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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 The 30th century BC was a century that lasted from the year 3000 BC to 2901 BC. Events * Before 3000 BC: An image of a deity (detail from a cong) recovered from Tomb 12 in Fanshan, Yuyao, Zhejiang, is made during the Neolithic period by the L ...
, 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 prin ...
archaeological culture An archaeological culture is a recurring assemblage of types of artifacts, buildings and monuments from a specific period and region that may constitute the material culture remains of a particular past human society. The connection between these ...
in the western Caucasus region. It extends along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the
Kerch Strait The Kerch Strait, uk, Керченська протока, crh, Keriç boğazı, ady, Хы ТӀуалэ is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west fro ...
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 Ancient DNA (aDNA) is DNA isolated from ancient specimens. Due to degradation processes (including cross-linking, deamination and fragmentation) ancient DNA is more degraded in comparison with contemporary genetic material. Even under the bes ...
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. 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 Don, don or DON and variants may refer to: Places *County Donegal, Ireland, Chapman code DON *Don (river), a river in European Russia * Don River (disambiguation), several other rivers with the name * Don, Benin, a town in Benin * Don, Dang, a v ...
and
Donets The Seversky Donets () or Siverskyi Donets (), usually simply called the Donets, is a river on the south of the East European Plain. It originates in the Central Russian Upland, north of Belgorod, flows south-east through Ukraine ( Kharkiv, D ...
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, the construction of which dates back to 4000 BC.
Radiocarbon Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and co ...
dates for various monuments of the Maykop culture are from 3950 - 3650 - 3610 - 2980 calBC. After the discovery of the
Leyla-Tepe culture The Leyla-Tepe culture of the South Caucasus belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam district of modern day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 4350 unt ...
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 The Sarmatians (; grc, Σαρμαται, Sarmatai; Latin: ) were a large confederation of ancient Eastern Iranian equestrian nomadic peoples of classical antiquity who dominated the Pontic steppe from about the 3rd century BC to the 4th cent ...
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
petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other description ...
s 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 Alan may refer to: People *Alan (surname), an English and Turkish surname * Alan (given name), an English given name ** List of people with given name Alan ''Following are people commonly referred to solely by "Alan" or by a homonymous name.'' * ...
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
hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
came 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 par ...
of Marija Gimbutas, has been regarded by some as an Indo-European intrusion from the Pontic–Caspian steppe into the Caucasus. 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 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 t ...
. 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 James Patrick Mallory (born October 25, 1945) is an American archaeologist and Indo-Europeanist. Mallory is an emeritus professor at Queen's University, Belfast; a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and the former editor of the ''Journal of Ind ...
, "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