- •Preface
- •Acknowledgements
- •Introduction
- •Russian Imperial Archaeology (pre-1917)
- •Soviet Archaeology (1917–1991)
- •Marxist-Leninist Ideology
- •Intellectual Climate under Stalin
- •Archaeology in the Caucasus since PERESTROIKA (1991–present)
- •Post–World War II
- •‘Swings and Roundabouts’
- •PROBLEMS IN THE STUDY OF CAUCASIAN ARCHAEOLOGY
- •1 The Land and Its Languages
- •GEOGRAPHY AND RESOURCES
- •Physical Geography
- •Mineral Resources
- •VEGETATION AND CLIMATE
- •GEOMORPHOLOGY
- •THE LANGUAGES OF THE CAUCASUS AND DNA
- •HOMININ ARRIVALS IN THE LOWER PALAEOLITHIC
- •Characteristics of the Earliest Settlers
- •Lake Sites, Caves, and Scatters
- •Technological Trends
- •Acheulean Hand Axe Technology
- •Diet
- •Matuzka Cave and Mezmaiskaya Cave – Mousterian Sites
- •The Southern Caucasus
- •Ortvale Klde
- •Djruchula Klde
- •Other sites
- •The Demise of the Neanderthals and the End of the Middle Palaeolithic
- •NOVEL TECHNOLOGY AND NEW ARRIVALS: THE UPPER PALAEOLITHIC (35,000–10,000 BC?)
- •ROCK ART AND RITUAL
- •CONCLUSION
- •INTRODUCTION
- •THE FIRST FARMERS
- •A PRE-POTTERY NEOLITHIC?
- •Western Georgia
- •POTTERY NEOLITHIC: THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •Houses and Settlements
- •The Kura Corridor
- •The Ararat Plain
- •The Nakhichevan Region, Mil Plain, and the Mugan Steppes
- •Ditches
- •Burial and Human Body Representations
- •Materiality and Social Relations
- •Ceramic Vessels
- •Chipped and Ground Stone
- •Bone and Antler
- •Metals, Metallurgy and Other Crafts
- •THE CENTRAL AND NORTHERN CAUCASUS
- •CONTACT AND EXCHANGE: OBSIDIAN
- •Patterns of Procurement
- •CONCLUSION
- •The Pre-Maikop Horizon (ca. 4500–3800 BC)
- •The Maikop Culture
- •Distribution and Main Characteristics
- •The Chronology of the Maikop Culture
- •Villages and Households
- •Barrows and Burials
- •The Inequality of Maikop Society
- •Death as a Performance and the Persistence of Memory
- •The Crafts
- •THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •Ceramics and Metalwork
- •Houses and Settlements
- •The Treatment of the Dead
- •The Sioni Tradition (ca. 4800/4600–3200 BC)
- •Settlements and Subsistence
- •Sioni Cultural Tradition
- •Chipped Stone Tools and Other Technologies
- •CONCLUSIONS
- •BORDERS AND FRONTIERS
- •Georgia
- •Armenia
- •Azerbaijan
- •Eastern Anatolia
- •Iran
- •Amuq Plain and the Levantine Coastal Region
- •Cyprus
- •Early Settlements: Houses, Hearths, and Pits
- •Later Settlements: Diversity in Plan and Construction
- •Freestanding Wattle-and-Daub Structures
- •Villages of Circular Structures
- •Stone and Mud-brick Rectangular Houses
- •Terraced Settlements
- •Semi-Subterranean Structures
- •Burial customs
- •Sacred Spaces
- •Structures
- •Hearths
- •Early Ceramics
- •Monochrome Ware
- •Enduring Chaff-Face Wares
- •Burnished Wares
- •LATE CERAMICS
- •The Northern (Shida Kartli) Tradition
- •The Central (Tsalka) Tradition
- •The Southern (Armenian) Tradition
- •MINING FOR METAL AND ORE
- •STONE AND BONE TOOLS AND METALWORK
- •Trace Element Analyses
- •SALT AND SALT MINING
- •THE PROCESS OF MIGRATION
- •The Mobile and the Settled – The Economy of the Kura-Araxes
- •Animal Husbandry
- •Agricultural Practices
- •CONCLUSION
- •FUNERARY CUSTOMS AND BURIAL GOODS
- •MONUMENTALISM AND ITS MEANING IN THE WESTERN CAUCASUS
- •CHRONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS
- •THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE
- •THE SOUTHERN CAUCASUS
- •EARLY BRONZE AGE IV/MIDDLE BRONZE AGE I (2500–2000 BC)
- •Sachkhere: A Bridging Site
- •Martkopi and Early Trialeti Barrows
- •Bedeni Barrows
- •Ananauri Barrow 3
- •Bedeni Barrows
- •Other Bedeni Barrows
- •Bedeni Settlements
- •Berikldeebi Village
- •Berikldeebi Pits
- •Other Bedeni Villages
- •Crafts and Technology
- •Ceramics
- •Woodworking
- •Flaked stone
- •Sacred Spaces
- •The Economic Subsistence
- •The Trialeti Complex (The Developed Stage)
- •Categorisation
- •Mound Types
- •Burial Customs and Tomb Architecture
- •Ritual Roads
- •Human Skeletal Material
- •The Zurtaketi Barrows
- •The Meskheti Barrows
- •The Atsquri Barrow
- •Ephemeral Settlements
- •Gold and Silver, Stone, and Clay
- •Silver Goblets: The Narratives
- •Silver Goblets: Interpretations
- •More Metal Containers
- •Gold Work
- •Tools and Weapons
- •Burial Ceramics
- •Settlement Ceramics
- •The Brili Cemetery
- •WAGONS AND CARTS
- •Origins and Distribution
- •The Caucasian Evidence
- •Late Bronze Age Vehicles
- •Burials and Animal Remains
- •THE MIDDLE BRONZE AGE III (CA. 1700–1450 BC)
- •The Karmirberd (Tazakend) Horizon
- •Sevan-Uzerlik Horizon
- •The Kizyl Vank Horizon
- •Apsheron Peninsula
- •THE NORTHERN CAUCASUS
- •The North Caucasian Culture
- •Catacomb Tombs
- •Stone Cist Tombs
- •Wooden Graves
- •CONCLUSIONS
- •THE CAUCASUS FROM 1500 TO 800 BC
- •Fortresses
- •Settlements
- •Burial Customs
- •Metalwork
- •Ceramics
- •Sacred Spaces
- •Menhirs
- •SAMTAVRO AND SHIDA KARTLI
- •Burial Types
- •Settlements
- •THE TALISH TRADITION
- •CONCLUSION
- •KOBAN AND COLCHIAN: ONE OR TWO TRADITIONS?
- •KOBAN: ITS PERIODISATION AND CONNECTIONS
- •SETTLEMENTS
- •Symmetrical and Linear Structures
- •TOMB TYPES AND BURIAL GROUNDS
- •THE KOBAN BURIAL GROUND
- •COSTUMES AND RANK
- •WARRIOR SYMBOLS
- •TLI AND THE CENTRAL REGION
- •WHY METALS MATTERED
- •KOBAN METALWORK
- •Jewellery and Costume Accessories
- •METAL VESSELS
- •CERAMICS
- •CONCLUSION
- •10 A World Apart: The Colchian Culture
- •SETTLEMENTS, DITCHES, AND CANALS
- •Pichori
- •HOARDS AND THE DESTRUCTION OF WEALTH
- •CERAMIC PRODUCTION
- •Tin in the Caucasus?
- •The Rise of Iron
- •Copper-Smelting through Iron Production
- •CONCLUSION
- •11 The Grand Challenges for the Archaeology of the Caucasus
- •References
- •Index
Wagons and Carts |
363 |
solid wood connected to one another by hidden cleats set into mortise-holes. Each of the eight wheels was secured to the axle with a metal disc-headed rod.
Similar Middle Bronze Age wagons and burial practices were observed elsewhere, including at Irganchai Barrow 1 (Figure 7.24(2)).152 Fragments of a wagon, including remnants of a leather cover, were found at Tqisbolo Gora, where the weight of the vehicle also left impressions on the earthen floor of the tomb, as well as at Tetri Kvebi Barrow 1. Wagon burials were not gender specific, as Utamish Barrow 1, in Dagestan, has shown. The burial chamber there contained a funerary four-wheeled vehicle that bore the remains of a woman who had been laid to rest on her back with her knees pulled up.
Late Bronze Age Vehicles
In the Late Bronze Age (1600/1500–1000 BC), wagons and carts continued to be built, in some cases elaborately decorated with low-relief wood carvings.Their usefulness, however, was coming to an end. By the early Iron Age, lighter, spoke-wheeled chariots surpassed the ponderous wagons technologically, and horses replaced oxen as draught animals.153 Technological transfer, and with it symbolism and prestige, shifted from wagons to chariots. Even so, wooden vehicles continued to be made. At Lchashen, on the shores of Lake Sevan, the richest barrow cemetery of the second half of the second millennium BC, vehicle remains in eight tombs represent one of the greatest concentrations anywhere.The complexity of carpentry displayed by some of the wagons is astonishing.A variety of wood was carefully chosen to match the specific requirements of the wagon part.154 Oak, for instance, was used for the axle and draught-poles of the wagon in Barrow 11, and elm was crafted for its wheels, whereas the flexibility of yew suited the construction of the framework and arched tilt.The excavator, Mnatsakanian, calculated that the wagon comprised no less than seventy separate parts, which required some 12,000 differently sized mortise-holes.155
Carts found in Barrows 2, 6, 8, and 10, conformed to a standard type: an A-framed body with a trapezoidal floor and two wheels attached to an axle (Figure 7.24(5)). A long dowel and rope secured the yoke at the tip of the
152A calibrated radiocarbon date (Tb-467) provided a reading of 1932–1749 cal. BC for Irganchai Barrow 2, and 1872–1679 cal. BC (Tb-496) for Irganchai Barrow 9 (Sagona 2013).
153For excavation results see: Koridze 1995 (Berikldeebi, Barrow 4); Gummel 1992 (Khanlar,Tomb 150); Pitschelauri et al. 1984 (Tsitschihuri); Petrosian 1989 (Keti,Tomb 21); Mnatsakanian 1957, 1960, 1961, 1965 (Lchashen, Barrows 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11); Devedzhian 1981 (Lori Berd,Tomb 7); Gagoshidze et al. 1986 (Doilauri); Dedabrishvili 1979: 17 (Novaiia Ul’ianovka, Barrow 2); Gogelia et al. 1991 (Pachralo, Barrow 1).
154The conservator, Rumyantsev (1961), provided the details of woods and manufacture.
155Mnatsakanian 1957.
364 The Emergence of Elites and a New Social Order
A-frame.These carts are significant for two reasons. First, their form makes it conceivable that their origin is the sledge, pulled along by a pair of draught animals. Second, the four-wheeled wagon is essentially a rectangular body with an A-frame attached to the front.This implies that the cart was an earlier innovation than the wagon, assuming that the cart developed from the sledge.
Wagons from Lchashen are substantial structures. The dismantled example from Lchashen Barrow 1 would have extended 5 m: a body (1.5 m) and a draught-pole (3.5 m). The superstructure of these wagons comprised either straight wickerwork sides and back, or a tilt (Figure 7.24(7)). In form and construction they are essentially the same as the wagons from Trialeti, except that the floor had extra supports.Animal skulls were a feature: two cattle skulls were ceremonially placed beneath the body together with numerous objects in Barrow 1, and two cattle skulls and a horse skull were placed beneath the wagon in Barrow 2, which also contained two carts. Parts of a similar cart, bar the wheels, were uncovered at Sapar Kharaba in the Trialeti region of Georgia.156 Interestingly, in contrast to other burials with animal remains, the Sapar Kharaba burial had two lamb skeletons, one placed on its right side, the other on its left. The pair lay beneath ceramic vessels, and an obsidian tool was found between the forelegs of one of the lambs. Finally, there is Late Bronze Age Berikldeebi Barrow 4 (ca. 1400–1300 BC), which contained two individuals – a 30-year-old male and, at his feet, a 16–25-year-old female – in a 3-m deep earthen shaft (9 x 4.5 m across the length and width). Around the tomb, scattered amongst the grave goods, were numerous animal bones, including two horse skeletons, each with a bronze bit. Only fragments of the wooden wagon survived, but several metal fittings were well preserved, including a bronze reign ring mounted on a tube (which still bears fragments of the wooden frame inside, Figure 7.24(6)). It is a vertical guide surmounted by a deer figurine, and a bird figurine perched on the openwork tube.
Burials and Animal Remains
Not as eye-catching as the conspicuous wealth these tumulus-burials harboured, but no less significant, were the skulls and the severed forelegs of oxen (and later of horses). It appears that the skin of the sacrificed animal with extremities attached was laid out in the burial.At Sarachlo Barrow 1, the next of kin had a niche in which to place skull fragments and hoofs.
No other bones were deposited. This custom was widespread throughout the steppes of Eurasia from as early as the fourth millennium BC, and continued to play a role in funerary rites in central and northern Europe up to the medieval period (ca. eleventh century AD).157 Amongst the better-known
156Narimanishvili 2010: 324–6.
157Piggott 1962.