Visiting Research Scholar Lecture
Oğlanqala fortress on the edge of the Şərur Plain with Mount Ararat in the background, Naxçıvan, Azerbaijan.
In the south Caucasus, where large tracts of marginal land separate fertile areas and where the line between sedentary agricultural and mobile pastoral communities has always been fluid, understanding sociopolitical processes in the past requires analysis of ancient settlement and land-use patterns in all ecological zones. Archaeological research in Azerbaijan has been largely confined to mounded sites located on river plains as well as large fortresses situated on the edges of these plains. A new archaeological survey in Naxçıvan, Azerbaijan aims to systematically investigate caves, cemeteries, settlements, fortresses, and other landscape-scale features in highland and steppe zones. This talk will present some of the survey’s preliminary findings and illustrate how biases in the recovery of archaeological sites in the study region have shaped our current ideas about the development of urbanism during the Bronze Age and the development of states and empires during the Iron Age.
Reception to follow
Event is open to the public
