Towards a Holistic Perspective of Settlement and Sociopolitics Among Late Bronze Age and Iron 1 (1500–800 BC) Hillforts in the Armenian Highlands
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 22475800 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ian Lindsay (0000-0002-6521-3328, Purdue University West Lafayette, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-07-21 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Archaeological Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1059-0161 • E-ISSN: 1573-7756 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10814-026-09228-1 |
| OpenAlex | W7169880343 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 149 |
Stone hillforts appear in the Armenian Highlands during the region’s Late Bronze Age (LBA) and Iron 1 periods (c. 1500–800 BC) and are central to discussions about the origins of complex societies in the region. Ephemeral LBA/Iron 1 settlement patterns suggest that, unlike in neighbouring Mesopotamia, sovereignty in the Highlands emerged not from settled agricultural societies but from hierarchically organized, seasonally mobile agropastoralists—societies that adopted the aesthetics of hilltop fortification, not urbanism, as the most conspicuous manifestation of power on the landscape. A recent surge of publications on late prehistoric hillforts in this region has paralleled similar growth across Europe, the Mediterranean, and South America. While recent fortress scholarship in the latter regions has been shaped by vibrant debates weighing traditional discourses of forts as engines of militarism against their material and semiotic functions as loci for social and political transformation, the discourse in the Armenian Highlands still, with exceptions, draws heavily on social models of military hierarchies. This article provides a historical overview of hillfort investigations in the Armenian Highlands and a review of perspectives from recent investigations with the aim of bringing this understudied region into global conversations about fortified landscapes as prominent elements of sociopolitical process.
Armenian · Bronze Age · Militarism · Politics · Power (physics) · Prehistory · Settlement (finance) · Ancient Near East History · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Eurasian Exchange Networks
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| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |