CIRCUMPONTICA IN PREHISTORY:

WESTERN EURASIAN STUDIES

In Memory of Eugen Comşa

Compiled and Edited by Lolita Nikolova, Marco Merlini and Alexandra Comşa

BAR International Series 10144

Oxford

2009

pp. 227-228:

Giorgi Leon Kavtaradze

Tbilisi, Georgia

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE CAUCASIAN CHRONOLOGY FOR THE FOUNDATION OF THE COMMON CIRCUMPONTIC CHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEM

1. The use of the calibrated radiocarbon (¹⁴C) dates for the Neolithic - Early Metallic Age archaeological material provoked the separation of the areas with approximate historical dates from the areas dated by the ¹⁴C technique - the Near East has been removed from its northern periphery and Circumpontic area. The removal of these two regions from each other caused the formation between them, something like a geological gap - "fault line". The need to fill this gap is an urgent task of the recent archaeological studies and besides the further improvement of the geo-chronological methods demands intensive stimulation of the research in the field of relative chronology on both parts of the above mentioned gap and, as much as it is possible, to connect them with each other.

2. The "fault line" is mainly formed on the Balkan Peninsula and the Caucasus and the territories immediately south of it. Therefore chronological problems of these regions have a paramount importance as to the foundation of the Old World's chronological system in general.

3.1. The inclusion of the Caucasian chronological evidence into the common Near Eastern - East European chronological system must be preceded by the formation of an all-Caucasian chronological scale; in order to form this scale it is necessary to single out the five stages of the study of six Caucasian cultural-geographical regions.

3.2.1. The first stage is the formation of separate chronological frameworks of the different parts of the Caucasus on the basis of the same methodological approach. In the Caucasus, as mentioned above, we have six such regions: 1. Western Transcaucasia (actually Western Georgia); 2. Central Transcaucasia (Eastern Georgia); 3. Southern Transcaucasia (Armenia); 4. Eastern Transcaucasia (Azerbaijan); 5. North-Western Caucasus; 6. North-Eastern Caucasus. The last two areas are divided by the middle flow of the Terek. Between above areas transitional or (and) contact zones can be distinguished.

3.2.2. Among the above regions, Central Transcaucasia has a key position - it is encircled by all other regions and thus it represents a common ground for the all-Caucasian chronological system.

3.3. The main problem of the second stage is the formation of the common Transcaucasian (South Caucasian) on the one hand and common North Caucasian time-scales on the other.

3.4. After that, at the third stage, it is possible to work out the all-Caucasian chronological scale.

3.5.1. At the fourth stage, the common Caucasian chronological scale, on the basis of the North Caucasian evidence, can be connected with the sites of the North Pontic - South Russian steppe in general and on the basis of the Transcaucasian evidence - with the East Anatolian - North Iranian sites.

As a result it becomes possible to bring both sides of the "fault line" closer to each other since there is an opportunity to correlate Caucasian chronological definitions (including geochronological data) with the Near Eastern historical chronologies.

3.5.2. Thus, at that stage, it is already permissible to establish absolute dates for the Caucasian time-scale of the Early Metallic Age.

3.6. The final, fifth, stage of the research programme must be represented by the process of the projection of the Caucasian chronological definitions, in the light of North Pontic evidence, on the Balkan Peninsula and further on the South-East European chronological system. This circumstance gives a possibility to check-up the value of the dates received for these regions on the basis of the South-East European - West Anatolian chronological connections and to receive, at the same time, a tentative common Circumpontic chronological framework.

3.7. The study of all these five stages must be carried out simultaneously, and the above division of the research plan is mainly the reflection of the priority of the various stages of study.

4. For the foundation of the common chronological system it seems to be useful to correlate the sea-level variations of the Black Sea with the corresponding phenomena observable in the Aegean and Mediterranean sea-shore areas, naturally, on the background of the archaeological context.

5. New chronological definitions received for the regions located north of "fault lines" permits to reconsider the character of relations of these regions with the Near East, its societies and cultures.

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