2007-RC-004

$4,950

Armine Harutyunyan

Senior Laboratory Assistant at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography

To to study and classify the ceramics of Armenia from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic Ages (7th - mid 4th centuries BC).  This represents a major period in the history of human society, marked by the cultivation of cereals and the domestication of animals, as well as by the occurrence of the first manufactured materials, primarily ceramics.  The center of these processes in the Old World was the Near East, including the Armenian Highland and the Caucasus. Excavations undertaken by a join Armenian-French expedition beginning in 1999 on the settlements of Aratashen and Aknashen in the Ararat Valley in the vicinity of Echmiadzin have significantly advanced the study of the Neolithic – Chalcolithic cultures of Armenia.  These two settlements have yielded a significant amount of ceramics (about 3,000 fragments in Aratashen, more than 2,500 in Aknashen).  These materials, the great bulk of which are dated to the first half of the VI millennium BC on the basis of radiocarbon dates, are the most ancient and are for the most part unique to Armenia as a documented and stratified ceramic series. They will form the basis of the prospective research. 

Ms. Harutyunyan will undertake the petrographic analysis of 250 samples which will make possible a classification of ceramics on the basis of objective data.  Results of the petrographic analysis of the ceramics of the settlements of Aratashen and Aknashen will also permit the creation of a reference scale for various groups of Neolithic-Chalcolithic ceramics of the Ararat Valley and synchronous cultures of the Southern Caucasus.  The well-documented and stratified ceramic series from Aratashen and Aknashen will provide an excellent dataset for the first undertaking of this type of research in Armenia.