NATIONAL PHD IN HERITAGE SCIENCE

Thesis title: On fire: sulle tracce del fuoco. L’agency del fuoco e i suoi indicatori: analisi archeologica e classificazione dei contesti di combustione tra Caucaso e Mesopotamia durante l’età del Bronzo e del Ferro

The research aims to investigate fire as a material, technological, and ideological element, highlighting its central role within the cultural, productive, and symbolic dynamics of pre-industrial societies in the Southern Caucasus and Central Mesopotamia between the 4th and 1st millennia BCE. Through an interpretive perspective that considers fire as an element endowed with a strong agentive force and materiality, the study analyses the productive, social, and ceremonial trajectories that define the relationship between human communities and this natural element. Culturally shaped after a long Paleolithic prehistory, fire is integrated into collective life as an artifact, a transformative agent, a destructive force, or a participant in ceremonial practices. The focus on these two geographical and cultural areas – considered opposed in terms of economic and social organisation – and on the archaeology of Mesopotamian and Caucasian production provides insights into the ways human communities interacted with fire, both at the pyrotechnological and ceremonial levels. The investigation is based on three case studies from the 4th to 1st millennia BCE. Each case addresses different research questions but centres on fire. The cases are: the domestic, ceremonial, and productive contexts of Tava Tepe (Western Azerbaijan, 2nd-1st millennium BCE), Tell Muhammad (Iraq, 2nd millennium BCE), and the kurgans (hypogean tombs) of the Uzun Rama plateau (Western Azerbaijan, 4th millennium BCE). These contexts are examined by presenting recent excavation data and analysing legacy data with a focus on combustion practices. The study proposes integrating the archaeological approach with a methodology aimed at defining fire patterns, borrowed from forensic sciences and experimental archaeology, as well as an archaeometric perspective focused on characterising firing traces, burned sediments, and production residues. Such traces, often indistinguishable at the macroscopic level, frequently constitute the only visible components of the archaeological dataset of a fire. This approach allows addressing issues such as the functional classification of fire installations, the distinction between accidental fires and intentional productive activities, and the reconstruction of fire dynamics in ancient contexts.