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Tsaghkahovit平原的史前政治经济在青铜时代中期和晚期之间的戏剧性社会变革时期，最终在该地区的第一个政治机构的出现。该项目将特别关注位于Tsaghkahovit堡垒底部的青铜时代晚期定居点的挖掘和分析，以探索精英的权力策略如何反映在堡垒阴影下生活的定居点中。考古学有着悠久的传统，专注于更迷人的寺庙和精英的坟墓，但最近非精英社区环境的挖掘被视为越来越重要，以建立一个更整体的文化系统的社会和经济组织的图片。青铜时代晚期（公元前1500-1150年）的开始。在南高加索地区，青铜时代中期（公元前2200年至公元前1500年）的社会和政治格局发生了变化，社会分层，游牧，畜牧社会将权威的向外投射从装饰华丽的土丘（kalanans）转变为俯瞰肥沃的农业平原和山谷的雄伟堡垒的建设。 伴随着该地区权力美学的这些转变，丧葬习俗、定居和生存模式发生了深远的变化，冶金和马术取得了进步，人口也显著增加。 青铜器时代中期游牧经济所固有的流动性的分散效应可能会阻碍持久的政治制度的发展，这就提出了一些与该地区的政治经济和制度化权威的出现有关的有趣问题：在青铜时代晚期，察格卡霍维特平原的边界景观为精英们提供了什么优势，鼓励人口永久定居年龄？精英们是如何资助围绕肥沃的农业平原建造宏伟的堡垒的？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转向山顶堡垒）？ 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学和地理学）领导人的指导下进行，该项目是由Adam T.芝加哥大学的史密斯和鲁本·巴达利安博士错误！未定义书签。亚美尼亚考古学和人种学研究所的研究员尽管亚美尼亚有丰富的史前传统，但这是目前在该国开展的唯一一次美国考古探险。青铜时代高加索研究中的广泛主题-经济和政治动荡，领土问题以及对战略资源和贸易路线的主权-在整个地区的历史中产生共鸣。拟议的研究提供了一个框架，探索复杂的政治和经济动态的最早表现在高加索地区，一个主题，因为采取了越来越多的相关性，因为在该地区的本质主义民族主义的崛起，因为苏联解体。 从拟议的研究所产生的出版物也将有助于重新引入南高加索史前到西方学术和科学探究的意识，在那里它一直被忽视，并从事南高加索青铜器时代晚期在非国家复杂社会的精英权威的动态跨文化研究。

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.