The identity of the local communities of Eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus and periphery during the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age. A reassessment of the material culture and the socio-economic landscape

Abstract

The first part of the study presented in this volume analyses the material culture, in particular the architecture and pottery production, of the Late Bronze Age and Early Iron Age social groups belonging to a very extensive area that the Assyrian texts referred to as 'Nairi lands: The Nairi lands roughly encompassed Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus and North-western Iran. The second part of the study, based on the literature and the new data presented in the first part, furnishes a reassessment of the pottery production characteristics and theories, one of the main identity markers, as well as of the socio-economic structure and issues, tied to the sedentary and mobile local communities of the Nairi lands. The analysis and reassessment processes are fundamental steps for achieving the final objective of this research, establishing a reliable identity profile of the local communities of the Nairi lands. More specifically, the study brings into focus the characteristics, the extension and the distribution of Grooved pottery, the guide fossil for these period, along with other pottery typologies, by providing a Catalogue with detailed descriptions and high-resolution images of the pots and sherds obtained from public and private institutions in Turkey and Armenia. Moreover, the socio-political organization and subsistence economy issues are address in order to advance a possible reconstruction of the social structure of the Nairi lands communities. Particular attention is devoted to the pastoral nomad component and the role played within the Nairi phenomenon. The last part of the study, in appendix, is devoted to the presentation of the results of the archaeometric analyses delivered by the University of Pisa, the Centre for National Research of Pisa and the University of Valencia on a selection of potsherds collected from key sites in the main areas of research