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Human mobility and early sedentism: the Late Neolithic landscape of southern Azerbaijan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2018

Andrea Ricci ,
Maria Bianca D'Anna ,
Dan Lawrence ,
Barbara Helwing  and
Tevekkül Aliyev
Andrea Ricci*
Affiliation:
Graduate School Human Development in Landscapes, Kiel University, Leibnizstraße 3, 24118 Kiel, Germany
Maria Bianca D'Anna
Affiliation:
Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology, Free University of Berlin, Fabeckstraße 23–25, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Dan Lawrence
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, University of Durham, Dawson Building, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
Barbara Helwing
Affiliation:
Department of Archaeology, The University of Sydney, Brennan MacCallum Building A18, NSW 2006, Australia
Tevekkül Aliyev
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Hüseyn Cavid Prospekti, Baku, Azerbaijan
*
*Author for correspondence (Email: aricci@gshdl.uni-kiel.de)
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Abstract

Recent survey and excavation conducted in the Mil Plain region of the southern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan challenges traditional notions of Neolithic sedentism. Here, the authors present their findings, and propose that prior to its abandonment towards the end of the sixth millennium BC, the occupation of the region was comprised of numerous highly variable short-term sites and multi-mounded sites (Qarabel Tepe), as well as anchoring sites (Kamiltepe). This indicates multi-scalar patterns of mobility of a much more complex nature than had previously been supposed, making this region quite unique for the Late Neolithic of South-western Asia.

Keywords

AzerbaijanNeolithicmobilitysettlementsocial complexity
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 92 , Issue 366 , December 2018 , pp. 1445 - 1461
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2018 

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