The Kura-Araxes economy : mobile pastoralism or sedentary agriculture? Perspectives from Sos Höyük

The Kura-Araxes cultural complex has often been described as having had an economy based on transhumant pastoralism. Mobile pastoralism has been used as a mechanism to explain the expansion of the Kura-Araxes horizon across the Near East. Yet the extent of pastoral mobility within the Kura-Araxes economy has been questioned, both through archaeozoological analyses and reassessments of the portability of the Kura-Araxes material culture. This paper will discuss different types of pastoral and agricultural strategies and, using ethnographic examples, will provide a framework for distinguishing between mobile pastoralism and sedentary mixed farming. These criteria will then be utilised to identify the subsistence economy at Sos Höyük, a Kura-Araxes site in north-eastern Turkey, using archaeobotanical evidence from the site. At Sos Höyük crops appear to have been cultivated locally and the seasonality of cultivation practices, the wild seed flora and dung fuel making activities indicate year-round occupation of the site. Sos Höyük therefore appears to have been a sedentary mixed agro-pastoral village. The identification of Sos Höyük as a permanently occupied agricultural settlement has ramifications for understanding the Kura-Araxes economy and the spread of the Kura-Araxes horizon.