Transcaucasians: Settlement Migration, Trade, in the  Early Bronze Age.

Full Text 

Widener University, College of Arts and Sciences, Chester-USA

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Introduction

The presence of highly burnished, often incised red-black, black- black, and gray -gray pottery over a wide expanse of Georgia, Armenia, Eastern and Southeastern Turkey and Western Iran in the Early Bronze Age has led to a number of theories of what the presence of these cultural artifacts represent.   Does this Early Transcaucasian (ETC), Karaz, or Kura-Araks ware indicate a massive migration out of the Transcaucasian region  where much of this pottery first appeared?  Is the pottery carried by traders and reproduced by local Late Chalcolithic populations?  Is its presence simply a marker of the spread of new technologies among Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age populations, as the spread of the pottery wheel implied more of an inroad of ‘Ubaid cultures than probably existed in the fifth millennium?
   Among those ETC technologies are metallurgical techniques and ceramic copies of metal shapes.   Lastly, does the settlement pattern data in these regions reflect one or another explanation for the so-called ETC phenomenon?

Our understanding of the chronology, nature, and variations of these cultural phenomena have been much changed by recent work at Sos Höyük and Pulur.   Not only does this work imply that the Transcaucasian phenomenon began earlier in the fourth millennium BC than anyone had suspected and lasted into the Middle Bronze Age, but that northeastern Turkey represents one of homelands of certain types of so-called Early Transcaucasian ware.   The early appearance of ETC ware at Arslantepe, for example, seems less inexplicable than formerly thought if Erzurum is a home of an ETC-like stylistic corpus.   Its appearance at Arslantepe, however, does require an explanation that will help us explicate the phenomenon more broadly.   As more and more work is done on the varieties of Early Transcaucasian ware, it is also becoming clear that even within the Kura-Araxes region there is much more variation than anyone suspected.

In my presentation today I will be looking at the appearance of distinctly Early Transcaucasian ware in the hills and valleys of Muş in eastern Turkey and in the valleys of West-Central Iran.   In both cases we are speaking of places in the highland zone, fairly far from the Early Transcaucasian homelands, and places that are on traditional routes that connect regions.   The former is part of a traditional route from the highland east to Central Anatolia  and to northern Mesopotamia on the Euphrates route via Malatya.   The other is on the famous Silk Road.

First Principles

There are two interrelated issues in trying to unravel the real complexity of peoples trading goods, diffusing knowledge, migrating and thereby necessarily assimilating with the populations they encounter.   The first issue is methodological.   Because we rely so heavily on pottery style, how can style represent the sorts of underlying cultural trends we want to explain?  The second has to do with the causes and effects of the actual movement of significant numbers of people and of contact with people already in the places to which they go.

Regarding the first issue, we know that although the formula of 'pots equals peoples' is too simplistic, there are elements of style that have meaning symbolic of identity and of cultural perception.   In Longacre's  classic study of the distribution of variability in ceramics at the Carter Ranch Pueblo, he used pottery design to monitor post-marital living arrangements.   Currently, studies of the "Uruk Expansion" show that style in artifacts does have some cultural meaning, although in the Uruk case that meaning is still much debated.   Analysis of style has to be one of a number of dependent variables, not the only one, if we hope to have more than a superficial and perhaps misguided understanding.

The second issue is the relation of migration to trade, technological diffusion, and invention, as well as to cultural change.   We know from modern and from historically documented cases that migration, diffusion, and independent invention happened in the near and ancient past.   For example, no future archaeologist could hope to understand any modern country and its role in the world without understanding its migration pattern (immigration).   No one could understand the first decade of the 21^st century A.D. without understanding the invention of computers, the new organization of labor and time they promote, and their worldwide diffusion of knowledge as internet cafes pop up like mushrooms in every corner of the globe.   

Our problem of how to analyze ancient societies, then, remains.   How do we determine whether there were migrations of significant size, diffusion, or influence?  How do we in the same context explain why such processes are set in motion and how they changed the cultural landscape in the places where they occurred?  In other words, we need to see how the needs and opportunities of groups engaged in this process of movement of people, technologies, goods, and ideas were manipulated and adapted to produce the cultures we see later on in time.   I am advocating an adaptational approach that permits many of these processes, in addition to factors of natural environment  to be understood in one single framework.

In other words, to begin to understand the role of migration and diffusion as factors in explaining the changes we see in the material record and the cultural reality that lies behind it, we must reject a purely artifactual analysis.   That is to say that merely tightening our chronological analysis or a more detailed categorization of artifact types from neighboring geographical areas will not produce a satisfactory method.   I could not agree more completely with Anthony when he writes, "How is migration to be identified archaeologically?  This is, of course, an important methodological question, but it is not the place to begin."    "While it is often difficult to identify specific causes of particular migrations, even with the help of documentary data, it is somewhat easier to identify general structural conditions that favor the occurrence of migrations.   Moreover, particular structural conditions favor migrations of particular types."   In other words, we need to understand the changing natural, cultural, and socio-political environments of the time we are studying.   Then, if there were significant movements of human, groups, goods, or information, we can begin to understand how those movements changed the adaptations of all the societies involved.   "It is only after the structure of the migration process is understood that appropriate methods can be identified or developed to detect its archaeological signature."

For example, the Seljuk Turks or Oghuz  represent a historically attested migration of groups from Central Asia in the first millennium A.D.   Their homeland was farther east than the ETC, occurring as it did on the borders of Afghanistan east of the Caspian in Transoxiana.   These groups eventually migrated into the Kura Araxes basin and Eastern Turkey.   The populace that moved was made up of nomadic pastoralists and small farmers like most believe the ETC populations to have been.   Historical records indicate that initial reason for migration was economic.   "As with most of the great Turkish migrations in history, here too the major impetus seems to have been a lack of land and pasturage."
   A number of elements of the natural, cultural, and socio-political environments make this a less than perfect model for the ETC migration.   However, this case demonstrates how many factors must be taken into account.   For one thing, the Seljuks had a technological travel advantage in having the camel and modern horse available.   Second of all, the political organization of the Oghuz and their neighbors was much more sophisticated than the ETC group was likely to have been.   The Oghuz under Seljuk and his sons were part of a series of competing states with capital cities and sophisticated military organization.   In addition to land competition, they were competing with other states, the Khazar State and the Qipchaq confederation.   Because of their size and military prowess, they were pulled into Anatolia initially as mercenaries for the Byzantines, and early on in their migration made political alliances with the Moslems.  

The case of the Seljuk Turks, although not a direct model for the ETC, however, does point to a number of elements of a methodology to study cultures on the move and in contact with other populations.   As Anthony points out,  "Migration is a social strategy, not an automatic response to crowding."  Simply to say that the Seljuks lacked enough land in their old homeland and therefore somehow wound up in Eastern Turkey does not explain the full story.  

Demographers speak of a "push" and a "pull" in all migrations.   There must be some reason to be pushed out of an earlier homeland, but there must also be something that pulls the mobile population in a particular direction.   Part of the pull for migrants assumes that they have information about their destination.   Rarely does a completely isolated group migrate, except under the greatest duress.   "It is quite clear that the probability that x will migrate to y at time t is partially determined by x's level of knowledge about place y.   This, in turn, is largely determined by the prior history of migration between x and y.   At times this informational pull involves "leapfrogging."   Relatives or others who have migrated may draw migrants over large areas of available territory to a more distant locale.   Diffusion of information along the stream may occur even in areas where the migrants do not settle.  

Last, and certainly not least, the structure of migrations must be understandable in terms of the adaptations of the groups to their natural and human environments.   With some rare exceptions most migrating groups move into new territories to which they are pre-adapted.   The degree of fit to a particular set of environmental factors can limit or open potential new migration routes.   Food production and general subsistence behaviors are naturally the most critical elements of the social strategy of migrations.   An earlier analysis of Muş ETC pottery concluded that the geographical sphere of the groove and line design  demonstrated was the same as that of the Urartian homeland.   Although the Urartians attacked both Malatya to the west and probably Hasanlu to the east, neither area was fully integrated into the Urartian homeland.   Also, the ETC movement east of Lake Urmia in Iran, with its distinctive and different ETC pottery style also is not often found in the Solduz Valley where Hasanlu is located.   Like the expansion of the Bantu in Africa,  what is distinctive is the food-producing environment.   Malatya and Solduz are both rich agricultural areas, very different in crop choice and potential than highland Eastern Turkey, southern Georgia and Armenia, or highland West Central Iran.   In this light, the presence of ETC material very early at Arslantepe  and the mixed northern Mesopotamian reserved slip ware with ETC pottery in the “royal” tomb there probably indicates trade and contact, perhaps by pastoral nomads, rather than mass migration.

With these principles partially established, let us move to the cases.

Muş and West Central Iran

Muş represents a marginal zone environmentally.   It is blanketed with deep snow almost six months of the year, its soils are poor, and the many run-off streams flood as often as they water fields.   However, it is an area rich in pasture, especially in the hills above the plain.

While occupation in the Late Chalcolithic was sparse and isolated in the middle of the plain (figure 1), the third millennium saw a rapid and dramatic rise in population.   For the Kura-Araks I period (late fourth into earliest third millennium BC) the only new sites were in the hills on the routes toward the Transcaucasus.   Most prominent of these new sites was Erentepe (old name Liz).   The pottery of that period was very much in the style of the Erzurum area (figure 2).   In this area of hills, although some plant agriculture does take place, reliance on pastoralism is great, even today, as the route of the Yomut and Kurdish pastoral nomads pass the site on their way to the yayla (high pastures).

The number of sites jumped dramatically in the Kura-Araks IIB and III periods (figure 1).   In terms of artifactual remains, not only were new styles introduced into the area, but they existed next to older, native styles.   House forms and tool kits that fit the pastoral and small farming patterns in the Transcaucasus appeared as well.  

Pottery from the plain is based on the “groove and circular groove” and “groove and dimple” incised designs.  As study of this material by Kozbe indicates, however, it is technologically different than other Transcaucasian pottery in Eastern Turkey, and is similar to the pastes of earlier and later Muş ceramics.   Muş’ pottery is certainly different from, for example, Bayburt material found on Sagona’s survey and excavation.   Similarly, local pottery styles existed alongside ETC wares in the village period of Kura Araks II and III In the Altýnova and Malatya.   Muş is an example of the admixture of earlier local traditions and Transcaucasian forms and techniques, as Sagona notes, “it has become increasingly apparent that cultural developments in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age owe much to both local and foreign influences.”

What we may be seeing are two separate migrations, or ripples in a number of streams of migration.   The first saw a predominance of pastoralists, the latter of small farmers mixing with the local population.

What is perhaps most interesting about the pottery from the Muş plain is that its closest connections were to the area from Ernis, north of Lake Van, east to Haftavan Tepe, on the western side of Lake Urmia.   This is not the great agricultural zone, but a heartland of pastures.  In fact, the area covered by the line and groove style of ETC ware is the same as the core of the later Urartian Empire.

West Central Iran like Eastern Turkey and large parts of Transcaucasia are snow zones in the winter.   West Central Iran is “a vast region of rugged terrains unsuitable for large-scale agriculture, but ideal for different forms of pastoralism, including nomadic pastoralism.” 

Similar to highland Eastern Turkey, there are a limited number of possible routes connecting the Central Zagros to lowland Mesopotamia and southwest Iran.   Earlier signs of contact with Deh Luran and Mesopotamia proper are more evident in the west than in the east.  For Godin clear ceramic indicators of contact with the lowlands appeared earliest in the newly designated VI: 1A(V) just under the Oval.  Trays, string-cut based vessels, and beveled rim bowls constitute those types.

Clear signs of ETC presence appeared in the Kura Araks II.   However, “the most striking pattern in the archaeological record from Luristan and its surrounding areas is the great increase in the numbers of cavesites, open campsites, and the appearance of isolated cemeteries in the latter part of the Chalcolithic period.”  This increase in possible pastoral nomad activity contrasts with a contemporary decline in settled area.   This pattern could mean a general disruption in local life, leading to a new set of subsistence strategies for local residents.   Alternatively, it could be, as I suggested for Arslantepe, the first signs of larger pastoralist movements, part of the pull that would bring ETC farm migrants in the Kura Araks II.

Certainly, the appearance of the ETC pottery and one-room houses at Godin IV represents a major disruption.   Comparing the pottery alone, we see a very different tradition.   The Godin VI pottery is quite unique in its shapes and surface treatment for the Late Chalcolithic.   However, the quality is good: well-levigated clay, surface preparation, wheel turning, and high firing.   This all implies at least workshops.   The Godin IV pottery is of a quite inferior quality.   In fact, R. Henrickson proposes that each family made it at home.   Ceramics represent another indication of a different type of organization, different from the Godin VI town and certainly from the VI: 1 (V) Oval, one associated in this case with a different culture.

The most telling information on the coming of ETC populations has to do, however, with the settlement pattern data.   There are indications in the stratigraphy of Godin that indicate some kind of short hiatus.   Based on the sequence at Yanik Tepe, the square houses of Godin IV imply that the ETC populations worked their way down the mountainous spine of the Zagros over a significant period of time.   Summers argues that round houses represent the earliest ETC occupation at Yanik Tepe followed by square houses.

The changes in settlement patterns in Kangavar area are also indicative of changing underlying cultural patterns.   For period VII, the middle Chalcolithic, settlements most sites and most occupied hectares are in the hilly areas.   Period VI saw a movement of population into the valley bottom to the point where 70 percent of the population lived there.  Young proposes that the earliest irrigation systems in the valley caused this transference to the rich valley soils.   Period IV, the one that is ascribed to ETC cultural influence and no doubt ETC peoples, represents another re-alignment.   Unlike Muş, the occupied hectares remained about the same low level of 31 hectares.  Only 6 Godin VI sites were occupied.   Most occupation was isolate in two sites, one being Godin Tepe.   The average settlement size changed from a very small .87 hectare to 2.19 hectares, still small.   Few other sites in East Central Iran evidence this Godin IV ware, outside of the Hamadan Plain, which seems to have been a center of ETC occupation.   None of this ware was found in the Mahi Dasht survey to the west.  The subsequent Godin III period represents a major increase in occupied hectares, diversity of site sizes, etc.

Conclusion

With a lack of excavated and published sites in highland Eastern Turkey and western Iran, much of what I have presented remains speculation.   However, a pattern does appear to emerge.   First, there was not a uniform migration, but as I have written elsewhere many ripples in many streams over time.   The different pottery style zones indicate this diversity.   Such migration appears to have begun as pastoral nomad movement in its early days, creating a subsequent “pill” for small, fairly egalitarian farm communities.   The integration of these migrants with native populations is clearer in Muş than in Kangavar, possibly because Kangavar with its development of irrigation farming presented a different set of challenges to the migrants.   Certainly, these places and problems demand future work.

5 - NOTES

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