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The Kura-Araxes (KA) cultural phenomenon (dated to the Early Bronze Age, c. 3500/3350-2500 BCE) is primarily characterised by the emergence of a homogeneous pottery style and a uniform 'material culture package' in settlements across the South Caucasus, as well as territories extending to the Ancient Near East and the Levant. It has been argued that KA societies practised pastoralism, despite a lack of direct examination of dietary and culinary practices in this region. Here, we report the first analyses of absorbed lipid residues from KA pottery to both determine the organic products produced and consumed and to reconstruct subsistence practices. Our results provide compelling evidence for a diversified diet across KA settlements in Armenia, comprising a mixed economy of meat and plant processing, aquatic fats and dairying. The preservation of diagnostic plant lipid biomarkers, notably long-chain fatty acids (C20 to C28) and n-alkanes (C23 to C33) has enabled the identification of the earliest processing of plants in pottery of the region. These findings suggest that KA settlements were agropastoral exploiting local resources. Results demonstrate the significance of applying biomolecular methods for examining dietary inferences in the South Caucasus region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a summary of the Dalrymple Lectures delivered November 18–21, 2019. It examines the troubled, and troubling, idea of 'civilization', charting a path toward rehabilitation not as a descriptive category but as an analytic concept. Returning to the term's 18th century origins, civilization here describes neither a state of being nor a set of personal qualities but an apparatus, a machine that generates recognition by setting the material terms for who is like and who is Other. It does so through the generation of at least three forms of value – metaphysical, epistemic, and ethical. By retheorizing civilization as a means instead of an ends, as an apparatus that generates the values at the heart of large-scale publics instead of an exclusionary monumental aesthetic, new analytic terrain is opened for a discredited term. The operation of civilization machines is interrogated through studies situated in the South Caucasus and Armenian Highland that extend from the Early Bronze Age to the present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The advent of the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1500-1250 B.C.E.) on the Tsaghkahovit Plain in central Armenia witnessed the establishment of a series of hilltop fortresses following a 900-year hiatus in regional occupation. These new settlements testify to the emergence of a South Caucasian political tradition founded on the regularization of radical inequality, centralizing practices of economic redistribution, and new institutions of rule. However, the discovery of three shrines and associated assemblages at Gegharot, one of the primary fortress sites, also suggests that divinatory practices were critical to the emergent principles of regional sovereignty. In this article, we present the evidence for esoteric rituals-particularly osteomancy, lithomancy, and aleuromancy-within the shrines at Gegharot, situating them within the available comparanda from the Caucasus and adjacent Near East. We further examine how divination-a technique for mitigating risks posed by unsettled presents and uncertain futures- provided a key source of power vital to sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excavations conducted at the site of Gegharot in north central Armenia, along the northeastern margin of the Tsaghkahovit Plain (Aragatsotn region) have produced a large quantity of well-preserved charcoals. With occupations dating to the Early and Late Bronze Age, the site has been excavated since 2000 under the supervision of R. Badalyan and A.T. Smith under the auspices of the joint Armenian-American Project ArAGATS. The examination of the wood anatomy along three sections under a reflected light microscope, necessary for the identifications of charcoals, was systematically undertaken completed with the observation of the ligneous structure on transverse sections using a stereomicroscope. This dendrological approach provides valuable data for aiding identification of which part of the tree used, recording growth ring width, estimating wood diameter, and ascertaining the state of the wood before carbonization. Different vegetational biotopes were identified from remains of the Early Bronze Age layers at the site: an open woodland with heliophilic shrubs (birch, maple, willow and Pomoïdeae ), an open forest formation with notably oak with maple and ash trees and a wet zone with willows and ash trees. The estimated diameters of the wood used at that time did not exceed 12 cm. The wood collection from the Late Bronze Age levels indicates a pine and oak forest surrounded by open areas where birch trees and Pomoïdeae grew and wetlands with willow trees and elm as riparian forests. The onset of a colder and drier climate could be the cause of the disappearance of the ash trees, the appearance of oak pine forests and the reduced growth of the tree-ring width. The taxa list and the high frequency of the small diameters observed during both occupations can refer to a local woodland exploitation. According to the observation of the last ring before the bark, evidence from a single operation (T21), during the Late Bronze Age testifies to seasonal activities. Some large charcoals of pine or oak had exceptional long series of more than 60 tree-rings. The average curve built on the basis of the oak series has a length of 72 rings, the beginning of a tree-ring series building in Armenia for the Bronze Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]