 The example from Tiselis Seri is important for both its secure archaeological context – most of these axes are chance finds – and the 1.5 per cent arsenic content that was intentionally added.What relationship these metal axes have to their stone predecessors is not altogether clear, but a conceptual development is certainly possible.182 The production of these useful tools can also be seen in the number of bivalve moulds in clay and stone that have been found scattered across the Caucasus from Dagestan (Galgalatli) to Nakhichevan (Kültepe I).183 Finally, we have an axe type with a more or less centred shaft hole and protruding butt.These axes constitute mostly single finds in the Caucasus, and occur in various sizes up to 28.5 cm in the Prierevan hoard.184 Their origin is sought in Anatolia and south-eastern Europe, whence they entered the Caucasus; in the latter region, they were produced at such centres as Alaverdi. According to Courcier, these ‘pick-axes’ were probably used in extractive mining.185

Another large group of metalwork are daggers and knives. Daggers with a fl at blade and short handle are fairly common and appear to have developed from the short laurel-leaf shape into a more elongated variety with a midrib. The example from Ajgevan has two longitudinal ribs, a trait of the northern Caucasus. Elar (Armenia) has yielded some important examples.186

178Courcier 2014;Peterson 2003;Stöllner and Gambashidze 2014;Meliksetyan and Pernicka 2010.

179Khachatrian (1975: 56–8, fig. 14) was of a similar opinion, based on the clay mould found at Harich.

180Kushnareva and Chubinishvili 1970: 127; Martirosian and Mnatsakanian 1973;Abesadze 1969: fig. 1: 16.

181Abesadze 1969: fig. 6: 122–8;Munchaev 1994a: fig. 12: 27–8,34–8;Courcier 2007: fig. 23.

182Ordzhonikidze 2004.

183Munchaev 1975: fig. 30.

184Martirosian and Mnatsakanian 1973: 123–4.

185Courcier 2007, 2010.

186Khanzadian 1969: figs 68–9; 1979: fig. 47.

Further north in Georgia, at Tsartsisgora and Koreti, we have examples with cast bronze handles and decoration in relief.

Spearheads can be large and, like some of the axes, they are mostly isolated finds (Figure 5.13(3–5)). As is the case with the axes of Anatolia, parallels are often sought in north Syria and Mesopotamia.There are two types: one with a circular shaft and hooked end, and another with a ‘node/shoulder’ along the shank. One spearhead found in the Telman Astara district in Azerbaijan measured 27 cm in length.187 The closest parallels are the twenty examples from ArslantepeVIA and nine from the elite tomb of PeriodVIB1. Both their form and their chemical fingerprints – arsenical copper with low (Period VIA) and high (Period VIB1) nickel content – suggest that the polymetallic ores were imported from south Caucasia. Related to spearheads are the lethal, pointed bayonets with a rectangular cross-section. Other bronze implements include the ubiquitous awls (5–6 cm in length and rectangular in cross-section).

Amongst the bronze ornaments we can include bronze lunate hair-rings, coiled bracelets, beads, pendants, diadems, and double-spiral-headed pins (Figure 5.13(6–8)). In the immediate post-Kura-Araxes period, at Sachkhere, pins developed into T-shaped and loop-headed forms with a twisted upper shank (see Chapter 7).188 During the second millennium BC, the T-shaped pin spread quickly throughout the northern Caucasus. From Kvatskhelebi, we have a bronze diadem with empanelled zoomorphic images in a repoussé technique (Figure 5.13(11)) that has striking similarities to the diadem from the ‘Royal Tomb’ at Arslantepe.189 And from Shengavit, we have gold beads. With regard to metallurgy, the Caucasus was clearly a thriving area during the third millennium BC, having a number of independent centres, including in Dagestan.190 Although credit is given to local populations for their creativity and skills, the traditional school nonetheless attributed some of the stimulus to areas further south, such as Mesopotamia.

Trace Element Analyses

A series of recent analytic tests on forty-eight metal artefacts from the Armenian Early Bronze Age and four copper samples collected from crucibles have identified five categories: pure copper, arsenical copper, arsenical copper with concentrations of tin and a separate group with concentrations of lead, and bronze (copper and tin).191 The study was not without discrepancies, but it did highlight some interesting patterns that require further exploration. It was

187Makhmudov et al. 1968.

188Gambashidze et al. 2010; Carminati 2014.

189Frangipane et al. 2001.

190Peterson 2003.

191Meliksetyan and Pernicka 2010; Meliksetian et al. 2011.