NO. 13 SOVIET ANTHROPOLOGY — FIELD 83 



relief, of the black polished urn, also Eneolithic, from Frangnots 

 near Echmiadzin. 



The presence in this stratum with similar pottery of "round dwell- 

 ings with one entrance" of the "tholos" type discovered by Lalaian 

 at Eilar was confirmed later by excavations at Shengavit, where, 

 because of the construction of the walls from river boulders and mud 

 brick, these dwellings come particularly close to the circular buildings 

 revealed recently in the lower levels at Tell llalaf and at Al Ubaid, 

 as well as the settlements of Arpachiyah, Kidish Saghir, and Tepe- 

 Gawra in Upper Mesopotamia. 



Lalaian also discovered at Eilar, at the centers of double concentric 

 rings of stones, numerous holes faced with stone and filled with layers 

 of ash containing the remains of human bones, and also a singular 

 hollowed-out stone sarcophagus attributed by him to this same level. 



Special significance in establishing the Eneolithic phase in the 

 South Caucasus belongs to the excavations of the Georgian Depart- 

 ment for the Preservation of Monuments of Culture, and of the 

 Georgian Academy of Sciences during 1936-1940 at Trialeti, and of 

 the Armenian Department for the Preservation of Monuments of 

 Culture, and of the Armenian Branch of the Academy of Sciences 

 during 1936- 1938 at Shcngavit. 



The first gave stratigraphic material, already partly published,*' 

 and established a series of ceramic modifications of the Eneolithic 

 layer on the site of the cyclopean tow^n of Akhillar near Beshtashen. 

 This determined the relation of this layer and the usual South Cau- 

 casian cemeteries with the blackish-gray ware to the flourishing 

 Trialetian Bronze Age barrow culture with painted pottery and to 

 the preceding culture of the oldest Trialetian barrows. The second 

 excavations made it possible to determine that this settlement belonged 

 to one homogeneous Eneolithic stratum. 



The unusual combination in one complex of many types of pottery 

 occurs in the Kikcti tomb and at Trialeti. Here were found heaps of 

 potter's slag and a developed culture emphasized by the skill of tl.e 

 firing. Portable ceramic hearths of a special form, found in Shengavit 

 in an unbroken state in the center of circular buildings, arc character- 

 istic of this deposit. 



The polished black ware from Shcngavit is distinguished by in- 

 herent details, strictly peculiar to it. both of shape (the barrel-shaped 

 body and sharply conical narrow lower part of the vessel) and of 



** Kuftin, B. A., .VrchacoloRical excavations in Trialeti. vol. i. pp. 106. 118. 

 and 168, and About the question of the early stages of bronze culture in the 

 Territory of Georgia, pp. 13-14, 20-24. 



