Landscape Interconnections and Disconnections: A Report on Initial Fieldwork in the Southeast Ararat Plain of Armenia

Abstract

The Ararat Plain Southeast Archaeological Project held its first field season in 2019, followed by a virtual study season in 2020. This collaboration between the University of Hong Kong and the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography investigates past mobility and life in the Vedi River Valley. A comprehensive program of remote sensing, targeted survey, and test excavations has enabled the first archaeological characterization of this landscape. Simultaneous excavation of the Vedi fortress, the valley’s central site, has provided evidence for occupation and use of the site since at least the Early Bronze Age. The main feature of the site consists of monumental fortification walls which may date to early polity formation in the Late Bronze Age. The Vedi Valley connected the fertile Ararat Plain with the resource-rich Gegham Mountains, representing an important transportation route through multiple time periods. A series of hilltop fortifications in the landscape, anchored by the Vedi fortress itself, indicates an intention to control and separate the Vedi Valley from the Ararat Plain. Significant reuse during the Medieval period provides an opportunity to compare and contrast this landscape’s regional connections in different time periods. Of particular interest is evidence for Medieval long-distance communication in the form of a ring seal. This project also experiments with advances in digital methods in the field, including born-digital recording to a cloud server, affordable dGNSS, and 3D scanning of objects. The centralized digital dataset facilitated virtual work in the summer of 2020. A field school enables east Asian students to engage in Near Eastern archaeology and to work together with Armenian and American students.