Preliminary Report on the 2025 Season at Ağaliqtəpə (Ağstafa), North-Western Azerbaijan
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30546/679523.2.2026.003.064Keywords:
South Caucasus, Iron Age, Settlement, Mud-brick architecture, Achaemenid pottery, Scythian-type arrowheadsAbstract
In 2025, a joint Azerbaijani-German excavation investigated the Iron Age site of Ağalıqtəpə, a flat-topped hill in the Ağstafa district of northwestern Azerbaijan. The site is located in a comparatively well-researched region, where excavations at sites such as Sarıtəpə, Babadərviş, Sarvantəpə, Yastıtəpə and, most recently, Tava Tepe have documented settlement activity spanning from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Ağalıqtəpə both complements and extends the established chronological sequence into the second quarter of the first millennium BC, and, judging by certain elements of the material culture, likely into the Achaemenid period in the southern Caucasus. Two excavation trenches revealed substantial mud-brick architecture with largely intact floors and associated features, as well as numerous storage pits from a later occupation phase. These findings contribute to our limited knowledge of settlement archaeology of this period and serve as a vital counterpoint to the region’s dominant funerary archaeology. The excavations at Ağalıqtəpə thus offer valuable new insights into Iron Age settlement dynamics — an area of key importance for understanding how local communities organised and transformed their living spaces in response to foreign cultural influences.
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