- Archaeology, Funerary Archaeology, Archaeological Theory, Anatolian Archaeology, Bronze Age Europe (Archaeology), Archaeology of the Eurasian steppe belt, and 30 moreStable Isotope Analysis, Ancient Near East, Caucasus, Russian Studies (in Area Studies) and the Caucasus, Mass Spectrometry, X-Ray Studies, Archaeometallurgy, Mineralogy, Archaeometry, Ceramic Analysis (Archaeology), ANE Cylinder Seals, Archaeological Science, Journal of Archaeological Science, Archaeological Chemistry, Gemology, Ancient Quarrying, Provenance studies of archaeological material, Ancient Near East (Archaeology), North Caucasus, Archaeology of Caucasus, South Caucasus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Early Bronze Age of Caucasia, Kura- Araxes, Anatolia, Ancient Iran Cultures, Jean Bottero, Ancient diets, Anthropology of Mobility, and Ancient DNA (Archaeology)edit
Abstract. The paper reports on the results of comprehensive analysis of a unique bronze flesh-hook featuring anthropomorphic figures from an Early Bronze Age dolmen (ca. 3200-2900 BC) near the village of Tsarskaya (contemporary... more
Abstract. The paper reports on the results of comprehensive analysis of a unique bronze flesh-hook featuring anthropomorphic figures from an Early Bronze Age dolmen (ca. 3200-2900 BC) near the village of Tsarskaya (contemporary Novosvobodnaya) in the Northwest Caucasus (fig. 1). It was established that the flesh-hook was cast from arsenical bronze with the use of the lost wax method and was used to take meat out of a cauldron and, therefore, it entered a ceremonial table-ware set used in public feasts. The depicted pair of naked men in boxing stand (fig. 2: 3) represents a scene of ritual fight in the presence of or in honor of a deity whose attribute are bull horns (fig. 4), on which fighters are standing. As a whole, the item is associated with the theme of a funeral feast and funeral games. The narrative scene and iconography of the images are likely to have its roots in the canons of Sumerian temple art of the Early Dynastic period and. probably, even of the earlier time (fig. 5). The adaptation of this narrative to the Maikop cultural milieu is explained by its attribution to the circle of cultures located in the northernmost periphery of the Western Asia civilization. Two figures depicted on the Tsarskaya flesh-hook, represent the earliest known example of anthropomorphic portable art in the Caucasus and probably the earliest sculptural image of fist fighting in the world.
Keywords'. Maikop culture, fist fighting, Caucasus, Ancient East, Early Bronze Age.
Keywords'. Maikop culture, fist fighting, Caucasus, Ancient East, Early Bronze Age.
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Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian ‘steppe ancestry’ as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a... more
Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian ‘steppe ancestry’ as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations
in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies in Eurasia. Here we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The northern
Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting human movement across the mountain range during the Bronze Age. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbour additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.
in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies in Eurasia. Here we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The northern
Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting human movement across the mountain range during the Bronze Age. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbour additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.
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This study, the first of this kind, reconstructs the technical chaîne operatoire of thin-walled jointless gold bead production in the Maykop culture on the basis of trace-wear analysis, experimental research and comparative analysis,... more
This study, the first of this kind, reconstructs the technical chaîne operatoire of thin-walled jointless gold bead production in the Maykop culture on the basis of trace-wear analysis, experimental research and comparative analysis, using gold beads from the Early Bronze Age dolmen (c. 3200–2900 BC) in kurgan 2 at Tsarskaya (discovered in 1898). The results of the study demonstrate that such beads were produced from a perforated disc-shaped blank by pressure (with intermittent annealing) within a hemispherical depression in a shaping block (presumably made from stone or bone) and subsequent abrasive treatment of the surface. Most probably, this technique was a regional expression of Near Eastern jewellery traditions that emerged within the urbanized centres of Upper Mesopotamia in the early fourth millennium BC and spread out, through the Caucasus, into the southern boundaries of the Eur-asian steppe.
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This paper provides new radiocarbon dates for preserved remains of broomcorn millet discovered in Bronze Age occupation layers at the Guamsky Grot rock shelter in the northwestern Caucasus. The millet grains directly date between the... more
This paper provides new radiocarbon dates for preserved remains of broomcorn millet discovered in Bronze Age occupation layers at the Guamsky Grot rock shelter in the northwestern Caucasus. The millet grains directly date between the 12th–10th centuries BC, which complements dates obtained on wood and bone samples from the same layer. The pottery assemblage retrieved from layer 4/5 in Guamsky Grot where the millet was found has stylistic similarities with the Kobyakovo and proto-Maeotian cultures. Concentration of carbonized unhusked millet seeds in a fireplace together with fragments of flat calcined stones implies the seeds drying in the course of which the grains accidentally burned down. All Late Bronze Age sites in the West Caucasus where millet has been discovered represent kindred cultural traditions originating from the proto-Colchis, the Ochamchiri and the Dolmen cultures. Taking into account the finds of broomcorn millet in the Kobyakovo layer at the Safyanovo site (the Lower Don area), it may be suggested that the millet growing tradition north of the West Caucasus, probably , spread together with the West-Caucasian 'Kobyakovo' population, which were sedentary and established settlements in the Steppe: first in the Kuban River Region and then further northward – in the Lower Don River Region. It is precisely the region where the harvesting bronze sickles of the Kuban group came in to use in the second half of the second mill. BC.
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In the memory of Stanislav N. Bratchenko (1936 – 2011)
S.N. Bratchenko’s letter on the problems, results and prospects of studies of the Bronze Age Early Catacomb graves in the East European Steppe (07.06.1985).
S.N. Bratchenko’s letter on the problems, results and prospects of studies of the Bronze Age Early Catacomb graves in the East European Steppe (07.06.1985).
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Baturinskaya catacomb culture. Kuban Steppe, North-Wesrern Caucasus, Middle Bronze Age
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Kuban Steppe (North-Western Caucasus) in Eneolithic - Middle Bronze Age
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Principles and priorities of the field archaeology.
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Local and chronological characteristics of the Maikop culture.
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Open air archeological museum as a method of cultural heritage preservation
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How to preserve dolmens – cultural heritage of ancient people in the Western Caucasus
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The dolmen with petroglyphs, middle of the III mill. B.C., Western Caucasus, Black Sea coast.
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Paper presents critical review of archival records related to Prof. N. Veselovsky' s excavation of key megalithic site near Tsarskaya (modern Novosvobodnaya, North-Western Caucasus, Russia) in 1898.