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Prehistoric Armenia

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Prehistoric Armeniarefers to the history of the region that would eventually be known asArmenia,covering the period of the earliest known human presence in theArmenian Highlandsfrom theLower Paleolithicmore than 1 million years ago until theIron Ageand the emergence ofUrartuin the 9th century BC, the end of which in the 6th century BC marks the beginning ofAncient Armenia.

Paleolithic

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The Armenian Highlands have been settled by human groups from theLower Paleolithicto modern days. The first human traces are supported by the presence ofAcheuleantools, generally close to the obsidian outcrops more than 1 million years ago.[1]MiddleandUpper Paleolithicsettlements have also been identified such as at theHovk1 cave and theTrialetian culture.[2]

The most recent and important excavation is at theNor Geghi 1Stone Age site in theHrazdan rivervalley.[3]Thousands of 325,000 year-old artifacts may indicate that this stage of human technological innovation occurred intermittently throughout the Old World, rather than spreading from a single point of origin (usually hypothesized to be Africa), as was previously thought.[4]

Neolithic

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The sites ofAknashenandAratashenin theArarat plainregion are believed to belong to the Neolithic period.[5]TheMestamorarchaeological site, located to the southwest of Armenian village ofTaronikin theArmavir Province,also shows evidence of settlement starting from the Neolithic era.[6]

A ground of theMetsamorObservatory (28th-26th centuries B.C., District ofArmavir)[6]

The name 'Armenia' is written for the first time in history in the 24th-23rd centuries B.C. in theMesopotamiancuneiforminscrptions in the form 'Armani', while in the text of the same period discoverd inEbla(Syria) Armenia is called 'Armi'.[6]

TheShulaveri-Shomu cultureof the centralTranscaucasusregion is one of the earliest known prehistoric cultures in the area, carbon-dated to roughly 6000 - 4000 BC. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture in the area was succeeded by theBronze AgeKura-Araxes culture,dated to the period of ca. 3400 - 2000 BC.

Bronze Age

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Further information:Name of Armenia,Hayasa-Azzi,andNairi (people)
Bronze Age burial siteZorats Karer(also known asKarahunj).

An early Bronze-Age culture in the area is theKura-Araxes culture,assigned to the period betweenc. 4000and 2200 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on theArarat plain;thence it spread toGeorgiaby 3000 BC (but never reachingColchis), proceeding westward and to the south-east into an area below the Urmia basin andLake Van.

From 2200 BC to 1600 BC, theTrialeti-Vanadzor cultureflourished in Armenia, southern Georgia, and northeastern Turkey.[7][8]It has been speculated that this was an Indo-European culture.[9][10][11]Other possibly related cultures were spread throughout the Armenia Highlands during this time, namely in theAragatsandLake Sevanregions.[12][13][14]

Early 20th-century scholars suggested that the name "Armenia" may have possibly been recorded for the first time on an inscription which mentionsArmanî(or Armânum) together withIbla,from territories conquered byNaram-Sin(2300 BC) identified with anAkkadiancolony in the current region ofDiyarbekir;however, the precise locations of both Armani and Ibla are unclear. Some modern researchers have placed Armani (Armi) in the general area of modernSamsat,[15]and have suggested it was populated, at least partially, by an early Indo-European-speaking people.[16]Today, theModern Assyrians(who traditionally speakNeo-Aramaic,however, notAkkadian) refer to the Armenians by the name Armani.[17]Thutmose IIIofEgypt,in the 33rd year of his reign (1446 BC), mentioned as the people of "Ermenen", claiming that in their land "heaven rests upon its four pillars".[18]Armenia is possibly connected toMannaea,which may be identical to the region of Minni mentioned inThe Bible.However, what all these attestations refer to cannot be determined with certainty, and the earliest certain attestation of the name "Armenia" comes from theBehistun Inscription(c. 500 BC).

The earliest form of the word "Hayastan", anendonymfor Armenia, might possibly beHayasa-Azzi,a kingdom in the Armenian Highlands that was recorded inHittiterecords dating from 1500 to 1200 BC.

Between 1200 and 800 BC, much of Armenia was united under a confederation of tribes, which Assyrian sources calledNairi( "Land of Rivers" in Assyrian ").[19]

Iron Age

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Main article:Urartu

The main object of earlyAssyrianincursions intoArmeniawas to obtain metals. The iron-working age followed that of bronze everywhere, opening a new epoch of human progress. Its influence is noticeable in Armenia, and the transition period is well marked. Tombs whose metal contents are all of bronze are of an older epoch. In most of the cemeteries explored, both bronze and iron furniture were found, indicating the gradual advance into the Iron Age.

See also

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Further reading

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  • Armen Petrosyan. "The Problem of Armenian Origins: Myth, History, Hypotheses (JIES Monograph Series No 66)," Washington DC, 2018

References

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  1. ^Dolukhanov, Pavel; Aslanian, Stepan; Kolpakov, Evgeny; Belyaeva, Elena (2004)."Prehistoric Sites in Northern Armenia".Antiquity.78(301).
  2. ^Pinhasi, R.; Gasparian, B.; Wilkinson, K.; Bailey, R.; Bar-Oz, G.; Bruch, A.; Chataigner, C. (2008). "Hovk 1 and the Middle and Upper Paleolithic of Armenia: a preliminary framework".Journal of Human Evolution.55(5): 803–816.doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.04.005.PMID18930308.
  3. ^Adler, D. S.; Wilkinson, K. N.; Blockley, S.; Mark, D. F.; Pinhasi, R.; Schmidt-Magee, B. A.; Nahapetyan, S.; Mallol, C.; Berna, F. (2014-09-26). "Early Levallois technology and the Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition in the Southern Caucasus".Science.345(6204): 1609–1613.Bibcode:2014Sci...345.1609A.doi:10.1126/science.1256484.ISSN0036-8075.PMID25258079.S2CID10266660.
  4. ^325,000 Year Old Stone Age Site In Armenia Leads To Human Technology Rethink
  5. ^The earliest finds of cultivated plants in Armenia: evidencefrom charred remains and crop processing residues in pise´from the Neolithic settlements of Aratashen and Aknashen,Roman Hovsepyan, George Wilcox, 2008
  6. ^abcMovsisyan, Artak (2016).Illustrated Guide of History of Armenia(in eng) (1st ed.). Yerevan. p. 12.ISBN9789939018188.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: unrecognized language (link)
  7. ^Joan Aruz, Sarah B. Graff, Yelena Rakic,Cultures in Contact: From Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean in the Second Millennium B.C.The Metropolitan Museum of art symposia. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2013ISBN1588394751p12-24
  8. ^Aynur Özifirat (2008),The Highland Plateau of Eastern Anatolia in the Second Millennium BCE: Middle/Late Bronze Agespp.103-106
  9. ^John A. C. Greppin and I. M. Diakonoff,Some Effects of the Hurro-Urartian People and Their Languages upon the Earliest ArmeniansJournal of the American Oriental Society Vol. 111, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1991), pp. 721[1]
  10. ^Joan Aruz, Kim Benzel, Jean M. Evans,Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C.Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.)[2](2008) pp. 92
  11. ^Kossian, Aram V. (1997),The Mushki Problem Reconsideredpp. 254
  12. ^Daniel T. PottsA Companion to the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East.Volume 94 of Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. John Wiley & Sons, 2012ISBN1405189886p.681
  13. ^Simonyan, Hakob Y. (2012)."New Discoveries at Verin Naver, Armenia".Backdirt(The Puzzle of the Mayan Calendar). The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA: 110–113.Retrieved5 August2019.
  14. ^Martirosyan, Hrach (2014)."Origins and Historical Development of the Armenian Language"(PDF).Leiden University: 1–23.Retrieved5 August2019.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  15. ^Archi, Alfonso (2016)."Egypt or Iran in the Ebla Texts?".Orientalia.85:3.Retrieved8 June2019.
  16. ^Kroonen, Guus; Gojko Barjamovic; Michaël Peyrot (9 May 2018)."Linguistic supplement to Damgaard et al. 2018: Early Indo-European languages, Anatolian, Tocharian and Indo-Iranian":3.doi:10.5281/zenodo.1240524.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. ^Martiros Kavoukjian, "The Genesis of Armenian People", Montreal, 1982.
  18. ^International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915[3]Archived2012-02-21 at theWayback Machine;Eric H. Cline and David O'Connor (eds.)Thutmose III,University of Michigan, 2006;ISBN978-0-472-11467-2.
  19. ^"The Longest Rivers in Armenia".21 December 2020.
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