en
Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean

Getahovit-2. New evidence of an Upper Palaeolithic settlement in northern Armenia

2022, 31, Vol. 31, Regular Issue

Michał Przeździecki

0000-0002-8605-3941

University of Warsaw, Faculty of Archaeology

Marcin Białowarczuk

0000-0002-5618-8343

Faculty of Archaeology, University of Warsaw

Irena Kalantaryan

Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Science, Republic of Armenia

DOI

10.37343/uw.2083-537X.pam31.14

Publication date

30.12.2022

Publishing model

open access

License type

CC BY 4.0 Int.

Field

Humanities

Discipline

archeology

Language of publication

English

Downloads

PDF 2 MB

Article

Number of views:327

Number of downloads:75

Crossref citations:0

Altmetric score:0

Abstract

The cave settlement at Getahovit-2 in Armenia has a proven record of human occupation from the Palaeolithic to the Middle Ages, making it the third prehistoric cave site, after Aghitu-3 and Kalavan-1, to be known from this region. The current excavation of an Upper Palaeolithic horizon, discovered in 2014, has yielded a radiocarbon date placing the site within the Last Glacial Maximum, thus filling a gap in the archaeological record between the middle and late Upper Palaeolithic (between 24,000 and 18,000 cal. BP). The short-term occupation by a group of hunters, revealed by the preliminary results, is interpreted with considerable likelihood as a stop during a hunting expedition. Work at the cave site has been resumed under the flag of a newly established Armenian-Polish research cooperation between the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Science of the Republic of Armenia and the Faculty of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw.

Keywords:

Bibliography

Bertacchi, A., Gasparyan, B., Gruwier, B., Rivals, F., and Kandel, A.W. (2021). Upper Paleolithic animal exploitation in the Armenian Highlands: The zooarchaeology of Aghitu-3 cave. Quaternary International, 587, 400–414

Chataigner, C., Gratuze, B., Tardy, N., Abbès, F., Kalantaryan, I., Hovsepyan, R., Chahoud, J., and Perello, B. (2020). Diachronic variability in obsidian procurement patterns and the role of the cave-sheepfold of Getahovit-2 (NE Armenia) during the Chalcolithic period. Quaternary International, 550, 1–19. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.02.010

Clark, P.U., Dyke, A.S., Shakun, J.D., Carlson, A.E., Clark, J., Wohlfarth, B., Mitrovica, J.X., Hostetler, S.W., and McCabe, A.M. (2009). The Last Glacial Maximum. Science, 325(5941), 710–714

Ellis, L.W. (1997). Hot rock technology. In S.L. Black, L.W. Ellis, D.G. Creel, and G.T. Goode (eds), Hot rock cooking on the Greater Edwards Plateau: Four burned rock midden sites in west central Texas (pp. 43–81). Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin, Texas Archeological Research Laboratory

Gasparyan, B., & Arimura, M. (2014). Stone Age of Armenia. A guide-book to the Stone Age archaeology in the Republic of Armenia. Monograph of the JSPS-Bilateral Joint Research Project Center for Cultural Resource Studies, Kanazawa University, Japan

Gasparyan, B., Kandel, A.W., and Montoya, C. (2014). Living the high life: The Upper Paleolithic settlement of the Armenian highlands. In B. Gasparyan and M. Arimura (eds), Stone Age of Armenia: A guide-book to the Stone Age archaeology in the Republic of Armenia (pp. 107–131). Kanazawa: Center for Cultural Resource Studies

Kalantaryan, I. and Ghanem, G. (2019). Preliminary results of the Getahovit-2 Cave excavations in 2018. Aramazd. Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 13(2), 1–33

Kandel, A. W., Gasparyan, B., Allué, E., Bigga, G., Bruch, A. A., Cullen, V. L., ... and Weissbrod, L. (2017) The earliest evidence for Upper Paleolithic occupation in the Armenian Highlands at Aghitu-3 Cave. Journal of Human Evolution, 110, 37–68

Malinsky-Buller, A., Glauberman, P., Ollivier, V., Lauer, T., Timms, R., Frahm, E.,... and Gasparyan, B. (2021). Short-term occupations at high elevation during the Middle Paleolithic at Kalavan 2 (Republic of Armenia). PloS one, 16(2), e0245700

Reimer, P.J., Bard, E., Bayliss, A., Beck, J.W., Blackwell, P.G., Ramsey, C.B., … van der Plicht, J. (2013). IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon, 55(4), 1869–1887

Thoms, A.V. (1998). Earth ovens and plateau root foods. In G.E. Gibbon (ed.), Archaeology of prehistoric native America: An encyclopedia (pp. 232–235). New York: Garland Publishing

Thoms, A.V. (2009). Rocks of ages: Propagation of hot-rock cookery in western North America. Journal of Archaeological Science, 36(3), 573–591

Wandsnider, L. (1997). The roasted and the boiled: Food composition and heat treatment with special emphasis on pit-hearth cooking. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 16(1), 1–48

Zarikian, N. and Kalantarian, I. (2019). Hunting evidence from Eneolithic site of Getahovit-2 cave; Armenia. International Journal of Archaeology, 7(2), 24–29

Similar publications