In the framework of the “Burial Mounds of the South Caucasus (4000-1 BCE)” project (link)of the ROOTS subcluster “Inequalities” (link), a team led by Andrea Ricci (link), Wolfgang Rabbel and Jutta Kneisel conducted geophysical investigations on the Uzun Rama plateau of Central Azerbaijan in November 2021. This area, which was exclusively dedicated to burying the dead for over two millennia, reveals the presence of numerous large communal kurgans dated to the Kura-Araxes period (i.e. 4th millennium BCE), as well as smaller Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age burial mounds. At Uzun Rama, initial survey documented 205 kurgans and first detailed topographic mapping along the northern margin of the plateau already recorded the high dimensional and morphological variability of the kurgans.
Conducted in cooperation with Dr. Bakhtiyar Jalilov from the Azerbaijani Academy of Science in Baku, this 2021 field season enabled the ROOTS team to test the efficacy of three different geophysical methods (i.e. georadar, geoelectric, and geomagnetic) on the kurgans, as well as to document them with aerial pictures taken from a kite. This newly acquired data on the dimensional and morphological variability of the kurgans and their topographic and geological setting provides crucial information to infer early developments of social inequality in the Southern Caucasus from the beginning of early metal cultures onwards.

Team members: Ercan Erkul, Simon Fischer, Lisa Glueck, Jutta Kneisel, Bakhtiyar Jalilov, Erman Lu, Wolfgang Rabbel, Andrea Ricci, Maurice Weber, and Elmar Zeynalov.