Nairi Lands: The Identity of the Local Communities of Eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus and Periphery During the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age. A Reassessment of the Material Culture and the Socio-Economic Landscape

By Guido Guarducci

This study analyses the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the pottery production and the architecture, and the social structure of the local communities of a broad area encompassing Eastern Anatolia, the South Caucasus and North-western Iran during the last phase of the Late Bronze Age and the Early Iron Age. This broad area is known from the Assyrian texts as ‘Nairi lands’. The second part of the study, furnishes a reassessment of pottery production characteristics and theories, as well as of the socio-economic structure and issues, tied to the sedentary and mobile local communities of the Nairi lands. The study brings into focus the characteristics, the extension and the distribution of Grooved pottery, along with other pottery typologies, by providing an accompanying online catalogue with detailed descriptions and high-resolution images of the pots and sherds obtained from public and private institutions in Turkey and Armenia. Moreover, the socio-political organisation and subsistence economy issues are addressed in order to advance a possible reconstruction of the social structure of the Nairi lands communities. Particular attention is devoted to the pastoral nomad component and the role played within the Nairi phenomenon. The study includes a very large corpus of text images and high-resolution color images of the pottery of the area under examination, gathered by the author in order to offer a reliable tool and compendium.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Oxbow Books
• Release date: Dec 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789252798

Guido Guarducci

Guido Guarducci is Co-director of CAMNES and supervisor of the Department of Ancient Studies at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Italian International Institute, both based in Florence (Italy). He completed his PhD at the University of Reading (UK). His research interests mainly focus on the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age semi-nomadic communities of Eastern Anatolia and the South Caucasus, including the impact and interaction of the Assyrian empire in this area.

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Part I

Introduction

1

Research introduction

1.1 The Nairi lands: Questions and issues

The Nairi lands is a geographical area encompassing regions of the Near East and the Caucasus, more specifically, the eastern part of Anatolia (Turkey), North-western Iran and the South Caucasus (Fig. 1). The Assyrian texts refer to Nairi as an ensemble of lands ruled by ‘kings’ starting from the middle of the 13th century BCE. The annals mention this area and its people consistently until the end of the Empire around the 7th century BCE. The present study focuses on the early stages of formation and development between the end of the Late Bronze Age and the end of the Early Iron Age (13th–10th centuries BCE). The succeeding period, the first part of the Middle Iron Age, introduces great transformation in the area with regard to the populations and material culture. In particular we see the genesis of the Urartian state, shifting the cultural traits of the Nairi lands towards a different socio-political landscape, which goes beyond the scope and objectives of the present study.

The apparent homogeneity of style and the broad distribution of pottery production, the paucity of architecture, the absence of a central political power, the signs of a strongly mobile type of lifestyle, and the complex relationship with external polities are only a few of the distinctive aspects related to the social groups that inhabited the Nairi lands that have been drawing an increasing interest of scholars over the last decades. In a period of intense transformation and redesign of the political and economic Near Eastern scenario, the local populations in this area emerged and expanded giving birth to a broad phenomenon that scholars, up till now, have scarcely dealt with. Understandably, the wealth of features and problems across a large number of countries is surely discouraging. Nevertheless, addressing different issues with a multidisciplinary approach is a necessary process to achieve a complete framework of the various elements and regions that composed the Nairi lands singularity and consequently establish the bonding elements, the fil rouge, that connected its communities.

The research presented in this study, in order to analyse and understand the identity of Nairi lands local communities, has led to a reassessment of these elements and issues with a socio-anthropological perspective. Identity building and expression, in particular that linked to the pottery style, communities’ formation and correlation, and the complexity of mobile-sedentary relationship, are further aspects and processes explored within the present study. These provide a wider context in which mere archaeological data and text sources acquire new values and open fresh avenues of interpretation.

The toponym Nairi (KUR.KUR na-i-ri/na-’i-ru), is known from Assyrian and also Urartian inscriptions. Most probably this is the local communities’ term for their lands, since its etymology, confronted with other languages of the period, does not produce any definitive result. In fact, Salvini (1967, 45–46) offers a range of possible meanings without reaching a solid conclusion. He claims that it is:

unlikely it can be explained with the help of Urartian Nara (population) … or the Assyrian naru (river), moreover, it is not clear whether it is related to Naharain, name of Mittani in documents of the 18th Egyptian dynasty (Schäfer 1931, 430–38) or if we possibly should connect it to the Hurrian toponym ‘Nihra’… or as a personal name (Hurrian)… which appears in the exact same form in an Urartian source (Lehmann-Haupt 1928–1935, 129) in which Nihiria (URU n-hi-ri-a-ni) is the capital of the country of Arme.

Salvini (1967, 46, endnote 18) explains that Arme recurs in Assyrian sources in connection with Šubria or with the Kašiiari Mountain (modern Tur ‘Abdin), i.e. the southern lands of Nairi, as ‘Arime’ (Luckenbill 1926–1927, I, 390). Piotrovskij (1966, 107–109; see also 35–36) as well, affirms that the Nairi toponym must definitely be put in relation to Šubria. In this respect, according to a few scholars, the Nairi lands very likely could have been, for the most part, of Hurrian derivation, possibly formed in the aftermath of the Mittani/Hanigalbat’s dismemberment. In fact, archaeological excavations at sites like Giricano, Ziyaret Tepe and Uçtepe in the Upper Tigris demonstrate a Mittani occupation during the end of the 2nd millennium BCE (Radner 2006, 276). The etymological origin of the toponym Nairi, however, remains obscure.

Other questions and issues have been raised and debated over the last few decades which are addressed and reassessed in detail in the following chapters. The definition of the socio-economic structure, the lifestyle, the material culture of the populations that inhabited the various regions of the Nairi lands, are among the main problems that await further investigation and a comprehensive examination. In fact, what is missing is a holistic approach to this broad area, taking into consideration the single elements and the various issues tied to the Nairi phenomenon and, at the same time, observe the general framework in order to gain a new perspective and perhaps new connections among the single elements. Of particular interest are the issues tied to the role played by the nomadic and/or semi-nomadic communities, their relationship with sedentary lifestyle, the social role of pottery styles along with the wide distribution of the so-called Grooved pottery, the lack of permanent structures in large areas, the presence of countless forts in most of the regions and their association with large necropoles, the chronological framing of the material culture, and the connections with the Caucasian and Iranian areas. Regrettably, most studies analyse and discuss only a few of these issues and separately, as single elements, or in other cases, restricted to a specific geographical area or site.

1.2 Objectives of the study

Building on an earlier study (Guarducci 2010), which was based on the analysis of the Iron Age layers of Hirbemerdon Tepe and its context within the Upper Tigris Region, the next natural step was that of enlarging the scope of research in order to establish the social and symbolic value of the material culture, in particular the local pottery present throughout the Nairi lands, the so-called Grooved pottery, and the overall identity of the related communities. The study addresses the above-mentioned issues, which are strictly tied to the following four main objectives of research:

a) Nairi lands concept. Establish if the various regions that compose the Nairi lands (Eastern Anatolia, South Caucasus and North-west Iran) show consistency, and to what degree, in terms of material culture, lifestyle and subsistence strategies, hence, a socio-cultural uniformity.

b) Nairi Ware: Reassess and produce a comprehensive and definitive analysis of the material culture, specifically the pottery production style and techno-morphological traits and the associated architectural features. Moreover, the pottery analysis aims at establishing the symbolic and social implications, the spatial distribution and chronological framing of this production. This analysis, at the same time, creates a reliable and comprehensive compendium of the pottery typologies and their characteristics (descriptive, archaeometric and photographic), according to the various regions and countries in which they are present.

c) Socio-economic landscape. Reassess and define the social, political and economic structures that ruled the communities of the Nairi lands, in particular the presence and degree of mobile lifestyle and the sedentary correlation, the tribal-statist organisation of the communities’ polities and the means/strategies of subsistence.

d) Identity. Trace an identity profile of the local communities of the various Nairi lands given the similarities and discrepancies shown by the historical and archaeological record, in particular the apparent style consistency of pottery production and the ethnic variety, which distinguish this area, in combination with the information yielded by a), b) and c). More specifically, establish the nature of, and the elements that compose, the shared part of the communities’ identity, manifested through their social practice.

1.3 Approaches, methodologies and resources

In order to achieve the objectives stated above, it is necessary to rely on multiple types of evidence, resources and an array of methods to obtain and produce new datasets.

The first step, indispensable to all of the following, is a comprehensive re-examination of the literature related to the main research topics. This allowed the creation of a basis necessary to confront the archaeological record with the text sources and produce a comprehensive analysis of the contexts, architecture and pottery of all the main Late Bronze–Early Iron Age sites across the Nairi lands, focusing on those belonging primarily to Eastern Anatolia but also Armenia. Particular attention was also devoted to the Middle and Neo Assyrian texts in order to gain all the historical evidence related to the Nairi lands.

The most relevant regions and sites within this area are accompanied by a detailed image repertoire for the contexts and architectural features. The pottery production of the Nairi lands is the spark of this research project and the core of the research activities, which gravitated around this fundamental aspect. Most publications feature little information on Grooved pottery and other ceramic types associated to the LBA–EIA assemblage as well as the related style issues. Very few detailed descriptions on the technical and morphological aspects of sherds and vessels are available. Moreover, there is an almost complete absence of images related to this ceramic horizon, which mainly focuses on a few drawings and low-resolution images. Quality images are very important to understand visually how specific characteristics described on paper truly appear, alone or in combination with other elements, allowing a reliable comparison with other parallel productions or typology variations. In order to obtain new, reliable descriptive and visual data, on-site visiting and documenting activities were carried out in multiple sites in Eastern Turkey and in Armenia, the main countries related to the Nairi lands phenomenon. Finally, an array of social and symbolic meanings and functions of the Nairi lands pottery style is addressed in order to establish the active role played by the Grooved and associated pottery within the communities’ identity boundaries and social practice.

Figure 1. The areas of modern countries that form the Nairi lands (in yellow).

In Turkey, specific attention was dedicated to the Upper Tigris area and, in particular, to the site of Hirbemerdon Tepe. Here a selection of pottery samples was collected for archaeometric analyses and flotations were performed on the soil samples collected from the EIA context of the site, a unicum for the entire Upper Tigris valley. In the Erzurum area, a significant amount of time was spent on the study of the collections preserved at the Archaeological Museum depot, which contained the ceramic material of all the sites of the Erzurum province and those nearby. A selection of sherds for archaeometric investigations from the site of Sos Höyük was given directly to the author by the director of the excavations, Antonio Sagona.

Two trips were arranged for the Armenian territory. The first was devoted to the observation in situ of the sites and fortifications distributed across the entire territory. The second and longer trip was dedicated to the study and recording of the collections hosted within key institutions and sites in Yerevan and its environs: the Institute of Archaeology (depot and materials under research), materials from Teghut, Karashamb, Sotk, Norabak, Margahovit; the University Museum (collection on display) materials from Talin, Artik and Shirakavan; the Museum of the City of Yerevan (depot) materials from Charbak, Karmir Berd, Goris, Eschmiazin, Mekrazor and Rasdan; the site of Metsamor (mission house depot) a few exemplars from the site. Pottery samples were also collected during this travel from three distinct sites, Margahovit, Sotk and Norabak.

At each site, pottery recording underwent a distinct process. Each sherd and complete vessel were described in detail and recorded in a dedicated database (NaLaReD: Nairi Lands Research Database), along with a series of high-resolution photographs in RAW format obtained with a Nikon D800 DSLR digital reflex full frame equipped with a 60 mm f/2.8 ED Macro, a 50 mm f/1.2 and a 24–70 mm f/2.8 ED Nikkor lens, illuminated by two 6400K colour temperature light bulbs, with a white or grey matt vinyl background and metric reference.

The collected sherd samples from Hirbemerdon Tepe, Sos Höyük, Margahovit, Sotk and Norabak have been processed by an international team directed by the CNR and University of Pisa through a series of archaeometric analyses (petrography, XRF, ICP-MS, LIBS) reported in detail with the related results in the Appendix.

The final reassessment of the socio-economic landscape, the pottery production, the related lifestyle and more generally the identity of the communities of the Nairi lands are addressed in light of the past theories, theoretical approaches, and of the information recently made available by new archaeological projects along with the analysis and combination of the data elaborated within this study.

1.4 Structure of the study

The following study is organised in eight main parts, which are composed of 12 chapters.

Following this introductory Part I, Part II specifies and explains the use of terms and concepts with reference to the main sociological and anthropological theories employed and adopted in the following chapters. By describing the value and the theoretical framework behind these elements we will be able to establish a basic array of terminological parameters to scientifically and archaeologically approach the analysis and interpretation of the distinguishing elements and manifestations of the Nairi lands. In particular, Chapter 2 focuses on the concepts of identity, ethnicity and culture. Particular attention is devoted to the style and social practice of pottery production as well as its symbolic value and meaning. Chapter 3 concentrates on the concept of community in sociology and archaeology. These are all elements that are central to the understanding of the social structure of the Nairi lands. The final part of the chapter is dedicated to specifying use and the employment of these concepts in the present study.

Part III features the geological, geographical and historical landscape of the area examined within the study. Chapter 4 takes into account the geological and environmental ‘core’, ‘periphery’ and ‘outer periphery’ of the different areas of activity of the local communities of the Nairi lands. The degree of this activity, hence the adopted labels, has been established according to the chronological presence, the quantity, quality and spatial distribution of the local communities’ material culture. Chapter 5 presents the historical framework of the area, its connections with the Near East, the issues tied to this period, in particular the dynamics of the so-called end of the Bronze Age crisis and the subsequent Iron Age regeneration. Chapter 5 considers the main Assyrian texts in relation to Nairi, in particular the annals and inscriptions left by the main Assyrian rulers that got in contact with the Nairi lands, delivering a detailed portrait of interaction and clash between the two factions.

Part IV explores the archaeological evidence (Chapter 7) of the main sites of Eastern Anatolia into the five main areas of research. The history of archaeological research, contexts, architectural features and pottery production trends are examined in detail for each area. Particular attention is devoted to the pottery production, as for the similar sections present within Part V and VI, since the style characteristics and trends present in the various areas represent key factors to assess and establish the presence or not of cultural continuity as well as the social dynamics of the communities, in particular those connected to their identity framing.

Part V deals with the archaeological data (Chapter 8) yielded from the main sites of the South Caucasus, the Nairi lands periphery, in particular Armenia, Nakichevan, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The history of archaeological research, the contexts, architectural features and pottery production trends are examined in detail for each region. The South Caucasus is considered the periphery of the Anatolian core, due to the differences apparently present in the material culture and indications present in the historical sources. Nevertheless, a few areas of the South Caucasus appear to be connected to Eastern Anatolia, in particular the forts present in both regions.

Part VI focuses on the archaeological record (Chapter 9) of the main sites of North-west Iran and other minor connections located further away, all within the sphere of the Nairi lands outer periphery. This particular area is located around or close to the periphery or the core of the main territories in which we observe the cultural manifestations of the Nairi lands. A further subdivision of the periphery is due to the amount and quality of data present in the sites of a determined area.

Part VII discusses the analysis and reassessment of the raw data, the theories and issues of the single aspects of the Nairi lands material culture, in particular the pottery production (Chapter 10). The first part of the pottery production chapter analyses in depth the techno-morphology characteristics of the Anatolian and Armenian productions, i.e. the better documented, as well as the common and disruptive style trends, the Catalogue structure, archaeometric analyses details and main results. The second part of Chapter 10 focuses on the reassessment of the theories and dynamics of the pottery production, the hypotheses of function and use based on context and morphology and finally on the re-elaboration of the reassessment with the establishment of the Nairi Ware concept. The final sections of Chapter 10 explore in detail the Nairi Ware characteristics, including the reasons behind the choice of this controversial label, the subcategories that compose the ware, an overall typology with particular attention on the Anatolian and Armenian types, and a final analysis of the assemblages and distribution phases. Chapter 11 describes the ethnicities and social groups connected to the local communities and the characteristics of the communities – more specifically, the communities’ lifestyle, subsistence economy and sociopolitical organisation according to the three main areas of the Nairi lands, the Settlement Area, the Encampment Area and the Fort Area.

Part VIII, discusses the overall main elements common to the entire Nairi lands communities, which introduces the identity discourse strictly connected to the theoretical framework chapters above (Part II). In particular, the nature of the communities’ identity is argued, the shared part of their identity, the tangible and intangible aspects of their social practice, which defines and makes manifest their identity, hence their sense of belonging and demarcation towards external groups. Particular attention is devoted to the nature and type of identity that bonds the communities at different levels, that cultural affinity that seems to be at the core of the Nairi lands concept and the material culture expression and recreation. A specific section is dedicated to the social and symbolic function of the Nairi Ware pottery, which builds on the aspects regarding style, meaning and identity analysed in Part II. This section, in fact, discusses these social values embodied and processed in the concrete example offered by the Nairi Ware pottery style, in particular the communal and identity functions of the pottery and its social practice. This part ends with the final conclusions on the study and indications for future research.

Following the eight main parts of text, the study features the bibliography and an appendix. The appendix contains the data and results yielded by the pottery archaeometric analysis with accompanying figures and tables. The analyses were conducted by an international team from the Italian CNR (National Research Council), the University of Pisa (Italy) and the University of Valencia (Spain). The online catalogue is subdivided into the Nairi lands contexts and architecture figures, and in the Nairi Ware Pottery description tables and figures.

Part II

Theoretical Framework

2

Identity, ethnicity and culture

The wide distribution and apparent consistency of the material culture of the Nairi lands, in particular the pottery style, along with the similarity of the settlement characteristics, strongly suggest convergence of common symbolic patterns and identity. All these elements are explored in the following sections and chapters, The nature of the value and meaning of this symbology most probably has its roots in common cultural traits. Common cultural traits are the final output and result of what appears to be shared identity, which is mainly embodied and practised in the pottery production.

For this reason we must explore the significance of these conceptual elements and how they were conceived and expressed by the Nairi lands social groups. Moreover, the concept of ethnicity is investigated due to the possible implications tied to the identity concept and the Nairi lands multi-ethnic social base. These elements tend to coalesce around the final concept of community, which is discussed in the following and concluding chapters. Bringing into focus these basic aspects help us to understand better the socioeconomic structure and the related dynamics established by the people of Nairi and reflected in their material relics.

Finally, Part II is designed also to explain the use and meaning of key terms and concepts adopted by the author within the study.

2.1 Identity

Identity is a relatively recent concept that, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (2007), has its origin during the late 16th century CE with the Late Latin term identitas, sameness, which is based on the Latin terms idem, same, and entitas, entity. The original concept was that of recognition, opposed to differentiation, in order to frame the intrinsic nature of something or someone through its characteristics, therefore, by individuating its ‘quality of being identical’ to something already individuated and accepted as true. This process is at the base of categorisation, which has its roots in Plato’s Statesman dialogue, in which he grouped objects based on their similarities, and Aristotle’s Categories treatise, in which he analyses the differences between classes and objects (monothetic class).

In the following centuries, the significance of this term has greatly changed, as also noted by Sokëfeld on his debate between ‘identity’ and ‘self’ (1999, 417–418). In fact, he claims that ‘there can be identity only if there is more than one identity, and in this sense, difference constitutes and precedes identity’ (Sokëfeld 1999, 418). The concept of identicalness or common features is still present but refers to a secondary phase of recognition. The primary value of identity is now quite the opposite. The bare identity term is currently perceived as the determination of the condition(s) and fact(s), in other words the characteristic(s), of that or those specific individual(s) or thing(s) opposed to all the others. Once the unique characteristics have been determined and attributed it is possible to ‘identify’ who else or what else holds those attributes in order to separate that identity from those who are different and unite that identity with those that are the same or similar.

Past use of ‘identity’

Common characteristics (sameness) → Identity Unique characteristics (discrimination) → Identification

Current use of ‘identity’

Common characteristics (sameness) → Identification Unique characteristics (discrimination) → Identity

Following this type of assessment, we may define identity as the collection of characteristics that belong to a specific object or individual or to a specific group of objects or individuals, which defines and connects the group and its elements and, at the same time, separates them from those who have a different assemblage of characteristics. According to the nature and the predominance of these characteristics we may define different types of identity, ethnical, cultural, national etc. Assmann (1997, 99–102) subdivides identity in ‘Us’, collective, and ‘I’, individual and personal, which we may interpret as the human part (individual) and the mind/action part (personal) in relation to society. Apart from its etymology and basic use, the identity concept rapidly gained an array of applications in numerous fields (Baumeister 1986). Psychology, mathematics, sociology, philosophy, and anthropology are only a few of the fields in which this concept is utilised, engaging a whole new range of specific significances and attributes. The transition from the past use of this concept to current theoretical approaches, including anthropology, took place during the middle of the last century within psychology studies, starting with the work of Erik Erikson (1950, 1968) who replaced the concept of personality with that of identity (Van Meijl 2008, 169). If psychology was able to introduce and use this concept within its field with a certain confidence, sociology and anthropology, and thence archaeology, did not follow the same path. A whole new range of issues were raised, mainly due to the progressive political, discriminating and nationalistic attributions involved in the subsequent expression of this concept; issues that are still under debate. One of the most prominent aspects of this debate related to identity framing and categorisation, is ethnicity. Before exploring the characteristics of the identity concept, and the social context and dynamics of their formation, which we may call ‘culture’, it is useful to focus on the relationship between identity and archaeology or, more specifically, between identity and material culture. In fact, material culture is fundamental to understand the identity of social groups and the reconstruction of the ancient past of the populations that produced and used it, especially in our specific case.

2.1.1 Identity and material culture: Theory and practice

The relationship between these two elements triggers a specific issue that must be kept in mind in order to proceed. In fact, archaeological investigations, based on the pure elements of the discipline and not those inherited by anthropological concerns which do take part in the discussion but only at a second stage, are configured on the retrieval, recording, analysis and interpretation of material culture. The challenge, which varies within each context, is to establish the material articulation of identity, in other words, to what extent material culture can unveil, reflect, represent, communicate and also shape the identity of those who produced/used it; from a single individual to a household, from a group to a community of people, from a village to a city or region.

German scholars such as Rudolf Virchow and Gustaf Kossinna were among the first to theorise the relationship between material culture and ethnic identity, a branch of archaeology theory known as culture-archaeology (see e.g. Trigger 1989). It was Kossinna in particular, with his concept of Siedlungsarchaologie or ‘settlement archaeology’ who brought popularity to the subject. Unfortunately, his considerations were soon corrupted and diverged in support of the nationalist and racist theorisations of the uprising National Socialist movement in Germany. Apart from the socio-political involvement, his work greatly inspired that of Vere Gordon Childe (1929). The growing interest stimulated by the idea of reconstructing past identities through archaeological evidence has consequently led to an increase in the production of studies concerning material culture and the discourse of identity (see e.g. Hides 1996, 26 and papers cited within). In this regard, the work of Hodder (1982) expanded the relationship between identity and material culture, where the former was subject to the latter, going a step forward by considering material culture as an active agent and the archaeological context as a key factor in reconstructing and/or interpreting that of the past (Hodder 1986; 1987a; Shanks and Tilley 1987). Scholarly attention during the second half of the last century was steered towards ethnic links instead of identity, opening a whole new field of studies and issues. Subsequently scholars like Thomas (1996) went back to this relationship, exploring the significance and symbolic attributes among producer/user and the objects. The analysis of this relationship is a process in constant evolution, which may change over time, especially in presence of what Thomas calls ‘complex artefacts’, which represent ‘networks of significance’, including identity (Thomas 1996, 159, cited by Wells 1998, 240). Nevertheless, scholars like Hides (1996, 27–28) see a closed circuit behind these theories, where the subject influences the object and vice versa, relying on Foucault’s (1970) vision of how knowledge should be acquired without a moral or philosophical judgment based on contemporary criteria and a re-evaluation considering the various epistemological paths used during the centuries.¹ A different approach, as that of Graves-Brown (1996, 89–91), bypasses this deadlock by focusing the attention on the absolute value of material culture itself. In particular Graves-Brown (1996) argues how the static appearance of material culture records technological and social dynamics based on the chaîne operatoire concept elaborated by Leroi-Gourhan (1964). This concept originated from the school of Mauss (1927; 1947), the first to understand and theorise the relationship between technology and identity.

Shifting from a theoretical to a more practical perspective, material culture combined with textual sources and ethnoarchaeological investigations may unveil a wealth of information on a group’s identity, although we must always bear in mind the potential bias inherent in this type of information. It is important to stress the fact that material culture does not necessarily carry a symbolic value and, therefore, relevant expressions of identity, besides the fact of itself being a product of, and that it was produced by, a determined social unit. For this reason, before advancing an interpretation, archaeologists must establish if the material culture under examination conveys identity markers or any type of social practice evidence (Mac Sweeney 2011, 43). For example, the fact that a group produces a specific typology of pottery, with certain characteristics present throughout its lifespan, is de facto an identity marker, symbolising and representing that group in a number of ways and meanings. By an empirical perspective, signs of shared identity, or reflections of social practice in material culture may be analysed and identified through a number of specific characteristics. The material culture characteristics that may communicate or contribute in building social identity may pass through technology (which may be linked to the concept of chaîne operatoire): all the technical and methodological aspects and elements by which an object is designed, processed and realised, i.e. how something is conceived (mind), made (action), and by which means (instruments). Parallel to that we can also add the technology necessary to obtain and employ the materials necessary to implement such steps. Technology is crucial in this matter due to the adoption of specialised or improvised utensils along with the concrete signs and traces left by these in the production or modification of portable and fixed elements (Santacreu 2014, 217–218). Characteristics relevant for social identity are also tied to material culture morphology, which is partially dependent on technology: these are the ensemble of physical features that aesthetically and compositionally create the shape of the single elements of a product or a context, due to human intervention, during the processing phase or during the life of the product, which may all be the result of direct and/or indirect actions, with intentional and/or unintentional features. Further elements on technology are explored below within the style discourse.

Finally, we may deal with the conscious and/or unconscious symbology of material culture, the most complex and meaningful ensemble of identity characteristics: these are deliberately, but in some cases unconsciously, physically added or infused through symbolic practices, they may be manifest or concealed, both expressing or referring to symbolic values. Robb (2010, 506), in terms of material agency, describes three types of material culture significance, or symbolic values: structural meanings (habitus), generic meanings (field of action) and contextual meanings (field of action enactment and expression). Technology and morphology, and the related physiognomy, shape and embody the tangible medium of symbolic significance. Equally, enactments of collective identity of sacred or secular nature may symbolically charge or be associated with the same medium, which obviously remain undetectable to the eye. Social identity symbolically charged material culture is quite challenging to establish within the archaeological record. Nevertheless, in some cases symbolic intangible characteristics may be deduced or evidenced by the context or other similar contexts, ethnologic comparanda or with the aid of textual sources. During this type of analysis, we must always keep in mind that in the most cases the archaeological record yields only a part of its original context and material culture production and that it may preserve only a fraction of the original characteristics, due to active or passive modification through time, removal from its original context or installation within a new one and due to employment of perishable materials in the production of specific branches of material culture. Ultimately, the archaeological methodology adopted to analyse and record data might be inadequate or rudimentary leading likewise to partial or complete loss of information or, worse, misinformation. For these reasons, a multiple confirmation of a datum, i.e. the same information from different contexts with the same origin or the reiteration of a phenomenon in similar or connected environments (for example the same type of pottery in different sites), is the minimum requirement before proceeding with further analysis. Apart from these issues, material culture and its context are fundamental in establishing a part of a social group’s identity, hence the habitus² in which they are conceived, hence the social practice and agency by which they are produced and conceptually reproduced. This study, as we will see, is a good example of this type of extrapolation and use of information, especially in regard to pottery production and the style by which is fashioned.

2.1.2 Identity and material culture: Pottery and style

One of the most relevant and at the same time controversial aspects in defining the identity of past social groups, in particular those investigated with the aid of archaeological research, is surely that related to the pottery production and its morphologic, technologic and symbolic characteristics. This is particularly true in cases as that examined in this study where, for an extensive period of time, broad areas featuring a relatively high number of communities and scarce architectural elements present what appears to be a highly similar and widely distributed pottery typology. Moreover, following the Nairi lands example, the prolonged and widespread adoption of common/similar elements in the pottery production, as those present in the Grooved pottery among the assemblage subcategories, suggest an embodiment and, at the same time, a communication of different types of information. Consciously or unconsciously associated, the identity values added to and modified by this production appear to be highly consistent through space and time. For these reasons in this section and in the reassessment chapters (10–12) the various elements and theories connected to the role and social interpretation of ceramic vessels and the style with which they were conceived and created are taken into consideration.

The investigation of the identity characteristics of specific social groups in relation to their pottery production, or material culture in general terms, is a very delicate argument. A typical pitfall that awaits archaeologists and material culture scholars is that of equating specific material productions with social groups as highlighted by Kramer (1977) in her renown equation ‘pots equal people’. Moreover, Miller (1983, 5–6) has highlighted the other end of this pitfall, which he defines as an ‘archaeological fetishism’. In fact, the opposite risk is to focus almost exclusively on the study of material culture objects and their inter-relationship where, instead, the equation is overturned in ‘people equal objects’, or ‘pots’ in our specific example, in which so-called cultures or people are mere labels for object regroupings.

For these reasons, it is useful to distinguish and define the terms, concepts and goals of the pottery production and identity research. In fact, at least within the Nairi lands, we are certain that different social groups of different ethnic roots are utilising/producing very similar, if not identical, pottery types for a prolonged time span. The purpose of this section of the study is not to associate a specific pottery production to a specific group or vice versa, which would be impossible due to the multi-ethnic composition of the Nairi lands, but to try to understand what type of information the pottery is conveying, how it is doing this and possibly the social effects of its utilisation, its production and its perception. The analysis takes place in relation to the social and/or personal dimension of a specific group and, more specifically, the identity of the communities that produced/used it as well as the relationship with external communities.

As recently pointed out for example by Van Oyen (2017, 59) ‘the question is no longer (merely) what does this pot mean or represent? but also what does this pot do, what kinds of actions does it allow?’. Pottery and all the rest of material culture ‘not only communicate, they also relate to humans and shape human life’. In other words, besides the intrinsic message deliberately or unintentionally infused or associated to a specific object as a ceramic vessel, we must also take into consideration how these objects shape and are shaped by social practice. The same structuralist concept was proposed almost 40 years ago by Ian Hodder (1982, 212) and his school (e.g. Tilley 1982), in response to the processual archaeology of Binford (1965), claiming that ‘material culture transforms, rather than reflects, social organization according to the strategies of groups, their beliefs, concepts and ideologies’. In fact, the bulk of the literature production exploring the connection between material culture and identity develops mainly during the post-processual phase of archaeological research, stemming in particular from the structuralist and semiotic schools. The post-processual approach was highly focused on anthropological, sociological and, perhaps as a combination of these fields, ethnoarchaeological analysis also known as the ‘material turn’, now revised by some scholars with the more neutral and holistic concept of ‘materiality turn’ as for example Miller (2005) or Ingold (2007). Miller (1985) himself, during the post-processual phase, approached this topic with a similar principle but with a different solution, highlighting the categorisation value of artefacts. In other words, the various assemblages of material culture reflect the categorisation processes of human organisation and, by understanding these processes, according to Miller it is possible to decode the material culture changes over time and the related social behaviour (Miller 1982, 17, 23).

Within these fields of research, pottery has obviously a primary role, almost as a symbol of the individual/group – material culture relationship, a material and structural embodiment of the agent and agency nexus. Nevertheless, the theories that sprung from these ideas and concepts tend understandably to embrace general laws and overarching theories in the archaeological and sociological discourse. Instead, in this part of the study, it is important to remain focused on the considerations strictly related to the identity-pottery analysis, which will soon lead us to that of style.

Ethnoarchaeological lens

Hodder (1982), in his study on the African groups in Kenya, Zambia and Sudan, has isolated some important features connected to the social value and active role played by material culture including that of identity building, communication, creation and recreation in contrast with the idea that material culture is a mere reflection of social patterning. The ‘symbols in action’ that Hodder analyses in his study are the socially meaningful objects and their capability of shaping and being shaped. The material culture social dynamics and, more specifically, those of pottery, within and among different communities is a concept that has delivered important anthropologic feedback for archaeologists, allowing new interpretations, explanations and connections with the issues and problems arising from their silent excavated contexts. Nevertheless, ethnoarchaeological studies present limitations which must be kept in mind. Each context has specific characteristics and issues that become ‘visible’ and interactive when studied at an ethnographic scale. When these are transposed within an archaeological context, in the majority of cases things start to diverge considerably. Moreover, processual and mainly post-processual studies aimed frequently at creating social-anthropologic interpretative models based on their ethnoarchaeological research in order to decode material culture issues and the social mechanics in the background. Apart from the ethical and deontological issues and pitfalls of adopting ethnoarchaeology in reconstructing the past, which I briefly discuss below (see 11.2), ethnoarchaeological data rarely fits what apparently seems a similar or even an identical context. In fact, Hodder (1982, 218) adds that ‘each particular historical context must be studied as a unique combination of general principles of meaning and symbolism, negotiated and manipulated in specific ways.’ One of the major problems, which affects most scientific experiments, is the biased data obtained by this type of research starting from the presence and interaction of the researcher himself in situ, as clearly demonstrated by the study of Polly Wiessner on the Kalahari San projectile points (Wiessner 1983). The presence of the ethnographer and the enquiry process themselves modified and diverged the production and social impact of the projectile points