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How interesting the Gueghamian rock-carved pictures may be, they can not be reliable sources for historical investigation without scientific chronology and classification. Unfortunately, being deprived of immediate and absolute chronological sources, we are obliged to refer to the inherent possibilities of the rock-carved pictures: their formal, stylistical and topical peculiarities, as well as to the comparative method of historical analogues, through which it is possible to form an approximate, but, as yet, only general idea about the origin and perpetuation of monuments, which are interesting for us. The enormous quantity of the Gueghaminn rock-carved pictures, the double and triple superposition of the images, their stylistic and technical peculiarities indicate that they encompass a very long period of time, and that having begun from the aeneolithic they persisted till the iron age.
The diversified composition of the rock-carved pictures, including representatives of the quaternary fauna and their contemporary domesticated species, the great number and numerous species of dogs, the pictures related with the domestication of animals seem to establish the late neolithic-eneolithic stage of culture of the pre-historic races in Armenia. That was the epoch when new economic formations were created owing to an organized collective influence and on the basis of an opulent animal and plant kingdom, and favourable natural conditions. According to the data presented by the palaeozoologist S. K. Mezhlumyan, the skeletal remains of wild animals depicted in the rock-carved images-bulls, cows, goats, etc.- occur in the early agricultural-animal-raising settlements of the V - III millennia B. C. Once animals were domesticated and raised, the need of hunting their wild predecessors, was gradually restricted: the relatively scarce rock-carved pictures of bisons, wild bulls, giant deers were giving place to hunting scenes displaying smaller animals.
We may conclude from all this that the oldest group of the Gueghamian rock-images chronologically precedes the development of animal-raising in the IV millennium B. C. and in a certain measure proceeds in parallel with it, but not later than the III mil. B. C. The Hither and Central Asian, as well as the caucasian analogues of the early group of the Gueghamian hunting pictures relate almost to the same period. Among them are well dated the sanctuaries of the QI millennium B. C. discovered in the III, VII, VIIa layers of the Chatal-Huyuk settlement (the Iconia field), which are quite skin the engravings of the Geghamian mountains by a numher of their wall-paintings. There are many aeneolithic-bronze Age rock -carved pictures in the south-eastern regions of contemporary Turkey, in Armenian and Northern Mesopotamia (Adiaman, Demir-Kape), on the east-Mediterranean borders of the historical Assyria-Palestine, and on the Mediterranean littoral of Anatoly, which constitute, together with the pictures found in the Azerbaijanian Kobstan and Central Asia, the closest chronological and typological parallels of' our monuments. The types of solar and lightning anthropomorphic divinities depicted on the rock-images of the Gueghamian mountains and widespread all over the eastern countries, are quite characteristic of the decorated earthenware of Samarra, Susa, Yanic-Tepe dating from the V - IV millennia B. C. The similar fignres carved under gigantic bulls and numerous other pictures in the Azerbaijanian Kobstan, show the remoteness of these found in neighbouring Armenia.
The comparison of the ritual, decorated motives of the black-burnished beautiful earthenware of the III millennium B. C. with the engravings of the Gueghamian mountains permits to relate a considerable number of them to the early Bronze age. In this period the black-burnished earthenware of the Armenian Highlands spreads from the Iranian to the Soviet Azerbaijan and to contemporary southern Georgia, unto Kharberd, Malatia and the agricultural oasis of Van till the borders of Assyria-Palestine, Syria and the Northern Caucasua.
The pictures of animals and birds engraved on that earthenware are often met with in the Gueghamian mountains. Absolutely identical symbols, pictograms, geometrical figures, common for the whole prehistoric of that area, equally occur on the earthenware and in the rock-carved images. A certain number of the Gueghamian rock-images, and particularly some of the water-birds and bulls figured with streams of water ejecting from the mouth, may be related to the II millennium H. C. for their similarities with the painted earthenware and stonemade dragons of that period. All the above mentioned materials allow to conclude that the group of the early Geghamian rock-carved pictures may be related to the V - III millennia B. C., with the overwhelming prevalence of early Bronze-age engravings ( III mil. B. C.) .
The chronology of this group of rock- images, the motives of their hunting-animal keeping mentality, as well as the data obtained from the study of analogous materials and contemporary settlements, lead us to re-examine in the whole the opinions concerning the late formation of the half-nomadic form of animal-keeping, and therefore, the general periodization of Armenian culture, in the purpose of adjusting them to the chronological systems of the Hither Asian early animal-breeding and land-tilling cultures. However, the animal-breeding-land -tilling culture which had begun forever to develop in an early historical period, was progressing all the Armenian Bronze-age; the Gueghamian alpian pastures continued to fulfill their important economic function, and our ancestors did not leave their mountainous sanctuaries. For that reason the number of rock-carved, ritual, ceremonial pictures was gradually increasing during the early, middle and late iron ages. The essence and the significance of the images remain the same, though their forms, styles and compositional particularities bear definite changes. Now the caucasian noble reindeers and muflons are depicted (fig. 31, 88) just as the bronze statuettes of Lchashen and Tolors dating from the XIII - X centuries B. C. and the lineated images (of animals) found on the earthenware of Artic. Very often they prefer the entirely filled contours of dynamism-lacking images. The anthropomorphic dynamic figures of the early period with round big heads, straight-lined, powerful and disproportionate extremities are replaced by the images of entirely dressed, mask-bearing hunters (fig. 169) which correspond to those found on the bronze-made belts of Armenian and of the Caucasus dating from the XII - VIII cent. B. C. Even the arrow-heads of the hunters (fig. 175) correspond to the types occuring in great number in the sepulchral artifacts of the XI-X cent. B. C. Fantastic animals (fig. 133 - 135) are often represented in the rock-carved pictures of the II - I millennia 8. C., which almost entirely duplicate the images of the bronze-made belt of Kolakend dating from the VII cent. B. C.
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