Geographical range | South Caucasus |
---|---|
Period | Chalcolithic |
Dates | circa 4350 BCE — circa 4000 BCE |
Major sites | Leyla-Tepe |
Preceded by | Shulaveri–Shomu culture |
Followed by | Kura–Araxes culture |
The Leyla-Tepe culture (Azerbaijani: Leylatəpə mədəniyyəti) of the South Caucasus belongs to the Chalcolithic era. It got its name from the site in the Agdam District of modern-day Azerbaijan. Its settlements were distributed on the southern slopes of Central Caucasus, from 3800 until 3200 B.C.
Monuments of the Leyla-Tepe were first located in the 1980s by I. G. Narimanov, a Soviet archaeologist. In the 2000s, attention to the monuments was inspired by the risk of their damage due to the construction of the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan pipeline and the South Caucasus pipeline.