Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Late Bronze Age Power Dynamics in the Armenian Highlands: A Community Perspective

在过去的十年里，社会政治不平等在史前社会中制度化的过程一直是考古学家们非常感兴趣的研究课题。本论文研究项目的目的是与亚美尼亚考古学家合作，探索亚美尼亚西北部察格卡霍维特平原的史前政治经济，在青铜器时代中期和晚期之间发生戏剧性的社会变革，最终导致该地区第一个政治机构的出现。该项目将重点挖掘和分析位于Tsaghkahovit堡垒底部的青铜时代晚期定居点，以探索精英的权力策略如何反映在堡垒阴影下的定居点中。考古学有一个悠久的传统，把重点放在更迷人的寺庙和精英的坟墓上，但最近对非精英社区背景的挖掘，被认为对建立一个更全面的文化系统的社会和经济组织越来越重要。青铜时代晚期（公元前1500-1150年）开始，南高加索地区的社会和政治格局发生了变化，青铜时代中期（公元前2200-1500年）的社会分层、游牧、游牧社会将权威的外部投射从装饰华丽的墓地（库尔干）转变为俯瞰肥沃农业平原和山谷的宏伟堡垒的建设。伴随着该地区权力美学的这些转变，殡葬实践、定居和生存模式、冶金和马术的进步以及人口的显著增加都发生了深远的变化。持久政治制度的发展可能会受到青铜时代中期游牧经济中固有的流动性的分散化影响的阻碍，这提出了许多与该地区政治经济和制度化权威出现有关的有趣问题：在青铜时代晚期，Tsaghkahovit平原的边界景观为鼓励人口永久定居的精英提供了什么优势？精英们是如何在肥沃的农业平原上建造宏伟的堡垒的？为什么在这两个时期之间，制度权威的表现形式从神圣转向世俗（即从装饰华丽的纪念性墓葬到山顶堡垒）？该项目包括实地考察和分析，将在ArAGATS项目（古代外高加索国家考古和地理）领导人的指导下进行，该项目是由芝加哥大学的亚当·t·史密斯博士和鲁本·巴达利亚博士共同领导的国际合作探险。未定义书签。亚美尼亚考古和人种学研究所的研究员。尽管亚美尼亚有着丰富的史前传统，但这是目前在该国进行的唯一一次美国考古考察。研究青铜时代高加索的广泛主题——经济和政治动荡、领土、战略资源和贸易路线的主权问题——在该地区的历史中引起了共鸣。拟议的研究为探索高加索地区复杂的政治和经济动态的最早表现提供了一个框架，鉴于自苏联解体以来该地区本质主义民族主义的兴起，这一主题越来越具有相关性。来自拟议研究的出版物也将有助于将长期被忽视的南高加索史前史重新引入西方学术和科学探究的意识中，并将南高加索晚期青铜时代纳入非国家复杂社会中精英权威动态的跨文化研究中。

The process by which sociopolitical inequality becomes institutionalized in prehistoric societies has been a topic of great research interest to archaeologists during the past decade. The aim of this dissertation research project is to work in concert with Armenian archaeologists to explore the prehistoric political economy of the Tsaghkahovit plain of northwestern Armenia during a time of dramatic social transformations between the Middle and Late Bronze Age periods culminating in the emergence of the region's first political institutions. This project will focus specifically on the excavation and analysis of a Late Bronze Age settlement located at the base of the Tsaghkahovit fortress to explore how the power strategies of elites are reflected in the settlements of those living in the shadow of the fortress. Archaeology has a long tradition of focusing on the more glamorous temples and tombs of elites, but more recently excavations of non-elite community contexts are being seen as increasingly important to establishing a more holist picture of social and economic organization of cultural systems.The beginning of the Late Bronze Age (1500-1150 B.C.) in the southern Caucasus was marked by a reformulation of the social and political landscape as the socially stratified, nomadic, pastoral societies of the Middle Bronze Age (2200-1500 B.C.) transformed the outward projection of authority from richly adorned burial mounds (kurgans) to the construction of imposing fortresses overlooking the fertile agricultural plains and valleys. Accompanying these shifts in the aesthetics of power in the region were far-reaching changes in mortuary practices, settlement and subsistence patterns, advances in metallurgy and horsemanship, and a marked increase in population. The development of lasting political institutions can be hindered by the decentralizing effect of the mobility inherent in a nomadic pastoral economy which occurred during the Middle Bronze Age, raising a number of interesting questions relating to the region's political economy and the emergence of institutionalized authority: What advantages did the bounded landscape of the Tsaghkahovit plain offer elites for encouraging the permanent settlement of populations during the Late Bronze Age? How did elites finance the construction of the imposing fortresses circumventing the fertile agricultural plain? Why did the manifestation of institutional authority between the two periods shift from sacred to secular (i.e. from richly furnished monumental burials to hilltop fortresses)? This project, including fieldwork and analysis, will be conducted under the mentorship of the leaders of Project ArAGATS (Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian States), a collaborative international expedition co-directed by Dr. Adam T. Smith of the University of Chicago and Dr. Ruben BadalyanError! Bookmark not defined. of the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography. Despite the rich prehistoric traditions in Armenia, this is the only American archaeological expedition currently operating in the countryThe broad themes that play out in the study of Bronze Age Caucasia - issues of economic and political turmoil, territoriality, and sovereignty over strategic resources and trade routes - resonate throughout the history of the region. The proposed research offers a framework for exploring the earliest manifestations of complex political and economic dynamics in the Caucasus, a topic that as taken on increased relevance given the rise of essentialist nationalism in the region since the disintegration of the USSR. Publications stemming from the proposed research will also serve to reintroduce southern Caucasian prehistory to the consciousness of Western scholarship and scientific inquiry where it has long been neglected, and engage the southern Caucasian Late Bronze Age in cross-cultural studies on the dynamics of elite authority in non-state complex societies.