Desert kites and aggregated cells of Mt Aragats (Armenia): Spatial coincidences?

Olivier Barge (1) , Bérengère Perello (1) , Emmanuelle Regagnon (1) , Camille Noûs (2)

1 Archéorient - ARCHEORIENT - Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien
2 Laboratoire Cogitamus

The aggregated cells were discovered during the fieldworks about desert kites conducted on the western slopes of Mount Aragats between 2011 and 2015, which is not surprising after all: the two categories of constructions share some logics of location in the landscape and it turns out that their respective extension areas, in Armenia, are very similar. Moreover, if the questions that remain about their functions find only partial explanations, it seems that they imply animals in both cases. Could we advance the hypothesis of a coexistence of these two types of constructions, or even of their functional complementarity? The chronology, tricky to establish in the case of kites and still preliminary in that of aggregated cells, could strengthen the idea of a possible contemporaneity. However, some rare cases of superposition make probable an earlier date for the aggregated cells.

Keywords: Pastoralism; GIS; South Caucasus; Armenia; Late Bronze Age

Domains: Archaeology and Prehistory; Geography

Olivier Barge, Bérengère Perello, Emmanuelle Regagnon, Camille Noûs. Desert kites and aggregated cells of Mt Aragats (Armenia): Spatial coincidences?. Quaternary International, 2021, Ancient Armenia at the Crossroads: Natural Hazards and Adaptation Strategies in Armenia from 10,000 BC onwards, 579, pp.29-41. ⟨10.1016/j.quaint.2020.05.020⟩. ⟨halshs-02911616⟩