This book offers the first detailed analyses of results from 11 years of excavations at the sixth-millennium BC Neolithic site of Aknashen, Ararat Valley, Armenia. The site is close to two other Neolithic settlements, Aratashen and Masis Blur, both of which are, unfortunately, less well preserved. Besides the Introduction and the Conclusion, the book includes 15 chapters from different specialists that deal with various aspects of the site and its material culture (e.g. environment, stratigraphy and architecture, chronology, mortuary practices, artefacts and subsistence economy). The data presented here, accompanied by a great number of excellent illustrations, are crucial to understanding the development of a Neolithic culture in this part of the world.

The occupation occurred over seven horizons, with only the upper levels I–III severely damaged by later intrusions (although one Middle Bronze Age grave was found as deep as Horizon IV). The comparison studies of the architecture, of the artefacts and the technologies used to make them, and of the types of plants and animals identified, clearly show an affiliation with the sites of the Middle Kura Basin, justifying the term ‘Aratashen-Shulaveri-Shomutepe Culture’ that was coined by the authors in previous publications. The earliest horizon (VII) started in 5950 BC, according to Bayesian modelling, and already possessed many of the characteristics of the later, classic phases. The differences are seen in the architecture, as one rectangular building is also present in VII; in the wheat/barley ratio (4:6 in VII, compared with 3:1 in Horizons VI–II); and in ceramics—local pottery is absent in Horizon VII, while 30 sherds of imported ware, five painted and 25 monochrome, are present.

The group that initially settled year-round at Aknashen built the first cob-made buildings over the sediments of a large lake that was formed by a natural dam near the Iran-Nakhichevan border on the Araxes River. The lake was still present close to the site until possibly late Horizon V (although fish bones are still found in abundance in Horizon IV). Flooding of the lake, or river, caused the site to be abandoned briefly during Horizon VII and for a longer period during VI. Horizons V (c. 5810–5740 BC) and IV (c. 5750–5690 BC) contained most of the finds. It is in the upper part of V that local pottery first appears, being, at that time, more abundantly tempered with both grit and organic elements (Grit-tempered II) than exclusively with mineral inclusions (Grit-tempered I)—a ratio that would change drastically in Horizon III. Chaff-tempered pottery is also present in low numbers until IV, increasing in Horizons III and II, and becoming the majority in I. This last Horizon has no radiocarbon dates, and the authors tentatively propose a date up to c. 5400 BC or the first quarter of the fifth millennium BC, although comparisons of the pottery shapes and decoration with Mentesh Tepe III point rather to the last quarter of the fifth millennium BC.

The lithic industry consists predominantly of obsidian blades made by pressure with a crutch or lever, and only a few by indirect percussion. In Horizons VII and VI, however, the production of small blades and bladelets is also attested by the presence of two cores. Many of the tools were used unretouched. Microliths in the shape of trapezes, sometimes with a notch at the base (or horned-trapezes), are present in all horizons and were used hafted as arrowheads. Procurement analyses show that most of the obsidian comes from Arteni, at around 11 hours' walk from Aknashen, followed by Sarıkamış (5 days' walk). Gutansar, closer to Aknashen (at 8.5 hours' walk), provided little raw material, leading to the supposition that territorial limits existed between different Neolithic groups, as most of the obsidian found at Masis Blur—only a few kilometres away from Aknashen—comes from Gutansar. A small quantity of obsidian also derives from Geghasar at 3000m asl and could testify to the practice of summer transhumance at that time. Animals (mostly sheep, but also cattle) were raised for meat from Horizons VII–III, then for milk (and wool?) in II. Emmer and free-threshing wheat are equally represented from Horizons VII–II, while great variations occur in the pulses from one horizon to the other.

The Conclusion outlines the similarities between Aknashen and the Shulaveri-Shomutepe sites of the Middle Kura Basin; the basic parameters of the material culture are the same, with differences occurring only in secondary aspects. Contributors see the very rapid process of Neolithisation in the southern Caucasus as a result of interactions between the Mesolithic local hunter-gatherers (CHG) and incoming groups from the Near East, although this is not a simple replacement of the lifeways of one group by those of another, as no similar Neolithic culture is known elsewhere. This is confirmed by recent genetic data on human bones showing that, by 6500 BC, a small amount of admixture of Anatolia farmer-herders in the CHG gene pool (themselves genetically close to Zagros groups) had occurred. Alongside this, mitochondrial DNA analyses of domestic caprines and cattle show that they are not genetically related to local wild fauna, while analyses of cultivated cereals and pulses demonstrate similarly that they are not from local wild flora.

Some of the imported pottery comes from the Samarra/Halaf sphere, as well as from the Dark-Faced Burnished Ware area, and other foreign artefacts are from the Mediterranean or the South, suggesting interactions with these regions. Circular-plan architecture, horned trapezes used as arrowheads, and large, round scrapers, however, find direct lineage in the previous, Mesolithic local hunter-gatherer cultural package. The Neolithisation process would therefore be a result of a dual ancestry. One possible cause for a rapid interaction between these two groups could be the Black Sea deluge and the consequent change to a more humid and cooler climate, along with a shift in the vegetation cover, leading to population movement in both farmer-herders and hunter-gatherer groups.

Notably, published at almost the same time, and therefore not mentioned in the volume under review, is the detailed study of Hacı Elamxanlı Tepe in Azerbaijan (Nishiaki et al. Reference Nishiaki, Guliyev and Kadowaki2021)—a site much referred to in the Aknashen volume, as its initial occupation layer is contemporaneous with Aknashen VII. Nishiaki and colleagues also consider the Ararat Valley sites as sharing sufficient similarities with Haci, Göy Tepe and the other known sites of the Middle Kura Basin to view them all as part of one culture, albeit with regional differences. The two books should really be read together, as they complement one another.