Cultural Attribution of Early Bronze Age Tombs Under Kurgans in Azerbaijan

P P Gasymov

doi:10.17746/1563-0110.2020.48.2.022-028

Abstract

This study focuses on the cultural attribution of a distinct category of Early Bronze Age burials in the eastern piedmont of the Lesser Caucasus, northwestern Azerbaijan, known as “tombs under kurgans” or “kurgans with collective burials in tombs”. There was an opinion that such burials belong to the early period of the Kura-Araxes (or proto-Kura-Araxes) culture. To test this idea, we analyzed ceramics from tombs under kurgans at Shadyly, Uzun-Rama, and Mentesh-Tepe, all of which have radiocarbon dates. Results suggest that the vessels are hand-made, their paste contains no organic temper, and they are a coarse imitation of the Uruk ceramics. This tradition is unrelated to the Kura-Araxes culture, marked by a handmade red-and-black burnished pottery. Also, at the highly developed stage of the Kura-Araxes in any of its local versions, collective burials in tombs were not practiced. Thus, before the emergence of the Kuro-Araxes culture in the Southern Caucasus, there was a population practicing the tradition of kurgans with collective burials in tombs. The origin of this tradition is a contentious matter. What we know only is that it emerged in the 34th century BC and disappeared around the 31st–30th centuries BC, following the Kura-Araxes expansion in the Southern Caucasus.

Highlights

A special group of kurgans of the Early Bronze Age has been found in northwestern Azerbaijan, along the eastern piedmont of the Lesser Caucasus (Fig. 1) in Dashly Tepe (Qabala District), Dashly Tepe (Shamkir District), Borsunlu (Tartar District), Dashuz (Shaki District), Osman Bozu (Shamkir District), Mentesh-Tepe (Tovuz District), Uzun-Rama and Shadyly (Goranboy District), as well as Ganja, Göygöl, and Khankendi
Despite the opinion that tombs under kurgans belong to the early stage of the Kura-Araxes culture (Poulmarc’h, Pecqueur, Jalilov, 2014: 231, 239), the analysis of the evidence from these sites suggests a lack of unity between the funerary rite and pottery complex of the Kura-Araxes population and the population who created the tombs under kurgans, which disappeared for unknown reasons during migration of the Kura-Araxes people to the Southern Caucasus
The tradition of collective burials in tombs appeared in the 34th century BC and disappeared at the turn of the 31st and 30th centuries BC

Summary

Cultural Attribution of Early Bronze Age Tombs Under Kurgans in Azerbaijan

This study focuses on the cultural attribution of a distinct category of Early Bronze Age burials in the eastern piedmont of the Lesser Caucasus, northwestern Azerbaijan, known as “tombs under kurgans” or “kurgans with collective burials in tombs”. There was an opinion that such burials belong to the early period of the Kura-Araxes (or proto-Kura-Araxes) culture To test this idea, we analyzed ceramics from tombs under kurgans at Shadyly, Uzun-Rama, and Mentesh-Tepe, all of which have radiocarbon dates. Results suggest that the vessels are hand-made, their paste contains no organic temper, and they are a coarse imitation of the Uruk ceramics This tradition is unrelated to the Kura-Araxes culture, marked by a handmade red-and-black burnished pottery. Before the emergence of the Kuro-Araxes culture in the Southern Caucasus, there was a population practicing the tradition of kurgans with collective burials in tombs. The origin of this tradition is a contentious matter.

Introduction

Problems of cultural identification

Problems of origins

Discussion

Conclusions