The Proposed Research Explores the Long-Term Human Utilization of the Vorotan River Corridor

The proposed research explores the long-term human utilization of the Vorotan River corridor (Syunik marz, Republic of Armenia). Our interests, encouraged by two exploratory visits in 2004 and a successful first season of fieldwork in 2005, revolve around the diachronic record of settlement and exploitation of this river course, and the strategic history of what has long been a recognized passageway for movement, contact, and exchange within the southern Caucasus (Hewsen 2001; Xnkikyan 2002). Multiple research questions emerge and command interest in this remarkable, and hitherto little explored, archaeological landscape along the Vorotan. In this proposal, we focus on our specific goals for a field season in 2006: regional connectivity and control; ‘large site’ exploration, via further test excavation, ceramic analysis, and architectural mapping; mortuary landscape analysis; and obsidian studies.

Underpinning this research agenda are the results of the Vorotan Project’s fieldwork in August-September 2005. Members of this Armenian-American-British collaborative enterprise undertook various modes of investigation — extensive survey, intensive survey, analysis of aerial and satellite imagery, test excavations at two sites, and mortuary landscapes study — in one upland basin of the Vorotan watershed (known as the Angeghakot-Shaghat-Balak valley, after its three modern villages) (Alcock and Cherry 2005; Alcock et al. 2006; Cherry et al. 2006). Sixteen sites, of all periods and of a range of functions, as well as a large number of burial complexes, were discovered and recorded through the partial reconnaissance of this valley system. Intensive survey, rarely practiced in the southern Caucasus (but cf. Smith et al. 2004; Smith and Badalyan n.d.), placed these settlements against the backdrop of a low-level, but pervasive scatter of ‘off-site’ ceramic and lithic material. Gridded surface collection and limited test excavation was carried out at two fortified hilltop sites, Shaghat 1 and Balak, both dominated by artifactual materials from mid-first millennium BC occupation (c. late 7th-4th century BC, the early Yervandid period), but also with significant finds of the Early and Middle Bronze Ages at Shaghat 1 (cf. Avetisyan et al. 2000; Xnkikyan 2002) and of the Medieval period at Balak. Meticulous topographic and architectural mapping was undertaken at these strategically located sites, as well as at two other comparable ‘citadel’ locations overlooking the valley. The results of this initial season have shaped our plans for 2006, as well as providing us with rich material for further study and analysis. The chief goals of the Vorotan Project next season are here outlined under the four headings indicated above.

(1) Regional connectivity and control. Given the significance of the Vorotan corridor, the possible presence of archaeological correlates speaking to its control (fortified sites, watchtowers, ancient routes, etc.) becomes a significant research goal. This is especially true when considered over the long term, not least the later first millennium BC/earlier first millennium AD, when this region was either within, or on the fringes of, several expansive imperial regimes (e.g., the Achaemenid, Roman, and Parthian empires), as well as, later, powerful medieval kingdoms for which the textual documentation is particularly rich in the Syunik area (Hewsen 2001). Reconnaissance of the Vorotan drainage offers one index of expansion, contraction, and contestation in this politically dynamic zone. Work in 2005 included the extensive exploration (though both pedestrian and vehicular survey, with careful GPS recording of observed features) of the study valley’s various routes of ingress and egress. Large-scale modifications of the landscape during the Soviet era have clearly damaged or erased ancient traces along certain routes, but others (e.g., in the valley leading west to the nearby Azeri enclave of Nachichevan: Belli and Sevin 1999: 49-50) producd noteworthy pre-modern remains. In 2006, we intend to continue such extensive work, pushing farther along the Vorotan corridor, particularly to the southwest towards the archaeological site of Uits and the modern town of Sisian. High-resolution satellite imagery (Quickbird; IKONOS) newly acquired by the Project will aid in identifying fruitful locales for investigation, and we also intend to explore the predictive capabilities of our already-established GIS for better understanding of communication routes throughout the whole middle Vorotan drainage (cf. Bell et al. 2002)

(2) ‘Large site’ exploration: test excavation, ceramic study, and architectural mapping. In 2006, we propose to refine our study of the ceramics from the investigations at Shaghat 1 and Balak, analyzing both our stratified and surface finds. We should by then have some absolute chronological control via a series of 16 C-14 dates now being run at Oxford (AMS) and Heidelberg, under the guidance of our radiocarbon Project Consultant, Prof. Sturt Manning. (With his help, we plan in future seasons to generate a substantial database of C-14 dates for southern Armenia.) It should be noted that the Yervandid-period ceramics, whose analysis is in the charge of project co-director Mkrtich Zardaryan, are the first substantial collections of material for this period to come from southern Armenia (cf. Akopian 2002a; 2002b; Karapetian 2003). They require alignment with ceramic chronologies and typologies evolved elsewhere in Armenia (e.g., especially, at the dynastic capitals of Armavir and Artashat on the Ararat Plain) or in the southern Caucausus more generally (Zardaryan 1977; Zardaryan and Akopian 1994; Tirats’yan 2003). Our ‘large site’ exploration will also extend to Uits, a massive (200+ ha.), impressively fortified site with many visible structures, tombs and walls in situ, stretching along both sides of the Vorotan River near the modern town of Sisian. The chronology of Uits remains in need of clarification, although the presence of both prehistoric and medieval components is clear. Detailed architectural mapping (on large-scale topographic base maps prepared for us by the Land Monitoring Unit, Yerevan) is being undertaken by project co-director Armen Tonikian, who is seeking to trace the long-term development of fortification systems in this much-defended, mountainous terrain.

(3) Mortuary landscape analysis. One of the most salient features of the Armenian archaeological landscape is the presence of stone-built tombs of variable size and design (‘cromlechs,’ kurgans, flat rectilinear, etc.) and date (Early and Middle Bronze Age, Yervandid, and Medieval examples are already known in our study region). Work in 2005 under the direction of Dr. Jane Rempel (University of Sheffield), which located and recorded some 142 burials, has made clear that while such structures appear frequently to cluster in possible family or factional groupings, they are also to be found in isolated contexts. Many have suffered robbing or other forms of destruction, and looting is becoming an especially troubling problem in southern Armenia. Continued mapping and careful recording of such sites, together with study of their spatial distribution and the selective excavation of 2 or 3 examples we plan in 2006, offers an important way to consider territoriality and social power in the Armenian highlands.

(4) Obsidian. Armenia is a highly tectonic zone zone, with five main volcanic districts recognized, and at least two dozen distinct obsidian flows within them (Oddone et al. 1999). The southernmost sources in the Syunik region lie north of the headwaters of the River Vorotan, on the slopes of the Mez and Pokr Satanakar, Sevkar, and Basenk volcanoes near the border with Azerbaijan. Most work on Armenian obsidians to date, unsurprisingly, has focused on characterization and sourcing studies (e.g., Badalyan 2002; Barge and Chataigner 2003), while technological and typological discussions of obsidian artifact assemblages from stratified contexts are still extremely rare. In our study-area, it is already clear that virtually all the obsidian artifacts (which are abundant in both survey and excavation) derive from river-rolled cobbles, presumably brought downstream by the Vorotan, and the lithic technologies used to exploit them are highly expedient. In 2006, under the direction of co-director John Cherry, we plan to assess the Syunik obsidian sources themselves, conduct detailed morphological and technological analysis of the obsidian assemblages excavated from stratified Middle Bronze Age and Yervandid contexts at Shaghat 1 and Balak in the first two seasons, and evaluate the information to be gained from the obsidian collected during survey (cf. Cherry and Parkinson 2003).

Partial funding from the National Geographic Society for the proposed 2006 season will allow the continuation of the Vorotan Project, which will again involve the close collaboration, and mutual education, of professional archaeologists and graduate students from a range of institutions in Armenia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

References

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Akopian, A. 2002b. The surface pottery of the Early Armenian, Hellenistic and Roman Period from the southern Sevan Basin. NEFU: 301-319.

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Alcock, S.E., J.F. Cherry, A. Tonikyan, and M. Zardaryan. 2006. ‘The Vorotan Project, Armenia, 2005—‘. In L.E. Talalay and S.E. Alcock, eds., In the Field: The Archaeological Expeditions of the Kelsey Museum, 88-89. Kelsey Museum Publication 4. Ann Arbor: Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

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