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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]

Steppe and grassland ecosystems constitute important biomes that are influenced by multiple factors such as climate, human activity, and fire. Yet how these factors have influenced the plant composition of these biomes through time continues to be understudied. This paper investigates how these mechanisms have transformed the steppe landscape recorded at the mire site of Shenkani, Armenia. This highland site, located in the South Caucasus, has a long human history of permanent settlements near the core site starting at 5500 cal. BP. A variety of biological and geochemical proxies, including pollen, non-pollen palynomorphs, macro-charcoal, 14C age model, X-ray fluorescence, loss-of-ignition, magnetic susceptibility, and a quantitative climate reconstruction inferred from pollen, are utilized in this paper. We find that this area has remained a steppe with small stands of trees throughout the duration of the Holocene. Changes in steppe plant composition primarily occur between semi-desert steppes (Chenopodiaceae), grassland steppes (or Poaceae dominated meadow-steppes), and mixed steppes with forest patches. In this record, two phases of local grassland expansion occurred between 9500 and 7000 cal. BP and 2500–1000 cal. BP, which covaried with local fire events. These grassland steppes were sustained until tree encroachment led to a more mixed steppe landscape around 7000 cal. BP and again at 1000 cal. BP. Climate, primarily precipitation, is the main driver of this persistent steppe landscape and the plant compositional shifts within it. However, fire and human activities contributed to steppe maintenance. • A 10,240 year-old sequence from Shenkani, Armenia documents a persistent Holocene steppe. • Changes in steppe plant composition occur between semi-desert, grassland, and mixed steppes with forest patches. • Poaceae dominated grasslands covary with fires that limit tree and shrub encroachment. • The mid- to late Holocene transition is characterized by drops in Betula and declines in distant arboreal pollen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]