Comparing Multiple Periods of Site Use at the Vedi Fortress of Armenia based on 2022-2024 Fieldwork

Abstract

<p>The Ararat Plain Southeast Archaeological Project (APSAP) is investigating human life and mobility during multiple periods of the past within the Vedi River valley of Armenia. A primary focus of fieldwork has been the excavation of the Vedi Fortress, a site that controls access to the valley from a prominent position overlooking its entrance. Since 2022, we have engaged in stratigraphic excavation at the Fortress that has, for the first time, allowed us to understand human use of this place across multiple periods. The site was fortified with monumental walls during the Late Bronze Age (LBA), probably as part of the formation of a local polity contained within the valley. We are exploring the continuities and discontinuities of human activity at the site over the subsequent centuries, ending with the burning of the site around 800 BCE. After this, there are small hints about site usage until it was extensively reoccupied and refortified during the Early Medieval (EM; Late Antique) period when Armenia was under Sassanian Persian suzerainty during the fifth to seventh centuries CE. The comparison of human activity between the LBA and EM periods enables us to better interrogate collective action, political influences, and material culture within each period in this same landscape. This paper presents our recent fieldwork and how the results help us interpret local human-landscape relations in the valley through time. Our goal is to contribute to understandings of the unique environmental, transportation, and social considerations of human life at mountain-plain intersections. <br></p>