Alikomektepe () is an ancient settlement located in

Jalilabad District (Azerbaijan) Jalilabad District () is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the southeast of the country and belongs to the Lankaran-Astara Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Masally, Yardimli, Bilasuvar, and Neftchal ...

, in the

Mughan plain Mughan plain (, مغان دوزو; ) is a plain stretching from northwestern Iran to the southern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The highest density of irrigation canals is in the section of the Mughan plain which lies in the Republic of Aze ...

, belonging to the

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

period, dating to . Early levels belonged to the

Shulaveri–Shomu culture The Shulaveri–Shomu culture, also known as the Shulaveri-Shomutepe-Aratashen culture, is an archaeological culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia (country), Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as parts of northern Ir ...

. It covers an area of over 1 hectare.

Settlement

Alikomektepe is located on the right bank of Incechay river, near the village of Uchtepe of Jalilabad district. The place was excavated in 600 square meters area which belongs to the

Eneolithic The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star. Computer scientists and mathematicians often vocalize it as st ...

period. The thickness of the cultural layer is 5.1 m. During the excavation, it was determined that there are six construction layers. The walls in the lower building layers were built from a series of clay bricks and reinforced with plasters. The buildings on the upper floors of the settlement were square-shaped and built with one or two rows of clay bricks. Outbuildings, or auxiliary buildings, were connected to the houses and connected by a special passage. The diameter of the round-shaped excavation-type building found on the third construction floor of the settlement was about 3 m. Its walls were whitewashed with lime and decorated with geometrical ornament with red ocher. Ornamental motifs consist of contiguous circle, horseshoe pattern, parallel lines and dots. It is believed that this building was built for the purpose of worship. Remains of prepared clay balls for pottery-making were found in all construction layers of the settlement. As a result of archaeological research, two types of domesticated horse bones were discovered in Alikomektepe, which is a great innovation in terms of providing the oldest history of

domestication of the horse It is not entirely clear how, when or where the domestication of the horse took place. Although horses appeared in Paleolithic cave art as early as 30,000 BCE, these were wild horses and were probably hunted for meat. The clearest evidence o ...

not only in the Caucasus, but also in the whole Eurasia.

Historical context

Materials from this site are very close to the materials obtained from monuments of northwestern Iran (Dalma ware). The artifacts of the lower level are similar to those at Kültəpə I in Nakhchivan. In the upper levels, there is also pottery of the northern

Ubaid period The Ubaid period (c. 5500–3700 BC) is a prehistoric period of Mesopotamia. The name derives from Tell al-'Ubaid where the earliest large excavation of Ubaid period material was conducted initially in 1919 by Henry Hall, Leonard Woolley in 19 ...

type. There was numerous earthenware found during the excavations. More than 300 samples of painted pottery covered with monochrome drawings were found. Most of the brown and red drawings are triangles, rhombuses, containing straight and curved lines. Many items from Alikomektepe are considered as locally produced.

Alikomek–Kultepe culture

Some archaeologists speak of the ancient ''Alikomek–Kultepe culture'' of southeastern Caucasus, which followed the

, and covered the transition from the Neolithic to

periods (). According to A. Courcier,

"Situated respectively at the border of the Mugan Steppe and in Nakhichevan (Azerbaijan), the settlements of Alikemek and Kul’tepe I were excavated in the 1950s–1970s and are not dated with certainty. They probably represent a relatively long period and occupation seems to have started early (probably during the sixth millennium BCE) (Lyonnet 2008, pp. 4–6). The Alikemek–Kul’tepe culture covered the Ararat Plain, Nakhichevan, the Mil’skoj and Mugan Steppes and the region around Lake Urmia in north-western Iran" (Kushnareva 1997, p. 33).A. Courcier (2014)
Ancient Metallurgy in the Caucasus From the Sixth to the Third Millennium BCE.
In B. W. Roberts, C. P. Thornton (eds.), ''Archaeometallurgy in Global Perspective''. DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-9017-3_22

Notes

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Bibliography

*Bertille LYONNET, Farhad GULIYEV (2010)
Recent discoveries on the Neolithic and Chalcolithic of Western Azerbaijan.
TUBA-AR, TURKISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY 13, 219-228 *V Bakhshaliyev, A Seyidov
New findings from the settlement of Sadarak (Nakhchivan-Azerbaijan)
- Anatolia Antiqua, 2013 - persee.fr

External links

ARCHEOLOGY, REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN
iranicaonline.org Prehistoric sites in Azerbaijan Archaeological sites in Azerbaijan Shulaveri–Shomu culture