Neolithic Pastoralist Practices at Masis Blur, Armenia’s Ararat Valley

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Neolithic settlements appeared across the Southern Caucasus in the early sixth millennium BCE. Ongoing excavations, along with zooarchaeological and isotopic research, are clarifying how these communities used the landscape and managed livestock in the context of mixed farming. In this paper we present new zooarchaeological data from recent excavations, in conjunction with stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope analysis of bone collagen and stable carbon and oxygen (δ18O) isotope analysis of sequentially-sampled tooth enamel from livestock from Masis Blur, one of the earliest Neolithic sites in the Southern Caucasus. Our results indicate that the occupants of Masis Blur engaged in a predominantly caprine-based herding economy, which depended on seasonal mobility to high-elevation pastures in the summers. These seasonal strategies were in place in the earliest known phases of occupation at Masis Blur, and demonstrate sustained linkages between highland and lowland regions in the Ararat Valley in the early sixth millennium BCE. Finally, we also highlight how these data illuminate the diversity of herding strategies in the region more broadly.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Ancient Pastoralism in a Global Perspective   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41643.0