Preserving the Cultural Heritage of Karnut Cemetery
SPEAKERS: Ruben Badalyan, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography
LOCATION: 15 Charents Str., 0025, Yerevan, Armenia; 3rd floor, Library
DATE: March 21, 2018
TIME: 11:00-12:00
This project contributed to Armenia’s cultural heritage by preserving endangered materials and remains of an Early Bronze Age cemetery in the village of Karnut, located on the eastern edge of the Shirak plain. Three burials were excavated, revealing the remains of multiple successive interments in two tombs dating to the Kura-Araxes I and II periods. In the process of excavating burials, we also revealed a previously unknown part of the Early Bronze Age settlement at Karnut. The project has thus already changed the understanding of the Early Bronze Age occupation at Karnut and contributed to an emerging picture of Early Bronze Age mortuary ritual. Meanwhile the on-going study of materials and human remains will provide an unprecedented view into Early Bronze Age life. The CHM grant has been instrumental in raising awareness of the importance of the cultural preservation of the site for the local residents as well as the scholarly community.
Ruben Badalyan is the head of the Bronze Age Division of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Republic of Armenia. He is a Doctor of Historical Sciences in the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia and a Senior Scientific Member of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Yerevan. His habilitation (2003) was entitled: Obsidian of the Caucasus: Sources and Distribution of the Raw Material during the Neolithic – Early Iron Age (on the results of Neutron Activation Analyses) and he continues to work on issues related to the distribution of obsidian and exploitation of sources in the ancient Near East. His Ph.D. dissertation (1986) was entitled: The Early Bronze Age Culture of the Shirak Plain (North-Western Armenia) and a great deal of his subsequent archaeological research has centered on issues relating to the Kura-Araxes phenomenon of the Early Bronze Age. He has directed or co-directed field investigations at numerous archaeological sites in Armenia including Karnut, Horom, Aratashen, and Tagavoranist. In addition to his on-going work in the Tsaghkahovit Plain with Project ArAGATS, Badalyan is also the director of the ongoing excavations at the Neolithic site of Aknashen. He is the author of numerous papers and articles in several languages.
Maureen E. Marshall is a bioarchaeologist whose work focuses on early complex polities and empires in the South Caucasus and Eurasia. She earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2014. Dr. Marshall is the Associate Director of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is an Associate Director of Project ArAGATS, the joint American-Armenian project for the Archaeology and Geography for Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, and has been excavating in Armenia since 2005. She also collaborates with physical anthropologists in Armenia. She serves on the advisory board for the Aragats Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Armenia’s cultural heritage through heritage preservation, development, and education. Dr. Marshall’s work has been published in edited volumes on global perspectives in human remains analysis, including Archaeological Human Remains: A Global Perspective in 2014 and The Routledge Handbook of Archaeological Human Remains and Legislation in 2011. Her research interests include political subjectivity, violence in ancient societies, disease and health in ancient populations, the archaeology of Eurasia and the Near East, and the history of physical anthropology.
This event is made possible through Project Discovery! and private donations.
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