Was Armenia the Cradle of Civilization?

Well, I've always thought so :)  Regardless of whether you believe the biblical account of a great flood that wiped out nearly everyone except a chosen few who took to a large vessel with animals and supplies and survived to land somewhere in the mountains of Ararat (the biblical account does NOT say that the vessel landed on Mount Ararat), there is plenty of archaeological evidence to show that agriculture got it's start in the highlands of that borderland region between Turkey and Armenia and that grapes were first grown there, about 11,500 years ago or so.  The pattern of the spread of agriculture, and civilization, shows a steady southwards progression, eventually creating a great arc called the Fertile Crescent.  That Crescent, which is what most people concentrate on when they think of ancient civilizations, ignores evidence of other equally ancient civilizations northwest of the Caucusus Mountains and those areas settled to the West, in the area called "old Europe." 

Armenia was the site of development of the first spoke-wheel and light-weight but sturdy chariot chasse. The people were expert horse-breeders and horse-trainers, who were in demand all across the Fertile Crescent to staff the fledgling calvary corps of potentates in Anatolia, Egypt and Mesopotamia with the spread of this new technology beginning about 1850 BCE. If I remember my linguistics correctly, the Armenian language, along with ancient Sanskrit, are the 'purest' remaining examples of the ancient proto-Indo-European language. So, I found this article interesting.

From panarmenian.net
Mesopotamia’s civilization originated in Armenia
July 2, 2010 - 15:43 AMT 10:43 GMTPanARMENIAN.Net - Unique discoveries revealed as a result of excavations at Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) confirm that Armenia is the motherland of metallurgy, jeweler’s art, wine-making and horse breeding.

A group of archaeologists studying the ancient city concluded that 4000-3000 B.C. Armenia was a highly developed state with exclusive culture. The excavations are carried out by an Armenian-American archaeological expedition.

Director of the Scientific and Research Institute of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the RA Ministry of Culture Simonyan said that for example, the glass beads discovered at the territory of Shengavit are of a higher quality than the Egypt samples.

Meanwhile, the amount of revealed horse bones at the territory has exceeded all expectations of the researchers. With respect to this, German paleozoologist Hans Peter Wertman stated that he has not observed such a quantity of horses in the entire Ancient East.

A great number of stone tools have been found in workrooms. While the discovered evidences of copper production prove that a systematized iron production was established in Armenia, said Simonyan, adding that many surprises are still awaiting us.

For his part, Mitchell S. Rothman, a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and founder of the Anthropology Department at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, said that all the discoveries prove that around 6,000 years ago the culture of Shengavit has spread over the ancient world. “All that was known in Mesopotamia came from Armenia. Armenia is the absent fragment in the entire mosaics of the ancient world’s civilizations construction. Shengavit has supplemented the lacking chains, that we had been facing while studying the ancient culture of Mesopotamia,” concluded Rothman.