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This study focuses on the cultural attribution of a distinct category of Early Bronze Age burials in the eastern piedmont of the Lesser Caucasus, northwestern Azerbaijan, known as “tombs under kurgans” or “kurgans with collective burials in tombs”. There was an opinion that such burials belong to the early period of the Kura-Araxes (or proto-Kura-Araxes) culture. To test this idea, we analyzed ceramics from tombs under kurgans at Shadyly, Uzun-Rama, and Mentesh-Tepe, all of which have radiocarbon dates. Results suggest that the vessels are hand-made, their paste contains no organic temper, and they are a coarse imitation of the Uruk ceramics. This tradition is unrelated to the Kura-Araxes culture, marked by a handmade red-and-black burnished pottery. Also, at the highly developed stage of the Kura-Araxes in any of its local versions, collective burials in tombs were not practiced. Thus, before the emergence of the Kuro-Araxes culture in the Southern Caucasus, there was a population practicing the tradition of kurgans with collective burials in tombs. The origin of this tradition is a contentious matter. What we know only is that it emerged in the 34th century BC and disappeared around the 31st–30th centuries BC, following the Kura-Araxes expansion in the Southern Caucasus.

The Neolithic settlement of Göytepe (6th millennium cal BC) is of great importance for studying all stages of the Neolithic pottery not only of Azerbaijan, but also that of the Southern Caucasus. Here, we analyze pottery assemblage from the 4th building level at this site as an example of Neolithic ceramics of the Kura River valley, Southern Caucasus. We focused on the technological and morphological development of pottery from 14 building levels at Göytepe. This paper presents the results of the extensive study of pottery samples found in the 4th building level during archaeological excavations in 2017. Each pottery group was described and compared according to its technical features. The obtained results were compared with previous studies of other contemporaneous sites, to discuss the origin and technological development of Neolithic pottery in the Southern Caucasus. The conclusion was made about the independent development of the Shulaveri-Shomu culture at its early stage, and about the infl uence of the intercultural contacts at later stages.