Until recent years the international community was essentially clueless about the great historical significance of the Armenian Highlands. Until recently western academia was essentially clueless about the archeological treasures that the Armenian Highlands hid beneath its ancient soil. Recent discoveries in present day Armenia and in the historic Armenian Highlands (now encompassing parts of Turkey, Iran and Azerbaijan) is forcing historians and archeologists around the world to take another look at the origins of human civilization. The fields of archeology and ancient history will continue being subjected to shock and awe as the Armenian Highlands reveals more-and-more of its ancient secrets and treasures
that were once laying dormant underneath its much trodden land. Although the Anglo-American-Jewish establishment, through Western academia and their close friends in Ankara, will continue doing their best to cast doubt on Armenian origins, the archeological and genetic studies we have today proves beyond any doubt that modern day Armenians are aboriginals/natives of the Armenian Highlands and that ancient Armenians were one of the earliest peoples to have culturally and genetuically impacted the early civilizations of Europe, the Middle East and the Caucasus. There is also little doubt today that the Armenian Highlands is actually the cradle of human civilization, the land where man first walked the earth. While our Russian friends have for a long time acknowledged the historical significance of the Armenian Highlands, I am glad to see that some westerners are beginning to do the same. I am confident that in time the entire world will eventually come to the realization that the Armenian Highlands was where modern man first walked onto the pages of human history. Arevordi
As if making the oldest known leather shoe wasn't enough, a prehistoric people in what's now Armenia also built the world's oldest known winery, a new study says. Undertaken at a burial site, their winemaking may have been dedicated to the dead—and it likely required the removal of any fancy footwear. Near the village of Areni, in the same cave where a stunningly preserved, 5,500-year-old leather moccasin was recently found, archaeologists have unearthed a wine press for stomping grapes, fermentation and storage vessels, drinking cups, and withered grape vines, skins, and seeds, the study says. "This is the earliest, most reliable evidence of wine production," said archaeologist Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). "For the first time, we have a complete archaeological picture of wine production dating back 6,100 years," he said. The prehistoric winemaking equipment was first detected in 2007, when excavations co-directed by Areshian and Armenian archaeologist Boris Gasparyan began at the Areni-1 cave complex. In September 2010 archaeologists completed excavations of a large, 2-foot-deep (60-centimeter-deep) vat buried next to a shallow, 3.5-foot-long (1-meter-long) basin made of hard-packed clay with elevated edges. The installation suggests the Copper Age vintners pressed their wine the old-fashioned way, using their feet, Areshian said. Juice from the trampled grapes drained into the vat, where it was left to ferment, he explained. The wine was then stored in jars—the cool, dry conditions of the cave would have made a perfect wine cellar, according to Areshian, who co-authored the new study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
Wine Traces
To test whether the vat and jars in the Armenian cave had held wine, the team chemically analyzed pottery shards—which had been radiocarbon-dated to between 4100 B.C. and 4000 B.C.—for telltale residues. The chemical tests revealed traces of malvidin, the plant pigment largely responsible for red wine's color. "Malvidin is the best chemical indicator of the presence of wine we know of so far," Areshian said. Ancient-wine expert Patrick E. McGovern, a biomolecular archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, agrees the evidence argues convincingly for a winemaking facility. One thing that would make the claim a bit stronger, though, said McGovern, who wasn't involved in the study, is the presence of tartaric acid, another chemical indicator of grapes. Malvidin, he said, might have come from other local fruits, such as pomegranates. Combined with the malvidin and radiocarbon evidence, traces of tartaric acid "would then substantiate that the facility is the earliest yet found," he said. "Later, we know that small treading vats for stomping out the grapes and running the juice into underground jars are used all over the Near East and throughout the Mediterranean," he added.
Winery Discovery Backed Up by DNA?
McGovern called the discovery "important and unique, because it indicates large-scale wine production, which would imply, I think, that the grape had already been domesticated." As domesticated vines yield much more fruit than wild varieties, larger facilities would have been needed to process the grapes. McGovern has uncovered chemical and archaeological evidence of wine, but not of a winery, in northern Iran dating back some 7,000 years—around a thousand years earlier than the new find. But the apparent discovery that winemaking using domesticated grapevines emerged in what's now Armenia appears to dovetail with previous DNA studies of cultivated grape varieties, McGovern said. Those studies had pointed to the mountains of Armenia, Georgia, and neighboring countries as the birthplace of viticulture. McGovern—whose book Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages traces the origins of wine—said the Areni grape perhaps produced a taste similar to that of ancient Georgian varieties that appear to be ancestors of the Pinot Noir grape, which results in a dry red. To preserve the wine, however, tree resin would probably have been added, he speculated, so the end result may actually have been more like a Greek retsina, which is still made with tree resin. In studying ancient alcohol, he added, "our chemical analyses have shown tree resin in many wine samples."
Ancient Drinking Rituals
While the identities of the ancient, moccasin-clad wine quaffers remain a mystery, their drinking culture likely involved ceremonies in honor of the dead, UCLA's Areshian believes. "Twenty burials have been identified around the wine-pressing installation. There was a cemetery, and the wine production in the cave was related to this ritualistic aspect," Areshian speculated. Significantly, drinking cups have been found inside and around the graves. McGovern, the ancient-wine expert, said later examples of ancient alcohol-related funerary rituals have been found throughout the world. In ancient Egypt, for example, "you have illustrations inside the tombs showing how many jars of beer and wine from the Nile Delta are to be provided to the dead," McGovern said. "I guess a cave is secluded, so it's good for a cemetery, but it's also good for making wine," he added. "And then you have the wine right there, so you can keep the ancestors happy." Future work planned at Areni will further investigate links between the burials and winemaking, study leader Areshian said.
Winemaking as Revolution
The discovery is important, the study team says, because winemaking is seen as a significant social and technological innovation among prehistoric societies. Vine growing, for instance, heralded the emergence of new, sophisticated forms of agriculture, Areshian said. "They had to learn and understand the cycles of growth of the plant," he said. "They had to understand how much water was needed, how to prevent fungi from damaging the harvest, and how to deal with flies that live on the grapes. "The site gives us a new insight into the earliest phase of horticulture—how they grew the first orchards and vineyards," he added. University of Pennsylvania archaeologist Naomi Miller commented that "from a nutritional and culinary perspective, wine expands the food supply by harnessing the otherwise sour and unpalatable wild grape. "From a social perspective, for good and ill," Miller said, "alcoholic beverages change the way we interact with each other in society."
The ancient-winery study was led by UCLA's Hans Barnard and partially funded by the National Geographic Society'sCommittee for Research and Exploration. (The Society owns National Geographic News.)
“If
this is a wine-press, so we have really had a wine-making
industry”,-informed Aysor.am Boris Gasparyan, the co-leader of the
archaeological team from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of
the National Academy of RA. In the cave of Areni Birds, in Vayots Dzor
Marz, during the excavations 50 liters clay jars, pitchers, samples of
crockery, vines were found, which entitled the scholars to suppose that
there was an industrial area of wine production there. According to the
results of the examinations made in Oxford laboratory, the vine found in
the cave dated to the end of the 5 century and beginning of the 4
century. “The results of the examination made in Oxford laboratory are
out of doubt”, said Boris Gasparyan.
The
Armenian small caves of volcanic origin, which are spread along the
feet of Aragats, in the gorges of Qasakh and Hrazdan, are well-examined.
And
the caves, which originate in case of the limestone structure of the
massifs, now are being examined. The caves in Areni are suchlike and are
of a great archaeological value. Since 2007 joint excavations are
being held by the archaeologists of Ireland, California, Great Britain
and Armenia. “The substances found in the caves mostly refer to Eneolith
period, the end of the 5th century and the mid of the 4th century
(4.100-4.200), i.e. 3 500 years, so we have the Middle Ages substances.
Last year we found pieces of manuscripts in Armenian and Persian. Also
we have some buildings and hearths of the Middle Ages”, - told Boris
Gaspatyan.
In the niches of the
caves the organic substances are well preserved, here the microclimate
is not changing much in winter and summer. The caves in Areni are not
exceptions. The archaeologist reminded about the Armenian tale of
Anahit and Vachagan where the whole craftsmanship was held in the cave,
and this was not groundless and had a historical basis. In the economy,
the monument of Areni had an important role, and the caves served as
places for living, cult worshiping and household activities. In the
caves in Areni the skulls of young girls were found, which pointed to
the fructification ritual funerals. Also the bones of goat and sheep
were found. As montioned Boris Gasparyan the goats were mostly bred for
milk and wool, and sheep were bred for meat and wool. The
archeologists dug to 4 meters and there the stratum of cultural
activities of the Copper Stone Age ended, and the sediments of
Pleistocene period started. “This little surface does not let us dig
deeper and we could not widen the hall not to damage the nearby clay
constructions”,-mentioned Boris Gaspartan. These archeological samples
now are in different laboratories of the world. The archeologists are
looking forward to the results, and the excavations of the caves in
Areni are still going on.
About
5,500 years ago someone in the mountains of Armenia put his best foot
forward in what is now the oldest leather shoe ever found.
It'll never be confused with a penny loafer or a track shoe, but the
well-preserved footwear was made of a single piece of leather, laced up
the front and back, researchers reported Wednesday in PLoS One, a
journal of the Public Library of Science. Worn
and shaped by the wearer's right foot, the shoe was found in a cave
along with other evidence of human occupation. The shoe had been stuffed
with grass, which dated to the same time as the leather of the shoe —
between 5,637 and 5,387 years ago. "This is great luck," enthused
archaeologist Ron Pinhasi of University College Cork in Cork, Ireland,
who led the research team.
"We
normally only find broken pots, but we have very little information
about the day-to-day activity" of these ancient people. "What did they
eat? What did they do? What did they wear? This is a chance to see this
... it gives us a real glimpse into society," he said in a telephone
interview. Previously the oldest leather shoe discovered in Europe or
Asia was on the famous Otzi, the "Iceman" found frozen in the Alps a few
years ago and now preserved in Italy. Otzi has been dated to 5,375 and
5,128 years ago, a few hundred years more recent than the Armenian shoe.
Otzi's shoes were made of deer and bear leather held together by a
leather strap. The Armenian shoe appears to be made of cowhide, Pinhasi
said. Older sandals have
been found in a cave in Missouri, but those were made of fiber rather
than leather. The shoe found in what is now Armenia was found in a pit,
along with a broken pot and some wild goat horns. But Pinhasi doesn't
think it was thrown away. There was discarded material that had been
tossed outside the cave, while this pit was inside in the living area.
And while the shoe had been worn, it wasn't worn out. It's not clear if
the grass that filled the shoe was intended as a lining or insulation,
or to maintain the shape of the shoe when it was stored, according to
the researchers. The
Armenian shoe was small by current standards — European size 37 or U.S.
women's size 7 — but might have fit a man of that era, according to
Pinhasi. He described the shoe as a single piece of leather cut to fit
the foot. The back of the shoe was closed by a lace passing through four
sets of eyelets. In the front, 15 pairs of eyelets were used to lace
from toe to top. There was no reinforcement in the sole, just the one
layer of soft leather. "I don't know how long it would last in rocky
terrain," Pinhasi said. He noted that the shoe is similar to a type of
footwear common in the Aran Islands, west of Ireland, up until the
1950s. The Irish version, known as "pampooties" reportedly didn't last
long, he said. "In fact, enormous similarities exist between the
manufacturing technique and style of this (Armenian) shoe and those
found across Europe at later periods, suggesting that this type of shoe
was worn for thousands of years across a large and environmentally
diverse region," Pinhasi said. While
the Armenian shoe was soft when unearthed, the leather has begun to
harden now that it is exposed to air, Pinhasi said. Oh, and unlike a lot
of very old shoes, it didn't smell. Pinhasi said the shoe is currently
at the Institute of Archaeology in Yerevan, but he hopes it will be sent
to laboratories in either Switzerland or Germany where it can be
treated for preservation and then returned to Armenia for display in a
museum. Pinhasi, meanwhile, is heading back to Armenia this week, hoping
the other shoe will drop. The research was funded by the National
Geographic Society, the Chitjian Foundation, the Gfoeller Foundation,
the Steinmetz Family Foundation, the Boochever Foundation and the Cotsen
Institute of Archaeology at UCLA.
Think
of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: Archaeologists have discovered
what they say is the world’s oldest known leather shoe. Perfectly
preserved under layers of sheep dung (who needs cedar closets?), the
shoe, made of cowhide and tanned with oil from a plant or vegetable, is
about 5,500 years old, older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids,
scientists say. Leather laces crisscross through numerous leather
eyelets, and it was worn on the right foot; there is no word on the left
shoe. While the shoe more closely resembles an L. L.Bean-type
soft-soled walking shoe than anything by Jimmy Choo, “these were
probably quite expensive shoes, made of leather, very high quality,”
said one of the lead scientists, Gregory Areshian, of the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles.
It could have fit a small man or a teenager, but was most likely worn
by a woman with roughly size 7 feet. The shoe was discovered by
scientists excavating in a huge cave in Armenia,
part of a treasure trove of artifacts they found that experts say
provide unprecedented information about an important and sparsely
documented era: the Chalcolithic period or Copper Age, when humans are believed to have invented the wheel, domesticated horses and produced other innovations. Along with the shoe, the cave, designated Areni-1, has yielded evidence
of an ancient winemaking operation, and caches of what may be the
oldest known intentionally dried fruits: apricots, grapes, prunes. The
scientists, financed by the National Geographic Society
and other institutions, also found skulls of three adolescents
(“subadults,” in archaeology-speak) in ceramic vessels, suggesting
ritualistic or religious practice; one skull, Dr. Areshian said, even
contained desiccated brain tissue older than the shoe, about 6,000 years
old. “It’s sort of a
Pompeii moment, except without the burning,” said Mitchell Rothman, an
anthropologist and Chalcolithic expert at Widener University
who is not involved in the expedition. “The shoe is really cool, and
it’s certainly something that highlights the unbelievable kinds of
discoveries at this site. The larger importance, though, is where the
site itself becomes significant. You have the transition really into the
modern world, the precursor to the kings and queens and bureaucrats and
pretty much the whole nine yards.” Previously, the oldest known leather shoe belonged to Ötzi the Iceman,
a mummy found 19 years ago in the Alps near the Italian-Austrian
border. His shoes, about 300 years younger than the Armenian shoe, had
bearskin soles, deerskin panels, tree-bark netting and grass socks.
Footwear even older than the leather shoe includes examples found in
Missouri and Oregon, made mostly from plant fibers. The Armenian shoe discovery, published Wednesday in PLoS One,
an online journal, was made beneath one of several cave chambers, when
an Armenian doctoral student, Diana Zardaryan, noticed a small pit of
weeds. Reaching down, she touched two sheep horns, then an upside-down
broken bowl. Under that was what felt like “an ear of a cow,” she said.
“But when I took it out, I thought, ‘Oh my God, it’s a shoe.’ To find a
shoe has always been my dream.” Because the cave was also used by later
civilizations, most recently by 14th-century Mongols, “my assumption was
the shoe would be 600 to 700 years old,” Dr. Areshian said, adding that
“a Mongol shoe would have been really great.” When separate
laboratories dated the leather to 3653 to 3627 B.C., he said, “we just
couldn’t believe that a shoe could be so ancient.” The shoe was not tossed devil-may-care, but was, for unclear reasons,
placed deliberately in the pit, which was carefully lined with yellow
clay. While scientists say the shoe was stuffed with grass, acting like a
shoe tree to hold its shape, it had been worn. “You can see the
imprints of the big toe,” said another team leader, Ron Pinhasi, an
archaeologist at University College Cork in Ireland, who said the shoe resembled old Irish pampooties,
rawhide slippers. “As the person was wearing and lacing it, some of the
eyelets had been torn and repaired.” Dr. Pinhasi said the cave,
discovered in 1997, appeared to be mainly used by “high-status people,
people who had power,” for storing the Chalcolithic community’s harvest
and ritual objects. But some people lived up front, probably caretakers
providing, Dr. Areshian said, the Chalcolithic equivalent of valet
parking. Many tools found
were of obsidian, whose closest source was a 60-mile trek away. (Perhaps
why they needed shoes, Dr. Areshian suggested.) “It’s an embarrassment
of riches because the preservation is so remarkable,” said Adam T.
Smith, an anthropologist at the University of Chicago
who has visited the cave. He said that distinguishing Chalcolithic
objects from later civilizations’ artifacts in the cave had been
complicated, and that “we’re still not entirely clear what the
chronology is” of every discovery. “The shoe,” he said, “is in a sense
just the tip of the iceberg.” (He probably meant to say wingtip.)
An
Armenian archaeologist says that scientists have discovered a skirt
that could be 5,900 year old. Pavel Avetisian, the head of the
Institute of Archeology and Ethnography in Yerevan, said a fragment of
skirt made of reed was found during recent digging in the Areni-1 cave
in southeastern Armenia. Avetisian told Tuesday's news conference in
the Armenian capital that the find could be one of the world's oldest
piece of reed clothing. Earlier excavation in the same location has
produced what researchers believe is a 5,500-year-old shoe, making it
the oldest piece of leather footwear known to researchers. Boris
Gasparian, an Armenian archaeologist who worked jointly with U.S. and
Irish scientists at the site, said they also found a mummified goat
that could be 5,900-year-old, or more than 1,000 years older than the
mummified animals found in Egypt.
Shengavit preserve offers glimpse to Armenia's pre-history
The foundation of Yerevan is often cited as 782 B.C., the year the
Urartuan fortress of Erebuni was founded by Argishti I on a hill within
the borders of the modern city of Yerevan. While Yerevan may be
considered the direct descendant of Erebuni, mankind has lived there for
many thousands of years before King Argishti I built his city.
Visitors
arriving at Yerevan's Zvartnots airport pass the U.S. Embassy on the
way to Yerevan's center. In back of the embassy is a small, man made
lake. Rising above the lake's opposite shore is the Shengavit Historical
and Archeological Culture Preserve. Within the preserve are excavations
revealing settlements from the end of the fourth to the beginning of
the second millennium B.C., as well as a small museum containing
artifacts found at the site. The neatly arranged artifacts are labeled
in English, Armenian, and Russian. The actual archeological site spans
an area of six hectares (about 15 acres). During the Soviet era a
hospital was built over part of the site destroying forever the yet
unexamined archeological evidence underneath.
The Shengavit
archeological record contains four layers, each about four meters (12
feet) in depth representing distinct phases of habitation. The lowest
and oldest layer contains the archeological record of inhabitants living
around 4000 - 3000 B.C., while the uppermost, most recent layer is
dated to about 2000 B.C. Scholars believe the site was continually
inhabited for over 2000 years.
Found within the oldest stone age
layer were crude stone tools and other items, while the upper layer
revealed sophisticated pottery, the presence of agricultural activity,
cattle raising, and copper tools as well as stone molds used to cast
copper implements. Buildings were constructed of unbaked clay bricks
set upon stone foundations with connected circular and rectangular
rooms. The inside walls of the rooms were plastered. There was evidence
that the walls were painted, though that evidence no longer exists.
Within the rooms were found triangular hearths set upon stands. The
circular rooms contained centrally located stone pedestals upon which
columns rested to support the roof. Floors were made of pebbles covered
with clay.
The Shengavit culture was spread throughout the
Ararat valley and was influential as far as western Armenia, Cilicia,
northern Mesopotamia, and Palestine. Obsidian tools from Armenia were
found in the Middle East. Anthropologists, analyzing human remains from
Shengavit tombs, believe the "Armenoid" skull type typical of current
day Armenians evolved in this region.
Shengavit was linked to
other settlements in the region, all of which demonstrated a similar
culture and were connected by trade. While there is no record of the
language used at the time, scientists believe that a non-Semitic,
non-Indo-European language or family of languages was prevalent, traces
of which remain today within the Armenian language.
While it can
not be stated that the early residents of Shengavit were "Armenian", as
the Armenian nation, people, and language may not have been formed at
that time, it is likely that the tribes living in the region ultimately
coalesced to form the Armenian people and the Armenian language. At a
much later time migrating tribes introduced Indo-European elements into
the Armenian language.
Initial excavation of the site began in
1936 by Joseph Orbeli (1887-1961) and Eugeni Bayburtyan (1898-1938) and
lasted two years; then the site was abandoned. Orbeli was the director
of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. Bayburtyan apparently
was a bit too nationalistic; he was arrested by Stalin and was never
seen again.
From 1945-1950 Sandro Sardaryan (1912-1995) studied
the site and then, from 1950-1983, led a new excavation of Shengavit.
Yuli Tamanyan, being an architect and member of the excavating team,
performed the site's measurements. He was the son of famed architect
Alexander Tamanian who, in 1925, developed the general layout of
Yerevan. In 1967 Sardaryan published a study "Primitive Society in
Armenia" in English describing Shengavit and other ancient settlements
within the Armenian highlands.
Excavations have produced roughly 6,000-year-old relics of a poorly known culture existing near the dawn of civilization
In
a cave overlooking southeastern Armenia’s Arpa River, just across the
border from Iran, scientists have uncovered what may be the oldest
preserved human brain from an ancient society. The cave also offers
surprising new insights into the origins of modern civilizations, such
as evidence of a winemaking enterprise and an array of culturally
diverse pottery. Excavations in and just outside of Areni-1 cave during
2007 and 2008 yielded an extensive array of Copper Age artifacts dating
to between 6,200 and 5,900 years ago, reported Gregory Areshian of the
University of California, Los Angeles, January 11 at the annual meeting
of the Archaeological Institute of America. In eastern Europe and the
Near East, an area that encompasses much of southwest Asia, the Copper
Age ran from approximately 6,500 to 5,500 years ago. The finds show that
major cultural developments occurred during the Copper Age in areas
outside southern Iraq, which is traditionally regarded as the cradle of
civilization, Areshian noted.
The new cave discoveries
move cultural activity in what’s now Armenia back by about 800 years.
“This is exciting work,” comments Rana Özbal of Bogazici University in
Istanbul, Turkey. A basin two meters long installed inside the Armenian
cave and surrounded by large jars and the scattered remains of grape
husks and seeds apparently belonged to a large-scale winemaking
operation. Researchers also found a trio of Copper Age human skulls,
each buried in a separate niche inside the three-chambered,
600-square–meter cave. The skulls belonged to 12- to 14-year-old girls,
according to anatomical analyses conducted independently by three
biological anthropologists. Fractures identified on two skulls indicate
that the girls were killed by blows from a club of some sort, probably
in a ritual ceremony, Areshian suggested. Remarkably, one skull
contained a shriveled but well-preserved brain. “This is the oldest
known human brain from the Old World,” Areshian said. The Old World
comprises Europe, Asia, Africa and surrounding islands. Scientists
now studying the brain have noted preserved blood vessels on its
surface. Surviving red blood cells have been extracted from those hardy
vessels for analysis. It’s unclear who frequented Areshi-1, where these
people lived or how big their settlements were. No trace of household
activities has been found in or outside the cave. Whoever they were,
these people participated in trade networks that ran throughout the Near
East, Areshian proposes. Copper Age pottery at the site falls into four
groups, only one of which represents a local product. A group of
painted ceramic items came from west-central Iran. Some pots display a
style typical of the Maikop culture from southern Russia and
southeastern Europe. Still other pieces were characteristic of the
Kura-Arax culture that flourished just west of Maikop territory in
Russia. Radiocarbon dating of pottery and other Copper
Age finds pushes back the origins of the Maikop and Kura-Arax cultures
by nearly 1,000 years, Areshian says. Additional discoveries at Areni-1
include metal knives, seeds from more than 30 types of fruit, remains of
dozens of cereal species, rope, cloth, straw, grass, reeds and dried
grapes and prunes. A hard, carbonate crust covering the Copper Age soil
layers, along with extreme dryness and stable temperatures inside the
cave, contributed to preservation of artifacts and, in particular, the
young girl’s brain. Medieval ovens from the 12th to 14th centuries have
also been excavated at the cave’s entrance, underneath a rock shelter.
Areshian expects much more material to emerge from further excavations
at Areni-1 and from explorations of the many other caves bordering the
Arpa River. “One of these caves is much larger than Areni-1, covering
about an acre inside,” he said.
Modern Armenians Genetically Cosest to Humans Living 4-2 Millenia BC
The
human being, who had lived since the end of the BC 4th millennium till
the end of the 2nd millennium, has been the biological ancestor of the
Eurasian modern area’s societies, excluding the residents of Sardinia
and Sicily. And the modern Armenian is genetically closest to the human
millennia BC 4-2 by its modern genetics. As “Armenpress” reports, on 05
June, the Director of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography Pavel
Avetisyan and the Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology
Institute, Historical Sciences Doctor Professor Levon Yepiskoposyan
stated this during the meeting with the reporters, representing the
results of the research conducted in cooperation with the University of
Copenhagen. 101 DNA samples were subjected to the laboratory analysis
for the study, which were brought from different countries - Denmark,
Estonia, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan,
Lithuania, Montenegro, Poland, Russia and Sweden. For the first time, 8
human samples excavated from various sites of Armenia Bronze-Iron Ages
were included in the study.
Date of Armenia’s Birth, Given in 5th Century, Gains Credence
Movses Khorenatsi, a historian in the fifth century, wrote that his native Armenia
had been established in 2492 B.C., a date usually regarded as legendary
though he claimed to have traveled to Babylon and consulted ancient
records. But either he made a lucky guess or he really did gain access
to useful data, because a new genomic analysis suggests that his date is
entirely plausible.
Geneticists
have scanned the genomes of 173 Armenians from Armenia and Lebanon and
compared them with those of 78 other populations from around the world.
They found that the Armenians are a mix of ancient populations whose
descendants now live in Sardinia, Central Asia and several other
regions. This formative mixture occurred from 3000 to 2000 B.C., the
geneticists calculated, coincident with Movses Khorenatsi’s date for the
founding of Armenia.
Toward
the end of the Bronze Age, when the mixture was in process, there was
considerable movement of peoples brought about by increased trade,
warfare and population growth. After 1200 B.C., the Bronze Age
civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean suddenly collapsed, an event
that seems to have brought about the isolation of Armenians from other
populations. No significant mixing with other peoples after that date
can be detected in the genomes of living Armenians, the geneticists
said.
The
isolation was probably sustained by the many characteristic aspects of
Armenian culture. Armenians have a distinctive language and alphabet,
and the Armenian Apostolic Church was the first branch of Christianity
to become established as a state religion, in A.D. 301, anticipating
that by the Roman empire in A.D. 380.
The
researchers also see a signal of genetic divergence that developed
about 500 years ago between western and eastern Armenians. The date
corresponds to the onset of wars between the Ottoman and Safavid
dynasties and the division of the Armenian population between the
Turkish and Persian empires. “This
DNA study confirms in general outline much of what we know about
Armenian history,” said Hovann Simonian, a historian of Armenia
affiliated with the University of Southern California.
The
geneticists’ team, led by Marc Haber and Chris Tyler-Smith of the
Sanger Institute, near Cambridge in England, see long-isolated
populations like that of the Armenians as a means of reconstructing
population history.
Armenians
share 29 percent of their DNA ancestry with Otzi, a man whose
5,300-year-old mummy emerged in 1991 from a melting Alpine glacier.
Other genetically isolated populations of the Near East, like Cypriots,
Sephardic Jews and Lebanese Christians, also share a lot of ancestry
with the Iceman, whereas other Near Easterners, like Turks, Syrians and Palestinians,
share less. This indicates that the Armenians and other isolated
populations are closer than present-day inhabitants of the Near East to
the Neolithic farmers who brought agriculture to Europe about 8,000
years ago.
The geneticists’ paper was posted last month on bioRxiv,
a digital library for publishing scientific articles before they appear
in journals. Dr. Tyler-Smith, the senior author of the genetics team,
said he could not discuss their results for fear of jeopardizing
publication in a journal that he did not name.
Tracing the Origins of Indo-European Languages to Armenia
Biologists using tools developed for drawing evolutionary family trees
say that they have solved a longstanding problem in archaeology: the
origin of the Indo-European family of languages.The family includes English and most other European languages, as well
as Persian, Hindi and many others. Despite the importance of the
languages, specialists have long disagreed about their origin.
Linguists believe that the first speakers of the mother tongue, known as
proto-Indo-European, were chariot-driving pastoralists who burst out of
their homeland on the steppes above the Black Sea about 4,000 years ago
and conquered Europe and Asia. A rival theory holds that, to the
contrary, the first Indo-European speakers were peaceable farmers in
Anatolia, now Turkey, about 9,000 years ago, who disseminated their
language by the hoe, not the sword.
The new entrant to the debate is an evolutionary biologist, Quentin
Atkinson of the University of Auckland in New Zealand. He and colleagues
have taken the existing vocabulary and geographical range of 103
Indo-European languages and computationally walked them back in time and
place to their statistically most likely origin.
The result, they announced in Thursday’s issue of the journal Science,
is that “we found decisive support for an Anatolian origin over a
steppe origin.” Both the timing and the root of the tree of
Indo-European languages “fit with an agricultural expansion from
Anatolia beginning 8,000 to 9,500 years ago,” they report.
But despite its advanced statistical methods, their study may not convince everyone.
The researchers started with a menu of vocabulary items that are known
to be resistant to linguistic change, like pronouns, parts of the body
and family relations, and compared them with the inferred ancestral word
in proto-Indo-European. Words that have a clear line of descent from
the same ancestral word are known as cognates. Thus “mother,” “mutter”
(German), “mat’ ” (Russian), “madar” (Persian), “matka” (Polish) and
“mater” (Latin) are all cognates derived from the proto-Indo-European
word “mehter.”
Dr. Atkinson and his colleagues then scored each set of words on the
vocabulary menu for the 103 languages. In languages where the word was a
cognate, the researchers assigned it a score of 1; in those where the
cognate had been replaced with an unrelated word, it was scored 0. Each
language could thus be represented by a string of 1’s and 0’s, and the
researchers could compute the most likely family tree showing the
relationships among the 103 languages.
A computer was then supplied with known dates of language splits.
Romanian and other Romance languages, for instance, started to diverge
from Latin after A.D. 270, when Roman troops pulled back from the Roman
province of Dacia. Applying those dates to a few branches in its tree,
the computer was able to estimate dates for all the rest.
The computer was also given geographical information about the present
range of each language and told to work out the likeliest pathways of
distribution from an origin, given the probable family tree of descent.
The calculation pointed to Anatolia, particularly a lozenge-shaped area
in what is now southern Turkey, as the most plausible origin — a region
that had also been proposed as the origin of Indo-European by the
archaeologist Colin Renfrew, in 1987, because it was the source from
which agriculture spread to Europe.
Dr. Atkinson’s work has integrated a large amount of information with a
computational method that has proved successful in evolutionary studies.
But his results may not sway supporters of the rival theory, who
believe the Indo-European languages were spread some 5,000 years later
by warlike pastoralists who conquered Europe and India from the Black
Sea steppe.
A key piece of their evidence is that proto-Indo-European had a
vocabulary for chariots and wagons that included words for “wheel,”
“axle,” “harness-pole” and “to go or convey in a vehicle.” These words
have numerous descendants in the Indo-European daughter languages. So
Indo-European itself cannot have fragmented into those daughter
languages, historical linguists argue, before the invention of chariots
and wagons, the earliest known examples of which date to 3500 B.C. This
would rule out any connection between Indo-European and the spread of
agriculture from Anatolia, which occurred much earlier.
“I see the wheeled-vehicle evidence as a trump card over any
evolutionary tree,” said David Anthony, an archaeologist at Hartwick
College who studies Indo-European origins.
Historical linguists see other evidence in that the first Indo-European
speakers had words for “horse” and “bee,” and lent many basic words to
proto-Uralic, the mother tongue of Finnish and Hungarian. The best place
to have found wild horses and bees and be close to speakers of
proto-Uralic is the steppe region above the Black Sea and the Caspian.
The Kurgan people who occupied this area from around 5000 to 3000 B.C.
have long been candidates for the first Indo-European speakers.
In a recent book, “The Horse, the Wheel and Language,”
Dr. Anthony describes how the steppe people developed a mobile society
and social system that enabled them to push out of their homeland in
several directions and spread their language east, west and south.
Dr. Anthony said he found Dr. Atkinson’s language tree of Indo-European
implausible in several details. Tocharian, for instance, is a group of
Indo-European languages spoken in northwest China. It is hard to see how
Tocharians could have migrated there from southern Turkey, he said,
whereas there is a well-known migration from the Kurgan region to the
Altai Mountains of eastern Central Asia, which could be the precursor of
the Tocharian-speakers who lived along the Silk Road.
Dr. Atkinson said that this was a “hand-wavy argument” and that such conjectures should be judged in a quantitative way.
Dr. Anthony, noting that neither he nor Dr. Atkinson is a linguist, said
that cognates were only one ingredient for reconstructing language
trees, and that grammar and sound changes should also be used. Dr.
Atkinson’s reconstruction is “a one-legged stool, so it’s not surprising
that the tree it produces contains language groupings that would not
survive if you included morphology and sound changes,” Dr. Anthony said.
Dr. Atkinson responded that he did indeed run his computer simulation on a grammar-based tree constructed by Don Ringe, an expert on Indo-European at the University of Pennsylvania, but that the resulting origin was, again, Anatolia, not the Pontic steppe.
Recent discoveries of Armenian archeologists could lead to rewriting history of the Ancient World in the near future.
In the study of ancient civilizations Armenia often remained on the
sidelines, as if she had not been involved in major historical
turnovers. The researchers’ interest was almost always confined to the
territory of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt. But, naturally the “factor”
of Armenia could not be excluded in the formation of ancient
civilizations. There is much evidence to prove it. Nevertheless, for one
reason or another Armenia, yet, was left out from the list of possible
leaders.
There are, of course, scholars who claim that cultural
achievements on the Armenian Plateau in such fields as metallurgy,
architecture, military science, and winemaking penetrated into Assyria,
Palestine, Egypt and the North Caucasus. For example, according to
British orientalist and archaeologist G. Childe, in its impressive
antiquity and values the culture of the Armenian Plateau can compete
with the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia and the Nile Valley.
Reaching
after the truth, scientists have always faced many fundamental
questions. The first - where did the ancient civilizations get their
unique knowledge from? The second - development of sciences and arts is
not recorded in the annals of ancient civilizations (Mesopotamia,
Egypt, India, Iran, etc.). Technological revolution seems
“instantaneous”. But technological advance is a long-term development,
which should be reflected in the evolution of applied technologies. The
process of phased development should be reflected in the cultural
layers of this or that civilization. It must have been shown on
artifacts, which would affirm the “copyright” of these civilizations on
the “know-how” ancient inventions. The third - in early years, objects
reflecting the advanced state of Mesopotamia, Egypt and other regions
were often imported. It has been proved by laboratory studies, using
the methods of exact sciences (spectral and radiocarbon tests, etc.).
It seems that the known so far advanced civilizations lived on some
unknown source that provided them with cultural and technical growth.
Historians have always wrestled with the question where this amazing
knowledge was obtained from.
The latest facts of Armenian archaeology fill this gap.
On
the southern slopes of Mount Aragats in the territory which has been
called Naver since the earliest times, ancient necropolis (Nerkin Naver
- lower graves and Verin Naver – upper graves) was discovered still
back in 1975. This finding immediately attracted the archaeologists’
attention. Soon it was clear where the name of this place came from. In
many ancient European languages “Nav” or “Nef” not only meant a ship,
but also a grave. Apparently, in ancient times this concept was
associated not only with sea voyages. It also had a sacred meaning:
ships carried the souls of the dead to the netherworld. The whole
“flotilla” of these “ships” revealed to the world such an abundance of
unknown facts that the researchers were just stunned. Burial mounds date
back to the 3000-2000 B.C. This was proved by a series of radiocarbon
analyses of artifacts held in laboratories of Germany and the USA.
These data wonderfully confirm the written information given by ancient
Armenian historians, in particular, Movses Khorenatsi (“History” 5th
c.), who states that the son of Hayk (ancestor of the Armenian people),
Aramanyak and his family settled down on the southern slopes of
Aragats, near a river. It happened after the victory of Hayk over the
Mesopotamian king - tyrant Bel. According to the chronology of the
Armenian historian Ghevond Alishan (19th c.) it was in 2492 B.C.
Nerkin
Naver was the burial place for high-ranking people. Verin was for
peasants. In the upper graves there has been excavated an area of 7000
m2 and 70 burial mounds of common people are discovered, while in the
lower graves there were excavated only 8 princely burial mounds.
“The
collected material suggests that Armenia is the ancestral home of
Indo-European civilization,” says Director of the Scientific and
Research Institute of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the RA
Ministry of Culture, candidate of historical sciences Hakob Simonyan.
“This is the most ancient burial site, where information about the Aryan
way of life and Aryan thinking is recorded. Here we find evidence of
goods production, which was unique for those times. The findings provide
a new interpretation of the development of civilizations,” Simonyan
says. In the burial site there were also found lots of gold
decorations, weapons, bones of revered animals, well-ornamented black-
and red-glossed pitchers. This was a “traditional” set typical for the
graves of that period. However, the sensational findings mark out his
necropolis from others of this kind. This message canned in centuries
gives a fair idea about the role and significance of the ancient
Armenian civilization.
“Here
we find all types of Indo-European burials: cremation (for VIPs),
gnawing of corpses by specially trained dogs (for retinue of the king)
and the simple burials (for peasants). The latter were buried on their
side: men on the right and women on the left,” continues Simonyan. “And
in every royal grave we usually find bones of two sacrificed horses.
But the most striking thing that we found here is the iron bits, whose
composition, according to chemical analysis, is similar to the oldest
metal products from Dorak and Alagja-Uyuk (Asia Minor, the end of 3000
B.C.). In fact, this is the third such discovery in the world, dating
back to the 23c. B.C. In the burial mound N2 there has been discovered a
black hydria (a large jar), on the “shoulders” of which there are
depicted six pairs of chariot wheels. The wheels have 4 spokes. It is
typical of the earliest chariot wheels. Another startling discovery is
the red-glossed pitcher. It shows a herd of thoroughbred domesticated
horses. An eloquent proof of it is their hair-cut manes and braided
tails. An image of a herd of such antiquity is unique in the whole Near
East. This information is a weighty argument in favor of the fact that
Armenia, among other things, is the home of horse breeding.
Excavations revealed also fine pieces of jewelry and beads of colored
glass. Some products are made of quartz. However, it’s striking, taking
into consideration that the melting temperature of quartz is 1700 °C.
How our ancestors did it remains a mystery. Such quality of glass is
exclusive throughout the ancient East of 3000 B.C.! Glass beads were
also found in the ancient settlement of Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) and
were over 1000 years older than these findings. Patterns on gold
products are quite similar to the ornaments on ceramics. And because
ceramics is of local production, it would be logical to assume that
gold jewelry is the handiwork of the same local craftsmen.”
Many
facts indicate that Armenia at that time was involved in international
trade relations. Examples of this are Mesopotamian clam shells,
agaltomelit beads (deposits of this stone are found only in Korea,
China and Japan), lapis lazuli beads from Badahshan (Central Asia),
imported goods from the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea, etc.
Hence, it can be concluded that trade relations were already regulated
by certain legal norms, such as purchase contracts, exchange contracts,
etc.
Another
finding of special importance is the rapier, which was the first
professional military weapon. It dates back to the XXIII c. B.C.
Spectral analysis showed that the found rapier is made of tin bronze.
The content of tin in the rapier is 11-12%. It’s the classic formula.
According to isotopic analysis, the copper ore is of Armenian origin.
It was extracted from Alaverdi (Lori Region). The tin is imported
(presumably from Central Asia). It should be noted that all these
artifacts have something in common with the samples obtained from the
ancient city of Shengavit.
There is also observed rapid development of
crafts and technology (pottery, metallurgy, wine-making).
In
this regard, involved in the excavation works in Shengavit, Mitchell
S. Rothman, Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology at Widener
University in Chester, Pennsylvania declared that all these data
suggest that approximately in 3000 B.C. the culture of ancient Armenia
spread across the world. “Armenia is the missing piece of the mosaic of
building civilizations of the ancient world. Shengavit and Naver have
completed those missing “chains” that we faced while studying the
ancient culture of Mesopotamia,” says Rothman.
The
American scientist’s words overlap with ancient Mesopotamian
information sources (such as the Epic of Gilgamesh 3000 B.C.), which
states that from the knowledge of at least 5 branches: construction,
metallurgy, grain cultivation, gardening, and wine making spread from
Armenia to Mesopotamia (see Artak Movsisyan, “Armenia in 3000 B.C.”).
Considering all these latter-day facts, it can be assumed that in the
near future the history of the Ancient World will have to be rewritten.
However, there is a time for things.
Armenian Archeologists Unearth Third Millennium B.C. Aryan Burial Mounds
Archeologists said Wednesday they have unearthed
burial mounds dating back to the third millennium B.C. which they
believe contain remains and trinkets from ancient Aryan nomads.
Historian Hakob Simonian said Wednesday that the four mounds were among
30 discovered about 35 miles west of the Armenian capital Yerevan,
containing beads made of agate, carnelian and as well as the remains of
what appears to be a man, aged 50-55. Also found were remains of
domesticated horses and glazed pottery appearing to show chariots,
Simonian said.
German scholars suggest recognizing Armenian petroglyphs as world’s cultural value
A group of German scholars who have
studied Armenian petroglyphs suggest recognizing Armenian petroglyphs as
a world cultural value and have them registered by UNESCO. They have
promised to support Armenia in this effort. This is what Armenologist Hamlet
Martirosyan said during today’s press conference, but informed that
there have to be some corrections made in the studies prior to appealing
to UNESCO.
“The new data show that the petroglyphs
in the Syunik region were created 14-15,000 years ago, meaning that they
belong to the Stone Age. The studies conducted in the 1970s show that
those petroglyphs were created in the Bronze Age. In addition, the
researchers of the past didn’t consider the petroglyphs writing, but now
there are grounds for considering them writings. If these two
corrections are made in the current studies, there will be answers to
many historical questions, particularly the questions related to the
origin of mankind and the specific location where that took place,” said
Martirosyan.
Martirosyan also informed that the few
monographs and studies about the Armenian petroglyphs are only in
Armenian and that it could be said that the world knew nothing about
them before 2010. The scholar also mentioned that it all depends on what
steps Armenia’s cultural structures and organizations will take and
that someday the world will be able to decode all that is hidden in the
Armenian petroglyphs.
The
Rock Arts of the Armenian Elevation are the Primary Source of the
Armenian, Egyptian, Indian and Hettitian Ideograms (Hieroglyphs)
It
is known, that with the appearance and the development of language the
man is becoming a unique “symbolic animal”, passing a way from a
biological being to a thinking one. But the reason is that the language,
as an informatics object is a developing, open, huge library of
interactive symbols, elements. Each of the elements is modeling,
projecting and means one appearance of the world, out of the edges of
the human race particularly and entirely. Taking in set that symbols and
elements are summarized in one image of the space, environment, where
live and create the users of that language. As the natural conditions,
in which our forefathers lived, and the situation, which is expressed by
the representatives of that culture, in many cases are changed from one
ethnos to another, in the result we observe differences in the
languages of various ethnic groups, and, in some cases, the differences
are not essential in one ethnic group. As
the authors think, these differences obviously appeared in the stages
of the development of rock art, rock images and pictures. Sometimes the
graphical languages (executive manners, typical forms, etc.) of various
ethnic groups are non-similar. It is supposed, that the complexes of the
rock images, which were discovered on the historical territory of
Armenia, are differed from each other in a measure of mental
characteristics and dialect differences of the representatives of
Armenian people from various parts and regions of Armenia. The graphical
language, symbols and signs are available. They are invariant and never
depend on time, geographical and natural coordinates. Many nations had
successfully learned and developed this language. Language symbols are
general and understandable basically in the limits of one ethnic group,
in determined geographical space and time. The authors think that just
the moment of the investigation of the graphical archetypes is supposed
to be the start of the civilization. The graphical image, picture,
symbol or sign, which is fixed on the stone, exists singly, never
depends on its creator - «is alienated from him». All this systems
possess by the feature of autonomy and independence. Linguist V.V.
Martinov call the language – “Actuality – 2'', in diversity of
“Actuality – 1”, which is the world environment. The
graphical language, the language of petrography and rock pictures
allowed a floating, harmonic and efficient (less actions) passing from
''Actuality – 1'' to ''Actuality – 2''. The construction of ''Actuality –
2'' relative to the objective, real or imaginable process, weighing of
negative and positive features, hesitation in sincerity of thoughts,
projection and development of the structure of logical constructions,
choice of more acceptable decisions and their spreading – for all
mentioned the man and the human language are obliged to the features of
graphical language, as well as to simultaneity, invariance,
reflectiveness, regularity, totality, etc. The hieroglyphs or the
symbols (the word “ideogram” comes from the Greek words “idea” and “I’m
writing”) have a significant place in the history of letter writing.
Hieroglyphs usually considered to be the first step in the development
of letter writing and were on the lowest development degree, as if they
do not express sounds or syllables. They express whole words or parts of
them and, naturally, do not submit any grammatical rule and cause
serious difficulties in reading. Egyptians, Shummers and Chinese
implemented this kind of letter writing. The ancient nations, such as
Armenian, also had hieroglyphs in their letter writing... Source: http://www.iatp.am/ara/sites/gaghap/index.htm
A Brief History of the Armenian Gampr
The
Armenian Gampr dog today has more similarity to the historical origin
breed of all mollosser type dogs than other more well-known breeds.
Historical evidence shows the development of livestock and companion
dogs to have been in existence on the Armenian plateau before other
ancient civilizations. Anthropological findings indicate that the
current gampr type became what it is today at least 3000 years ago
(Richard Ney, n.d.), and as the breed was developed out of necessity and
continues to be a necessary part of human survival in its native area,
the gampr has retained a surprising amount of its original
characteristics. Various central Asian countries have closely related
strains of the original shepherds’ dog. However, some of the other
breeds also have had genetic manipulation in the last 200 years, which
in most cases has meant the loss of the primitive soundness and depth of
instinct that remains today in the gampr. Located in a very fertile
zone, at the crossroads of travel between ancient Persia, Asia, and
Europe, the Armenian plateau has given rise to some of the earliest
milestones of civilization. Armenian innovations and products have been
at the forefront of the development of humanity, and many steps of human
progress appeared first here. Armenia was the first country to define
the zodiac, adopt Christianity, use astrology, create an astronomical
observatory and a calendar with a 365-day year, and the Armenians even built a Stonehenge thousands of years before the well-known European site (Ney, n.d.). As
these developments spread across Asia, so too did the early breed of
dog, protecting livestock and people as they traveled. Historical
records show early breeds of domesticated livestock to have existed in
Armenia 25,000 years ago, roughly 10,000 years before their existence
elsewhere (Ney, n.d.). Although the oldest archeological evidence of
settlements in Armenia are 90,000 years old (Ney, n.d.),
under the current city of Yerevan, many early peoples were nomadic, and
wealth was measured in possessions, including livestock. A dog such as
the gampr is invaluable in protecting one’s possessions, particularly
livestock. Even now, it is common knowledge among owners of sheep or
goats and livestock guardian dogs that a good dog will save the owner
thousands of dollars in prevented losses. During the thousands of years
of nomadic herding and trading, a good dog could easily have meant the
difference between life and death. According to early petroglyphs
beginning ca. 15,000-12,000 in the Armenian highlands, specifically “at
Ughtasar and on the Geghama mountain range, up to 20% of the carvings resemble the modern gampr, while others show a remarkable diversity of dog that no longer exists.”(Ney, n.d.) The
continued existence of domesticated animals at that time was most
likely restricted to those which were particularly useful and relatively
self-sustaining. Archeological records of early dogs are somewhat
concurrent and very widespread. Many archaeological finds indicate that
the “first” domesticated dog came from several origins. One fairly
recent find is of two skulls that are quite similar to the gampr and
other central asian shepherd breeds, and it is postulated that this may
be the first link between wolves and ancient dogs (Viegas, Jennifer, May
2003). Russian scientist Mikhail Sablin reported that the two dogs
found were very similar to the wolves in the area at the time, but had
shorter snouts, wider palates, and measured about 27.5 inches at the
shoulder, which is about average for the gampr. Found near Bryansk,
which is at the westernmost tip of the Russian Federation, the dogs were
in a cave at the edge of the broad plain stretching through the
Ukraine, northeast through Poland and south to the Caucasus mountains,
Georgia and Armenia. The skulls are reported to be about 14,000 years
old (Viegas, 2003). Another possible origin of the domestication of the
dog is southeast Asia. Extensive genetic mapping indicates a genetic
“age” of the domestication process, 12,000-15,000 years old. A landmark
study lead by Peter Savolainen and involving a team of scientists from
several continents organized mitochondrial DNA clades from modern dogs
into 5 main groups. Since ninety- five percent of the dogs studied were
from three clades, Savolainen’s team looked to the remaining clades
which included the first three but had more genetic diversity,
indicating a longer age of genetic development. The greatest
differences in mitochondrial DNA were apparently from southeast Asia,
indicating to the analysts that this was where the original
domestication process had begun (Savolainen et al, November 2002).
Stone Tool Discovery in Armenia Gives Insight into Human Innovation
325,000 Years Ago
An analysis of about 3,000 stone tools from a 325,000-year-old archaeological site near the village of Nor Geghi in the Kotayk Province of Armenia challenges the theory held by many scientists that the so-called Levallois stone tool-making technique was invented in Africa and then spread across the world as the human population expanded. Named after flint tools discovered in the 19th century in the Levallois-Perret suburb of Paris in France, Levallois technique is a distinctive style of flint knapping developed by early humans during
the Paleolithic. This technique involves the multistage shaping of a mass of stone in preparation to detach a flake of predetermined size and shape from a single preferred surface.
Many anthropologists argue that Levallois technique was invented in Africa more than 300,000 years ago and spread to Eurasia with expanding human populations, replacing a more basic type of technology
- biface technique - in which a raw block of stone is shaped through the serial removal of interrelated flakes until the remaining volume takes on a desired form, such as a hand axe.But now a team of archaeologists and anthropologists from the United
States and Europe led by Dr Daniel Adler of the University of Connecticut has discovered at the Armenian archaeological site of Nor
Geghi that Levallois tools already existed there between 325,000 and 335,000 years ago, suggesting that local populations developed them
out of biface technique, which was also found at the site. The co-existence of the two techniques provides the first clear evidence that local populations developed Levallois technique out of
existing biface technique.
"The discovery of thousands of stone artifacts preserved at this unique site provides a major new insight into how Stone Age tools developed during a period of profound human behavioral and biological change", said Dr Simon Blockley of Royal Holloway, University of London, who is a co-author of the paper describing the discovery in the journal Science."The people who lived there 325,000 years ago were much more innovative than previously thought, using a combination of two different technologies to make tools that were extremely important for the mobile hunter-gatherers of the time."
Moreover, the chemical analysis of several hundred obsidian tools from Nor Geghi shows that early humans at the site utilized obsidian outcrops from as far away as 120 km, suggesting they must have been
capable of exploiting large, environmentally diverse territories.
The ancient fortress Metsamor in the center of the Ararat Valley,
lying as it does some 35km southwest of Yerevan, occupies a volcanic
hill with its near lying area. Prompted to life by the fertile valley
with its rich water resources, vegetation and hunting grounds, girdled
by the meandering Metsamor River, the fortress, as before, is the site
of cool bubbling springs gushing life into the entire area.
In Metsamor the regular excavation work which was begun in 1965
and is still in progress has yielded cultural layers dating to the
Aenolithic, three periods of the Bronze Age (early, middle and late),
the early and developed Iron Age (Pre-Urartian, Urartian and Antique)
and the Middle Ages.
The excavations have shown that back in the early Bronze Age
(late 4th-3rd millenia BC) Metsamor was a flourishing cultural center
that had a substantial influence on the historical and cultural
development of the local people. Recent studies define the monument as a
large urban-type settlement which, according to preliminary data,
occupied an area of 10.5 hectares and consisted of a citadel fenced in
by a sturdy Cyclopean wall and a zikkurat observatory sited on a low
mountain ridge. The fortress comprised a range of rotund dwellings with
adjacent outbuildings.
In the middle Bronze period (late 3rd - middle of the 2nd
millenia BC) urbanization processes acquired a vivid expression leading
to complex architectural forms and extending the bounds of the
settlement. The Late Bronze period introduced more pronounced class
distinctions. Evidence of this are the objects of funeral rites and the
precious materials discovered in the tombs of elite rulers.
In the early Iron Age (11th-9th cc BC) Metsamor was already a
city. The citadel, observatory and dwelling blocks that occupied the
lowland stretching to Lake Akna covered an area of 100 hectares. The
fortress proper within the huge Cyclopean wall housed the palatial
structures, the temple ensemble with its seven sanctuaries and the
outbuildings. Half a kilometer to the southeast of the citadel was the
traditional necropolis which was tentatively supposed to cover an area
short of 100 hectares. Small interments have been excavated along with
large burial mounds and underlying crushed-stone layers yielding
large-sized tombs built of red tufa blocks and encircled by cromlechs.
The material artifacts dealing with funeral ceremonies testify to
the high rank of the buried: numerous horses, cattle and other farm
animals, pigs, dogs, and even people were sacrificed in their honor. The
discovered grape and pear pits show that fruits also had a part to play
in the funeral ceremonies. Among funeral objects a special place belongs to amethyst bowls,
ornamented wooden caskets, inlaid-work covers, glazed ceramic perfume
bottles, and ornaments of gold, silver and semi-precious stones and
paste decorated with traditional mythological scenes typical of local
art traditions.
Among the finds a special place belongs to an agate frog-weight
in the possession of the Babylonian ruler Ulam Vurarish (end of the 16th
century BC) and a seal of cornelian with Egyptian heiroglyphs owned by
the Babylonian ruler Kurigalz (15th century BC). These finds along with many other items show that from ancient
times Metsamor stood at the crossroads of travel routes running across
the Ararat plain and linking Asia Minor with the Northern Caucasus.
In the early Iron Age Metsamor was on eof the 'regal' towns and
administrative-political and cultural centers sited in the Ararat
lowlands. The traces of wars, devastations and fires discovered during
excavation work coincide in time with the conquest of the Ararat plain
by the Van kingdom in the early 8th century BC.
Stratigraphic data and the discovered material confirm the fact
that following a brief interruption life on Metsamor hill was resumed.
The Van rulers erected a new Cyclopean wall and Metsamor apparently
acquired the status of taxpayer. The territory of the citadel has also yielded materials pertaining to the antique and Hellenic periods. Life continued to thrive in Metsamor throughout the Middle Ages
up to the 17th century. The best evidence of this are the traces of
former buildings discovered on the hilltop and its eastern slope, the
glazed and unglazed earthenware, and items of luxury.
A special place belongs to coins excavated from Metsamors
medieval layers. Among them one should mention the coin of Levon II
(1270-1289), the medieval coin of the Khulavites minted in Tabriz (16th
century), and the West European 13th-14th cc. coin which confirms
Metsamor's position throughout the ages as a centre at the crossroads of
trade routes. The rich and diverse material discovered in the multilayer
excavations at Metsamor has naturally led to the founding of the
Metsamor Museum at the site of the monument.
The Museum of History and Archaeology was opened in 1968. Today
it is the repository of 22,000 items. Its ground floor holds along with
the diagram of the stratigraphic picture of the excavated layers
chronological materials discovered in the fortress and the burial
grounds dating from the Early Bronze Age to the Middle Ages. The second
floor boasts two departments. The first displays materials dealing with
trades, stone artifacts, items employed in jewelry-making,
textile-weaving and leather working, carpet-weaving and the production
of ceramics, and the glazed bluish-green decorative tiles that had
ornamented the palace and temple halls. There is also a fine collection
showing the metal-working process of those times.
The other department is devoted to the temple ensemble and items
of worship. Here one sees idols, phallic sculptures, makeshift hearths,
pintader seals for stamping blessed bread loaves, and amulets.
The museum basement is the repository of archeological wealth: an
exposition showing the funeral ceremony of the Van Kingdom, the
collection of gold displayed in two small halls comprising necklaces of
gold, silver and semi-precious stones, amber and paste, along with other
samples of jewelry-working discovered in the burials of wealthy
Metsamor residents. The exposition is regularly replenished and renewed.The museum attracts many visitors. The Metsamor monument and
Museum have recieved a high appraisal of archaeologists, astrophysicists
and other high-ranking specialists. There is no overstating the role of Metsamor in studying the
history and culture of the people that once inhabited the Armenian
plateau. Excavations of the ancient settlement are in full progress.
Around
200km from Yerevan, the capital of the Republic of
Armenia, not far from the town of Sisian, there is a
Prehistoric Monument consisting of hundreds of Standing
Stones on a territorial area of approximately 7 hectares.
Many of these stones have smooth angled holes of 4 to 5cm in
diameter, the angles of the holes being directed at different
points on the horizon and outer space. Professor Paris Herouni,
a member of the Armenian National Academy of Science and
President of the Radiophysics Research Institute in
Yerevan, has undertaken a series of scientific
expeditions, starting from 1994 (four days each occasion),
the timing of these expeditions being at equinox and
solstice days. The objective of this research was to
investigate and try to solve the mysteries of this Monument. During these expeditions, the following tasks were achieved:
• 223 Stones were numbered, 84 of which were found to have holes;
• the exact topographical map of the Monument was prepared;
• the latitude, longitude and magnetic deviation of the site was measured; and
• many unique astronomic instruments consisting of one,
two or three Stones were identified, and using these, many
observations of the Sun, Moon and stars at their rising,
setting and culmination moments, were made.
Research
to date has established that the name of the Monument was
carahunge (“Speaking Stones”). The age of Carahunge has
been estimated to be 7500 years or older (VI millennium BC).
This was accurately ascertained by taking readings of the motion
of the Sun, Moon and stars, using four independent
astronomical methods based on the laws of the changes of
the Earth’s axis precession and incline. The
period when Carahunge’s activities took place was also calculated,
this being a period of more than 5500 years. It was also
demonstrated that the main functions of Karahunge were:
1). to serve as the temple of AR (Sun) – The Father and Main God of the Armenians;
2). to provide protection through TIR, the old Armenian God of science;
3). to play the role of a large and sophisticated Observatory (the North and South stone Arms); and
4). to serve as a University.
(The
Armenian scientists of old, during the time of Carahunge,
could accurately measure latitude; knew that the Earth was ball-shaped;
that its radius was equal to 6300km; had an accurate
calendar, etc). These scientists also planned and were
involved in the implementation of other well known ancient
Monuments, such as the Great Pyramid in Egypt (3000 years
“younger” than Carahunge); Stonehenge in England (3500
years “younger”); and others. Many of these Monuments
retain until now, a link with the original Armenian name,
e.g. Stonehenge, which has the same connotation as
Carahunge, because “stone” in Armenian is “kar” and
“henge” (a word which is absent in English) is the same
“hunge” (voice, sound, echo in Armenian).Another example
is Callanish in Scotland (Luis island in North Gebrids),
because “kal” = “car”, “nish” in Armenian is “sign” and
Luis is “light”. The same principle applies to the name
given to the standing Stones in Carnac in Brittany
(France), in Egypt, etc.Finally, it must be very
interesting to our readers that many of the world’s well
known ancient Monuments were built in definite and equal
latitudinal distances from Karahunge. For example, the
latitude difference between Karahunge and Stonehenge is
about +10°; Karahunge and the Great Pyramid is about –10°;
between Carahunge,Kallanish and the oldest Egyptian observatory
and Temple of the Principal God RA (AR), near present Assuan,
is ±16°.Armenian scientists of old knew mathematics,
geometry, written language, astronomy, philosophy, etc. There
were laws and order in existence, and Armenia was a Kingdom
with dynasties. Carahunge confirms that Armenia was the
first civilization on Earth, propagated knowledge and
kindness everywhere and was the cradle of Indo-Europeans
and Indo- European languages.
As
a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native
Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years
later, representing the German Archaeological Institute, he found
something infinitely more important -- a temple complex almost twice as
old as anything comparable on the planet. "This place is a supernova",
says Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on a windswept hilltop 35 miles
north of Turkey’s border with Syria. "Within a minute of first seeing
it I knew I had two choices: go away and tell nobody, or spend the rest
of my life working here." Behind him are the first folds of the
Anatolian plateau. Ahead, the Mesopotamian plain, like a dust-colored
sea, stretches south hundreds of miles to Baghdad and beyond. The stone
circles of Gobekli Tepe are just in front, hidden under the brow of the
hill.
Compared
to Stonehenge, Britain’s most famous prehistoric site, they are humble
affairs. None of the circles excavated (four out of an estimated 20) are
more than 30 meters across. What makes the discovery remarkable are the
carvings of boars, foxes, lions, birds, snakes and scorpions, and their
age. Dated at around 9,500 BC, these stones are 5,500 years older than
the first cities of Mesopotamia, and 7,000 years older than Stonehenge.
Never mind circular patterns or the stone-etchings, the people who
erected this site did not even have pottery or cultivate wheat. They
lived in villages. But they were hunters, not farmers. "Everybody used
to think only complex, hierarchical civilizations could build such
monumental sites, and that they only came about with the invention of
agriculture", says Ian Hodder, a Stanford University Professor of
Anthropology, who, since 1993, has directed digs at Catalhoyuk, Turkey’s
most famous Neolithic site. "Gobekli changes everything. It’s
elaborate, it’s complex and it is pre-agricultural. That fact alone
makes the site one of the most important archaeological finds in a very
long time." With only a fraction of the site opened up
after a decade of excavations, Gobekli Tepe’s significance to the people
who built it remains unclear. Some think the site was the center of a
fertility rite, with the two tall stones at the center of each circle
representing a man and woman. It’s a theory the tourist board in the
nearby city of Urfa has taken up with alacrity. Visit the Garden of
Eden, its brochures trumpet, see Adam and Eve. Schmidt is skeptical
about the fertility theory. He agrees Gobekli Tepe may well be "the last
flowering of a semi-nomadic world that farming was just about to
destroy," and points out that if it is in near perfect condition today,
it is because those who built it buried it soon after under tons of
soil, as though its wild animal-rich world had lost all meaning. But the
site is devoid of the fertility symbols that have been found at other
Neolithic sites, and the T-shaped columns, while clearly semi-human, are
sexless. "I think here we are face to face with the earliest
representation of gods", says Schmidt, patting one of the biggest
stones. "They have no eyes, no mouths, no faces. But they have arms and
they have hands. They are makers." "In my opinion, the people who carved
them were asking themselves the biggest questions of all," Schmidt
continued. "What is this universe? Why are we here?" With
no evidence of houses or graves near the stones, Schmidt believes the
hill top was a site of pilgrimage for communities within a radius of
roughly a hundred miles. He notes how the tallest stones all face
southeast, as if scanning plains that are scattered with archeological
sites in many ways no less remarkable than Gobekli Tepe. Last year, for
instance, French archaeologists working at Djade al-Mughara in northern
Syria uncovered the oldest mural ever found. "Two square meters of
geometric shapes, in red, black and white - a bit like a Paul Klee
painting," explains Eric Coqueugniot, the University of Lyon
archaeologist who is leading the excavation. Coqueugniot describes
Schmidt’s hypothesis that Gobekli Tepe was meeting point for feasts,
rituals and sharing ideas as "tempting," given the site’s spectacular
position. But he emphasizes that surveys of the region are still in
their infancy. "Tomorrow, somebody might find somewhere even more
dramatic." Director of a dig at Korpiktepe, on the Tigris River about
120 miles east of Urfa, Vecihi Ozkaya doubts the thousands of stone pots
he has found since 2001 in hundreds of 11,500 year-old graves quite
qualify as that. But his excitement fills his austere office at Dicle
University in Diyarbakir. "Look at this", he says, pointing at a photo
of an exquisitely carved sculpture showing an animal, half-human,
half-lion. "It’s a sphinx, thousands of years before Egypt. Southeastern
Turkey, northern Syria - this region saw the wedding night of our
civilization."
The
reenactors are busloads of tourists—usually Turkish, sometimes
European. The buses (white, air-conditioned, equipped with televisions)
blunder over the winding, indifferently paved road to the ridge and dock
like dreadnoughts before a stone portal. Visitors flood out, fumbling
with water bottles and MP3 players. Guides call out instructions and
explanations. Paying no attention, the visitors straggle up the hill.
When they reach the top, their mouths flop open with amazement, making a
line of perfect cartoon O's.
Before them are dozens of massive stone pillars arranged into a set of rings, one mashed up against the next. Known as Göbekli Tepe (pronounced Guh-behk-LEE TEH-peh), the site is vaguely reminiscent of Stonehenge, except that Göbekli Tepe was built much earlier and is made not from roughly hewn blocks but from cleanly carved limestone pillars splashed with bas-reliefs of animals—a cavalcade of gazelles, snakes, foxes, scorpions, and ferocious wild boars. The assemblage was built some 11,600 years ago, seven millennia before the Great Pyramid of Giza. It contains the oldest known temple. Indeed, Göbekli Tepe is the oldest known example of monumental architecture—the first structure human beings put together that was bigger and more complicated than a hut. When these pillars were erected, so far as we know, nothing of comparable scale existed in the world. At the time of Göbekli Tepe's construction much of the human race lived in small nomadic bands that survived by foraging for plants and hunting wild animals. Construction of the site would have required more people coming together in one place than had likely occurred before. Amazingly, the temple's builders were able to cut, shape, and transport 16-ton stones hundreds of feet despite having no wheels or beasts of burden. The pilgrims who came to Göbekli Tepe lived in a world without writing, metal, or pottery; to those approaching the temple from below, its pillars must have loomed overhead like rigid giants, the animals on the stones shivering in the firelight—emissaries from a spiritual world that the human mind may have only begun to envision. Archaeologists are still excavating Göbekli Tepe and debating its meaning. What they do know is that the site is the most significant in a volley of unexpected findings that have overturned earlier ideas about our species' deep past. Just 20 years ago most researchers believed they knew the time, place, and rough sequence of the Neolithic Revolution—the critical transition that resulted in the birth of agriculture, taking Homo sapiens from scattered groups of hunter-gatherers to farming villages and from there to technologically sophisticated societies with great temples and towers and kings and priests who directed the labor of their subjects and recorded their feats in written form. But in recent years multiple new discoveries, Göbekli Tepe preeminent among them, have begun forcing archaeologists to reconsider. At first the Neolithic Revolution was viewed as a single event—a sudden flash of genius—that occurred in a single location, Mesopotamia, between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in what is now southern Iraq, then spread to India, Europe, and beyond. Most archaeologists believed this sudden blossoming of civilization was driven largely by environmental changes: a gradual warming as the Ice Age ended that allowed some people to begin cultivating plants and herding animals in abundance. The new research suggests that the "revolution" was actually carried out by many hands across a huge area and over thousands of years. And it may have been driven not by the environment but by something else entirely. After a moment of stunned quiet, tourists at the site busily snap pictures with cameras and cell phones. Eleven millennia ago nobody had digital imaging equipment, of course. Yet things have changed less than one might think. Most of the world's great religious centers, past and present, have been destinations for pilgrimages—think of the Vatican, Mecca, Jerusalem, Bodh Gaya (where Buddha was enlightened), or Cahokia (the enormous Native American complex near St. Louis). They are monuments for spiritual travelers, who often came great distances, to gawk at and be stirred by. Göbekli Tepe may be the first of all of them, the beginning of a pattern. What it suggests, at least to the archaeologists working there, is that the human sense of the sacred—and the human love of a good spectacle—may have given rise to civilization itself. Klaus Schmidt knew almost instantly that he was going to be spending a lot of time at Göbekli Tepe. Now a researcher at the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Schmidt had spent the autumn of 1994 trundling across southeastern Turkey. He had been working at a site there for a few years and was looking for another place to excavate. The biggest city in the area is Şanlıurfa (pronounced shan-LYOOR-fa). By the standards of a brash newcomer like London, Şanlıurfa is incredibly old—the place where the Prophet Abraham supposedly was born. Schmidt was in the city to find a place that would help him understand the Neolithic, a place that would make Şanlıurfa look young. North of Şanlıurfa the ground ripples into the first foothills of the mountains that run across southern Turkey, source of the famous Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Nine miles outside of town is a long ridge with a rounded crest that locals call Potbelly Hill—Göbekli Tepe. In the 1960s archaeologists from the University of Chicago had surveyed the region and concluded that Göbekli Tepe was of little interest. Disturbance was evident at the top of the hill, but they attributed it to the activities of a Byzantine-era military outpost. Here and there were broken pieces of limestone they thought were gravestones. Schmidt had come across the Chicago researchers' brief description of the hilltop and decided to check it out. On the ground he saw flint chips—huge numbers of them. "Within minutes of getting there," Schmidt says, he realized that he was looking at a place where scores or even hundreds of people had worked in millennia past. The limestone slabs were not Byzantine graves but something much older. In collaboration with the DAI and the Şanlıurfa Museum, he set to work the next year. Inches below the surface the team struck an elaborately fashioned stone. Then another, and another—a ring of standing pillars. As the months and years went by, Schmidt's team, a shifting crew of German and Turkish graduate students and 50 or more local villagers, found a second circle of stones, then a third, and then more. Geomagnetic surveys in 2003 revealed at least 20 rings piled together, higgledy-piggledy, under the earth. The pillars were big—the tallest are 18 feet in height and weigh 16 tons. Swarming over their surfaces was a menagerie of animal bas-reliefs, each in a different style, some roughly rendered, a few as refined and symbolic as Byzantine art. Other parts of the hill were littered with the greatest store of ancient flint tools Schmidt had ever seen—a Neolithic warehouse of knives, choppers, and projectile points. Even though the stone had to be lugged from neighboring valleys, Schmidt says, "there were more flints in one little area here, a square meter or two, than many archaeologists find in entire sites." The circles follow a common design. All are made from limestone pillars shaped like giant spikes or capital T's. Bladelike, the pillars are easily five times as wide as they are deep. They stand an arm span or more apart, interconnected by low stone walls. In the middle of each ring are two taller pillars, their thin ends mounted in shallow grooves cut into the floor. I asked German architect and civil engineer Eduard Knoll, who works with Schmidt to preserve the site, how well designed the mounting system was for the central pillars. "Not," he said, shaking his head. "They hadn't yet mastered engineering." Knoll speculated that the pillars may have been propped up, perhaps by wooden posts. To Schmidt, the T-shaped pillars are stylized human beings, an idea bolstered by the carved arms that angle from the "shoulders" of some pillars, hands reaching toward their loincloth-draped bellies. The stones face the center of the circle—as at "a meeting or dance," Schmidt says—a representation, perhaps, of a religious ritual. As for the prancing, leaping animals on the figures, he noted that they are mostly deadly creatures: stinging scorpions, charging boars, ferocious lions. The figures represented by the pillars may be guarded by them, or appeasing them, or incorporating them as totems. Puzzle piled upon puzzle as the excavation continued. For reasons yet unknown, the rings at Göbekli Tepe seem to have regularly lost their power, or at least their charm. Every few decades people buried the pillars and put up new stones—a second, smaller ring, inside the first. Sometimes, later, they installed a third. Then the whole assemblage would be filled in with debris, and an entirely new circle created nearby. The site may have been built, filled in, and built again for centuries. Bewilderingly, the people at Göbekli Tepe got steadily worse at temple building. The earliest rings are the biggest and most sophisticated, technically and artistically. As time went by, the pillars became smaller, simpler, and were mounted with less and less care. Finally the effort seems to have petered out altogether by 8200 B.C. Göbekli Tepe was all fall and no rise.
Armenia’s
‘Fertile Crescent’ was located in two places: at the headwaters of the
Euphrates and Tigris, and along the Arax River, its tributaries a
series of liquid ribs along a central Ararat spine. Within the Ararat
Valley lies a smaller crescent of land, still bearing the marks of vast
marshlands and forests that once covered the entire valley floor. As
you wander through this area, you can spot sudden eruptions of the
terrain, hills that seem to appear from nowhere. They do not ‘fit’ the
contour of the land. These are the remains of the first urban
civilization to leave its imprint on the ancient Armenian world: they
are the sentinels of the Metsamor Kingdom, the ‘Cradle of Armenian
Civilization’. The
oldest settlement found in Armenia is a 90,000 BC Stone Age settlement
in suburban Yerevan. From then through the Paleolithic period, proof
of human settlement is scattered between cave dwellings and stone
inscriptions on the Geghama Lehr. Suddenly, at the end of the Mesolithic
period, a complex web of cities and fortified settlements appeared
throughout the Ararat valley, only handfuls of which have been
excavated. But enough have been uncovered to show a startlingly
developed culture that rivaled the Mesopotamian urban cities, and in the
area of astronomy, led the way. Between
7000 and 4000 BC, this series of cities appeared at evenly placed
spots in this crescent, all of them built around the metal industry.
The inhabitants were the first known to forge copper and bronze; and
are the first recorded to successfully smelt iron. The metal ore mined
in this area was among of the purest in the world, and the natives
shaped their culture around it. They believed the technique for forging
metal was given to them from the heavens, and their temples combined
metal idols with sophisticated stone observatories that charted the
night sky. The first recorded astronomers, they were the earliest to
create a calendar that divided the year into 12 segments of time, among
the first to devise the compass, and to envision the shape of the
world as round. The
successful smelting of bronze (along with gold, silver and magnesium)
and the mining of precious gems transformed an agrarian civilization
into to an urban one. The first signs of fortified cities are traced to
this era, beginning with the excavation at Metsamor (a thriving trade
culture by 5,000 BC, and with many more strata to be uncovered,
conjectured to be as old as 10,000 BC in its first incarnation). Other
5th millennium cities include Dari Blur (Armavir), Aratashen Blur,
AdaBlur and Teghut. In the 4th millennium BC the cyclopic walls of
Lechashen had been erected by Lake Sevan, while in the Ararat valley
cities at Shengavit, Aigevan and Aigeshat were established. By
3000 BC a large kingdom was established around Metsamor with
additional cities at MokhraBlur Jerahovit, Lejapi Blur, Kosh and Voski
Blur (Voski means “golden” in Armenian). Shengavit is distinct among
the cities in Armenia for its use of round shaped dwellings made from
river stones and mud brick. The artifacts found at Shengavit (ca.
5000-3000 BC) include black-varnished, red and gray pottery, in
geometric patterns similar to those used in the Minoan culture. The
culture had distinctive religious beliefs revolving around the sun and
planets, reflected in burial artifacts found at the sites. Ancestral
Armenians developed a trading culture at a very early time. To do
that, they needed to understand and create a system of navigation.
Longitude, latitude, distance and direction had to be calculated for
any trip farther than across a few mountains. Artifacts uncovered at
Metsamor come from as far-flung cultures as those in Central Asia,
Mesopotamia, the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Others include
navigational tools, inscribed in stone and accurately mapping the night
sky. In Sissian, an astral observatory built from stone shows an
incredibly sophisticated knowledge of the universe way before the
Babylonians—which used to be thought the first astronomers—had built
their first city. Rapid
development and unification through trading between the tribes in the
Armenian plateau created a rich and prosperous culture that was to last
for more than 5000 years. The metal based cultures that sprung up on
the Armenian plateau were neighbors with Sumeria, Elam, and the first
empire Akkad. They had mapped the constellations before the great
pyramids were built, while Greece wasn’t even a thought, and the first
dynasty in China was about 2000 years away. The Rise of Astronomy in Armenia By
the Copper-Bronze Age (5000 - 2000 BC), pictograms at Metsamor and the
Geghama Lehr record ever more sophisticated celestial iconography,
including the signs of the zodiac. Two observatories found in Armenia
show a developed awareness of astronomy at least by 2800 BC, and
possibly as early as the 5th millennium BC. Using astronomy, Ancestral
Armenians developed a calendar based on 365 days, one of the first
compasses, and were able to envision the shape of the world as round.
The appearance of the signs of the zodiac in Armenia occurred before the
Hittite and Babylonian kingdoms, which were heretofore credited with
developing astronomy. Conclusive dating is still being fought over, but
two astral observatories in Armenia vie for the position of birthplace
of the zodiac constellations. At
Metsamor (ca. 5000 BC), there is a series of stone platforms which
were reported in 1967 to be part of an astronomical instrument dating
to 2800 BC, about the time historians think the naming of the zodiac
was completed. The observatory at Metsamor is oriented towards the star
Sirius, the brightest in the northern sky. The Metsamorians are
figured to have calculated the beginning of the New Year with the
appearance of Sirius in the rays of the dawning sun at the spring
solstice. Numerous carvings show the locations of stars in the night
sky, and one is a compass pointed due East. Other inscriptions include
the signs for Aries, Leo, Capricorn and Taurus. Karahundj A
Second Observatory in southern Armenia lies near the town of Sissian.
Initial studies suggested a 3rd millennium BC date for the site and
noted a number of sighting holes bored into large stones placed at the
site. The holes point to the locations where solar and lunar phases
could be tracked during they year, as well as stars and constellations.
Later investigations led to a conjectured dating of the oldest stone
telescope at the site to around 4200 BC, when the star Capella was
ascendant in the region. If true, this would make it the oldest astral
observatory in the world. Located close to the village of Karahundj,
which in Armenian is a direct translation of the English word
Stonehenge, the stones are becoming the focus of increasing interest,
suggesting a link between Ancestral Armenian exploration of the heavens
with the naming of the zodiac and the numerous henges in Europe. England's
Stonehenge is dated ca. 2200-1800 BC. Both observatories in Armenia
predate the English henge, Karahundj perhaps predating them as much as
2000 years. For perspective, the people living in the Metsamor Kingdom
were neighbors with the oldest civilization Sumeria, the first important
trade city Elam, and the first empire Akkad. They inhabited the
Armenian Plateau before the great pyramids, Greece wasn’t even a
thought, and the first dynasty in China was about 2000 years away. At
the same time Metsamor was flourishing, the Minoans were beginning to
create their culture on Crete, and the Old Kingdom in Egypt had just
brought together the lower and upper kingdoms into one unified country. Metal and Iron Of
course both are metal, but speaking poetically, we are thinking of the
difference between soft metals and the hard stuff. Both liquids, the
difference is in the way they freeze. Sometime between 3000 and 2000 BC,
a new metal was forged for the first time, and its use would change
everything about making weapons and building empires. We’re talking iron
here, the thing that we buy Rustoleum to protect, but which the
ancients worshipped and coveted. Iron is a plentiful resource; most
areas of the world can extract it. Pure strains occur in abundance in
the Armenian Plateau, just as pure strains of gold, copper, tin,
mercury, manganese and silver were extracted by the Metsamor culture and
developed into a large industry. Since metal foundries forging copper,
brass and bronze go back to 5000 BC in Armenia; they would be pretty
good places for research and development. The
difference between bronze and iron is like the difference between a
Bic lighter and a blowtorch. With iron shields, helmets and weapons,
soldiers lasted a lot longer in battle against arrows and spears. Those
who had iron weapons pretty much made bronze and copper useless except
as decorator items. And iron was a protected monopoly. At first
restricted to large vessels and cooking utensils, the military
applications soon became apparent, then coveted, the metal valued more
than precious gems or gold. If not by bribery, they learned the secret
through agents sent to ferret the secret out. If not by spying, then by
war. When was iron first smelted? No one can say for sure, but the
smelting of iron--like bronze--was engineered by the people living in
this part of the world, the technique slowly migrating outwards to
surrounding territories. Now, while the Hittites (which came on the
scene along with the Babylonians and Assyrians about 1800 BC) are
credited with being among the first, and it wasn’t until 1350 BC that
the Egyptians were able to process it themselves, excavations in
Armenia show the first smelting of iron as early as 3000 BC. Metsamor
reached its zenith in the Mid Bronze Age, when it encompassed more
than 200 hectares (about 500 acres). At the center of trade between
Asia and the budding cultures in the West, the mineral mines and metal
forges in the Metsamor kingdom were the focus of constant warfare with
neighboring city-states, and by the end of the 3rd millennium, with the
growing empires in Mesopotamia. The Metsamor culture thrived through
the Bronze and early Iron Age, when it was integrated into the Urartu
Empire (ca. 7th c. BC). The city of Metsamor continued under the
Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Ottomans until the 18th
century, when it was abandoned. 6700 years of continuous inhabitation,
and counting—not a bad record. The Second Wave Close
to the Mesopotamian cultures, ancestral Armenian tribes developed a
series of city-states by the 3rd millennium BC, with federations formed
and reformed between them for most of the Bronze Age period. The
territory was described as a rich land between the rivers, with their
head at the “mountains of the gods” (described as “Arartu”). This
description comes from the oldest story known, Gilgamesh (ca. 5th
millennium BC). To earn that kind of praise, a land would have to be
very rich indeed. 2000-1800 BC cuneiform note migrating peoples from the
outside who lived with the original tribes. These peoples would have
been the migrating Indo-Europeans (including the Hittites), for
cuneiform used such expressions as “we came, we conquered and we
captured” as their calling cards. The
combination of migrating Indo-Europeans with native cultures was bound
to create more than a little cross-fertilization of people and ideas,
and within the next 1000 years several regional kingdoms using an
Indo-European language emerged. By the 2nd millennium, trading between
the tribes on the Armenian plateau led to a loose federation led by the
Nairi, which were based around Southern Lake Van. The Nairi were
recorded as early as 2000 BC on Assyrian cuneiform as the people from
the “land between the rivers,” holding about 60 tribes and 100 cities.
The Nairi were one tribe among many, but their name became synonymous
with that for the entire region. From what we know of the tribes, their
customs and traditions were similar to others found in Mesopotamia,
and they mixed Semitic or Ugaritic origins with their earlier
Indo-European genetic and cultural roots. Among the tribes in Nairi was
one called Urartu. Also
around 2000 BC, a second wave of Indo-European migration began, this
time coming full circle back to the Armenian plateau. Thousands of years
of development created distinct dialects and physical attributes,
which further influenced the “mother tribes” in Armenia. Among them
were the Hittites, which entered the region of Asia Minor around 2000
BC. There is a clay tablet written by the Hittites about 2000 BC
(discovered in an excavation of the Hittite capital Hatusas--or
Boghazkeui-- in N. Central Turkey), which first mentions a tribe of
people called Haius, and said they were from the country of
Haiassa-Aza. This was a predominant tribe in the region, vassals of the
Hittite kingdom, and said to be a distinct Indo-European tribe that
introduced its language and customs to neighboring tribes. The Haius
were often in rebellion with the Hittites, and they were influential in
spreading their culture eastwards, to the peoples on the Armenian
plateau. In
addition, the architectural and cultural influences of the Hittites
were filtered into the region through Haiassa-Aza. Another movement of
Indo-Europeans is recorded in the 12th c BC. It is about
Thraco-Phrygian tribes (called “foreign settlers”) who were pushed out
of Thrace and Phrygia by “the people of the Sea” (i.e., early Greeks,
Minoans or Mycanaeans) around 1200 BC (there’s Troy again!), and who
moved through the Euphrates into the Armenian Plateau. These tribes
lived with Armenian Ancestors and other tribes and formed a hybrid
culture which is the beginning of an extant Armenian identity,
including an Indo-European language and Aryan features (tall with
blonde-hair and blue-eyes) among the people. First inhabiting the land
immediately East of the Trojan kingdom in Asia Minor, the
Thraco-Phrygians settled on the Western edges of the Armenian plateau
and intermingled with the Haiassa-Aza, further developing Indo-European
language, culture and physical features. Other
rival tribes (or kingdoms, as they were called) in the area included
the Mitanni, southwest of Lake Van, the Manah (around Lake Urmia) and
the Diaukhi (around present day Erzurum). The Mitannians and Hurrians
were dominant cultures in the Armenian Plateau until the mid 2nd
millennium BC. Kurgans (burial mounds) of the 17th and 16th centuries
BC have been excavated at Vanadzor showing chased gold and silver cups
and bronze weapons. Kurgans in the following period excavated at
Lechashen, and at a cemetery at the village of Artik on the slopes of
Mt. Aragats uncovered Mitannian cylinder seals dating from the 15th to
early 14th centuries BC—the final phase of the Mitannian kingdom. After
the destruction of Mitanni by the Hittites at the turn of the
15th-14th cc. BC, the tribes on the Armenian plateau maintained their
ties with the Hittites, which had begun to expand into Northern Syria. By
the time the Hittite kingdom fell around 1200 BC, the ancestral
Armenian tribes had forged powerful alliances and were considered a
challenge to the northward expansion of the Assyrians, who became the
primary power after the fall of Mitanni. The Diaukhi were, at the time
of the rise of Urartu, the most powerful political formation of the
Nairi. By the time of Urartu’s rise, the Nairi tribes had retreated
Southwest of Lake Van to a country called Khubushkia. The area of
present day Armenia was held by the kings of Etwikhi (Etwini). Kept up
with all this? If you have, then you begin to understand why it has
been so hard to trace Armenia’s lineage in the region, and how--with
all these tribes inhabiting the same land, more than a little
cross-pollination occurred, creating a race of tribes which were all
culturally related, sharing language and ethnic roots among them. And
frankly, even as the Egyptians and Assyrians were pollinating like bees,
being made up of several ethnic groups themselves. Their cousins, the tribes
in Armenia were still rivals for land and mineral resources, and a few
rose to prominence. One of these tribes succeeded in uniting or
conquering surrounding city-states into a single empire, which rivaled
even the Assyrians and Hittites for power. They were called the Nairi
and Urartians by the Assyrians. Let’s put this into perspective and
mark ancetral continuously inhabiting the Armenian Plateau before and
throughout the rise and fall of the Old and Middle Kingdoms in Egypt,
the entire history of Minoan and Mycanaean cultures (ca 2200-1400 BC)
and the Indus civilization in present day Pakistan (ca. 2500-1500 BC),
the first semi-mythical Hsia (ca 2000-1523 BC) and most of the Shang
(1766-1027 BC) Dynasties in China. Greece and Rome are by now a gleam
in the eyes of historian researchers.
7000 Year Old DNA Found in Artsakh Cave Matches Genes of Modern Armenians
Scholars from Britain, US, Denmark and Armenia led by Professor Levon
Yepiskoposyan have been examining prehistoric caves near the village of
Azokh in Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) and found unique artifacts from
different periods, among them a tooth from a human who lived 7000 years
ago. Due to the cave’s climate DNA was preserved inside the tooth and
was send to Copenhagen University’s genetics department (in Denmark) for
examination. The results of this inquiry have revealed that the genetic
makeup of the tooth belonging to an individual 7000 years ago perfectly
matches with the genetic makeup of modern Armenians. “This is the conclusion we’ve reached after numerous excavations
carried out on the territory of Karabakh, where we examined more than a
dozen caves, among them the cave of Azokh and Alexan Uzes,”
Yepiskoposyan said.
The caves near the village of Azokh are unique sites that have
preserved organic traces from various periods of our history. Since the
excavations at Azokh started in 2002, the team led by Dr. Tania King
(Blanford Museum, UK) has uncovered hundreds, if not thousands, of bones
of the giant and now extinct cave bear (Ursus speleaus). In addition to
countless remains of mammals archaeologists have now found evidence for
three different species of hominin – Homo heidelbergensis, Homo
neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens. The fossil records are exceptionally
rich and demonstrate that paleontological data alone from Alexan Uze
cave could define the cave as a regionally important scientific
discovery. You can read more about the Azokh cave complex in the book
titled: Azokh Cave and the Transcaucasian Corridor (2016)
The human tooth was discovered in the Alexan Uzes cave which
preserved human DNA. Referring to this cave Yepiskoposyan added that
“Here we found a tooth of a human who lived on the territory of
Karabakh, about seven thousand years ago. DNA can be preserved in teeth
for very long periods of time, as we know.” “As a result, it was found that the genes of our distant ancestors correspond with those of modern Armenians,” he continued.
Blue-Eyed Immigrants Transformed Ancient Israel 6,500 Years Ago
Thousands of years ago in what is now northern Israel, waves of migrating people from the north and east — present-day Iran and Turkey — arrived in the region. And this influx of newcomers had a profound effect, transforming the emerging culture. What's more, these immigrants not only brought new cultural practices; they also introduced new genes — such as the mutation that produces blue eyes — that were previously unknown in that geographic area, according to a new study. Archaeologists recently discovered this historic population shift by analyzing DNA from skeletons preserved in an Israeli cave. The site, in the north of the tiny country, contains dozens of burials and more than 600 bodies dating to approximately 6,500 years ago, the scientists reported. DNA analysis showed that skeletons preserved in the cave were genetically distinct from people who historically lived in that region. And some of the genetic differences matched those of people who lived in neighboring Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains, which are now part of Turkey and Iran, the study found. Ancient Israel (then called Galilee) belonged to a region known as the southern Levant, part of a larger area, the Levant, which encompasses today's eastern Mediterranean countries. The southern Levant experienced a significant cultural shift during the Late Chalcolithic period, around 4500 B.C.E. to 3800 B.C.E, with denser settlements, more rituals performed in public and a growing use of ossuaries in funerary preparations, the researchers reported. Though some experts had previously proposed that cultural transformation was driven by people who were native to the southern Levant, the authors of the new study suspected that waves of human migration explained the changes. To find answers, the scientists turned to a burial site in Israel's Peqi’in Cave, in what would have been Upper Galilee 6,500 years ago.
Unraveling an ancestry puzzle
Peqi'in is a natural cave, measuring around 56 feet (17 meters) long and about 16 to 26 feet (5 to 8 m) wide. Inside the cave are decorated jars and burial offerings — along with hundreds of skeletons — suggesting that the location served as a type of mortuary for Chalcolithic people who lived nearby. However, not all of the cave's contents appeared to have local origins, study co-author Dina Shalem, an archaeologist with the Institute for Galilean Archaeology at Kinneret College in Israel, said in a statement.
"Some of the findings in the cave are typical to the region, but others suggest cultural exchange with remote regions," Shalem said. The artistic styles of these artifacts bear closer resemblance to styles common to more-northern regions of the Near East, lead study author Eadaoin Harney, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, told Live Science in an email. The scientists sampled DNA from bone powder from 48 skeletal remains and were able to reconstruct genomes for 22 individuals found in the cave. That makes this one of the largest genetic studies of ancient DNA in the Near East, the researchers reported.
Blue eyes and fair skin
The scientists found that these individuals shared genetic features with people from the north, and those similar genes were absent in farmers who lived in the southern Levant earlier. For example, the allele (one of two or more alternative forms of a gene) that is responsible for blue eyes was associated with 49 percent of the sampled remains, suggesting that blue eyes had become common in people living in Upper Galilee. Another allele hinted that fair skin may have been widespread in the local population as well, the study authors wrote. "Both eye and skin color are traits that are controlled by complex interactions between multiple alleles, many — but not all — of which have been identified," Harney explained.
"The two alleles that we highlight in our study are known to be strongly associated with light eye and skin color, respectively, and are often used to make predictions about the appearance of various human populations in ancient DNA studies," she said. However, it is important to note that multiple other alleles can influence the color of eyes and skin in individuals, Harney added, so "scientists cannot perfectly predict pigmentation in an individual." The scientists also discovered that genetic diversity increased within groups over time, while genetic differences between groups decreased; this is a pattern that typically emerges in populations after a period of human migration, according to the researchers.
A dynamic past By presenting DNA from the distant past, these findings offer exciting new insights into the dynamic ancient world and the diverse human populations that inhabited it, said Daniel Master, a professor of archaeology at Wheaton College in Illinois. "One of the key questions of the Chalcolithic has always been to what extent the groups in Galilee were connected to the groups in the Be'ersheva Valley or the Jordan Valley or the Golan Heights," Master, who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. "The publication of the artifacts from Peqi'in has shown many cultural links between these regions, but it will be interesting to see, in the future, whether those links are genetic as well," Master said. The researchers' results also resolve a long-standing debate about the pivotal factor that changed the trajectory of the Chalcolithic peoples' unique culture, Shalem said in the statement. "We now know that the answer is migration," she said.
Ancient Egyptians were closer to Armenians than to Africans; a new genetics study reveals
A recent study sheds light on the age old question “who were the ancient Egyptians?”
A team of international scientists from the University of Tuebingen and
the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany
analyzed the DNA of 93 Egyptian mummies dating from approximately 1400
BCE to 400 CE. The evidence from their study reveals a surprising close relation to ancient people of the Near East such as Armenians.
Our analyses reveal that ancient Egyptians shared more
ancestry with Near Easterners than present-day Egyptians, who received
additional sub-Saharan admixture in more recent times. We find that ancient Egyptians are most closely related to Neolithic
and Bronze Age samples in the Levant, as well as to Neolithic Anatolian
and European populations.
Furthermore, the researchers found that over the 1,300-year period
that the mummies represented, the population genetics of the ancient
Egypt stayed surprising stable, despite foreign invasions.
The genetics of the Abusir el-Meleq community did not
undergo any major shifts during the 1,300-year timespan we studied,
suggesting that the population remained, genetically, relatively
unaffected by foreign conquest and rule.
The sub-Saharan African genetic influx seems to have only started
after the Roman period, which coincides with the advent of monotheism in
particularly Islam. Hence why modern Egyptians are more genetically
shifted towards African people than the ancient Egyptians.
We found the ancient Egyptian samples falling distinct
from modern Egyptians, and closer towards Near Eastern and European
samples. In contrast, modern Egyptians are shifted towards sub-Saharan
African populations.
So it turns out that modern Egyptians share more genetic ancestry
with Sub-Saharan Africans than ancient Egyptians did, while the ancient
Egyptians show a closer genetic affinity with ancient people from the
Near East and the Levant like Armenians.
Tutankhamun’s paternal lineage
Something
similar was revealed a few years ago when a controversy erupted
surrounding Tutankhamun’s paternal lineage. Egyptian scholars have
tested the autosomal and Y-DNA markers of three Pharaohs of the 18th
dynasty : Amenhotep III, his son Akhenaten and grandson Tutankhamun. The
aim was to determine the cause of death of Tutankhamun, who died at age
19. They however did not release the genetic data to the public
themselves. The Discovery Chanel was making a documentary about this
research and perhaps by mistake has recorded and aired some of the
results from scientists computers.Keen observers of the genetics company iGENEA
quickly pointed out that the video from Discovery Channel shows the
Y-STR results, which appear to be R1b. R1b and its variants is rare
among modern Egyptians and the Middle East, it is however quite common
in Europe and among the Armenians. This revelation however has not been
taken seriously by academia, since the results were never officially
published by Egyptian scholars. Looking back however, with the recent study in mind, it is highly
possible that the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs had European or
Armenian ancestry.
Ancient Europeans and modern Armenians
The Armenian Highlands and Anatolia form a bridge connecting Europe,
the Near East and the Caucasus. Anatolia’s location and history have
placed it at the centre of several modern human expansions in Eurasia:
it has been inhabited continuously since at least the early Upper
Palaeolithic, and has the oldest known monumental complex built by
huntergatherers in the 10th millennium BCE (Armenian Portasar commonly
known as Göbekli Tepe). It is believed to have been the origin and/or
route for migrating Near Eastern farmers towards Europe during the
Neolithic, and has also played a major role in the dispersal of the
Indo-European languages. A genetics study by Haber et. al (2015) published not so long ago in the Nature’s European Journal of Human Genetics has demonstrated this connection.
We show that Armenians have higher genetic affinity to
Neolithic Europeans than other present-day Near Easterners, and that 29%
of the Armenian ancestry may originate from an ancestral population
best represented by Neolithic Europeans.
One explanation for the ancient Egyptian genetic affinity to Near
East and Europe could be the Hyksos invasion. The Hyksos (Egyptian heqa
khaseshet, meaning: “ruler(s) of the foreign countries”) were a people
of unknown origin who settled in the eastern Nile Delta, some time
before 1650 BC and ruled over Egypt well into the Hellenistic era. The
Hyksos were often described as bowmen and cavalrymen wearing the cloaks
of many colors. They were excellent archers and horse riders, who brought chariot warfare to Egypt. Various theories have been postulated regarding their origin among
them the theory of their Hurrian and Indo-European descent. Their way of
life certainly resembles that of the Armeno-Aryan peoples of the time.
The Hyksos for example practiced horse burials, and their chief
deity was a storm God who later became associated with the Egyptian
storm and desert god Set. Ancient Armenians worshiped the storm God Teshub/Teisheba. Teshub was later also identified with Aramazd and Hayk.
Furthermore, the Hyksos brought several technical innovations to
Egypt, as well as cultural infusions such as new musical instruments and
foreign loanwords. The changes introduced include new techniques of
bronze working and pottery, new breeds of animals, and new crops. In
warfare, they introduced the horse and chariot, the composite bow,
improved battle axes, and advanced fortification techniques. All of this
strongly suggests Indo-European origin. Robert Drews (1994) in this
book “The Coming of the Greeks: Indo-European Conquests in the Aegean
and the Near East” describes the Hyksos as follows:
“Where the hyksos chiefs who took over Egypt ca. 1650
B.C. may have gotten their chariots and charioteers is not known, but
eastern Anatolia is not an unlikely source. The most direct evidence for
the importance of Armenia in the development and
manufacture of military chariots in the Late Bronze Age comes from
Egyptian tombs. Since Egypt lacked the necessary woods, one assumes that
the pharaohs regularly purchased from abroad either finished chariots
or-after Egyptian woodworkers had perfected their skills-the requisite
chariot wood. A tomb inscription from the reign of Amenhotep II declares
that the wood for His Majesty’s chariot was brought from “the country
of Naharin” (Mitanni). Since Mitanni itself was not wooded, we may
suppose that the material come from the mountains to the north of
Mitanni. In the case of the fifteenth century chariot now in Florance’s
Museo Archeologico, studies of the wood done more than fifty years ago
concluded that the chariot was made in Armenia, or
quite precisely in the mountainous area bounded on the east by the
Caspian, and on the south and west by a diagonal line extending from the
southern shores of the Caspian to the Black Sea coast in the vicinity
of Trebizond. If Egypt was to some extent dependent upon eastern
Anatolia for its chariotry during the Eighteenth Dynasty, there are
grounds for suspecting that when the chariot warfare first came to
Egypt, it came from Armenia.”
That there was plenty of contact between ancient Egypt and ancient
Armenia is apparent from Egyptian artifacts that were found in ancient
Armenian burials. Whether the Hyksos explain the ancient Egyptian
affinity to Armenians and other ancient people of Levant, Anatolia and
Europe, or that perhaps this genetic influx extends to far older
times remains a mystery. It is not unthinkable that the entire ancient
Egyptian civilization radiated from the Armenian plateau after the invention and the spread of agriculture that
occurred on the Armenian Highlands and its adjacent territories. The
fact that within 1,300-year timespan that these DNA samples represent,
there is great genetic continuity among the ancient Egyptians, suggests
that it might extend to much older periods even predating the Hyksos
invasion. Unless scholars find older Egyptian DNA to analyse and
compare, this will remain a subject of discussion.
Another caution regarding the generalization of these findings should
be considered. All of the 93 mummies that have been investigated were
found in the same place at Abusir el-Meleq. It is possible that they
represent only the upper class of ancient Egyptian life or a regional
subgroup. However, because of the fairly large time period (1300 years)
these mummies belonged to, it is also feasible to assume that they
indeed represent a large portion of the genetics of ancient Egypt, with
its roots possibly in Armenian Highlands.
Armenians Have A High Genetic Affinity To Ancient Europeans
A
new study into Armenian genetics reveals that present day Armenians are
a mixture of local Bronze Age people who have retained homogeneity for
over three thousand years, and show great affinity to Neolithic
Europeans. Armenians are an ethno-linguistic-religious group distinct
from their surrounding neighbors. They have their own church, the
Armenian Apostolic Church, which was founded in the 1st century CE, and
became in 301 CE the first branch of Christianity to become a state
religion. They have also their own alphabet and language which is
classified as an independent branch of the Indo-European language
family.
The
historical homeland of the Armenians sits north of the Fertile
Crescent, a region of substantial importance to modern human evolution.
Genetic and archaeological data suggest farmers expanding from this
region during the Neolithic populated Europe and interacted/admixed with
pre-existing huntergatherer populations. Furthermore, Armenia’s
location may have been important for the spread of Indo-European
languages, since it is believed to encompass or be close to the
Proto-Indo-European homeland (Anatolia or Pontic Steppe) from which the
Indo-Europeans and their culture spread to Western Europe, Central Asia
and India.
thus
describes the medieval Armenian chronicler Movses Khorenatsi (ca.
410–490s AD) the legendary founding of the Armenian nation, dating it to
2,492 BCE. While the legend remains unattested the dating of the
foundation of the Armenian nation seems to have gained credibility from a
recent genetic study. According to a new study into Armenian genetics,
published on the bioRxiv preprint service for biology, the Armenian
people derive their ancestry from a number of local Bronze age tribes. A
team of international scholars (from UK, Spain, Italy and Lebanon) led
by Marc Haber have analysed Armenian genes and compared them to 78 other
worldwide populations including some ancient DNA samples. They conclude
that:
The
Armenians show signatures of an origin from mixture of diverse
populations occurring 3,000 to 2,000 BCE. This period spans the Bronze
Age, characterized by extensive use of metals in farming tools, chariots
and weapons, accompanied by development of the earliest writing systems
and the establishment of trade routes and commerce.
However,
unlike Armenian neighbors the Armenians show no significant traces of
further admixture after 1,200 BCE, some three and a half thousand years
ago. It appears that Armenians have stopped mixing around that time and
today carry little to no mixture of foreign populations, retaining their
ethnic and cultural homogeneity since the end of the Bronze Age. Haber
et. al describe:
Our
tests suggest that Armenians had no significant mixture with other
populations in their recent history and have thus been genetically
isolated since the end of the Bronze Age, 3,000 years ago.
The authors explain the cessation of Armenian admixture as
resulting from a collapse of Bronze Age civilizations coupled with a
development of Armenian cultural distinctiveness.
Admixture
signals decrease to insignificant levels after 1,200 BCE, a time when
Bronze Age civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean world suddenly
collapsed, with major cities being destroyed or abandoned and most trade
routes disrupted. This appears to have caused Armenians’ isolation from
their surroundings, subsequently sustained by the
cultural/linguistic/religious distinctiveness that persists until
today. Armenians’ adoption of a distinctive culture early in their
history resulted in their genetic isolation from their surroundings.
Their genetic resemblance today to other genetic isolates in the Near
East, but not to most other Near Easterners, suggests that recent
admixture has changed the genetic landscape in most populations in the
region.
This genetic isolation makes Armenians quite unique in the region as the study goes on to describe:
We
compared patterns of admixture in Armenians to other regional
populations and detected signals of recent admixture in most other
populations. For example, we find 7.9% (±0.4) East Asian ancestry in
Turks from admixture occurring 800 (±170) years ago coinciding with the
arrival of the Seljuk Turks in Anatolia from their homelands near the
Aral Sea. We also detect sub-Saharan African gene flow 850 (±85) years
ago in Syrians, Palestinians and Jordanians, consistent with previous
reports on recent gene flow from Africans to Levantine populations after
the Arab expansions.
The
genetic landscape in most of the Middle East appears to have been
continuously changing. Modern Armenians much more so than the Turks,
therefore appear to be a prime representatives of ancient Anatolian
inhabitants:
The position of the Armenians within the global genetic diversity
is unique and appears to mirror the geographical location of Anatolia.
Previous genetic studies have generally used Turks as representatives of
ancient Anatolians. Our results show that Turks are genetically shifted
towards Central Asians, a pattern consistent with a history of mixture
with populations from this region.
These
results seem to corroborate with previous studies (Hellenthal et. al.,
2014) which also didn’t find admixture with Armenians for the past 3 to 4
thousand years.
Affinity to Ancient Europeans
The Armenian Highlands and Anatolia form a bridge connecting Europe,
the Near East and the Caucasus. Anatolia’s location and history have
placed it at the centre of several modern human expansions in Eurasia:
it has been inhabited continuously since at least the early Upper
Palaeolithic, and has the oldest known monumental complex built by
huntergatherers in the 10th millennium BCE (Armenian Portasar commonly
known as Göbekli Tepe). It is believed to have been the origin and/or
route for migrating Near Eastern farmers towards Europe during the
Neolithic, and has also played a major role in the dispersal of the
Indo-European languages. Armenia’s location at the northern tip of the
Near East suggests a plausible relationship to the expanding Neolithic farmers. In order to compare Armenians with ancient Europeans the authors have
analysed ancient DNA samples from Europe including that of Ötzi the
Iceman (a 5,300-year-old individual discovered on the Italian part of
the Ötztal Alps). The study concludes:
We show that Armenians have higher genetic affinity to
Neolithic Europeans than other present-day Near Easterners, and that 29%
of the Armenian ancestry may originate from an ancestral population
best represented by Neolithic Europeans. We find in Armenians and other genetic isolates in the
Near East high shared ancestry with ancient European farmers with
ancestry proportions similar to presentday Europeans but not to
present-day Near Easterners… Our tests show that most of the Near East
genetic isolates ancestry shared with Europeans can be attributed to
expansion after the Neolithic period.
These
results suggest that the Armenians (the genetic isolates in the Near
East) probably retain features of an ancient genetic landscape in the
Near East that had more affinity to Europe than most of the present day
Near Eastern populations do. The long period of genetic isolation makes
Armenians in particular unique to the region. The study of the Armenian
DNA is therefore very interesting to scholars who study European DNA,
because to them Armenians are like an image of what the DNA groups were
before they started spreading out.
Why Armenians are a “Living Fossil” to Geneticists
A number of genetic studies have recently investigated Armenian DNA from
different perspectives revealing some fascinating and consistent
results. For example in 2014 Hellenthal et. al. in a paper published in
Science have investigated worldwide human admixture history over the
past 4000 years and created a Genetic Atlas of human admixture. Oddly enough they could not identify the Armenian admixture for the past 4000 years and placed Armenians into the “no admixture, uncertain” category (read more about it HERE).
Another recent study by Haber et. al. (2015) has
shed more light in this regard by specifically focusing on Armenian
genetics. They found that Armenians show a signatures of an origin from
mixture of diverse populations occurring 3,000 to 2,000 BCE which
incidentally coincides with the legendary founding of Armenia by the
patriarch Hayk in 2492 BCE. This revelation was even picked up by the New York Times.
Haber et. al. also found that Armenian admixture after the late bronze
age seized, showing no significant traces of further admixture for some
three and a half thousand years. It appears that Armenians have stopped
mixing from that time on showing genetic isolation to a great extent.
The authors describe: “Our tests suggest that Armenians had no
significant mixture with other populations in their recent history and
have thus been genetically isolated since the end of the Bronze Age.” This
makes Armenian genetics very unique in the region marked by great
diversity and admixture. As such Armenians above all seem to better
represent the ancient populations of the Near East. Haber et. al. have
shown that the genetic landscape in most of the Middle East appears to
have been continuously changing and that:
“the position of the Armenians within the global
genetic diversity is unique and appears to mirror the geographical
location of Anatolia… Armenians’ adoption of a distinctive culture early
in their history resulted in their genetic isolation from their
surroundings. Their genetic resemblance today to other genetic isolates
in the Near East, but not to most other Near Easterners, suggests that
recent admixture has changed the genetic landscape in most populations
in the region.”
Moreover they found that modern Armenians show a great genetic
affinity to ancient Europeans, meaning that Armenians of today because
of their isolation have retained the genetic makeup of the ancient
people of the Near East who have spread into Europe during various
migration waves (read more about it HERE).
5000 Year Old Armenian Ancestry
As
the genetic studies progress so does our understanding of Armenian
ancestry increases. One might wonder, wouldn’t it be interesting if we
dug out ancient
bones from the Armenian Highlands and compared it to see how and if they
are related to modern Armenians? Well, that is exactly what a team of
archaeologists and geneticists set out to investigate along with a bunch
of other questions related to ancient DNA.
DNA samples from ancient burial sights found all over the Republic of
Armenia have been collected and send off to be tested by the University
of Copenhagen. The data has now been collected and the results are soon
to be published in the prestigious Nature journal, authored by 44
people from 13 different countries. The authors of the study however
have already lifted the vale on some of the findings affirming that the
DNA from these ancient bones indeed matches with those of the modern
Armenians. Referring to the international genetic study, the Head of the
Laboratory of the Institute of Molecular Biodiversity of the National
Academy of Sciences Levon Yepiskoposyan has recently stated in an interview to the press that: “Modern Armenians are direct descendants of the people who lived in the territory of Armenia 5000 years ago.”Eight samples
from ancient burial sights across Armenia, dated to the middle and the
late Bronze Age as well as the Iron Age, have been collected and tested.
“The results of genetic studies have shown that the DNA
samples of the Bronze Age individuals that have been found on the
territory of Armenia have a genetic portrait that is almost
indistinguishable from the genetic portrait of people living today in
Armenia” - said Yepiskoposyan.
He added that from these results we can safely conclude that modern
Armenians indeed have very old roots in the Armenian Highlands.
In this study, we were able to solve not only some of the
the genetic, historical and archaeological questions, but also to some
extent disprove the allegations that the Armenians are only living 200
years in the territory of Eastern Armenia.
These findings again affirm that modern Armenians represent an
ancient Near Eastern population, due to their genetic isolation in
Armenian Highlands. As such Armenians can be regarded as a “living
fossil”. To better understand the implications of these studies, I’ve
been following several discussions on the internet about these recent
findings. One expert, who was also involved with the above mentioned
project, explains as follows:
Armenians became genetically isolated during the Late
Bronze Age (about 3500 years before the present) and have not intermixed
with populations from distant regions since then. Because Armenians are
Late Bronze Age (LBA) genetic isolates, we, as a population are like a
living fossil. When comparing the ancient DNA of individuals dug up in
modern Armenia with those of Armenians, there isn’t much of a difference
in the DNA. It essentially means that we represent a genetic continuum
of at least 3500 years. What this means beyond just Armenians, as the
article that will be out in the prestigious journal of Nature soon, is
that we can compare modern European populations with modern Armenians,
knowing that it’s the same as comparing the modern European population
with ancient Near Easterners (as Armenians represent an essentially pure
sample of the Late Bronze Age). We are closer to the basal populations
that existed in the Near East, subsequently migrated toward Europe
during the Bronze Age-Iron Age, than any other population in present
Europe.
So if you compare ancient DNA found in Europe between the
Neolithic to the Iron Age, you see huge shifts in populations as Near
Easterners and others from the East settled and influenced the
substructure of the European genome. These groups were present as
populations in the Near East, having contributed to the early Highland
group that then became genetically isolated and became the Armenians as
we know it today. Think of us as frozen in time for at least 3500 years.
Comparing us to modern European groups is like comparing the modern
groups to 3500 year old Highland tribes.
So imagine that you have various tribes in the Near East that
coalesced to form Armenians. Let’s designate them with alphabetical
letters. So assume that people from tribes A,B,C,D,E,F,G,H, and J became
genetically isolated during the Bronze Age and coalesced to form
Armenians. A few groups of people from some of these tribes, say A-D,
migrated to Tuscany and mixed with indigenous tribes M,N,O,P,Q forming
modern Tuscans. We can now compare modern Tuscans with modern Armenians
as though we were comparing modern Tuscans with ancient Armenians (the
Near Eastern tribes from over 3500 years ago) and uncover the links
between the two. By doing so, we can recover the fact that Armenians and
Tuscans share A-D in their genome. We can then recover ancient DNA from
Tuscany and determine when the A-D tribal migration took place. As we
do this all over Europe, we find certain patterns. These patterns show
that there were substantial population shifts in the genome of
Europeans, particularly after the Neolithic, based on Near Eastern waves
of migration. The groups that migrated from the Near East during the
Mesolithic/Chalcolithic, were later replaced by Early Bronze Age groups,
then Mid-Late Bronze Age, then Iron Age, etc. By looking at ancient
DNA, and also comparing the admixture of modern populations with each
other, we can make sense of how Europe was populated.
The Armenian Plateau Hypothesis Gains In Plausibility
The idea that most European languages are related and possibly
originate from a common ancestral tongue known as
the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) has been well accepted by scholars of
various disciplines. The so called Indo-European language family
includes most European but also some languages of the Fertile Crescent,
the Caucasus, West and South Asia. With over 400 languages (including
dialects) it is by far the world’s largest language family and is spoken
by almost 3 billion native speakers world wide. Armenian language is
considered by some to be one of the oldest surviving members of this family, with some estimates going as far as 5000 BC.
The hypothesized homeland of the Proto-Indo-European speakers however
has been subject to much debate. There are largely four competing
hypotheses which place the origin of the Indo-European language
family either in the Pontic Steppe, Anatolia, Balkans or the Armenian
Plateau. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes
about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the
languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to
9500 years ago. Yet another hypothesis places the PIE homeland in the
Balkans from where Indo-European farmers supposedly spread the language
throughout Europe. And the final hypothesis names the Armenian Plateau
as the most likely candidate for the Proto-Indo-European homeland.
A long awaited study into ancient DNA recently posted on the bioRxiv
preprint site has shed more light on the issue with quite interesting
and maybe more so enigmatic results for the role of early Armenians in
the spread of the Indo-European language and genes. The work was done by
a large team led by geneticists David Reich and Iosif Lazaridis of
Harvard Medical School in Boston and Wolfgang Haak of the University of
Adelaide in Australia. The study used state-of-the-art DNA techniques to
analyse ancient DNA from 69 Europeans who lived between 8000 and 3000
years ago to genetically track ancient population movements.
The Yamnaya culture
Among the team’s samples were nine ancient individuals—six males, two
females, and a child of undetermined sex—from the Yamnaya culture north
of the Black Sea in today’s Russia. Beginning about 6000 years ago,
these steppe people herded cattle and other animals, buried their dead
in earthen mounds known as kurgans, and may have created some of the
first wheeled vehicles. The study found a striking similarity between
the Yamnaya DNA and that of the Corded Ware people of the central and
northern Europe. The comparison of the two cultures’ DNA showed that
Corded Ware people could trace an astonishing three-quarters of their
ancestry to the Yamnaya suggesting a massive migration of Yamnaya people
from their steppe homeland into central Europe about 4500 years
ago. The Corded Ware culture soon spread across north and central
Europe, extending as far as today’s Scandinavia. So the “steppe
ancestry,” as the authors of the study call it, is found in most
present-day Europeans, who can trace their ancestry back to both the
Corded Ware people and the earlier Yamnaya. All of the males from the
study belonged to haplogroup R1b1a and were marked by the absence of
R1a.
The Armenian connection
The study also revealed an interesting Armenian connection with the Yamnaya people. As Dienekes describes in his analysis of the study, it seems that the: “Yamnaya
(a Bronze Age Kurgan culture) were a mixture of the EHG (East European
Hunter-Gatherers) and something akin to Armenians.“ The researchers found that:
The Yamnaya differ from the EHG (East European
Hunter-Gatherers) by sharing fewer alleles with MA1 (|Z|=6.7) suggesting
a dilution of ANE ancestry between 5,000-3,000 BCE on the European
steppe. This was likely due to admixture of EHG with a population
related to present-day Near Easterners, as the most negative
f3-statistic in the Yamnaya (giving unambiguous evidence of admixture)
is observed when we model them as a mixture of EHG and present-day Near
Eastern populations like Armenians (Z = -6.3; SI7).Yamnaya
show a pattern of negative correlation when using Karelia_HG and
Armenian as references. This is consistent with it having a component of
ancestry related to the Caucasus/Near East.
Testing of the Yamnaya DNA has revealed a pattern of negative
correlation when using Karelia Hunter-Gatherers and Armenian as
references. Evidently: “The Yamnaya can be modeled as a mixture of Armenians and Karelian Hunter-Gatherers.” The authors further describe:
Ancient genomes from the Caucasus, the Near East, and
Central Asia might reveal the existence of Neolithic populations there
that may be involved in the ancestry of ancient steppe populations
and central Europeans.
It is evident that the Yamnaya pastoralists from the Samara district
are not descended only from European Hunter Gatherers that preceded them
in eastern Europe, but also posses an interesting Near Eastern
component to their genetics of which modern Armenians are a reasonable
surrogate.
How the Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility
The study discusses 4 main hypotheses of Indo-European language
dispersals and the effects of the new findings on these
hypotheses. While the results do not settle the debate about the
location of the proto-Indo European homeland, they do increase the
plausibility of some hypotheses and decrease the plausibility of others.
The Steppe hypothesis has increased plausibility because of the
overwhelming evidence for the connection between the Yamnaya steppe
people and the Corded ware people of central and northern Europe.
The Anatolian hypothesis becomes less plausible as an explanation
for the origin of all Indo European languages in Europe, because it can
no longer claim to correspond to the only major population
transformation in European prehistory. While the study does not
contradict early Neolithic migration of farmers from Anatolia, they now
provide us with evidence of at least another wave of migration from the
Pontic steppe into north and central Europe, which could explain the
spread of Indo-European languages.
The Balkan hypothesis also loses credibility on the grounds that it
does not account for the steppe migration and their overwhelming
influence on the genetic makeup of the Corded ware culture.
And finally the Armenian plateau hypothesis just as the steppe
hypothesis gains in plausibility. The Armenian plateau hypothesis
somewhat resembles the Steppe hypothesis in postulating a
role for the steppe in the dispersal of languages into Europe, but
places the homeland of Proto-Indo-European speakers south of the
Caucasus. Which is supported by the Near Eastern component discovered
with the ancient DNA of the Yamnaya people. The authors elaborate: The Armenian plateau hypothesis gains in plausibility by
the fact that we have discovered evidence of admixture in the ancestry
of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists, including gene flow from a population of
Near Eastern ancestry for which Armenians today appear to be
a reasonable surrogate.
In conclusion it must be said that the debate about the Indo-European
homeland is far from over. Nonetheless this study provides us with more
insight into the migration patterns of people who populated Europe. The
study confirms an early migration of farmers from the Near East and the
Armenian Highlands into Europe, but it also provides new evidence for a
later migration of Pontic steppe people with a Near Eastern (Armenian)
component into central and later northern Europe and thus increasing the
plausibility of both the steppe and the Armenian Plateau hypotheses.
Pottery work from the Yamnaya culture (c.a. 4000 BC), Russia.
Pottery from the Corded Ware culture of Northern Europe.
Archeologists said Wednesday they have unearthed
burial mounds dating back to the third millennium B.C. which they
believe contain remains and trinkets from ancient Aryan nomads.
Historian Hakob Simonian said Wednesday that the four mounds were among
30 discovered about 35 miles west of the Armenian capital Yerevan,
containing beads made of agate, carnelian and as well as the remains of
what appears to be a man, aged 50-55. Also found were remains of
domesticated horses and glazed pottery appearing to show chariots,
Simonian said.
Yamnaya show a pattern of negative correlation when using Karelia_HG and Armenian as references. This is consistent with it having a component of ancestry related to the Caucasus/Near East.
