Walking Walls: Herds, enclosures and the making of the Late Bronze Age herdscape in the South Caucasus

My research explores a new theoretical model for understanding the role played by livestock herds (sheep, goat, cattle, pig) in the renegotiated human-land relationship that emerged in the Late Bronze (LBA) and Early Iron Age (EIA) in the South Caucasus. I explore how herds interact with settlement enclosures in the experience, perception, and imagination of landscapes as territories of power and control. The LBA/EIA South Caucasus is an ideal context to explore these herd-enclosure dynamics, as settlement enclosures emerged in an historical landscape shaped by animal pastoralism rather than settled agriculture. Zooarchaeological and isotopic analyses are used to reconstruct herd behaviour from faunal remains excavated at Dmanisis Gora, Georgia and Gegharot, Armenia. These herds are then emplaced in the enclosure landscape by exploring the intervisibility and interconnectivity of pastureland and settlements, allowing us to access how people would have perceived the animals which made their worlds. Finally, the imagined relationship between people and domestic herd animals is investigated through the published repertoire of representational imagery depicting livestock. By investigating how herds create and recreate landscapes, which I term herdscapes, I seek to offer a comprehensive view of the role of herds in the emergence of enclosure landscapes and establish a model for the analysis of herds of domesticates as units of socio-political action.

Alex is a PhD candidate in Anthropology at Cornell and zooarchaeologist on the Gerda-Henkel Foundation-funded “Surviving the Crisis Years” project. His dissertation research has been funded by the Wenner Gren foundation and Cornell University.