is apparent, there is debate over its evolution. Rauf Munchaev, for instance, points out that, apart from the appearance of triangular sickle blades in Stage III, the difference between Kiguradze’s stages I–II represented at Shulaveri Gora and stages III–IV (contemporary with the upper levels at Imiris Gora) are not clear in terms of lithic technology.47 The use of stone tool technology as the sole benchmark for differentiating the Kvemo Kartli sequence is also best avoided.

Houses and Settlements

Houses and settlements are central to the construction of a community’s identity. The use of space in the domestic domain reflects the social tenor of a community. Activity areas, gender roles, wealth, and authority are some features of social behaviour that are reflected in the organisation of space. It has been shown that as societies became more complex, the use of space became more divided.48 Not less significant is the layout of a village.The arrangement of houses within a circumscribed area and their spatial relationship to each other informs on circulation within the settlement and how its inhabitants interacted with each other.Tightly nucleated villages compared to settlements with dispersed structures could reflect kinship matters, or even the use and proximity of arable land.

The Kura Corridor

Although different field methodologies extending over more than half a century have resulted in a chequered archaeological record, we nonetheless have a fairly clear idea of the evolution of the south Caucasian Neolithic village.49 Khramis Didi Gora is the largest Neolithic mound site, measuring about 4.5 ha, but most are typically small hamlets averaging about 1–1.5 ha in size. Deposits, however, can be substantial. Operations at Göytepe, for instance, have revealed an impressive unbroken Neolithic sequence of 11 m that has fourteen architectural levels. Radiocarbon dates reveal that this deep deposit accumulated over

47Munchaev 1982: 108.

48Kent 1990.

49Reports can be found in Dzhaparidze and Dzhavakhishvili 1971 (Shulaveris Gora and Imiris Gora); Chubinishvili and Kushnareva 1967, Chelidze and Gogelia 2004, Hansen et al. 2006, Hansen et al. 2007, Hansen and Mirtskhulava 2012 (Arukhlo); Narimanov 1987, Akhundov 2012 (Shomutepe); Guliyev and Nishiaki 2012a, 2012b (Göytepe); Nishiaki et al. 2015 (Göytepe and Hacı Elamxamlı). Regrettably, much of the archival documentation of the early excavations at Arukhlo,led byTariel Chubinishvili (1966–76) and then Davit Gogelia (1978–85), was destroyed in a fire. The current GeorgianGerman project is consolidating what it can from the archival excavation field notes and other documentation, see Hansen et al. 2006: 4. Khramis Didi Gora remains unpublished with syntheses found in Kiguradze 1976, 1986, which, together with Chubinishvili 1971 and Chelidze and Gogelia 2004, contains summaries of the early investigations.

only 200 years (ca. 6700–6500 cal BC), suggesting an intense history of occupation.50 Other sites had comparable cultural deposits – Shulaveri Gora had 8 m, of which 2 m were below the present level of the plain, Kültepe (Level I) measured 8.5–9.0 m of Neolithic, whereas Khramis Didi Gora was 7 m.51 This stable occupation is quite different to the landscape in the Mil Steppe, where a mobile Neolithic existence appears to have been the norm.52 Small mounds with shallow deposits that never developed into proper ‘tells’ point to seasonality, whereby communities might have followed a cyclic pattern of occupation–abandonment–reoccupation of a site. As a working model, it has been suggested that this lifestyle was one of choice and stemmed from socioeconomic factors, rather than one imposed on the population by an unpredictable physical landscape.

The Shulaveri-Shomutepe Neolithic has been generally differentiated into an early and a late phase. At Shulaveri, nine main levels of occupation were recognised and divided largely according to pottery types, which are more decorated in the upper deposits (Levels III–I) than in the lower ones (Levels IX–IV). Recent investigations, however, show that variability through time is greater than once thought.

Large exposures in the upper levels at Göytepe (1,000 m2), Shomutepe (400 m2) and Shulaveri Gora (252 m2) clearly reveal a concept of planning.53 These are well supplemented by other settlement plans, including Arukhlo, Gadachrili Gora,and MenteshTepe.54Villages consisted of cell-like compounds of round or oval houses,measuring between 2.5 and 5 m in diameter and linked by low walls (Figure 3.3). Complexes generally comprised one house and two to four smaller storage rooms less than 2 m in diameter. The average house provided floor space enough to accommodate one person.55 Larger houses, such as those found in the upper levels at Shulaveri, may have accommodated more occupants. Most households would have had between 12.5 and 14.0 m2of roofed space plus the courtyard, where the scatter of kitchen utensils and the installation of ovens are indicative of food preparation. House 34 at Khramis Didi Gora (Figure 3.4 (1)), spanning Levels I–II, was exceptionally large, with an area of 15.9 m2 and internal partition walls in the uppermost phases.

50Nishiaki et al. 2015.

51I would like to thank Veli Bakhshaliev for explaining to me the current excavations at Kültepe 1, which are refining Abibullaev’s original sequence.

52Ricci et al. 2012.

53When the Shulaveri Gora excavators reached virgin soil, only 32 m2 were investigated: see Dzhaparidze and Dzhavakhishvili 1971, for summaries of the excavations; Dzhavakhishvili 1973: 13–37 and Kiguradze 1986: 12–30 for synthesised accounts. For Shomutepe, see Akhundov 2012.

54Hansen et al. 2006, 2007; Hansen and Mirtskhulava 2012; Hamon et al. 2016; Lyonnet et al. 2016.

55Following Narroll’s (1962) estimates.

The circulation within a village of round dwellings can be confusing to interpret. Pathways at Shulaveri Gora, for instance, are not immediately evident. The layout certainly reveals high-density living within a small area, a situation also reflected at Göytepe (Figure 3.5).We fi nd the same cell-like plan at Imiris, situated further up the Khrami River from Shulaveri, but without the overcrowding (Figure 3.4(2)).There is more open space and a greater sense of planning at Imiris. A wide exposure in the eastern half of the hill revealed seven building levels containing sixty round or oval structures, but the excavators could not attribute many of the buildings to any specific phase.56 Even so, Imiris has a distinctive radial plan, comprising two neighbourhoods, each with a central courtyard with food processing facilities. Building 30 connects both precincts.The larger compound consists of four linked huts enclosing a work area some 16 m2.

Evidence from more recent excavations indicates that these earliest farmers had a strong sense of place and planning that linked them to the space of their ancestors. Not only were structures built very close to one another, some of them – such as K01, 32, and 36 at Aratashen – were established directly on top of earlier ones.57 This building practice is fascinating, for it represents a strict and conservative building code.This persistence of building in the same place as ancestors is redolent of the mentality we find at Çatalhöyük, which represents a quite different Neolithic situation.58

At Khramis, the basic plan of circular compounds remained unchanged from LevelsVII through I, when its inhabitants decided to change the village’s orientation.This uppermost level consisted of two complexes of huts divided by what appears to be a communication route. Courtyard 11, a roughly oval enclosure in the eastern half, was now a community focal point. The upper levels revealed other variations. Courtyard 46 and House 35 of Levels III and II, for instance, tend towards the rectangular, foreshadowing later architectural developments.And later still, in Level I, there was a proliferation of hearths and storage bins, and a curious curved enclosure jutting out of a compound in the western sector.

Buildings of the Shulaveri-Shomutepe group were constructed mainly with plano-convex sundried mud bricks, measuring between 30 x 15 x 8 cm (Shulaveri) and 41 x 20 x 8 cm (Arukhlo) in size. Posts were occasionally used to build connecting fences between storage units. At Arukhlo, houses were built of bright yellow and dark brown mud bricks, in an effort to intentionally use colour for maximum visual effect. A dappled appearance was also created when dark brown bricks were bonded with yellow mortar. Occasionally, the

56Dzhaparidze and Dzhavakhishvili 1971; Dzhavakhishvili 1973: 37–70; Kiguradze 1986: 31–58.

57Badalyan et al. 2004a, 2005.

58Sagona and Zimansky 2009: 88.

100

Figure 3.5. Göytepe, plan of the architectural remains (courtesyY. Nishiaki).

walls were then plastered with yellow clay.The numerous repairs to walls indicate that the occupants at Arukhlo maintained their houses on a regular basis. At all sites, walls were uniformly erected without stone foundations. Judging by the number of rooms with overhanging brickwork and the rarity of any evidence for load-bearing supports, most dwellings were domed (or beehiveshaped) structures and at least 2.5 m high. Because many were also partly subterranean, the owners and visitors had to step down into the house. Entrances at Shulaveri and Shomutepe were by means of a narrow doorway 50–60 cm wide, which was not furnished with a step.Traces of red ochre on the clay floor in one of the oval rooms at Shulaveri suggest that some floors may have been painted, a custom also known in Anatolia.59 Vertical slits (ca. 50 cm wide and 70 cm in length) set low in the walls and presumably a flue in the middle of the dome admitted daylight and provided ventilation.

Houses at Shulaveri contained only one internal feature – an oval hearth sunk into the floor at the base of the wall near the doorway, probably placed there to take advantage of ventilation. Hearths generally measured about 70 cm along their length, stood 30 cm high, and had a round opening at the top. Similar circular features (30–90 cm in diameter) built of clay and well preserved to a height of a metre were recovered at Khramis Didi Gora.While some were clearly used as hearths, others showed no signs of burning. The presence of grain, bone, and stone objects in certain bins suggests storage; however, according to Kiguradze, they may also have had ritual purposes.

Remnants of chaff point to grain storage at Göytepe,where micromorphology and detailed scientific analyses suggest that dehusking was probably carried out in one of the clay bins shortly after it was constructed.60 Interesting is the prevalent behaviour of caching usable tools (grindstones, sling stones, and bone tools) around or in the bins.The authors of one study suggest that this caching suggests the inhabitants ‘left the settlement seasonally’.61 Following another line of thought, based on prehistoric pits in south-eastern Europe, it is also possible that while these bins may have had a functional purpose, the caching behaviour and structured deposition might equally reflect ritual activities.62 It is difficult to discern whether the functionality of the bins preceded the ritual, or whether both activities were performed simultaneously. Or perhaps the caching of tools symbolically represented the ‘closure’ of a feature or house.63

59Sagona and Zimansky 2009.

60Kadowaki et al. 2015.

61Kadowaki et al. 2015: 423.

62Chapman 2000b.

63Another social act symbolic of closure, well attested in Europe and Anatolia, is the ritual destruction of a house at the end of its lifespan. See Stevanović 1997; Chapman 2000a; Sagona and Zimansky 2009: 88.

102 Transition to Settled Life

Not all structures were circular. At Imiris, an oval room (4.25 x 3.6 m) in Building 8, Level VII, was connected to a smaller apsidal chamber.The doorway linking the two was fl anked by a pair of buttresses on the inside of the oval room. In other respects it was a typical Neolithic house: it had a deep central hearth, clay containers, and pits. Another variant of the standard form is Building 9–10, a pair of conjoint rooms with a floor space of ca. 18 m2.The main oval room had two opposing buttresses that protruded about 10 cm on both the inside and outside of the wall (Figure 3.4(2)). Between the buttresses, a circular hearth was set into the floor, and next to it a stone-based posthole indicates that this building had a fl at roof rather than a dome. A fl at stone, probably the base of another post, was found in the centre of the adjoining room, which had a built-up floor and a rectangular platform positioned at the rear wall.The different plan and features of this house have led its excavators to designate it a ‘shrine’.64 But its function need not necessarily be religious. It did not contain an unusually high concentration of objects that may have suggested cultic activity, or some other kind of special purpose. Its size and shape may simply reflect the status of its owner, or occupancy by more than one person.

Conjoined structures of a small (ca. 2–3 m) and large (ca. 5–6 m) circular cell occur at Hacı Elamxamlı and Arukhlo, where they are viewed as domestic dwellings.65 With radiocarbon dates extending to the 6000 cal BC boundary, these conjoined structures represent the earliest form of architecture along the Kura Valley. Conceptually, they are redolent of structures at Halaf hamlets such as Khirbet esh-Shenef, where circular houses had an antechamber, usually rectangular or apsidal in plan.66

Courtyards were important communal areas, enclosed by small storage cells and houses.The smaller units lacked fixtures and traces of doorways, indicating they were probably covered with a fl at lid. Large numbers of rubbers, grinding stones and storage jars found in courtyards, as well as the occasional coneshaped pits, support the idea that food procurement, preparation and storage were collective activities.67 A large amount of occupational debris also covered the floors of many buildings, demonstrating that they too were work places and not just living quarters. But activities in the two types of space appear to have been different. Modified obsidian cores, knapped fl akes, and wasters, which constitute over 90 per cent of all stone objects in the upper levels at Shulaveri, suggest that house and courtyard activities were kept separate. Bone tools were also crafted in houses. Deer, goat, and wild pig bones were shaped

64Dzhavakhishvili 1973: 63–6.

65Nishiaki et al. 2015: 283, fig. 4.

66Akkermans and Schwartz 2003: fig. 4.11.

67Hamon 2008.