Areni-1 Cave

Recent archaeological work in the South Caucasian region in general and in Armenia in particular, accompanied by a great quantity of new C14 data, have fundamentally changed our reconstructions of the development of the Neolithic and Chalcolithic in the region. In particular, we now know that the southern Caucasus was part of a greater Near Eastern network linked by common technological practices and structural transformations. One of the most important of these transformations was the fi rst use of metal, the appearance of which at the end of the Stone Age had a great impact on various spheres of human society and resulted in an increase in productivity, the accumulation and redistribution of wealth, the growth of social stratifi cation, status, and power, the functional differentiation of society, and the development of long distance trade. It is widely accepted that the earliest evidence of copper smelting, frequently defi ned as the “fi rst technological revolution” (around 5,000 BC), is limited to regions of the Near East, southeastern Europe, the Iranian Plateau, and the southern Caucasus. The early appearance of metallurgy in the southern Caucasusm and the abundance of copper and polymetallic ores make this region particularly important forn archaeometallurgical studies. In spite of this, our knowledge about the earliest metallurgy in the region remains limited, and any new discovery such as metal artifacts and metalworking attributes provide an opportunity to study not only the earliest stages of metal production but to understand technology and artifact provenance. During last decade, important evidence of early metalworking has been recovered in Armenia at number of Chalcolithic sites such as Areni-1 cave and the settlements of Nerkin Godedzor and Mushakan-4. This paper provides an introduction to recent archaeological and archaeometallurgical investigations and attempts to summarise the earliest evidence of copper based metal production in Armenia.