The Maykop culture (, , scientific transliteration: ''Majkop,''), c.
3700 BC
37 may refer to:
* 37 (number), the natural number following 36 and preceding 38
Years
* 37 BC
* AD 37
* 1937
* 2037
Other uses
* ''37'' (album), by King Never, 2013
* ''37'' (film), a 2016 film about the murder of Kitty Genovese
* 37 (MBTA b ...
–
3000 BC, was a major
Bronze Age
The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
archaeological culture in the western
Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
region.
It extends along the area from the
Taman Peninsula at the
Kerch Strait to near the modern border of
Dagestan and southwards to the
Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial, the
Maykop kurgan
The Maikop kurgan (), excavated by Nikolay Veselovsky in 1897 near Maikop, Southern Russia, is the eponym of the Early Bronze Age Maikop culture of the Northern Caucasus.
The kurgan had a height of about 10 m and a circumference of about 200 m. ...
in the
Kuban River valley.
According to genetic studies on
ancient DNA published in 2018, the Maykop population came from the south, from
Imereti, and was descended from the Chalcolithic farmers known as
Darkveti-Meshoko
The Darkveti-Meshoko culture is a Chalcolithic culture spread in the Western Caucasus, named after major sites of Darkveti (Imereti region) and Meshoko (Adygea). First sites of this culture were discovered in 1958 by Russian anthropologists, bu ...
who first colonized the north side of the Caucasus. Maykop is therefore the "ideal archaeological candidate for the founders of the
Northwest Caucasian language family".
Territory
In the south, the Maykop culture bordered the approximately contemporaneous
Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into the
Armenian Plateau and apparently influenced it. To the north is the
Yamna culture, including the
Novotitorovka culture
Novotitarovskaya culture, also known as the Novotitorovka culture, was a Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished in the North Caucasus ca. 3300–2700 BC.
The Novotitarovskaya culture was located immediately to the north of and largel ...
(3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent. It is contemporaneous with the late
Uruk period
The Uruk period (ca. 4000 to 3100 BC; also known as Protoliterate period) existed from the protohistoric Chalcolithic to Early Bronze Age period in the history of Mesopotamia, after the Ubaid period and before the Jemdet Nasr period. Named af ...
in
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia ''Mesopotamíā''; ar, بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن or ; syc, ܐܪܡ ܢܗܪ̈ܝܢ, or , ) is a historical region of Western Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the ...
.
The Kuban River is navigable for much of its length and provides an easy water-passage via the
Sea of Azov to the territory of the Yamna culture, along the
Don and
Donets River systems. The Maykop culture was thus well-situated to exploit the trading possibilities with the central Ukraine area.
New data revealed the similarity of artifacts from the Maykop culture with those found recently in the course of excavations of the ancient city of
Tell Khazneh in northern
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, the construction of which dates back to 4000 BC.
Radiocarbon dates for various monuments of the Maykop culture are from 3950 - 3650 - 3610 - 2980 calBC.
After the discovery of the
Leyla-Tepe culture in the 1980s, some links were noted with the Maykop culture.
The Leyla-Tepe culture is a culture of archaeological interest from the Chalcolithic era. Its population was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern Azerbaijan, Agdam District), from 4350 until 4000 B.C. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgian Jar-Burial Culture.
The culture has also been linked to the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements in the Eastern Anatolia Region. The settlement is of a typical Western-Asian variety, with the dwellings packed closely together and made of mud bricks with smoke outlets.
It has been suggested that the Leyla-Tepe were the founders of the Maykop culture. An expedition to Syria by the Russian Academy of Sciences revealed the similarity of the Maykop and Leyla-Tepe artifacts with those found recently while excavating the ancient city of Tel Khazneh I, from the 4th millennium BC.
In 2010, nearly 200 Bronze Age sites were reported stretching over 60 miles from the Kuban River to
Nalchik, at an altitude of between 4,620 feet and 7,920 feet. They were all "visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the center, and connected by roads."
Culture
Art
In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the artifacts found. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the
Scythian,
Sarmatian and
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
*Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Foo ...
animal styles.
Attributed to the Maykop culture are
petroglyphs which have yet to be deciphered.
Horse breeding
The Maykop people lived sedentary lives, and horses formed a very low percentage of their livestock, which mostly consisted of pigs and cattle.
Archaeologists have discovered a unique form of bronze cheek-piece, which consists of a bronze rod with a twisted loop in the middle that threads through the nodes and connects to the bridle, halter strap, and headband. Notches and bumps on the edges of the cheek-pieces were, apparently, to attach nose and under-lip straps.
Some of the earliest wagon
wheels in the world are found in Maykop culture area. The two solid wooden wheels from the kurgan of Novokorsunskaya in the Kuban region have been dated to the second half of the fourth millennium.
Terrace agriculture
The construction of artificial terrace complexes in the mountains is evidence of their sedentary living, high population density, and high levels of agricultural and technical skills. The terraces were built around the fourth millennium BC. and all subsequent cultures used them for agricultural purposes. The vast majority of pottery found on the terraces are from the Maykop period, the rest from the Scythian and
Alan period. The Maykop terraces are among the most ancient in the world, but they are little studied. The longevity of the terraces (more than 5000 years) allows us to consider their builders unsurpassed engineers and craftsmen.
Origins
Colchis region
Based on Wang (2018),
David W. Anthony (2019)
[ notes that "the Maikop population was descended from the Eneolithic farmers hatcame from the south, probably from western Georgia. [the ]Darkveti-Meshoko
The Darkveti-Meshoko culture is a Chalcolithic culture spread in the Western Caucasus, named after major sites of Darkveti (Imereti region) and Meshoko (Adygea). First sites of this culture were discovered in 1958 by Russian anthropologists, bu ...
culture], and are the ideal archaeological candidate for the founders of the Northwest Caucasian language family." He also notes that the Bronze Age Maykop individuals tested by Wang (2018) could not have contributed to the Yamnaya gene pool, Yamnaya being the archeological culture most likely connected to the spread of Indo-European languages. Wang (2018) further found that 'Steppe Maykop' (a population related to the Maykop culture) probably had a minor East Asian-related component, which was estimated at ~9.6% of their ancestry.
Pontic-Caspian steppe
Its burial practices resemble the burial practices described in the Kurgan hypothesis
The Kurgan hypothesis (also known as the Kurgan theory, Kurgan model, or steppe theory) is the most widely accepted proposal to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland from which the Indo-European languages spread out throughout Europe and pa ...
of Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas ( lt, Marija Gimbutienė, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of " Old Europe" and for her Kurgan hypothesis ...
, has been regarded by some as an Indo-European intrusion from the Pontic–Caspian steppe
The Pontic–Caspian steppe, formed by the Caspian steppe and the Pontic steppe, is the steppeland stretching from the northern shores of the Black Sea (the Pontus Euxinus of antiquity) to the northern area around the Caspian Sea. It extend ...
into the Caucasus
The Caucasus () or Caucasia (), is a region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, mainly comprising Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and parts of Southern Russia. The Caucasus Mountains, including the Greater Caucasus range, have historica ...
. However, according to J.P. Mallory,
The culture has been described as, at the very least, a "kurganized" local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group
The Mikhaylovka culture, Lower Mykhaylivka culture (3600—3000 BCE) is a Copper Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Pontic steppe from 3600 BC to 3000 BC.
Lower Mikhaylovka culture is named after an early Yamna site of the ...
and Kemi Oba culture
Kemi Oba culture, ca. 3700—2200 BC, an archaeological culture at the northwest face of the Sea of Azov, the lower Bug and Dnieper Rivers and the Crimea. The Kemi Oba culture is contemporaneous and partly overlapping with the Catacomb cultur ...
, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware
The Corded Ware culture comprises a broad archaeological horizon of Europe between ca. 3000 BC – 2350 BC, thus from the late Neolithic, through the Copper Age, and ending in the early Bronze Age. Corded Ware culture encompassed a ...
cultures, if only in an economic sense. Yet, according to Mallory,
Iranian Plateau
According to Mariya Ivanova the Maykop origins were on the Iranian Plateau:
Azerbaijan
More recently, some very ancient kurgans have been discovered at Soyuqbulaq in Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...
. These kurgans date to the beginning of the 4th millennium BC, and belong to Leylatepe Culture. According to the excavators of these kurgans, there are some significant parallels between Soyugbulaq kurgans and the Maykop kurgans:
Sources
*
* J. P. Mallory, "Maykop Culture", ''Encyclopedia of Indo-European culture
An encyclopedia (American English) or encyclopædia (British English) is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge either general or special to a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article ...
'', Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997.
* Р.М. Мунчаев, Н.Я. Мерперт, Ш.Н. Амиров ТЕЛЛЬ-ХАЗНА I. Культово-административный центр IV–III тыс. до н. э. в Северо-восточной Сирии. Издательство «Палеограф». Москва 2004.
Footnotes
Further reading
*
{{Bronze Age footer
Archaeological cultures of Eastern Europe
Bronze Age cultures of Europe
Archaeological sites in Chechnya
Archaeological cultures in Russia
Archaeology of Kuban
Archaeological cultures of the Caucasus
4th millennium BC