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Nugent-Dissertation Final Draft (1).pdf (8.39 MB)

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Pastoral Mobility and the Formation of Complex Settlement in the Middle Bronze Age Serur Valley, Azerbaijan

Nugent, Selin Elizabeth
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9346-7926
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500293666725232

Abstract Details

2017, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Anthropology.
What degree of authority do mobile pastoralists demonstrate during the emergence of complex settlement systems? Archaeology has historically marginalized mobile populations or ignored their contribution to the development of social complexity. This research employs isotopic analyses on human skeletal remains in context with mortuary practice to explain how mobile pastoralists integrated into the emerging urban centers of the Middle Bronze Age (2400-1500BC) South Caucasus in the Serur Valley of Naxcivan, Azerbaijan. Small, fragmentary groups of mobile pastoralists and trace evidence of small-scale settlements characterize the Middle Bronze Age (2400-1500BC) in the South Caucasus (Smith, 2005). However, at the Qizqala settlement complex in the Aras River Valley of Naxcivan, Azerbaijan, the Middle Bronze Age features major political transformations and dense settlements on a scale that precedes traditional chronologies of the emergence of complex settlements in the Late Bronze Age (1500-1150 BC) (Ristvet et al., 2012; Smith, 2012). Unlike most emergent Near Eastern urban societies, where the development of states and urban centers was predicated on control of agricultural production and sedentism, this region presents a case where the development of sociopolitical complexity relied on a regional population hypothesized as depending primarily on mobile pastoral subsistence (Smith, 2003). While the lack of long-term settlement across most the region supports seasonal and recurrent mobility patterns during the Middle Bronze Age, little is known about the specific modes of mobile subsistence in the earliest fortified complex settlements and how mobility functioned in emergent complex settlement contexts. How the administrative system of the fortress and these mobile populations negotiated space and power is thus a key consideration in unraveling the development of polities in the South Caucasus and expanding on traditional models of social complexity (Arbuckle, 2012; Frachetti, 2012; Honeychurch, 2014; McCorriston, 2013; Porter, 2012; Szuchman, 2009). How do pastoralists engage in mobility in emerging polities? How did changing mortuary practices generate and/or reflect negotiations of mobile people in a new political landscape? This dissertation tests the hypotheses of seasonal highland mobility and dynamic negotiations between mobile and sedentary factions at the Qizqala cemetery to investigate how mobile pastoral mobility, mortuary space construction and funerary ritual changed in this region during the emergence of complex polities. Strontium (87Sr/86Sr), oxygen (d18O), and carbon (d13C) isotopic analyses on sequentially sampled human dental enamel provide data on seasonal diet and water sourcing behaviors over dental development to track degree of individual mobility across the regional landscape and shifting dietary habits. The heterogeneity in intra-individual and intra-tooth isotopic values for all isotopes studies supports the hypothesized intensive pastoral mobility that characterizes the Middle Bronze Age populations of the South Caucasus. Results reveal a range of residential and seasonal mobility patterns, which support that the Qizqala population continued reliance on nomadic lifeways even during the emergence of complex settlement. Most individuals fluctuate between lowland and highland zones, which correspond to periods of increased C4 millet consumption, a highland summer crop. This dissertation examines how individual mobility behaviors relate to local and individual expressions of funerary ritual in order to reflect on how pastoralist communities shaped their political landscape through reproducing, transforming, and/or resisting political and economic conditions of power through manipulations of funerary objects and spaces. The location, orientation, style, and elaboration of each individual's burial context provide data to examine distribution of economic resources available to mobile pastoralists in emerging complex settlement systems. Results suggest mobility patterns closely relate to placement in the cemetery, supporting the importance of mobility in maintaining social cohesion around elite individuals. By taking a bioarchaeological approach that includes details from the human skeleton as well as mortuary archaeology, this dissertation offers an encompassing perspective on interactions between mobile pastoralists and political institutions, elucidating the subject's perspective on mobility and power that has otherwise been overlooked.
Clark Larsen, PhD (Advisor)
Mark Hubbe, PhD (Committee Member)
Robert Cook, PhD (Committee Member)
Joy McCorriston, PhD (Committee Member)
Hilary Gopnik, PhD (Committee Member)
380 p.
Ancient Civilizations; Ancient History; Archaeology; Biogeochemistry; Physical Anthropology
Mobility, Pastoralism, Settlement, Mortuary Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, South Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age

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Citations

  • Nugent, S. E. (2017). Pastoral Mobility and the Formation of Complex Settlement in the Middle Bronze Age Serur Valley, Azerbaijan [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500293666725232

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Nugent, Selin. Pastoral Mobility and the Formation of Complex Settlement in the Middle Bronze Age Serur Valley, Azerbaijan. 2017. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500293666725232.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Nugent, Selin. "Pastoral Mobility and the Formation of Complex Settlement in the Middle Bronze Age Serur Valley, Azerbaijan." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2017. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1500293666725232

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1500293666725232
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.