On The Prehistoric Irrigated and Rain-Fed Agricultural Systems in the Territory of Armenia (According to Archaeobotanical Studies)

Agriculture in the territory of the Republic of Armenia was established about eight thousand years ago, in the Ararat Valley, and was irrigated. About five and a half thousand years ago, because of the global climate changes, in particular, the aridification of the climate and the reduction of water resources in lowlands, there were still sufficient water resources for agriculture in the mountains (rain, ice and snow accumulations, springs fed from them, etc.). As a result, starting from the Early Bronze Age, local communities began to engage in rainfed agriculture in the hard-to-reach and hard-to-cultivate mountainous lands. From the Early Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, the main or only direction of agriculture in the region was the cultivation of cereals.

This was most probably due to climate aridification, which was the original and main cause of this phenomenon: irrigation is essential to agriculture in the dry lowlands, while some hardy crops in the mountains can be cultivated without water, relying only on rain. It is noteworthy that the “specialization” of agriculture in cereals cultivation was the same both in the mountains and in the lowlands. It is possible that the access to water gave the communities living in the mountains an environmental and economic advantage, which was the reason for the spread and strengthening of their forms of production, primarily - agricultural traditions, in the communities living in the lowlands.