Prehistoric Armenia

The modern territory of Armenia has been settled by human groups from the Lower Paleolithic to modern days. The first human traces are supported by the presence of Acheulean tools, generally close to the obsidian outcrops more than 1 million years ago. Middle and Upper Paleolithic settlements have also been identified such as at the Hovk 1 cave. The Armenian Highland finally shows traces of settlement from the Neolithic era. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture of the central Transcaucasus region is one of the earliest known prehistoric culture in the area, carbon-dated to roughly 6000 - 4000 BC. Another early culture in the area is the Kura-Araxes culture, assigned to the period of ca. 3300 - 2000 BC, succeeded by the Trialeti culture (ca. 3000 - 1500 BC).

Excavation campaigns

Revue archéologique issued a report by M. de Morgan, on his excavations, and says:

Paleolithic

The most recent and important excavation is at the Nor Geghi 1 Stone Age site in the Hrazdan river valley. Thousands of 325,000 year-old artifacts show that human technological innovation occurred intermittently throughout the Old World, rather than spreading from a single point of origin (usually hypothesized to be Africa), as was previously thought.

Armenia

Coordinates: 40°N 45°E / 40°N 45°E / 40; 45

Armenia (ⁱ/ɑːrˈmiːniə/, /-ˈmiːnjə/;Armenian: Հայաստան, tr. Hayastan, IPA: [hɑjɑsˈtɑn]), officially the Republic of Armenia (Armenian: Հայաստանի Հանրապետություն, tr. Hayastani Hanrapetut’yun), is a sovereign state in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located in Western Asia, it is bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, the de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan to the east, and Iran and the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan to the south.

Armenia is a unitary, multi-party, democratic nation-state with an ancient cultural heritage. The Kingdom of Van was established in 860 BC and by the 6th century BC it was replaced by the Satrapy of Armenia. In the 1st century BC the Kingdom of Armenia reached its height under Tigranes the Great. Armenia became the first state in the world to adopt Christianity as its official religion. In between the late 3rd century to early years of the 4th century, the state became "the first Christian nation." The official date of state adoption of Christianity was 301 AD. The ancient Armenian kingdom was split between the Byzantine and Sasanid empires around the early 5th century. Under the Bagratuni dynasty, the Armenian Kingdom was restored in the 9th century. Declining due to the wars against the Byzantines, the kingdom fell in 1045 and Armenia was soon after invaded by the Seljuk Turks. An Armenian principality and later a kingdom Cilician Armenia was located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea between the 11th and 14th centuries.

Armenia (1796 ship)

Armenia was a merchant vessel launched at Calcutta in 1796. Captain Thomas Meek (or Meik), was her only captain. In 1799 the East India Company (EIC) took her up. She made one trip to Britain for the EIC. On that trip she left St Helena on 6 July in the company of the East Indiamen Tellicherry, Triton, and Barwell, and under escort by the 18-gun Cornwallis.Armenia arrived in Britain on 27 September.

Capture and postscript

The French privateer Clarisse captured Armenia on 5 July 1800 and sent her into Mauritius.Clarisse was armed with 16 guns and had a crew of 180 men under the command of Captain La Meme. Armenia encountered Clarisse at 7°30′S 79°30′E / 7.500°S 79.500°E / -7.500; 79.500, and after a five-hour chase she caught up with Armenia and combat ensued. Captain Meik resisted, but after about 40 minutes of exchanging fire he stuck. Armenia had lost her Third Officer killed and six men wounded, one of whom died later; Clarisse appeared to have had three men killed. Another report has Clarisse's casualties as seven killed and 20 wounded.

Name of Armenia

The name Armenia enters English via Latin, from Ancient Greek Ἀρμενία. The Armenian endonym for the Armenian people and country is hayer and hayk’, respectively. The exact etymology of the name is unknown, and there are various speculative attempts to connect it to older toponyms or ethnonyms.

Etymology

The earliest attestations of the exonym Armenia date around the 6th century BC. In his trilingual Behistun Inscription, Darius I the Great of Persia refers to Urashtu (in Babylonian) as Armina (in Old Persian) and Harminuya (in Elamite). In Greek, Αρμένιοι "Armenians" is attested from about the same time, perhaps the earliest reference being a fragment attributed to Hecataeus of Miletus (476 BC).Herodotus, in c. 440 BC, said "the Armenians were equipped like Phrygians, being Phrygian colonists" (7.73) (Ἀρμένιοι δὲ κατά περ Φρύγες ἐσεσάχατο, ἐόντες Φρυγῶν ἄποικοι.). Xenophon describes many aspects of Armenian village life and hospitality. He relates that the people spoke a language that to his ear sounded like the language of the Persians.