Paleobotanical analyses on Project ArAGATS are currently being utilized in order to identify the primary cultivars in evidence from each era of past occupation under study and develop a model of the history of regional land cover and land use. Initial investigations of paleobotanical remains suggest an enduring focus upon barley cultivation with wheat less well-represented in available macrobotanical remains. In future seasons, we plan to correlate the paleobotanical findings from our excavations with paleoenvironmental data from bog cores below the northeast slope of Mt. Aragats. Results are also currently pending for pollen analysis of washes from ceramics recovered from the Late Bronze Age shrine at Gegharot. Project ArAGATS’s macrobotanical studies are conducted by Roman Hovsepyan (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Yerevan).
Acknowledgments:
The work of Project ArAGATS is made possible by past and present grants from:
The National Science Foundation
The National Endowment for the Humanities
The Wenner-Gren Foundation
The National Geographic Society
The Social Science Research Council
Fulbright
The Dolores Zohrab Liebmann Fund
The Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Armenia
Cornell University Institute of the Social Sciences
Cornell University Einaudi Center
Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies
President's Council of Cornell Women
Purdue University
The University of Chicago Lichtstern Fund
Stanford Archaeology Center
American Research Institute of the South Caucasus
The generosity of the Friends of Project ArAGATS.
And by the warm hospitality of the people of the Tsaghkahovit Plain and Aparan Valley, Armenia.