Geographical and environmental frameworks

The full geographical context of the research presented here extends over a large central block of Eurasia and includes the whole of what is traditionally called the

‘Near East’ or Western Asia (see Figure 1.1). As will become evident, this wide spatial field is a necessary result of the focus on inter-regional exchange because the distribution of archaeological evidence of interaction (such as precious stones, metals and textiles) forces us to look at such large scales. Of course it is impossible to treat all regions within this dizzyingly-large zone in equal detail, even if they had been equally well-investigated archaeologically (which they have not). For this reason, two smaller regions are taken as focal ‘case-studies’, through which larger questions and datasets are filtered to provide more manageable comparisons. In some instances absence of evidence will be as important as presence: features or materials not found inside the case-study areas, but which in the wider context have been recognized as indicators of long-distance interaction, are thus noted and discussed (for example, the discussion of lapis lazuli or weighing systems in Section 4.3.1).

The two case-study regions will generally be referred to throughout this book as ‘Transcaucasia/eastern Anatolia’ and ‘western Central Asia’. Each is loosely defined to reflect the fact that the changing politico-cultural boundaries of the period of study can only be dimly perceived from our time, and to take account of different intensities of archaeological investigation. These areas were initially selected because, in the first instance, both regions are believed to have formed pivotal sections of the ‘silk routes’ during the 1st and 2nd millennia AD – albeit of very different kinds. As we will see in Chapter 2, at this later time an extensive number of caravanserais were built in both regions to facilitate various trades in exotic goods between China and the Mediterranean. By contrast, both regions are portrayed as peripheral players during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC when compared to urban ‘centres’ of the Indus, Egypt and especially Mesopotamia. Kohl described Transcaucasia and Soviet Central Asia (which roughly equate to the

Figure 1.1. Map of south-west Asia showing the wider Near East and the broad location of the two case-study areas which will be termed

‘Transcaucasia’/‘eastern Anatolia’ and ‘western Central Asia’ for the purposes of this study (base imagery:

NASA’s BlueMarble).

regions described here) as forming the ‘northern frontier’ of the Near East (Kohl 1988). Additionally a comparison between these two smaller landscapes – very different in topography and environment – allows us to search for smaller-scale networks that could have provided the foundation for (later) inter-continental exchanges.

1.2.1 The landscapes of ‘Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia’

For the purposes of this analysis the first case-study region will be taken as a flexible area extending from the Central Anatolian Plain in Turkey in the west (roughly a line of 32 degrees of longitude) to the highlands of north-western Iran in the east (around 49 degrees of longitude); the Pontic mountains and interface with the Black Sea, in the north (41 degrees of latitude), to the beginnings of the northern Syrian plains in the south (around 36.5 degrees of latitude). These bounds, shown in Figure 1.2, include the highland Caucacus and eastern Taurus, the Armenian plateau, Kura and Arax river basins, the upper Euphrates, eastern Central Anatolia and the south-western Caspian steppes. Flexible boundaries are required, not simply because of the shifts of cultural boundaries in the past, but also because of the gaps in the history of archaeological investigation. Politically the area is divided by the modern states of Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia, Iraq and Syria and there is no convenient or politically-neutral term for the whole area so defined⁴. A large proportion of the zone is known geographically as the ‘Armenian plateau’ but this label does not take into a account the lowland south-, west- or northern edges of our window. The term ‘eastern Anatolia’ (a translated modern Turkish term) is really used only for areas within the state of Turkey primarily for political reasons. ‘Transcaucasia’ (a translated Russian term) is perhaps the most neutral and flexible term for the overall area, though in practice its use is often restricted to the former Soviet republics of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan and somewhat artificially excludes similar landscapes west of the Euphrates. In this book the terms ‘Transcaucasia’ and ‘eastern Anatolia’

should be taken to refer to the north-eastern and south-western sides of what is essentially same geographic zone.

The full region is characterized by a mixture of high mountain ranges, fertile plains and river valley corridors: within this predominantly mountainous region lie the water catchments for a number of large rivers: southwards to the Persian Gulf are the Euphrates and the Tigris; northwards to the Black Sea the Kızılırmak (ancient Halys), the Yeşilırmak (ancient Iris) and Kelkit (ancient Lycus) rivers;

and eastwards to the Caspian the Aras (also Arax, Araz and Araks, ancient Araxes), Kura (also Mt’k’vari, Kur, ancient Cyrus) and Kizil Üzen (also Qizil Uzun, Qizil Owzan, Kyzyl Uzen, Sefid Rud, Sepidrood, ancient Amardus) (Figure 1.4e). In the last half-century, the environment and structure of some of these valleys have been radically changed by huge dam building projects and irrigation works (such as the Ataturk, Keban and Karakaya dams on the Euphrates; or lake manipulation in highland Armenia). A considerable portion of the area has an elevation of over 1000 metres above sea-level (Figure 1.4a). This is significant for climate and agricultural potential, and seems to have encouraged various transhumant

4 As so often, this ‘frontier’ region has been defined and cut-up by competing states and empires from at least the Achaemenid era, who have each assigned their preferred externally-created name to the area.

or pastoral agricultural practices over intensive cultivation in many periods. The general climate is continental, with warm to hot summers (Figure 1.4b), and very cold winters (Figure 1.4c). Except along the Black Sea and Mediterranean coasts, the climate is relatively dry, especially during the summer, and, in higher altitudes especially, this means relatively comfortable summers. To the visitor, used to travelling in this region only during the summer months, it is sometimes surprising to be reminded that much of the area is buried under snow for months on end, which has been a source of everyday hardship for residents, both now and in the past. Towards the low elevation Syro-Mesopotamian plain the temperatures are often very high, reaching into the 40 degrees Celsius in summer.

1.2.2 The landscapes of ‘western Central Asia’

The second case-study area (as Figure 1.3) extends from the Caspian littoral in the west (54 degrees of longitude), to the Bactrian foothills of the Hindu Kush in the east (around 67 degrees east), from the relatively empty expanse of the Karakum desert in the north (somewhat arbitrarily 40 degrees north) to the Kopet Dag mountains of the south (around 35 degrees south). Divided between the modern states of Turkmenistan, Iran, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kirghistan and Tajikistan (whose boundaries are mostly arteficial constructs of the 19th or 20th centuries) this area is also characterized by competing geographical labels. Early 20th or 19th century accounts would have comfortably described the area as ‘western Turkestan’ (from a northern or Russian perspective) or ‘Khorasan’ (from an Iranian perspective). More recently, the term ‘Soviet Central Asia’ was used within the boundaries of the USSR, until 1990 when this was prepended unsatisfactorily with ‘former-’ or else truncated simply to ‘Central Asia’. Here I have coined the term ‘western Central Asia’ to indicate the geographical continuous zone between north-west Iran, northern Afghanistan and the states of ‘former Soviet Central Asia’, but as distinct to those areas of Central Asia lying to the east of the Pamirs in modern China.

The region so defined is dominated to a large degree by the huge plain which contains the Karakum desert (Garagum, in modern Turkmen, meaning ‘black sands’), which are bordered in the west by the Caspian Sea and in the south and east by impressive mountain chains (Figure 1.5a). In the south, the Kopet Dag mountains mark the beginning of the Iranian plateau, after which lies the true geographic barrier, the Dasht-e Kavir desert, while to the south-east and east are the massive tectonic complexes of the Hindu Kush and Pamirs, that divide the region from the plains of the Indian subcontinent and constrain eastward movement into the Tarim Basin (and thus to China beyond). The topography (Figure 1.5a) is radically different from Transcaucasia/eastern Anatolia, and it is important to consider how these different landforms and barriers to movement affected past peoples and their cultural development.

The climate is generally much drier than Transcaucasia and Anatolia, and there are only a few large rivers. Over the last century, water distribution has been dramatically modified by Soviet interventions, such as the oft-renamed Karakum canal (previously known as the ‘Lenin’, then ‘Communism’ canal), diverting water from a point on the Amu Darya (ancient Oxus) river in the east, across modern Turkmenistan, for the purpose of industrial-scale irrigation agriculture (particularly for growing cotton – which was the Soviet assigned industry for the country).

The climate may be broadly described as extreme continental: very hot and dry in summer (Figure 1.5b), and very cold in winter (Figure 1.5c) with snowfall.

Notably the climatic regime has more in common with an extreme continental or ‘Near Eastern’ system – winter rainfall and dry summers – than a monsoon or

‘South Asian’ one. This has had consequences for the kind of plants and animals which thrive, and could be exploited agriculturally. There are indicators that the climate of this region has varied considerably through time, in particular that the last three to four millennia have witnessed successive periods of aridization (Marcolongo and Mozzi 1998; Marcolongi 2002; Markofsky 2010, 26-28).

Given low precipitation, rivers are an important factor in settlement pattern structuring (Figure 1.5e): areas available for cultivation are limited without large-scale irrigation, and early settlements were thus often restricted to chains of oases along the piedmont zones. The Tedjen and Murghab rivers, alongside a few smaller streams, reach northwards from the Kopet Dag to evaporate into the desert to form fertile deltas; the Amu Darya (the ancient Oxus) comes from the east before crossing north-west to the much depleted Aral Sea. At times (e.g.

during the Pleistocene) the river seems to have fed instead to the Caspian though precise data on these changes remains patchy (Kohl 1981: xi-xii, n. 27). The Atrak and Gorgon rivers start from the western and central Kopet Dag and flow westwards into the Caspian. This small basin, under the influence of the Caspian, is significantly more humid than nearby regions to the east. Meanwhile, in the shifting Murghab delta, the dating of archaeological sites superficially appears to show a distribution of slowly southward/upstream migration of settlement, which has often been attributed to the process of desertification mentioned above or to seismic-induced shifts in river flows (Cremaschi 1998). However, alluvial deposits may simply be deeper further up the river, and this could be masking earlier occupation levels in the south.

The history of the Caspian Sea – which lies between our two case-study regions – is fairly poorly understood. The level of this landlocked lake appears to have risen and fallen substantially through time. Over the last century the level has fluctuated between 25 to 29 metres below global sea-level due to differential inflow from contributory rivers (both natural and man-made), and extraction through evaporation (Arpe and Leroy 2007). To what extent variation over a longer time frame has played a part in the nature of the lake’s exploitation, or indeed in the visibility of archaeological evidence, is difficult to assess. There have been some attempts to model the changing level of Caspian sea-levels over the longer-term (Kosarev and Yablonskaya 1987), which suggest significant oscillations over the last 10,000 years between a maximum of around –11m and a minimum of around –35m (Figure 1.6b), with the lowest level dating to around 3300-2900BC. Such sea-level changes would have had a more dramatic effect on the northern and south-eastern sides of the Caspian – which are much shallower (Figure 1.6a) – and these changes could mask archaeological evidence.⁵ Even more difficult to model accurately are the effects of alluviation from the major sediment-carrying rivers which feed into the Sea. This includes the Kura and the Kizil Uzen/Sefid Rud in the south-west and the Volga in the north.

5 Given this data, however, the claims that archaeological sites dating to the Neolithic that are associated with wave platforms at 75m above sea-level were previously on the coast, are difficult to believe, unless we also posit significant and widespread tectonic activity.

Aras Kura

Euphrates Kizilırmak

Çoruh

Tigris

Kizil Uzen Murat

Kelkit

Habur Balikh

Western Taurus

Eastern Taurus

Northern Z

agros Great Caucasus

Little C

aucasus

Elburz Anatolian

plateau

Armenian plateau

Iranian plateau Mesopotamian

basin

250

0 500 km a.

c.

e.

b.

d.

Figure 1.4. The geographical and modern political landscape of Transcaucasia/eastern Anatolia. (a) Elevation and topography; (b) Annual high temperature; (c) Annual low temperature; (d) Annual precipitation; (e) Major rivers.

(Based on data from: a. NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission; b. c. d. WorldClim.org bioenvironmental database; e.

HydroSHEDS).

Amu Dar ya

Syr Darya

Atrek Tedjen/Halil RudMur ghab

Indus

(Karakum canal)

Helmand The Pamirs

Hindu Kush

Himalay a Kopet D

ag

Karakum desert

Kyzylkum desert

Dasht-e Kavir desert

Iranian Plateau

Southern Z

agros Indus basin

250

0 500 km a.

c.

e.

b.

d.

Figure 1.5. The geographical and modern political landscape of western Central Asia. (a) Elevation and topography;

(b) Annual high temperature; (c) Annual low temperature; (d) Annual precipitation; (e) Major rivers. (Based on data from: a. NASA Shuttle Radar Topography Mission; b. c. d. WorldClim.org bioenvironmental database; e.

HydroSHEDS).

1500BC

Lowest level (~ -36m)

2k BC 3k

4k 0 AD2000

6k 8k

10k 12k

14k BC 0 m -10 m -20 m -30 m -40 m

-29 m Present day Caspian level

The Caspian sea level (metres below global ocean level)

Global ocean level 0 m

Figure 1.6. The oscillations of the Caspian Sea: (a) bathymetry (data from the Caspian Environment Programme); the red line shows reconstructed coastline of the Caspian at its lowest level (34m) below global sea level c. 3300-2900BC based on this modern bathymetric data; (b) a graph showing estimated sea-level changes through time (based on Kosarev and Yablonskaya 1987).

1.3 Archaeological frameworks: chronologies, sites and