Details | The Armenian Highlands and the Caucasus were a protected region, or glacial refugium, during the glacial periods and a hotspot of biodiversity, hosting a large number of endemic plant and animal species. This diversity and abundance of natural resources attracted ancient populations from the dawn of human history. The favorable climate and rich natural resources have helped define the region’s pivotal role as an important destination and thoroughfare for hominin populations—of which anatomically modern humans are the only surviving species today—throughout the Paleolithic period and into protohistoric and historic times. The area is thought to be one of a handful of important glacial refugia for hominins during the Pleistocene (the most recent Ice Age) and thus served as a core location from which (re)colonizations of Eurasia began. In this presentation, Dr. Boris Gasparyan will present archaeological finds from the Neolithic-Chalcolithic period to the Iron Age to reconstruct the behaviors of ancient human groups through time and to test widely held ideas about landscape organization, agriculture, management of life-supporting resources, technology, exchange, and long-standing connections in parallel with ritual winemaking, cultic behaviors, and worldview. In addition, the combination of environmental and other proxy datasets reveals how humans adapted to a fluctuating climate and social political displacement. Despite many knowledge gaps and the current level of study, Dr. Gasparyan will show how inhabitants of the Armenian Highlands and the Caucasus developed their own local culture and interacted with other societies of the ancient world, helping shape the standards of early civilizations. Boris Gasparyan is a researcher at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia and is an assistant professor in the Department of Archaeology and Ethnography at Yerevan State University. Since 2000, he has directed and co-directed many international joint archaeological missions in Armenia. He is the author of approximately 180 scientific publications regarding different aspects of the archaeology of Armenia and the Near East. Dr. Gasparyan led the Areni-1 cave project, during which the world’s oldest shoe and wine-producing facility were discovered. He excavated several sites from the Lower Paleolithic to the Upper Paleolithic periods. He also focuses on the study of Armenian monuments from the Bronze Iron Age, the classical period, and the medieval period. Register here: https://smithsonian.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Wwgsa0sOTsqLDC8BTSjqtg Image: View of Vayots Dzor landscape looking toward the Gnishikadzor Canyon. Photo courtesy of Boris Gasparyan. |
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