Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:51:51.144Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Dog molars as personal ornaments in a Kura-Araxes child burial (Kalavan-1, Armenia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2016

Modwene Poulmarc'h ,
Rozalia Christidou ,
Adrian Bălășescu ,
Hala Alarashi ,
Françoise Le Mort ,
Boris Gasparyan  and
Christine Chataigner
Modwene Poulmarc'h
Affiliation:
UMR 5133, Archéorient: Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69365 Lyon cedex 07, France (Email: rozalia.christidou2@gmail.com)
Rozalia Christidou
Affiliation:
UMR 5133, Archéorient: Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69365 Lyon cedex 07, France (Email: rozalia.christidou2@gmail.com)
Adrian Bălășescu
Affiliation:
National History Museum of Romania, Calea Victoriei 12, Sector 3, Bucharest 030026, Romania
Hala Alarashi
Affiliation:
UMR 5133, Archéorient: Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69365 Lyon cedex 07, France (Email: rozalia.christidou2@gmail.com)
Françoise Le Mort
Affiliation:
UMR 5133, Archéorient: Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69365 Lyon cedex 07, France (Email: rozalia.christidou2@gmail.com)
Boris Gasparyan
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia, Charents Street 15, Yerevan 0025, Republic of Armenia
Christine Chataigner
Affiliation:
UMR 5133, Archéorient: Environnements et sociétés de l'Orient ancien, CNRS-Université Lumière Lyon 2, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée, 7 rue Raulin, 69365 Lyon cedex 07, France (Email: rozalia.christidou2@gmail.com)
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Two perforated dog molars were found directly associated with a Kura-Araxes child burial from the third millennium BC in Armenia. Both teeth show trimming of the root ends and boring of a biconical hole through the lingual root with a hand-held stone tool. Expedient manufacture, the anatomical location of the hole and use-wear suggest that the molars were suspended in order to display their crowns as part of a necklace that also included two stone beads. This is an unusual type of personal ornament and the first of its kind reported in the South Caucasus. Its use in a Kura-Araxes burial is interpreted as an active modification of the funerary symbolism during this period.

Keywords

ArmeniaEarly Bronze AgeKura-Araxes burialperforated dog molarmicro-wear analysis
Type
Research
Information
Antiquity , Volume 90 , Issue 352 , August 2016 , pp. 953 - 972
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd, 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bălășescu, A., Vila, E., Radu, V., Badalyan, R. & Chataigner, C.. 2010. Production animale et économie de subsistance au Néolithique dans la plaine de l'Ararat (Arménie). Annales d'Université ‘Valahia’ Târgoviște, Section d'Archéologie et d'Histoire XII.1: 25–38.Google Scholar
Barge-Mahieu, H. & Taborin, Y.. 1991. Fiche générale des dents percées, in Camps-Fabrer, H. (ed.) Fiches typologiques de l'industrie osseuse préhistorique. Cahier IV. Objets de parure: 29–36. Aix-en-Provence: Université de Provence.Google Scholar
Bernabò Brea, M., Mazzieri, P. & Micheli, R.. 2010. People, dogs and wild game: evidence of human-animal relations from Middle Neolithic burials and personal ornaments in northern Italy. Documenta Praehistorica 37: 125–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.4312/dp.37.11 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berthon, R., Decaix, A., Kovaćs, Z.E., van Neer, W., Tengberg, M., Willcox, G. & Cucchi, T.. 2013. A bioarchaeological investigation of three late Chalcolithic pits at Ovçular Tepesi (Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan). Journal of Environmental Archaeology 18: 191–200. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/1749631413Y.0000000005 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruzek, J. 2002. A method for visual determination of sex, using the human hip bone. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 117: 157–68. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.10012 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chataigner, C. & Palumbi, G. (ed.). 2014. The Kura-Araxes culture from the Caucasus to Iran, Anatolia and the Levant: between unity and diversity. Paléorient 40. Paris: CNRS.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chataigner, C., Gasparyan, B., Montoya, C.A., Arimura, M., Melikyan, V., Liagre, J., Petrosyan, A., Ghukasyan, R., Colonge, D., Fourloubey, C., Arakelyan, D., Astruc, L., Nahapetyan, S., Hovsepyan, R., Balasescu, A., Tomé, C. & Radu, V.. 2012. From the Late Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic in north-western Armenia: preliminary results, in Avetisyan, P. & Bobokhyan, A. (ed.) Archaeology of Armenia in regional context. Proceedings of the International Conference dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, held on September 15–17, 2009, in Yerevan: 37–43, 157–62. Yerevan: Gitutyun.Google Scholar
Choyke, A.M. 2010. The bone is the beast: animal amulets and ornaments in power and magic, in Campana, D.V., Crabtree, P., deFrance, S.D., Lev-Tov, J. & Choyke, A.M. (ed.) Anthropological approaches to zooarchaeology: colonialism, complexity and animal transformations: 197–209. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Choyke, A.M., Vretemark, M. & Sten, S.. 2004. Levels of social identity expressed in the refuse and worked bone from Middle Bronze Age Százhalombatta-Földvár, Vatya culture, Hungary, in O'Day, S. Jones, Neer, W. van & Ervynck, A. (ed.) Behaviour behind bones. The zooarchaeology of ritual, religion, status and identity. Proceedings of the 9th Conference of the International Council of Archaeozoology, Durham, August 2002: 177–89. Oxford: Oxbow.Google Scholar
Copet-Rougier, E. 1988. Le jeu de l'entre-deux. Le chien chez les Mkako (Est-Cameroun). L'Homme 28: 108–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/hom.1988.369047 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
d'Errico, F. 1993. Identification des traces de manipulation, suspension, polissage sur l'art mobilier en os, bois de cervidé, ivoire, in Anderson, P.C., Beyries, S., Otte, M. & Plisson, H. (ed.) Traces et fonctions: les gestes retrouvés. Actes du Colloque International de Liège, 8–9–10 décembre 1990 (ERAUL 50): 177–88. Liège: CNRS.Google Scholar
Dimitrijević, V. & Vuković, S.. 2015. Was the dog locally domesticated in the Danube Gorges? Morphometric study of dog cranial remains from four Mesolithic–Early Neolithic archaeological sites by comparison with contemporary wolves. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 25: 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/oa.2260 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Driesch, A. von den. 1976. A guide to the measurement of animal bones from archaeological sites (Peabody Museum Bulletin 1). Cambridge (MA): Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Duday, H. 2009. The archaeology of the dead. Lectures in archaeothanatology (translated by A.M. Cipriani & J. Pearce). Oxford: Oxbow.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frangipane, M., Di Nocera, G.M., Hauptmann, A., Morbidelli, P., Palmieri, A., Sadori, L., Schultz, M. & Schmidt-Schultz, T.. 2001. New symbols of a new power in a ‘royal’ tomb from 3000 BC Arslantepe, Malatya (Turkey). Paléorient 27: 105–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.3406/paleo.2001.4733 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosman, L. 2003. Preserving cultural traditions in a period of instability: the late Natufian of the hilly Mediterranean zone. Current Anthropology 44: 571–80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/377650 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilakis, Y. 2002. Too many chiefs? Factional competition in Neopalatial Crete, in Driessen, J., Schoep, I. & Lafinneur, R. (ed.) Monuments of Minos: rethinking the Minoan palaces. Proceedings of the International Workshop ‘Crete of the hundred palaces?’ held at the Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-la-Neuve, 14–15 décembre 2001 (Aegaeum 23): 179–99. Liège: Université de Liège & University of Texas at Austin.Google Scholar
Horard-Herbin, M.-P. 2000. Dog management and use in the Late Iron Age: the evidence from the Gallic site of Levroux (France), in Crockford, S.J. (ed.) Dogs through time: an archaeological perspective. Proceedings of the 1st ICAZ Symposium on the History of the Domestic Dog, Eighth Congress of the International Council for Archaeozoology (ICAZ98), August 23–29, 1998 Victoria, B.C., Canada (British Archaeological Reports international series 889): 115–21. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Kohl, P.L. 2009. Origins, homelands and migrations: situating the Kura-Araxes Early Transcaucasian ‘culture’ within the history of Bronze Age Eurasia. Tel Aviv 36: 241–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Legrand, A. & Sidéra, I.. 2007. Methods, means, and results when studying European bone industries, in Gates St-Pierre, C. & Walker, R.B. (ed.) Current methods and interpretations in worked bone studies (British Archaeological Reports international series 1622): 67–79. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Losey, R., Bazaliiski, V.I., Garvie-Lok, S., Germonpré, M., Leonard, J.A., Allen, A.L., Katzenberg, M.A. & Sablin, M.V.. 2011. Canids as persons: early Neolithic dog and wolf burials, Cis-Baikal, Siberia. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 30: 174–89. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2011.01.001 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lõugas, L. 2006. Animals as subsistence and bones as raw material for settlers of prehistoric Zvejnieki, in Larsson, L. & Zagorska, I. (ed.) Back to the origin. New research in the Mesolithic–Neolithic Zvejnieki cemetery and environment, northern Latvia (Acta Archaeologica Lundensia series 52): 75–89. Lund: Almqvist & Wiksell International.Google Scholar
Mannermaa, K., Zagorska, I., Jungner, H. & Zarina, G.. 2007. New radiocarbon dates of human and bird bones from Zvejnieki Stone Age burial ground in northern Latvia. Before Farming 2007(1): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.3828/bfarm.2007.1.3 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirzoyan, L. & Manaseryan, N.. 2008. Archaeozoological investigation of the site of Shirakavan, 3rd–1st millennia BC, Armenia, in Vila, E., Gourichon, L., Choyke, A. & Buitenhuis, H. (ed.) Archaeozoology of the Near East VIII. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the Archaeozoology of Southwestern Asia and Adjacent Areas, Lyon, June 28th–July 1st, 2006, Tome II (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée 49): 521–31. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée.Google Scholar
Montoya, C., Balasescu, A., Joannin, S., Ollivier, V., Liagre, J., Nahapetyan, S., Ghukasyan, R., Colonge, D., Gasparyan, B. & Chataigner, C.. 2013. The Upper Palaeolithic site of Kalavan 1 (Armenia): an Epigravettian settlement in the Lesser Caucasus. Journal of Human Evolution 65: 621–40. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2013.07.011 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Moorrees, C.F.A., Fanning, E.A. & Hunt, E.E.. 1963. Age variation of formation stages for ten permanent teeth. Journal of Dental Research 42: 1490–502. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/00220345630420062701 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morey, D.F. 2010. Dogs: domestication and the development of a social bond. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511778360 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pastoureau, M. & Simonnet, D.. 2010. Le petit livre des couleurs. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Piro, J. 2008. Pastoral economies in Early Transcaucasian communities from the mid-4th to 3rd millennium BC, in Vila, E., Gourichon, L., Choyke, A. & Buitenhuis, H. (ed.) Archaeozoology of the Near East VIII. Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the Archaeozoology of Southwestern Asia and Adjacent Areas, Lyon, June 28th–July 1st, 2006, Tome II (Travaux de la Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée 49): 451–63. Lyon: Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée.Google Scholar
Poulmarc'h, M. (with L. Pecqueur & B. Jalilov). 2014. An overview of Kura-Araxes funerary practices in the southern Caucasus, in C. Chataigner & G. Palumbi (ed.) The Kura-Araxes culture from the Caucasus to Iran, Anatolia and the Levant: between unity and diversity (special issue). Paléorient 40: 233–48. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Poulmarc'h, M. & Le Mort, F.. 2016. Diversification of the funerary practices in the southern Caucasus from the Neolithic to the Chalcolithic. Quaternary International 395: 184–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.04.040 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmid, E. 1972. Atlas of animal bones: for prehistorians, archaeologists and Quaternary geologists. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Schmitt, A. 2005. Une nouvelle méthode pour estimer l’âge au décès des adultes à partir de la surface sacro-pelvienne iliaque. Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris (N.S.) 17: 89–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sewell, W.H., Jr. 1999. The concept(s) of culture, in Bonnell, V.E. & Hunt, L. (ed.) Beyond the cultural turn: new directions in the study of society and culture: 35–61. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A.T. 2005. Prometheus unbound: southern Caucasia in prehistory. Journal of World Prehistory 19: 229–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10963-006-9005-9 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A.T. 2012. The Caucasus and the Near East, in Potts, D.T. (ed.) A companion to the archaeology of the ancient Near East: 668–86. London: Wiley-Blackwell. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444360790 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stordeur, D. 1977. La fabrication des aiguilles à chas. Observation et experimentation, in Camps-Fabrer, H. (ed.) Méthodologie appliquée à l'industrie de l'os préhistorique. Deuxième colloque international sur l'industrie de l'os dans la préhistoire, Abbaye de Sénanque (Vaucluse) 9–12 juin 1976: 251–56. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Stordeur, D. & Christidou, R.. 2008. L'industrie osseuse de Mureybet: étude morpho-technique et fonctionnelle, in Ibáñez, J.J. (ed.) Le site néolithique de Tell Mureybet (Syrie du Nord). En hommage à Jacques Cauvin (British Archaeological Reports international series 1843): 439–537. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Stordeur, D. & Pion, G.. 1993. La plaquette perforée en os de la Fru à Saint-Christophe (Savoie): premier temoignage d'un forage alternatif. Gallia préhistoire 35: 293–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tumanyan, G.S. 1993. Jrvezhi vaghbronzedaryan N1 dambanabluri peghumnery, in Tiratsyan, G.A., Kalantaryan, A.A. & Areshyan, G.E. (ed.) Hnagitakan ashkhatanknery Hayastani norakaruytsnerum I (1986–1987 tt. peghumneri ardyunknery). G.A. Tiratsyani hishatakin: 7–14. Yerevan: National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.Google Scholar
Vanhaeren, M. & d'Errico, F.. 2006. Aurignacian ethno-linguistic geography of Europe revealed by personal ornaments. Journal of Archaeological Science 33: 1105–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2005.11.017 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkinson, K.N., Gasparyan, B., Pinhasi, R., Avetisyan, P., Hovsepyan, R., Zardaryan, D., Areshian, G.E., Bar-Oz, G. & Smith, A.. 2012. Areni-1 Cave, Armenia: a Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus. Journal of Field Archaeology 37: 20–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/0093469011Z.0000000002 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yeganyan, L. 2011. Zhertvoprinoshenie volkov v rannebronzovom Mets Sepasare, in Gambashidze, G. (ed.) Mezhdunarodnyaya nauchnaya konferentsiya ‘Arkheologiya, Etnologiya i Fol'kloristika Kavkaza’. Sbornik kratkikh soderzhaniy dokladov: 119. Tbilisi: Meridiani.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Poulmarc'h supplementary material

Poulmarc'h supplementary material 1

Download Poulmarc'h supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 73.7 KB