Shulaveri–Shomu culture

Late Stone Age culture in the south Caucasus

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, Azerbaijan, and Armenia, as well as parts of northern Iran during the Late Neolithic/Eneolithic. It lasted from around the end of the seventh millennium BC to the beginning of the fifth millennium BC.

The name of the Shulaveri Shomutepe Aratashen culture comes from the respective archaeological sites of Shulaveri, in Georgia, (known since 1925 as Shaumiani); Shomu Tepe, in the Agstafa District of Azerbaijan; and Aratashen, on the Ararat Plain in Armenia. The Shulaveri–Shomu culture has been distinguished during the excavations on the sites of Shomutepe and Babadervis in Western Azerbaijan by I. Narimanov (between 1958 and 1964) and at Shulaveris Gora in Eastern Georgia by A. I. Dzhavakhisvili and T. N Chubinishvili (from 1966 to 1976). Discoveries from the sites have revealed that the same cultural features spread on the northern foothills of Lesser Caucasus mountains. The Shulaveri Shomutepe culture can be differentiated into three groups based on their location and material cultures. The first group is found in the central south Caucasus around the middle Kura. This group includes western regions of modern Azerbaijan and the Kvemo Kartli region in modern southeast Georgia. Sites in this group include Shomutepe, Shulavris Gora, Göytepe, and the nearby Mentesh Tepe (near Tovuz, Azerbaijan). The second group includes the Nakhichevan region, the Mil plain, and the Mugan steppe. Sites include Kültepe I, Alikemek Tepesi, Kamiltepe, and Ilanly Tepe. This group is distinguished by cultural connections with northern Mesopotamia and Iran, and relatively advanced metallurgy. The third group is located in the Ararat Plain in modern Armenia, and includes the Aratashen and Aknashen Khatunarkh sites. Many of the above sites, including Shomutepe and Shulaveri, can be seen on a map of the prehistoric southern Caucasus.

The Shulaveri–Shomu culture covers the period from around the end of the seventh millennium BC to the beginning of the fifth millennium BC. The majority of activity dates to the second half of the sixth millennium BC. Although the Shulaveri–Shomutepe complex firstly was attributed to the Eneolithic era, it is now considered as a material and cultural example of the Neolithic era except the upper layers where metal objects have been discovered as in Khramis Didi Gora and Arucho I. The Shulaveri–Shomu culture predates the Maykop and Kura Araxes cultures which flourished in this area around 4000–2200 BC, and the middle Bronze Age (c. 3000–1500 BC) Trialeti culture. The Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura Arax cultural complex.

The earliest evidence of domesticated grapes in the world has been found in the general "Shulaveri area", near the site of Shulaveri gora, in Marneuli Municipality, in southeastern Republic of Georgia. Specifically, the most recent evidence comes from Gadachrili gora, near the village of Imiri in the same region; carbon dating points to the date of about 6000 BC. Chemical analysis of organic compounds found in some of the numerous very high capacity pottery jars at Shulaveri Shomu sites indicates that they contained wine, and were probably used as fermentation, maturation, and serving vessels. This evidence dates to around the early sixth millennium BC, providing the earliest evidence for winemaking and grape cultivation in the Near East.

Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasis on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf). The technology and typology of bone based instruments are similar to those of the Middle East Neolithic material culture. A quern with 2 small hollows found in Shomutepe is similar to the one with more hollows detected in Khramisi Didi Gora(Georgia). The similarities between the macrolithic tools and the use of ochre also bring Shulaveri–Shomu culture closer to the culture of Halaf. Pestles and mortars found in Shulaveri–Shomu sites and Late Neolithic layers of Tell Sabi Abyad in Syria are also similar to each other.