Economic and symbolic role of animals during the Late Chalcolithic period of Areni-1 Cave, Armenia☆

This paper uses faunal remains to explore symbolic ritual and subsistence-related animal exploitation practices during the Late Chalcolithic occupation of Areni-1 Cave in the Republic of Armenia. The Chalcolithic period in the southern Caucasus (ca. 5300–3400 BCE) is bracketed by the Late Neolithic farming villages of the sixth millennium BCE, and the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes cultural tradition of the mid-fourth millennium BCE (Gasparyan and Arimura, 2014, Palumbi and Chataigner, 2014, Rothman, 2017, Sagona, 2017). Until recently, the Chalcolithic period of the region remained an archaeological enigma because of a lack of consensus on the chronological and cultural scope of its ceramic horizons (Sagona, 2014: 24). Excavations of numerous newly-discovered sites during the last decade, as well as a growing series of reliable radiocarbon dates, have refined our definitions of the period and its chronological boundaries (Gasparyan and Arimura, 2014). Meanwhile, the zooarchaeological studies for the period are still rare, and so interpretations of its animal economies have traditionally been based on other archaeological indicators. Chalcolithic settlement patterns are generally characterised by an increase in the number of sites and the habitation of the hills and highlands surrounding the region’s extensive riparian network (Fig. 1) (Chataigner, 1995, Connor and Sagona, 2007, Sagona, 2014, Sagona, 2017, Sagona, 2011). This pattern is foundational to the established canon that some Chalcolithic animal economies were organised into itinerant pastoral lifeways, as people adapted to this mountainous region’s seasonal Mediterranean climate (Chataigner, 1995, Kushnaerva, 1997: 49; Kiguradze and Sagona, 2003, Marro et al., 2011, Palumbi, 2011). To examine the impact of climate and environment on subsistence practices, however, interpretations of animal exploitation strategies must be verified using the study of faunal remains.

Areni-1 Cave in southern Armenia is particularly significant in this regard, because of its outstanding preservation of faunal remains. Areni-1 is a unique special-purpose site known for its votive and funerary practices (Areshian et al., 2012, Wilkinson et al., 2012). But people using the cave also engaged in food preparation and craft production (Smith et al., 2014). Bone recovery from areas associated with domestic activities and elaborate symbolic ritual practices allows us to investigate the diverse role of animals in human activities at the site. Ritual practices in particular can result in the differential treatment and deposition of animal remains. We can therefore use a contextual taphonomic approach (Yeshurun et al., 2014, Meier et al., 2017a) to examine and control for potential differences in the depositional and taphonomic history of bones between contexts where symbolic ritual and mundane subsistence practices were most concentrated.

In this paper we ask several specific questions: what types of domestic and wild animals and animal products were exploited for economic purposes, including both subsistence and craft production? What were the pastoral strategies of those who visited and used the cave? How were animals incorporated into symbolic ritual practices? How is the taphonomic history of ritual practices different from areas of the site with evidence of more profane, subsistence-related activities? And how do our observations at Areni-1 fit within the broader picture of Chalcolithic animal economies in the region?