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If there are any lingering doubts about the ability of non-humans to cause incalculable suffering by their own capacities, we need look no further than COVID-19, that microscopic, semiliving, spiky [...]

The South Caucasus occupies the divide between ancient Mesopotamia and prehistoric Europe, and was thus crucial in the development of Old World societies. Chronologies for the region, however, have lacked the definition achieved in surrounding areas. Concentrating on the Tsaghkahovit Plain of north-western Armenia, Project ArAGATS s multi-site radiocarbon dataset has now produced Bayesian modelling, which provides tight chronometric support for tracing the transmission of technology, population movement and social developments that shaped the Eurasian Bronze and Iron Ages.Keywords: South Caucasus, Armenia, Bronze Age, Iron Age, chronology, radiocarbon, IntroductionThe Caucasus is one of Eurasia's major archaeological 'fault lines' (Kavtaradze 2004: 539). It is a region where the dynamics of prehistoric Europe and the ancient Near East pressed gainst [...]

Elspeth R.M. Dusinberre. Empire, authority, and autonomy in Achaemenid Anatolia. xxvi+374 pages, 150 b&w illustrations, 3 tables. 2013. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 978-1-107-01826-6 hardback 65 £ & $105. If this [...]

This paper advances an interpretive pottery typology for the northern Near Eastern highlands during early historical periods, or the mid-7th to late 4th centuries B.C. The study represents an effort to integrate intuitive approaches to pottery classification that use vessel form and surface appearance as discriminant criteria with a consideration of craft technology as meaningful social practice. The central Armenian settlement of Tsaghkahovit provides the vantage for these investigations. Nine seasons of excavations at the site yielded a ceramic assemblage that bears upon three phases in the archaeology of the Iron Age: the enigmatic mid-7th to mid-6th century, the early Achaemenid period (ca. 550-430 B.C.) and the last Achaemenid century (ca. 430-330 B.C.). The paper offers an appraisal of pottery typology in each of these phases and examines stylistic shifts through the lens of craft learning. The primary concern is to discern those forces residing within the domain of pottery production that drove perceived typological changes in the mountainous region encompassing what is today northern Iran, eastern Turkey, and the South Caucasus. A catalogue of the Tsaghkahovit pottery corpus is included. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2008 and 2011, the joint American-Armenian project for the Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies (Project ArAGATS) conducted archaeological excavations at the Iron Age settlement of Tsaghkahovit in central-western Armenia. This work built on research begun in 2005 to closely examine the materiality of social and political life in a rural settlement of the Achaemenid Persian empire (ca. 550-330 B.C.E.). Intensive investigations at Tsaghkahovit have revealed the remains of a community clearly enmeshed in select sociopolitical institutions of the empire yet one also committed to reproducing and revising the contours of everyday life on the Armenian highlands on its own terms. The site thus invites consideration of the quotidian material and spatial practices of imperial subjects who both sustained and attenuated the viability of Achaemenid sovereignty in the Armenian satrapy. This article reports on recent excavations and offers preliminary interpretations of the findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During four field seasons spanning 2014 through 2017, Project ArAGATS (Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies) expanded our long-term research on the origins and development of complex political systems in the South Caucasus with a comprehensive study of the upper Kasakh River valley in north-central Armenia. The Kasakh Valley Archaeological Survey employed both systematic transect survey of 43 km2 and extensive satellite- and drone-based reconnaissance to accommodate the complex topography of the Lesser Caucasus and the impacts of Soviet-era land amelioration. Though our survey was animated by questions related to the chronology and distribution of Bronze and Iron Age fortifications and cemeteries, we also recorded Paleolithic sites stretching back to the earliest human settlement of the Caucasus, Early Bronze Age surface finds, and historic landscape modifications. Concurrent to the survey, members of the ArAGATS team carried out test excavations at select settlement sites and associated burials, and a series of wetland core extractions, with the goals of affirming site occupation sequences and setting them within their environmental context. This report provides an overview of the results of these multidisciplinary activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]