Kura-Araxes Mobility: Search for Pastures and Raw Materials?
Author(s)
Date Issued
2024
Type
bookPart
Start Page
103
End Page
130
Abstract
The Kura-Araxes mobility and the cultural elements of Transcaucasian groups supposedly recognizable in large parts of western Asia strengthened the idea of an expansion of Kura-Araxes societies in eastern Anatolia, northern Syria, and northern Iran, from around 3000 BCE onwards. This article presents new results on the internal mobility of Early Bronze Age groups in the Transcaucasus, in Northern Iran, and at the Upper Euphrates, according to their relation to pastoral subsistence strategies and to the procurement of mineral resources. It becomes apparent that the emergence of specialized and stabilized resource practices started already during the earlier 4th millennium BCE and was combined with increased sedentariness in a hybrid social and economic strategy that became a model for the regions of expansion later on.