Technological and social developments in Neolithic and Chalcolithic Monjukli Depe (Turkmenistan) and its environs

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Reinhard Bernbeck
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2011 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 202888018

The excavations at Monjukli Depe in 2011-2014 have yielded a complex picture of the hitherto poorly known early Aeneolithic (5th millennium BCE) in southern Turkmenistan. Especially noteworthy is the very well preserved architecture, with more or less standardized, one-room houses and a structured village layout. A sensational discovery is the figural and abstract wall painting in an Aeneolithic house (House14) that was destroyed by fire. The current application is for a two-year continuation of our work in order to complete the project. The three objectives of the initial application - the analysis of developments from the Neolithic Jeitun to the Aneolithic Anau IA culture, intra-settlement differences among households in the Aeneolithic, and the reconstruction of the ancient landscape as well as its use - will be pursued. The main focus of our work will be (1) the removal and conservation of the wall painting in House 14 and (2) a better understanding of the continuity and breaks between the Neolithic and Aeneolithic.The wall paintings will be professionally removed from their architectural context (on a buttress) and conserved in a nearby laboratory in preparation for long-term exhibition. The transition from the Neolithic to the Aeneolithic will be analyzed in two ways. A stratigraphic sondage in Çagylly Depe should yield evidence concerning the development of the local late Neolithic assemblages. According to the current state of our knowledge, there exists a long hiatus between the Neolithic and Aeneolithic at Monjukli Depe. A series of radiocarbon dates from Çagylly Depe should help to close this gap in the chronology of the Meana region. The dynamics are complex, with structural continuities in subsistence and house construction, but breaks in the realm of ceramic production and in terms of the onset of metallurgy and textile manufacture. We examine these relationships in terms of change and continuity in six different areas of cultural techniques (pyrotechnology, subtractive technologies, subsistence practices, fiber processing, food processing and practices that fall within the sphere of ideology). In the case of the Aeneolithic this is intended to round out our existing knowledge; for the Neolithic we plan to expose larger areas at the northern edge of the Monjukli Depe mound.Finally, the area around Monjukli Depe is today an arid steppe. The third component of the project is the reconstruction of the ancient landscape together with its connection to subsistence practices. The planned geoarchaeological fieldwork is largely complete, whereas support for an isotopic analysis of the faunal remains is requested in the present application.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Susan Pollock