A woman buried in Russia in the Copper Age era
The Kura-Araxes culture, also known as the Early Transcaucasian Culture, is a significant prehistoric culture that flourished from the late 4th millennium BCE to the early 2nd millennium BCE. It covered a vast geographical area that included the South Caucasus, particularly modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, extending into Northwestern Iran and Eastern Turkey. The culture derives its name from the Kura and Araxes river valleys, which were central to the region's settlement patterns and cultural development.
Origins and Development
The origins of the Kura-Araxes culture can be traced back to innovations during the Chalcolithic period in the South Caucasus. Over time, the culture spread and integrated with various local traditions, creating a distinctive and wide-ranging cultural manifestation that encompassed diverse communities. The expansive reach of the culture is indicative of significant interactions and exchanges across different regions, likely facilitated by trade routes and shared technological advancements.
Settlement Patterns
The Kura-Araxes communities are characterized by their settlements, which ranged from small hamlets to larger fortified sites. These settlements were often strategically located on elevated sites, providing defensive advantages and access to trade routes. The architecture of Kura-Araxes sites typically included circular or oval-shaped houses made from mud-brick or stone foundations, often featuring a central hearth that suggests communal and ritualistic functions.
Material Culture
The Kura-Araxes culture is particularly noted for its distinctive pottery, which includes highly burnished, black, and red wares known for their geometric designs and animal motifs. The sophistication of their pottery indicates a high degree of craftsmanship and aesthetic development. Apart from pottery, the Kura-Araxes people were adept in metallurgy, particularly in copper and bronze, producing tools, weapons, and ornamental objects that demonstrate an understanding of complex metallurgical techniques.
Economy and Subsistence
The economy of the Kura-Araxes people was predominantly agrarian, with agriculture and animal husbandry forming the base of their subsistence. Evidence suggests the cultivation of crops such as wheat and barley, alongside the domestication of animals like sheep, goats, and cattle. This subsistence model supported relatively stable communities, although the presence of nomadic pastoral elements is also suggested by archaeological findings.
Social and Cultural Aspects
The social organization of the Kura-Araxes culture is less clearly understood due to limited textual evidence. However, the distribution and size of settlements suggest a society that balanced egalitarian village life with emerging complexities of social hierarchy. Artefacts and burial practices indicate beliefs in an afterlife and suggest that social status might have played a role in ritual and ceremonial life.
Decline and Legacy
By the early 2nd millennium BCE, the Kura-Araxes culture had begun to decline, possibly due to environmental changes, economic factors, or internal social transformations. Despite its decline, the legacy of the Kura-Araxes culture continued to influence subsequent cultures in the region, notably through its technological contributions in metallurgy and pottery. The cultural interactions initiated by the Kura-Araxes people laid the groundwork for the complex social and economic networks that would characterize later civilizations in the Near East.
In summary, the Kura-Araxes culture represents a significant chapter in the prehistoric development of the Ancient Near East, distinguished by its unique material culture, strategic settlement patterns, and wide-reaching cultural influence across a complex and diverse landscape.
Ancient genetic admixture analysis compares the DNA profile of this individual (VEK006) with present-day reference populations. These results show what percentage of the individual's genetic makeup resembles ancient populations from different geographic regions.
Modern genetic admixture analysis compares the DNA profile of this individual (VEK006) with present-day reference populations. These results show what percentage of the individual's genetic makeup resembles modern populations from different geographic regions.
These results complement the ancient ancestry components shown in the previous section, offering a different perspective on the individual's genetic profile by comparing it with modern reference populations rather than prehistoric ancestral groups.
The G25 coordinates for the sample VEK006 are as follows. You can analyze its admixture using G25 Studio.
VEK006,0.10470014,0.10541954,-0.0512727,-0.031175,-0.04870628,-0.00610226,0.0112907,-0.0053875,-0.06032982,-0.0287339,-0.00390968,0.00662244,-0.01807502,0.0045251,0.00984956,-0.01566632,0.01741448,-0.00658876,-0.00895408,0.01396886,0.01110738,-0.00069078,0.00752324,-0.00838286,-0.00557468
Ancient human genome-wide data from a 3000-year interval in the Caucasus corresponds with eco-geographic regions
Archaeogenetic studies have described the formation of Eurasian 'steppe ancestry' as a mixture of Eastern and Caucasus hunter-gatherers. However, it remains unclear when and where this ancestry arose and whether it was related to a horizon of cultural innovations in the 4th millennium BCE that subsequently facilitated the advance of pastoral societies in Eurasia. Here we generated genome-wide SNP data from 45 prehistoric individuals along a 3000-year temporal transect in the North Caucasus. We observe a genetic separation between the groups of the Caucasus and those of the adjacent steppe. The northern Caucasus groups are genetically similar to contemporaneous populations south of it, suggesting human movement across the mountain range during the Bronze Age. The steppe groups from Yamnaya and subsequent pastoralist cultures show evidence for previously undetected farmer-related ancestry from different contact zones, while Steppe Maykop individuals harbour additional Upper Palaeolithic Siberian and Native American related ancestry.