Conclusion |
279 |
A recent study of samples from Chobareti, situated at 1,600 m asl, however, seems to go against the trend, showing that the crop most cultivated by farmers was Triticum (wheat), specifically naked wheat and probably the hexaploid form (T. aestivum), contrasting with very low quantities of barley.230 The absence of pulses, notably lentil, pea and bitter vetch, popular in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic kitchens, is conspicuous in the Kura-Araxes diet. Hovsepyan also notes that during the Early Bronze Age, in the mountainous regions, pulses were risky crops, susceptible to low yield and failure. Moreover, he suggests that their nutritional value was possibly replaced by protein derived from an increase in animal husbandry and concomitant economic mobility.
Catherine Longford has provided new insights on Kura-Araxes agriculture.231 Drawing on material from Sos Höyük and Chobareti, she has argued that the Kura-Araxes communities not only had a settled, mixed agro-pastoral economy, but the high proportion of hexaploid free threshing wheat and tworow hulled barley is quite a distinctive feature. Indeed, hexaploid free threshing wheat appears to be a ‘signature cereal’ of Kura-Araxes agriculture from as early as 3500 BC, adding yet another feature to the horizon’s cultural package. This contrasts markedly to other sites in the Near East, where free threshing wheat did not gain popularity until the second millennium.Why free threshing wheat? One reason could be related to storage and agricultural risk.That is, the hulled wheats were stored as spikelets because the toughened glumes offered protection against pests.
CONCLUSION
If we were to distinguish the Early Bronze Age from the other periods covered in this book, it would be on the basis of scale and contingency. On the one level, we need to delineate expansive social processes: the onset of the rapid spread of traits over large areas, the strong possibility of human migrations, the interplay of different cultural traditions in the formative stage and on frontiers such as the Anatolian Upper Euphrates region, and several other developments besides.Yet, on another scale, we seek to interpret these broad developments through evidence of individual and group agency, through the remnants of routine life in villages, and through the resources and environments that structured the known world of Kura-Araxes communities. These contingencies have self-regulatory consequences and in the case of the Kura-Araxes system, values and collective ideology were rigidly adhered to.
230Messager et al. 2015: 222.
231From papers delivered at the 10th ICAANE conference (Vienna, April 2016) and the conference ‘On Salt, Copper and Gold’ (Tbilisi, June 2016). I would like to thank Catherine Longford for discussing this matter, which is based on her PhD thesis (Sheffield University).
280 Encounters Beyond the Caucasus
Four salient points, to my mind, encapsulate the Kura-Araxes cultural tradition.Taken together they suggest that what we call the Kura-Araxes cultural community was, in fact, a conglomerate of multi-ethnic groups (shown by regional variability), who shared a social and collective identity.
First is its cultural package: a distinctive collection of artefacts and features that displays broad similarities despite vast geographical distances. It is the tenacity with which these deeply conservative communities retained the basic elements of this package that warrants the continued use of the term KuraAraxes, even though regions certainly show variations on the same theme. Connected with this is the view that the presence of Kura-Araxes material may reflect either the migration of population groups, or the adoption of a new social model by local residents.The notion of a Kura-Araxes ‘archipelago’ mentioned at the beginning of this chapter is an apt metaphor for this cultural oikoumene – strong threads of unity that frayed with distance.
Second is the sense of place. The Kura-Araxes community attached great significance to locality. For the most part, settlements were not established on earlier sites. Instead, homes were built on new land. Although the majority of hamlets were situated in highland plains, many were also in mountainous terrain, forging that highland-lowland connection that characterised the Early Bronze Age. The spatial relationship between house and tomb also changed, suggesting that territorial boundaries probably based on kinship structures were altered.
Then, we have houses and households. We have seen that the mode of domestic architecture varied dramatically across space and time, yet the concept of internal architectural space was quite standardised. There is no question that the house was the focal point of economic, craft, and ritual activities. Distinctive features such as benches and hearths and their arrangement within the home, which determined how the household functioned, connected distant lands from north-western Iran to eastern Anatolia. The constraints of a domestic area would have meant that social activities and the distribution of goods around the house were probably well defined.Thus, the ‘blueprint’ of a Kura-Araxes home is a clear expression of both social unity based on kinship relationships and a conservative building code.
Finally, all these characteristics emphasise the cultural discontinuity between the Chalcolithic, on the one hand, and the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes on the other. What stimulated this dramatic change, heralding a novel set of enduring ideologies, is a matter that still eludes us.
CHAPTER 6
DOLMENS FOR THE DEAD : THE WESTERN CAUCASUS IN THE BRONZE AGE (3250 – 1250 BC)
To the Bagovski, the dolmens, which they considered to be very old, were the dwellings of a race of dwarves, which once occupied the area, and the work of a race of giants, their neighbours, who, pitying their weakness, built these solid shelters for them.The hole pierced in one of the slabs was the entrance of the dwelling.According to this legend, the giants had such strength that they could carry on their shoulders all the stones needed for the buildings.
(Translation of Chantre 1885: 58)
Shortly after the advent of the Kura-Araxes complex in the mid-fourth millennium BC, the western Caucasus spawned its own highly distinctive traditions. One of these peppered the foothills of the mountains and is easily distinguishable by its dolmens – megalithic edifices for the dead. The other cultural tradition, known as Colchian, occupied the wetlands and lowlands for well over two millennia (Chapter 11).
Dolmens are accessible aboveground burial chambers, usually megalithic in construction, covered by a barrow and intended to house several or multiple individuals.They are most often associated withWestern Europe, especially the Atlantic façade, where the oldest and most elaborate are situated.1 There they form part of the megalithic building tradition. Although there is no ‘dolmen culture’ as such, for these megalithic structures are a global phenomenon, in the north-western Caucasus we find one of the greatest concentrations in the world. They are relatively little studied and even less understood in western scholarship.2 In the Caucasus, these edifices should be studied with reference to their own historical and geographical conditions.
1 |
This is a vast topic. For introductions on the west European megaliths, see Cunliffe 2008: |
|
159–67; Sherratt 1990; Scarre 2002; Cunliffe 2008: 159–67. |
2 |
For an overview survey of dolmens across the world, see Joussaume 1987. |
281
282 |
Dolmens for the Dead |
The west Caucasian dolmens are now dated as early as 3250 BC and they ceased to be built towards the end of the second millennium.3 Their geographical distribution is relatively small.They are nestled on the wooded mountain slopes of the north-eastern Black Sea coast, within a swath of land generally less than 100 km wide. In territory, they cover approximately 12,000 km2 that stretches from the Anapa near the Taman Peninsula in the north-west through the Kodori River in Abkhazia, and thence to the mouth of the Kuban River and its tributaries, including the Laba and Belaya, which define the northern boundary of dolmens.A second type of dolmen is located in Adygea region, the heartland of the chiefly Maikop burials. These are the so-called Novosvobodnaia type and number no more than a dozen (Chapter 4).4
Most dolmens are located between 250 and 400 m asl, though a few are sited over the 1,000 m mark. Although many of these monumental structures have been destroyed, conservative estimates suggest that some 3,000 of them once dotted the verdant slopes of the western Caucasus (Figure 6.1).5 Of this total, 160 dolmens have been excavated.While many dolmens are isolated structures in the landscape, there are also dense concentrations of several hundred. The largest cluster is along the Kizinka River, near Bagobskoi, where 564 structures stretch across several kilometres.6 In other areas, dolmens are found in pairs through to several dozen.
The origins, classification, and development of dolmens are topics that have exercised the minds of antiquarians and prehistorians for many generations. Yet, dolmen complexities and regional interrelations are barely understood. These striking expressions of monumentality first attracted the attention of European traders whose ships were plying the waters of the Black Sea. Amongst the merchants was Taitbout de Marigny, a French-born aristocrat who worked in the service of the tsarist government. During his dealings with the mountaineers of Circassia in the 1820s, de Marigny repeatedly visited the areas of Gelendzhik and Pshada, where he began to document and even excavate some of the dolmens.7 This initial foray into the wooded mountains of the western Caucasus led to a steady interest in the antiquity and ethnography of the region. Peter Simon Pallas, James Stanislaus Bell,Anton Ashik, and Dubois de Monpierre were amongst the early enthusiasts.8 Then came the Crimean War (1853–1856), which effectively closed the door between Russian and West European researchers.This initial nineteenth-century flurry of activity in the
3 Trifonov 2014;Trifonov et al. 2014.
4 Rezepkin 2000, 2012.
5 Markovin 1994a: 229.
6 Markovin 1994a: 229.
7For a short history on dolmen investigations in the Caucasus, see Markovin 1978, 1994a; Trifonov 2001: 21–2.
8Although Pallas (1799) is often acknowledged as the first to bring dolmens to the attention of western European scholars in the early nineteenth century, Trifonov (2001) thinks it was de Marigny.
1
0
2
|
River |
|
Kuban |
69 4 |
Krasnadar |
370 |
10 |
65 |
9 8 |
7 |
|
Novorossiisk
B l a c k S e a
Concentration of
Dolmens
50 km
|
12 |
|
23 |
Laba |
|
|
21 |
Belaia |
|
|
|
22 |
|
|
11 |
16 |
|
|
|
23 |
25 |
|
||
15 |
17 |
24 |
|
13 |
|
18 |
14 |
19 |
|
|
|
20 |
Tuapse
|
26 |
|
. |
|
|
27 |
|
R |
|
|
28 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
29 |
|
30 |
|
|
|
31 |
|
|
|
|
|
32 |
43 |
|
|
|
42 |
|
|
|
33 |
|
41 |
Sochi |
34 |
|
40 |
|
35 |
|
|||
|
39 |
|||
|
|
|
||
|
36 |
38 |
|
|
Adler |
|
|
||
|
37 |
|
||
|
|
|
|
|
River
44
45
49
48 52 46 47
Sokhumi 50
51
|
|
|
283 |
1 |
Tuzla |
36 |
Kovalevskoe |
2 |
Chokrai-Koi |
37 |
Gantiadi |
3 |
Barbarovka |
38 |
Achmarda |
4 |
Natukhaiskaia |
39 |
Aigba |
5 |
Raevskaia |
40 |
Krasnaia Poliana, |
6 |
Tsemdolina |
|
Gora Achishko |
7 |
Bol’shie Khutora |
41 |
Esto-Sadu |
8 |
Vasil’evka |
42 |
Laura |
9 |
Gaiduk |
43 |
Sakhrai |
10 |
Nizhnebakanskaia |
44 |
Shelok |
11 |
Zhane |
45 |
Prtskha |
12 |
Afipskaia |
46 |
Akhypach |
13 |
Arkhipo-Osipovka |
47 |
Suli |
14 |
Beregovoe |
48 |
Azanta |
15 |
Bulanskii |
49 |
Dzhampal |
16 |
Polkovnichii |
50 |
Akhutsa-Dzhterda |
17 |
Defanovka |
51 |
Ochamchira |
18 |
Tenginskaia |
52 |
Chkhalta |
19Dzhubga
20Kolikho
21Saratovskaia
22Piatigorskoe
23Bezumiannoe
24Fanagoriiskoe
25Kabardinskaia
26Maratuchka
27Samurskaia
28Temnolesskoe
29Temnolesskoe (Mezmai)
30Khamushki, Tserbeleva Poliana
31Khamushki
32Guzeril’
33Medoveevka
34Mizhel’rish
35Pkhista
Figure 6.1. Map showing the distribution of dolmens in the western Caucasus (drawn by C. Jayasuriya after Markovin 1994a).
284 |
Dolmens for the Dead |
remote mountains of Abkhazia was both a blessing and a curse. It certainly whetted appetites in Europe for the antiquities of southern Russia, yet over time the link that was made between the dolmens and their megalithic counterparts in the west turned out to be a ball and chain that effectively hampered an independent understanding of the Black Sea structures.
Another more damaging restraint has been the unwavering focus on the most conspicuous element of the dolmens, namely the mortuary chamber. Such has been the fetishism associated with these visible edifices and their contents that the other structural elements of dolmens were entirely overlooked or wantonly destroyed. The crude field methods employed until recently are candidly expressed byViktor Trifonov:
Russian archaeologists practised an oversimplified, rather primitive and often quite destructive method of dolmen excavation.This method limited itself to first digging inside the burial chamber, then digging a very narrow strip around the façade – or they bulldozed any structures around the burial chamber to provide quick access to it. ...This method of excavation finally resulted in a commonly adopted impression that the Caucasian dolmens were freestanding megalithic burial chambers without any additional external buildings or architectural structures.9
What, then, are the features of a dolmen? The Zhane dolmens, a cluster of three structures well known for over a century, assumed to be freestanding rectangular burial chambers, provide the key attributes.They are built of wellsquared, heavy, stone slabs (orthostats), which are placed on their edges and fitted together with considerable precision (Figure 6.2(1)). The side uprights project forward to define the porch, and their butt ends are decorated with a vertical pattern of incised zigzags. A massive fl at capstone forms the roof, which overhangs the entrance and slopes down towards the rear.Access to the tomb was through a relatively small circular (25–45 cm) portal, which is framed by a false lintel and uprights carved into the front slab. Inside the central chamber the walls are ornamented with incised zigzags and pendant triangles. In all cases, dolmens were built to maximise the sunlight on the façade – most face southwards, whereas some look east.
A recent watershed project (1999–2005), which re-investigated Zhane using modern field methods, revealed further inherent features.10 A stone-paved courtyard, probably the scene of rituals prior to the deposition of the deceased, defined the frontage (Figure 6.2(2)). Measuring approximately 300 m2, it was large enough to accommodate a sizeable gathering.The rectangular courtyard at Klady Barrow 11,Tomb 54 was even larger – a rectangular open space covering about 1,000 m2 in area (Figure 6.3).11 Other dolmens were occasionally
9 Trifonov 2013: 323.
10Trifonov 2009a.
11Rezepkin 2012: fig. 32.
Dolmens for the Dead |
285 |
Figure 6.2. Zhane dolmen 2: (1) façade (after Voronov 1979); (2) view of the courtyard (courtesyV. Trifonov).
fitted with a raised platform near the entrance. The tomb at Zhane was enclosed on three sides by a horseshoe-shaped stone cairn, 25 m at its widest point, carefully constructed with riverine stones. A curved drystone wall, 2.5 m high, acts as a boundary between the cairn and the courtyard.The extensive use of tongue-and-groove joints in the Zhane dolmen and its construction on virgin soil leaves no doubt that it is an integrated structure built in one phase.
286 |
Dolmens for the Dead |
Figure 6.3. Klady Barrow 11,Tomb 54 (after Rezepkin 2000).
Modern field techniques have also altered our perception of the Dzhubga dolmen, one of the largest in the western Caucasus. Dzhubga has been studied since the 1870s, and the consensus until recently was that it, too, was a freestanding structure with some later additions (a courtyard and its boundary wall).12 In 2006, a new expedition began to expose a much more complex structure, covering an area of about 700 m2 (Figure 6.4(1)).13 The burial chamber is spacious but plain, with a low portal cut into the façade. In front of the chamber is a circular courtyard defined around the edge by a 2.5-m-high sandstone wall with no apparent entrance. The wall is four courses high and constructed using well-shaped sandstone blocks tightly fitted together without mortar (ashlar masonry).To maintain the overall curvature of the wall, the
12Markovin 1978, 1997.
13Trifonov 2009b.
Dolmens for the Dead |
287 |
Figure 6.4. Dzhubga dolmen: (1) Reconstruction (2–3) incised decoration on the walls of the dolmen (after Trifonov 2009b).
exterior of each block was slightly curved.The wall was then decorated with a unique set of carvings – simple anthropomorphic stick figures and animal images (Figure 6.4(2–3)).14 Finally, the dolmen was concealed under a stone barrow.
Despite the less than satisfactory field techniques, Soviet classificatory schemes of the burial chambers are useful. They are based on the mode of construction (whether single or multiple slabs of stone), the dimensions of the basic elements such as the porch and rooms, and the nature of features like access holes.Vladimir Ivanovich Markovin, an influential scholar of Caucasian archaeology, who excavated dolmens over a period of eight years (1967–1975),
14 Trifonov 2009b: figs 4–5.
288 |
Dolmens for the Dead |
Figure 6.5. (1) Possible sequence of the development of dolmens (afterTrifonov 2001 based on Markovin 1994a); (2) Psynako dolmen 1 (after Markovin 1994a).
proposed the most detailed developmental scheme.15 According to Markovin, four main groups of dolmens can be derived from several characteristics – the external appearance, the size and layout of the internal chambers (rectangular, trapezoidal, circular, and semi-circular), and the structural arrangement of the stones. Dolmens began as simple plinth types, according to Markovin, and matured into complex structures.Viktor Trifonov tends to agree, broadly speaking, but has refined Markovin’s scheme and posited an evolutionary sequence from round dolmens to those with a trapezoidal plan (Figure 6.5(1)). Markovin’s classification should be noted for the morphological variants he isolated:
15Markovin 1978, 1994a, 1994b. Other early attempts at classification include those by E. D. Felitsyn (1904) and L. I. Lavrov (1960). See also Trifonov 2001 for a description of specific dolmens.
Dolmens for the Dead |
289 |
1. Plinth dolmens: These are the most common and account for 94 per cent of the total number of dolmens, occurring at about 150 sites.This group is represented by four variants:
(a)The simplest, found mainly in Abkhazia, is a chamber built with four slabs of stone, distinguished by the absence of an access hole. The upright slabs were often grooved to accommodate the abutting stone, and were roofed with a large slab with plenty of overhang. Whereas most of these simple dolmens are rectangular in shape, reaching lengths of 2.5 m, others have a roughly square plan (ca. 1.5 x 1.5 m, or slightly smaller) with an earthen floor.
(b)Two chambers – a vestibule and a stone-paved burial chamber –
distinguished the second variant. An access hole connected the two rooms and varied in shape according to the roof construction. Dolmens with gabled roofs had a small rectangular access hole, whereas those with a fl at roof were provided with a round opening. These structures were not higher than 1.5 m, but could be 3 m in length. A wall of river pebbles encircled both types of structure.Two barrows at Novosvobodnaia are noteworthy: Barrow 31 contains a rich assemblage of funerary goods with multiple burials (Figure 4.5(1)), whereas Barrow 28 was decorated on one wall with a painting depicting weapons (Figure 4.8). Whether or not these structures should be placed with the dolmen culture of western Georgia, or whether, as their excavators would have us believe, they constitute a special category of megaliths, is a contentious issue (Chapter 4).16 Another modification of this basic two-roomed dolmen has a roofed portal. Its burial chamber has a lower roof and, owing to the slope of the land that forms the earthen floor, it is quite close to the ground at the back of the chamber. In plan, these structures are roughly trapezoidal, reaching up to 2.65 m in length, and its side walls are constructed from three large megaliths.
(c)The third type is truly monumental. Side walls are now built from massive, well-dressed, single slabs of stone that weighed up to 25 tonnes and projected forward to create a porch.Their roofs were stepped, comprising two capstones: a higher roof covered the porch and a lower roof sealed the sepulchral chamber. Their round access hole was plugged with a mushroom-shaped stone. These massive dolmens are rare and their maximum dimensions are impressive: longer than 3.5 m in length, about 2.5 across the front, and taller than 2 m high. Chambers can be both rectangular and trapezoidal. Whereas most of these structures were carefully built,
16 Bochkarev and Rezepkin 1980; Bochkarev, Sharafutdinova, Rezepkin et al. 1983.
290 |
Dolmens for the Dead |
some smaller versions appear to have been constructed somewhat haphazardly.
(d)A unique variant in this category was recorded in 1896 by N. L. Kamenev, but regrettably has since been destroyed. Buried under a mound of stone rubble, it consisted of an eleven-sided chamber set on a stone platform, with a square access hole and a roof comprising triangular stone slabs.17
2. Composite dolmens: These structures are composed of stone slabs and blocks.
(a)Some dolmens of this group share with the plinth type a trapezoidal plan, but a good number have a circular or polygonal chamber. In many of these dolmens the façade is not emphasised.
(b)Another variant, close in design to the plinth type, has a welldefined porch with an overhanging roof. The façade can be rounded or fl at. These structures can be massive – one of the Guzeriplski dolmens measures 5.8 m in length and rises 3 m above the ground.18 Others near Aderbievka and Gelendzhik had L- shaped blocks, the former also decorated on the back wall with an
incised zigzag pattern.
3. Trough-shaped dolmens: These are a smaller class of dolmens. Unlike the previous two types, their sepulchral chambers are carved from a long rectangular block of stone to form a monolithic box, which was sealed with a fl at capstone.They imitate the plan and features of the plinth type and come in a number of variants.
(a)The simplest variant resembles the earliest plinth form in having no access hole. Its dimensions are about 1.5 x 1.4 x 0.6 m.
(b)Another version has relatively thin walls and a trapezoidal plan, and in terms of proportions is clearly an imitation of the earlier plinth variety. Both large and small varieties are found.
(c)The third type is carved out of a large block of stone. While the chamber (trapezoidal in shape) and the façade are well finished, the rest of the block is left unfinished.The blocks can be massive, up to 8 m in length, with chambers measuring no more than 2m in length and width; the height of the chamber is between 1.8 and 0.8 m.
(d)The distinctive element of this tomb is its camoufl aged access hole, placed on the rear wall. By contrast, the façade has an imitation access hole produced by a protruding knob of stone.
(e)Only two examples are known of this rare type, both occur-
ring within the town of Adignalovo. It is essentially an inverted
17Markovin 1994a: 235.
18Markovin 1978: 144–9.