ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი

ივანე ჯავახიშვილის ისტორიისა და ეთნოლოგიის ინსტიტუტი

 

 

IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI TBILISI STATE UNIVERSITY

IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY

 

 

ISSN 1987-6564

 

 

ისტორიისა და ეთნოლოგიის

ინსტიტუტის შრომები

 

XII-XIII

 

THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE

OF HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY

 

XII-XIII

 

 

ეძღვნება პროფესორ თამაზ ბერაძის

დაბადებიდან 75 წლის იუბილეს

 

Dedicated to the 75th year anniversary

of Professor Tamaz Beradze’s birth

 

 

თბილისი

 

Tbilisi

 

2012/2013

 

 

 

 

მთავარი რედაქტორი:             ვაჟა კიკნაძე

 

 

 

 

 

სარედაქციო კოლეგია:            გონელი არახამია, ვახტანგ გოილაძე, შოთა ვადაჭკორია,

ჰუბერტუს იანი (დიდი ბრიტანეთი), ხათუნა იოსელიანი,

ეკა კვაჭანტირაძე, სეიიჩი კიტაგავა (იაპონია),

გიორგი ქავთარაძე (მთავარი რედაქტორის მოადგილე),

ხათუნა ქოქრაშვილი, ნინო ღამბაშიძე, დოდო ჭუმბურიძე,

ლავრენტი ჯანიაშვილი, თემო ჯოჯუა

 

 

 

 

 

კრებული გამოსაცემად მოამზადეს:                 თემო ჯოჯუამ და შალვა გლოველმა

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Editor-in-Chief:          Vazha Kiknadze

 

 

 

 

Editorial Board:          Goneli Arakhamia, Dodo Chumburidze, Nino Gambashidze, Vakhtang Goiladze, Khatuna Ioseliani, Hubertus F Jahn (Great Britain), Lavrenti Janiashvili,

Temo Jojua, Giorgi Kavtaradze (Deputy Chief editor), Seiichy Kitagawa (Japan),

Khatuna Kokrashvili, Eka Kvachantiradze, Shota Vadachkoria

 

 

 

 

Prepared for publishing by:     Temo Jojua, Shalva Gloveli

 

 

 

 

 

©  ივანე ჯავახიშვილის სახელობის თბილისის სახელმწიფო უნივერსიტეტი, 2014

ს ა რ ჩ ე ვ ი

 

წინათქმა............................................................................................................................................................ 9

 

თამაზ ბერაძე - 75

 

გიორგი გოცირიძე

ფიქრები თამაზ ბერაძეზე............................................................................................................................ 10

 

პროფესორ თამაზ ბერაძის სამეცნიერო და სამეცნიერო-პოპულარული

პუბლიკაციების ბიბლიოგრაფია (შეადგინა თემო ჯოჯუამ) ............................................................ 12

 

არქეოლოგია

 

Giorgi L. Kavtaradze

On the Importance of the Caucasian Chronology for the Foundation

of the Common Near Eastern – East European Chronological System........................................... 23

 

ძველი ისტორია

 

ნანა ბახსოლიანი

კილიკია (Kilikßa) ასურული ლურსმული წარწერების მონაცემთა კონტექსტში ............................ 46

 

გიორგი ქავთარაძე

ტერმინ „ქართლის” არსისა და წარმომავლობის საკითხისათვის ..................................................... 50

 

შუა საუკუნეების ისტორია

 

საბა სალუაშვილი

სომხური და ბერძნული წყაროების ზოგიერთი

მინიშნებანი ქართლის სამეფოს გაქრისტიანების შესახებ................................................................... 64

 

Vazha Kiknadze

The Saga of Yngvar the Traveler and Georgian Chronicle................................................................ 73

 

ნინო მეგენეიშვილი

XIII-XIV საუკუნეების ერთი უცნობი ქალი გადამწერის შესახებ........................................................ 78

 

ნიკო ჯავახიშვილი

ახალი მასალა კახეთის მეფეების ალექსანდრე II-ისა და

დავით I-ის სვანეთთან კავშირის ისტორიისათვის..................................................................  ............. 81

 

წყაროთმცოდნეობა

 

თემო ჯოჯუა

ეცერის მოძღვრის ანტონ ონოფრიანის მიერ 1380 წელს იერუსალიმში

“სპარსთაგან დახსნილი” XII-XIII საუკუნეების უღვალის საწელიწდო

სახარება (H-171) და მისი მინაწერი საქართველოს მეფეების

ბაგრატ V-ისა (1366/1367-1387 წწ.) და გიორგი VII-ის (1387-1407 წწ.) მოხსენიებით....................... 85

 

ოქროპირ ჯიქური

გელათის მონასტრის წმ. გიორგის ეკლესიის გულანის ( K-38) ანდერძები

(ტექსტების პუბლიკაცია, კოდიკოლოგიური და

ისტორიულ-წყაროთმცოდნეობითი ანალიზი) ........................................................................................ 188

 

დავით მერკვილაძე, პაპუნა გაბისონია

არქანჯელო ლამბერტის “წმინდა კოლხეთი”.......................................................................................... 234

 

 

ეპიგრაფიკა

 

თემო ჯოჯუა, გიორგი გაგოშიძე

ქობაირის, ჰნევანქისა და ახტალის მონასტრების ქართული

ლაპიდარული წარწერები......................................................................................................................... 258

 

თამაზ გოგოლაძე

არსენ მანგლელის 1667 წლის სააღმშენებლო წარწერა მანგლისის ტაძრიდან

და მისი მნიშვნელობა აბაშიშვილთა ფეოდალური სახლის ისტორიისათვის............................................ 332

 

სამხედრო ისტორია

 

მამუკა წურწუმია

ლითონით გამაგრებული ფარების ევოლუცია შუა საუკუნეებში .............................................................. 351

 

ისტორიული გეოგრაფია

 

პაპუნა გაბისონია

ზუგდიდის რაიონის ისტორიული გეოგრაფიიდან...................................................................................... 369

 

ახალი და უახლესი ისტორია

 

ზურაბ სულაბერიძე, ნიკოლოზ გურგენიძე

თბილისის კეთილშობილთა სასწავლებლის ისტორიიდან (1802-1815 წწ.) .............................................. 379

 

ოთარ გოგოლიშვილი

აჭარის საზოგადოებრივი აზრი XIX საუკუნის 50-70-იან წლებში............................................................. 398

 

შოთა ვადაჭკორია

ოსმალეთი და `სამხრეთ კავკასიის მუსლიმანური სახელმწიფოს~

შექმნის საკითხი (1918-1919 წწ.) ............................................................................................................. 404

 

ლელა სარალიძე

რუსეთის მიერ საქართველოს ოკუპაცია (1921 წ.) და ევროპის

სახელმწიფოების დამოკიდებულება............................................................................................................ 435

 

ეთნოლოგია

 

ნინო ღამბაშიძე

ქართული ხალხური კალენდრის ზოგადმსოფლმხედველობრივი

მხარეები და ზოგიერთი მახასიათებელი ნიშნები ........................................................................................ 445

 

ნინო ღამბაშიძე

ხალხური სარწმუნოების კვლევის ზოგიერთი პრობლემა და მეთოდოლოგია............................................. 459

 

ნათია ჯალაბაძე, ლავრენტი ჯანიაშვილი

ეთნიკურ უმცირესობათა ინტეგრაციის ზოგიერთი ასპექტი ქვემო ქართლში............................................. 467

 

დავით ჭითანავა

მეგრული ,,ხვამა-ოხვამე-ოხვამერი”-ს მნიშვნელობისათვის....................................................................... 478

 

ფილოლოგია

 

ქეთევან ასათიანი, ანტონ ვაჭარაძე

ანჩის სახარება.............................................................................................................................................. 487

 

თეონა გელაშვილი

რომანოზ მიტროპოლიტის ცხოვრება და შემოქმედება................................................................................. 494

 

ექსპედიციის ანგარიში

 

თემურ ხუციშვილი, ლევან წიქარიშვილი, შალვა კოღუაშვილი

ქართული კულტურის ძეგლების საკვლევი ექსპედიციები

თურქეთის არტაანის რეგიონში 2011-2012 წლებში .................................................................................... 505

 

პოლემიკა

 

დავით მერკვილაძე

დავით-გარეჯის სამონასტრო კომპლექსის ისტორიულ-გეოგრაფიული

და ეთნოკულტურული კუთვნილებისათვის (მოკლე მიმოხილვა) ................................................................. 527

 

თარგმანი

 

იულიუს ასფალგი

მ. მიხელი თარხნიშვილი (12.1.1897 _ 15.10.1958)

(გერმანულიდან თარგმნა და წინასიტყვაობა დაურთო ნუგზარ პაპუაშვილმა) .............................................. 536

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C O N T E N T S

 

Foreword of the Chief Editor.................................................................................................................. 9

 

TAMAZ BERADZE - 75

 

Giorgi Gotsiridze

Thoughts on Tamaz Beradze................................................................................................................... 10

 

Bibliography of Professor Tamaz Beradze’s Scientific and Popular

(Publications compiled by Temo Jojua) ....................................................................................,........... 12

 

ARCHEOLOGY

 

Giorgi L. Kavtaradze

On the Importance of the Caucasian Chronology for the Foundation

of the Common Near Eastern – East European Chronological System.......................................,........... 23

 

ANCIENT HISTORY

 

Nana Bakhsoliani

Cilicia (Kilikßa) in the Context of Evidence of Assyrian Cuneiform Inscriptions.................................... 46

 

Giorgi L. Kavtaradze

The Term “Kartli” – Its Essence and Origin............................................................................................. 50

 

MEDIEVAL HISTORY

 

Saba Saluashvili

Christianization of Kartli Kingdom The Armenian and Greek sources Some Tips...........................,........ 64

 

Vazha Kiknadze

The Saga of Yngvar the Traveler and Georgian Chronicle........................................................................ 73

 

Nino Megeneishvili

About one woman copyist (13th-14th cc.)................................................................................................... 78

 

Niko Javakhishvili

New Material on the History of the Relations between Kakhetian

Kings Alexandre II, Davit I and Svaneti....................................................................................................... 81

 

SOURCE STUDIES

 

Temo Jojua

The 12th-13th Century Evangelary of UĞvali (H-171) “Redeemed from the Persians” in 1380 in

Jerusalem by Anton Onopriani, Protopresbyter of Etsery, and its Colophon Mentioning Kings

of Georgia Bagrat V (1366/67-1387) and Giorgi VII (1387-1407).............................................................. 85

 

Okropir Jikuri

“Testaments” and Colophons from the Gulani of St. George Church of Gelati Monastery (K-38)

(publication of the texts and their codicological, historical and source study analysis) ............................ 188

 

David Merkviladze, Papuna Gabisonia

“The Holy Colchis” of Archangelo Lamberti............................................................................................... 234

 

EPIGRAPHY

 

Temo Jojua, Giorgi Gagoshidze

Georgian Lapidary inscriptions From Kobairi, Hnevank and Akhtala Monasteries.................................... 258

 

Tamaz Gogoladze

1667 Year’s construction inscription of Arsen Mangleli from Manglisi church and

its importance for the history of the Abashishvils’ feudal house.................................................................... 332

 

MILITARY HYSTORY

 

Mamuka Tsurtsumia

The Evolution of the Shields Reinforced with Metal in the Middle Ages........................................................ 352

 

HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

 

Papuna Gabisonia

From the Historical Geography of the Zugdidi region.................................................................................... 369

 

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

 

Zurab Sulaberidze, Nikoloz Gurgenidze

From The History of The Tbilisi College of Nobles (1801-1815) .................................................................... 379

 

Otar Gogolishvili

The Problem of Unity of Georgians And Public Opinion

of Adjara in the 50-70s of the XIX century...............................................................................,,...................... 398

 

Shota Vadachkoria

Ottoman Empire and the Issue of the “Muslim State of the South Caucasus” (1918-1919)............................ 404

 

Lela Saralidze

Occupation of Georgia by Russia (1921) and the Attitude of European Countries to it................................... 435

 

ETHNOLOGY

 

Nino Ghambashidze

Universal and Some Peculiar Features of the Georgian Folk Calendar........................................................... 445

 

Nino Ghambashidze

Methodology and Some Issues of Studying the Folk Religion............................................................................ 459

 

Natia Jalabadze, Lavrnti Janiashvili

Some Aspects of Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Kvemo Kartli.................................................................... 467

 

David Chitanava

For the significance/meaning of mengrelian “khvama-okhvame-okhvameri” ................................................. 478

 

PHILOLOGY

 

Ketevan Asatiani, Anton Vacharadze

Ancha Gospel...................................................................................................................................................... 487

 

Teona Gelashvili

The Life and Activities of Metropolitan Romanos.............................................................................................. 494

 

EXPEDITION REPORT

 

Temur Khutsishvili, Levan Tsikarishvili, Shalva Koghuashvili

Expeditions for Studying Monuments of the Georgian

Culture in Artaani Region, Turkey in 2011-2012............................................................................................... 505

 

POLEMIC

 

David Merkviladze

About Historical-Geographical and Ethnic-Cultural Belonging

of Davit-Gareja Monastery Complex ................................................................................................................. 527

 

TRANSLATION

 

Julius Assfalg

P. Michael Tarchnischvili (12.1.1897 – 15.10.1958)

(Übersetztung und Vorwort von Nugzar Papuashvili) ................................................................................... 536

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[გვ. 10]

„Verba volent – scripta manet“

(სიტყვა წარმავალია _ ნაწერი მუდმივი)

 

 

 

 

წინათქმა

 

 

 

„ისტორიისა და ეთნოლოგიის ინსტიტუტის შრომები“-ს მორიგი, XII-XIII ტომი ეძღვნება გამოჩენილი

მეცნიერის, პროფესორ თამაზ ბერაძის ხსოვნას და მისი დაბადებიდან 75 წლისთავს.

კრებული, ისევე როგორც ყოველთვის, მაღალპროფესიონალური დონის შრომებითა და

სტატიებით გამოირჩევა. სტატიათა დიაპაზონი და ქრონოლოგია ფრიად შთამბეჭდავია.

განსაკუთრებით გამოვყოფდი გ. ქავთარაძის ინგლისურენოვან შრომას, რომელიც კავკასიურ

(არქეოლოგიურ) ქრონოლოგიას და მის მნიშვნელობას შეეხება.

სიახლეებია თ. ჯოჯუას სტატიაში, რომელიც XII-XIII საუკუნეების უღვალის საწელიწდო

სახარების 1380 წლის მინაწერს შეეხება.

ჩვენს ინგლისურენოვან სტატიაში, ქართული და სკანდინავიური წყაროების მიხედვით, ახლებურადაა

გაანალიზებული ვიკინგებისა და საქართველოს კავშირი XI საუკუნეში.

ცალკეული რუბრიკები შეეხება ძველ ისტორიას, სამხედრო ისტორიას, ეპიგრაფიკას, ისტორიულ

გეოგრაფიას, ახალ და უახლეს ისტორიას, ფილოლოგიას. „შრომებში“ ცალკე ადგილი

ეთმობა არტაანის (თურქეთი) რეგიონის ექსპედიციის შედეგებს. წარმოდგენილია აგრეთვე,

ი. ასფალგის გერმანულენოვანი შრომის ქართული თარგმანი, რომელიც მიხეილ თარხნიშვილის

ცხოვრებასა და შემოქმედებას ეძღვნება.

აქვე მკითხველი გაეცნობა დ. მერკვილაძის პოლემიკურ წერილს დავით-გარეჯის სამონასტრო

კომპლექსის ისტორიულ-გეოგრაფიული და ეთნოლოგიური კუთვნილების შესახებ.

ამგვარად, ვფიქრობთ, წარმოდგენილი კრებული იმდენად საინტერესოა, რომ როგორც ძველი

რომაელები იტყოდნენ: “Ceterem cenceo ptaefatione non ess scribendam“ ანუ, ის არც კი საჭიროებს

სპეციალური შესავლის დაწერას...

 

 

 

ვაჟა კიკნაძე

 

მთავარი რედაქტორი

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

10

        arqeologia

 


[გვ. 23:]

Giorgi L. Kavtaradze

Ivane Javakhishvili Institute of History and Ethnology,

Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University

 

On the Importance of the Caucasian Chronology for

the Foundation of the Common

Near Eastern – East European Chronological System

 

The use of calibrated radiocarbon (14C) dates for the archaeological material of the Neolithic – Early Metal Age provoked the separation of the areas with approximate historical dates from the areas dated by the 14C tech­ni­que. As a result, the Near East has been removed from its northern periphery which caused something like a chro­no­logical gap, or a fault line[1] between the two regions. The need to fill this gap is an urgent task for archaeological studies. The further improvement of geo-chronological methods demands intensive stimulation of research in the field of relative chronology on both sides of the above-mentioned gap in order to connect them with each other.

One of such regions where the fault line has been formed, in addition to the Balkans, was the Caucasus and territories directly south of it. The ascertainment of the chronological position of the cultures of these regions − located on both sides of the fault line − is of paramount importance for the formation of common Near Eastern-East Euro­pean chronological system, the basis of the chronological system of the Old World, i.e., the eastern hemis­phere of the Earth, considering their intermediary location between the Near East and the regions dated exclusively by the use of geo-chronological methods. Therefore, the Caucasus is an important link in the chain of chronological constructions of the Old World.

The chronological data of the Caucasus − taking into account its location, between the Black and Caspian seas that separate it respectively from eastern Europe to the west and from Central Asia in the east and its inter­mediate position between the southern Russian steppes in the north and the regions of the archaeological layers of ear­ly civilizations of the Near East in the south − gives us a unique opportunity to create a single chronological system of archaeological cultures of eastern Europe and the Near East.

In addition to such exceptional significance of Caucasian archaeological materials, it must be taken into consideration that in the Caucasus, as well as in the Balkan peninsula, the first and second ‘radiocarbon revolution’, i.e., use of traditional radiocarbon (C14) dates for the dating of archaeological material of the Neolithic-Early Metal Age to create an absolute time scales, at the first, and the use of calibrated radiocarbon (14C) dates when it became apparent that the dendrochronological data could be used to calibrate radiocarbon dates, afterwards, in both cases caused the separation of the areas, dated by the use of radiocarbon technique − that is, northern periphery of the Ne­ar East, from the areas dated mainly by the written, historical sources, − i.e., from the Near East itself.

In an article, published in 1970 by Colin Renfrew in the Journal «Antiquity»[2], was studied the character of the influence of calibration radiocarbon dates on existing at that time chronological construction. As a con­seq­uen­­ce of this study the cultural horizons of Europe, a chronology of which was determined primarily by phy­sical met­hods of dating of archaeological layers, were separated from archaeological materials of the Aegean and Ana­tolia, which, on their part, revealed existence of direct contacts with civilized societies of the Near East, dated by me­ans of written sources. On this basis, C. Renfrew presented for the first time in archaeology the idea of the chro­no­logical fault line which was formed between the cultural horizons of Europe, on the one hand, and the Aegean and Anatolia, on the other. On the eastern and south-eastern, i.e., Near Eastern parts of the above-menti­o­ned fault line, radiocarbon dates have been reported as having a negligible impact on the traditional chronology, but on the west or north-west, i.e., European sides the changes were much more noticeable. At the same time, the stra­tig­raphic sequence, on both sides of this fault line remained unchanged. This was the beginning of Radiocarbon Revolution.

It should be noted that archaeologists had built long ago the detailed scales of the relative chronology of the cultural layers of European cultures mainly using comparative data: typology of the artifacts and stratigraphy of prehistoric settlements. The main determining point for the dating of the prehistoric cultures of Europe at that time seemed stratigraphic sequence of Troy − the basis for the absolute chronology of prehistoric Europe. The lower date of Troy I was fixed about 2500 B.C. and it was considered a contemporary of the pyramids of the Old Kin[გვ. 24:]­gdom of Egypt. It was assumed that nothing could be in Europe older than the archaeological material of the type which was found in cultural layers of Troy. Therefore, all the innovations in Europe have been attributed to the movement or spread of cultural innovations from east to west and were determined by methodological views of the widespread and ancient idea of ​​Ex Oriente Lux.

It was on the next stage of the Radiocarbon Revolution that the use of new calibrated 14C dates revealed a large discrepancy with the traditional chronology which was mainly based on the method of synchronization of archaeological material. The use of calibrated 14C dates allowed to raise the date of the Neolithic and Early Metal Age of the northern periphery of the Near East, i.e., of south-eastern Europe to the ancient times, unimaginable ear­lier. Many of the innovations that are traditionally considered to be borrowed from the ancient civilizations of the Near East were in fact more ancient in Europe. As a result, it appeared an urgent need to abandon the traditional model of the development of European societies by the diffusion of ideas and to admit the existence of chrono­logical and cultural fault line between above-mentioned two zones during the Late Neolithic and Early Metal Ages.

C. Renfrew was the first who tried to fill this chronological gap by the extension of chronological con­structions of Anatolia − as a part of the historical chronology of the Near East − to the Aegean and south-eastern Europe and by the synchronization of archaeological materials on both sides of the fault line. At that time, the problem was to justify the use of radiocarbon dating for prehistoric cultures of the Aegean and the rest of Europe. The solution to this problem once and forever changed the understanding of European prehistory and made it older than Troy or even than the oldest Egyptian pyramids. More than 40 years later, studies on the synchronization of cultural layers from Near Eastern sites with archaeological materials of its northern periphery is still not completed and, as it was emphasized by James Muhly, now reached a level of staggering complexity[3].

In order to overcome deep differences between the technological and historical data we need to intensify the modern archaeological research, not only for the further improvement of geochronological methods, but, in view of promoting research into the relative chronology on both sides above-mentioned fault line, to connect both sides of it with each other as much as it is possible. The cross-dating of archaeological materials by identifying undoubted exports and imports found in the cultural layers, was and still remains the most effective way even after Radio­carbon Revolutions.

The creation of the new reliable synchronization schemes, in order to connect both sides of the fault line with each other, has a special meaning for the northern and eastern Black Sea regions and the Caucasus where attempts to apply new scientific methods in the problems of chronological character run into unexplainable non-acceptance, though it is known that the use of calibrated 14C dates tore away the Near East from its northern periphery and Circumpontic area. At the same time, we must recognize that there is a certain contradiction in connection with the Egyptian chronology, and also with attempts to correlate the traditional date of the eruption of Thera with ice core data, paleomagnetic, and calibrated 14C measurements. Apparently, a lot remains to be done before the final matching of the results of relatively new scientific methods with the already existing systems, such as historical chronology of Egypt or Mesopotamia.

The dating of the Caucasian and Balkan artifacts and complexes containing them, in many cases becomes possible by consideration of chronological data of similar materials from well-dated layers of Near Eastern sites. Conclusions of the chronological nature, so obtained, together with data of geochronological studies are a crucial factor for the formation of relative and absolute chronology of the northern periphery of the ancient civilized world. New chronological measurements taken in the regions located north of the fault line allow a reconsideration of the nature of relationship of these regions with the Near East.

According to specialists working in the Balkans, the separation between the chronological systems of south-eastern Europe and the Near East is based on three main arguments: 1. Difficulties of correlation of historical and radiocarbon dates inside and outside of the fault line; 2. Absence in Thrace of veritable import from regions with historical chronologies and the written sources found in the stratified layers of ancient settlements and fixed in a reliable archaeological context; 3. Doubts about the possibility of  an all-embracing comparison between cultures with different economic and social patterns within and outside of the fault line, i.e., between the primitive, semi-nomad economic model of the Balkans and complex stratified societies of Anatolia[4]. In the Caucasus and in the areas immediately adjacent to the south, the situation is somewhat different: the undoubted imports of the Near Eastern origin were there found; on the other hand, some characteristic signs of cultures of the Transcaucasian origin are represented in a genuine archaeological context typical for the Near East[5]. [გვ. 25:]

In the Caucasus and the Balkans, except the comparison of 14C dates, we have possibility to apply both basic methods of synchronization (facts of presence of undoubted import and cross-dating) of the local archaeological material with the Near Eastern chronological constructions which are based largely on the comparative stratigraphy of cultural layers of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia. In the case of the Balkans there are two possibilities: 1. To find out facts supporting the synchronization with Mesopotamia by way of Anatolia to Thrace; 2. To find out the same type of evi­dence by means of imports through the not so long ago discovered Bronze Age sea route between Crete and Egypt: Egypt − Crete – the Aegean Islands − northern Aegean Islands − Upper Thrace[6]. Between the Caucasus and the Near East contacts are mainly set through eastern Anatolia and western Iran; in both of these latter regions, though located adjacent to each other, sharp topographical, environmental and cultural differences are marked.

The fault line existing on the Balkans of the Early Metal Age has been largely filled by the efforts of H. Parzinger[7] and K. Leschakov[8], but in their publications, the authors treat mainly the archaeological material on both sides of the north-western flank of fault line. The similar work should be undertaken to overcome the divergence between the two sides of the fault line in the north-eastern part which separates the Caucasus from eastern Anatolia and the Near East, taken as a whole. As it was already stressed above, the dating of the Caucasian cultures is in ma­ny cases possible by the consideration of the dates of materials from well-dated Near Eastern strata. The chrono­logical conclusions received by this way, that is by correlation with the data of other archaeological materials and geo­chronological analyses, represent the decisive factor for the formation of relative and absolute chronologies of Cau­casian cultures of the Neolithic and Early Metal Age and to determine their chronological place in the Ancient World.

The Great Caucasian Range is a barrier that divides the Caucasus in two main parts: Transcaucasia (or the southern Caucasus) and Ciscaucasia (the northern Caucasus). At the same time, the existence of the passes and gor­ges, crossing the Range, allows some researchers to consider the Caucasus as a single cultural and historical area. One of regions of the Caucasus, central Transcaucasia (i.e., eastern Georgia, ancient Iberia), has a key posi­tion – it is encircled by all other Caucasian regions, – thus it represents a backbone for the development of the com­mon Caucasian chronological system.

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. To form this scale it is necessary to single out five stages of the study of seven Caucasian cultural-geographical regions.

The first stage of the research 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, ancient Colchis); 2. Central Transcaucasia (eas­tern Georgia); 3. Southern Transcaucasia (Armenia); 4. South-western or Turkish Transcaucasia[9]; 5. Eastern Tran­scau­ca­sia (Azerbaijan); 6. The north-western Caucasus; 7. The north-eastern Caucasus[10]. This division is in accor­dance with the local historical and cultural tradition. Between the above areas, transitional and/or contact zones can be distinguished.

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

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

At the fourth stage, on the basis of the northern Caucasian evidence, the common Caucasian chronological scale can be connected with the sites of the North Pontic – southern Russian steppe, in general and, on the basis of the Transcaucasian evidence, with the eastern Anatolian – northern 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. Thus, at that stage, it is permissible to establish absolute dates for the Caucasian timescale of the Early Metal Age.

The final, fifth stage of the research must be represented by the projection of the Caucasian chronological definitions, in the light of North Pontic evidence, on the Balkan Peninsula and further on the south-eastern Euro­pean chronological system. This circumstance makes it possible to evaluate the dates received for these regions on the basis of the south-eastern European – western Anatolian chronological connections and to check the degree of va­lidity of these dates and to receive, at the same time, a tentative common Circumpontic chronological framework. [გვ. 26:]

Additionally, for the foundation of the common chronological system it seems useful to correlate the sea-level fluctuations at the western and eastern shores of the Black Sea with each other and with the corresponding pheno­mena observed in the Aegean and Mediterranean sea-shore areas, naturally, on the background of the ar­chaeological context.

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

More should have been discussed on the problem of chronological correlation of archaeological materials of Transcaucasia and the Near East, which has crucial value in the developing of a common framework of Caucasian chronological system. To determine the absolute age of Caucasian cultures, it is necessary to take into account the dates received for the archaeological material of the Near East considered similar to the Caucasian materials. It goes without saying that in the Near East there is a high probability of getting more precise absolute dates, e.g., by means of correlation of the stratigraphy of multilayered settlements with the data of historical chronologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Below are some indications of chronological characters between the Transcaucasian and the Near Eastern archaeological materials.

The most important earliest culture of the Neolithic-Bronze period is the Early Farming culture, so-called Shulaveri-Shomutepe group. The absolute chronology of Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture is based on radiocarbon dates which range mainly from the early 6th millennium to the early 5th millennium B.C. There were detected some indica­tions about typological and perhaps cultural closeness of this culture with the Near Eastern cultures of the 7th-6th millennia. Only calibrated 14C dates could partially solve the discrepancy between these Near Eastern parallels and the uncalibrated C14 dates of the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture which were earlier largely placed in the 5th millen­nium. I bear in mind the assumption about the special closeness of this culture in all stages of its existence with the Hassuna culture, on the one hand, and with the Umm Dabaghiah-Tell Sotto culture of the Pre-Halafian period, on the other[11].

Allthough all metal artifacts of the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture originate from the building layers of the later stage of Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture[12], it seems impossible to consider at least the later part of this culture as belonging to Neolithic period. There are the obvious signs indicating on the later age: the degradation of flint in­dus­try and impoverishment of the sets of stone tools, together with a lack of certain categories of artifacts, e.g., geometrical microliths as a mass series from its layers known up till now as the lowest[13]. It must be perhaps also ta­ken into account that for the final stage of the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture we can use chronological data from Kü­ltepe I of Nakhichevan (in the Araxes valley) which belongs to the final stage of same Early Farming culture of Transcaucasia, but to its southern branch.

The fact that in lower layers of Kültepe I, a pot typical of the Halaf culture was found, is generally considered as a clear indication of the connection of the Transcaucasian population with the Near East. In the same lower levels of Kültepe I, together with Halafian imports, the sherds of the Dalma painted ware of the Solduz valley of north-western Iran were found[14]. The Dalma culture is contemporary with Ubaid 3, and it seems that the lower le­vels of Kültepe I must be dated to the period, when the end of the Halaf culture was slightly overlapped with the ear­ly northern Ubaid, that means to the early 5th millennium B.C.[15] Recently R. Munchaev and S. Amirov proposed an idea about the shaping of the Halaf culture of Mesopotamia by the cultural influence coming from Transcau­casia[16]. Although according to the more plausible viewpoint of O. Japaridze, the fact that in Transcaucasia, very rich with stone and wood, in the time of Shulaveri-Shomutepe early farming culture, mudbrick architecture dominated, must testify in favour of bringing this tradition from the Near East[17]. However, in Transcaucasia only the occasional findings of Halaf ceramics (except Kültepe I, at Artashen and Verin Khatunarkh on the Ararat plain) are attested, which were more likely to have been the result of occasional and mediated interactions with the Halaf world. In reality, Tilkitepe (in eastern Anatolia, near the Van lake) Level III is, perhaps, the northernmost site providing evidence of the Halaf culture, which certainly differs from the above-mentioned occasional findings[18]. [გვ. 27:]

Drastic changes in the ceramic material and architecture of the central Transcaucasian sites (e.g., in Men­teshtepe, Tovuz region, western Azerbaijan) are observable during the transitional phase from the Middle to the Late Chalcolithic period, sometime during the second half of the 5th millennium B.C., clearly pointing to influences from northern Mesopotamia, even though local features are still visible[19]. Some designs of the painted pottery of Areni-1 cave (in the Vayots Dzor region of southern Armenia) reveal similarity with this material of the Mesopo­tamian type known from Menteshtepe[20], where recent researches prove ties with the Mesopotamian cultures during the Terminal Ubaid and the transitional phase to the Late Chalcolithic, especially in its pottery[21]. At the same time, in Nerkin Godedzor (Vorotan river canyon in Syunik, Armenia) large quantity of painted pottery of the Ubaid cul­ture has been recovered together with the Chaff-Faced ware (see, below). Godedzor probably represents one of the northernmost settlement discovered so far, which indicates a clear northern Ubaid-related ceramic horizon. This site helps to define more precisely the northern borders of the Ubaid-related communities of Iranian Azerbaijan. The origins of the communities that settled at Godedzor should be sought in the region of Lake Urmia[22]; they seem to belong to one of the ‘Ubaid-related’ communities that developed during the 5th millennium at the periphery of the Syro-Mesopotamian world[23]. The pottery of the northern Ubaid type was found at the Armenian site Teghut as well[24].

The interaction of the south and south-eastern Transcaucasian areas with the northern Ubaid world is of a special importance and the impact of the Ubaid culture in the development of local Transcaucasian Chalcolithic societies is hard to overestimate.

From the viewpoint of stratigraphy, especially interesting settlement is Alikemektepesi in the steppe of Mughan (Azerbaijan), in its lower levels material comparable to the Kültepe I was discovered, and in the upper levels – pottery of the northern Ubaid type. This fact has a certain value for defining of the common Transcau­ca­sian chronology, because in Alikemektepesi, in the upper levels, aside from pottery of the northern Ubaid type, sherds with combed surface and burnished interior like the pottery of the Sioni complex of the southern part of central Georgia, which belongs to the post-Shulaveri-Shomutepe time, were found. The Sioni complex was deve­lo­ping at a totally different and autonomous pace and its material is quite unknown in Kültepe I. Therefore, the archaeological material of Sioni group could be dated as synchronous with northern Ubaid period[25]. Because the painted designs on the pottery of sites of the Mughan steppe of Azerbaijan (Alikemektepe etc.) are more roughly made and technologically inferior and look like an imitation of northern Ubaid painted pottery tradition, some experts suppose that there is no need to explain the appearance of this pottery in the south-eastern Transcaucasia by the migration of the population with the Ubaid cultural tradition[26].

It should be noted that whole range of southern Transcaucasian sites, among them quite recently excavated, reveal signs of Ubaid culture. In the second horizon of Areni-1 cave (see, above), the pottery displays the co-existen­ce of sites of the Areni cultural traditions with the sites of Leylatepe – Teghut – Berikldeebi group, on the one hand, and with Tilkitepe I, which is synchronous with a final phases of northern Ubaid and Sioni complex of Georgia, on the other[27]. At the same time, in the layers of Abdalaziztepe (Agdam district of Azerbaijan republic), the layers of Ilanlitepe-Alikemektepe type were overlapped by the material characteristic for sites of Leylatepe (Agdam district of Azerbaijan republic) group[28].

It is noticed that while the Uruk expansion of the following period was a case of actual colonization, the spread of the Ubaid outside of its core area into neighboring regions reflects the gradual, peaceful spread of an ideological system that was selectively appropriated by the communities located there and transformed into a variety of different local cultural schemes, forming what are, in effect, new, hybrid social identities in these [გვ. 28:] outlying areas. Even though the external forms of Ubaid culture characteristics (architecture, ceramic material) were more and less identical in both, the heartland and the highlands, the ways they were used in local practice reveal profound cultural differences within this oikoumene. The distinctive elements of this culture were trans­for­med and used in ways that were fundamentally different from more or less similar sites of Ubaid culture in southern Mesopotamia. These local regional identities persisted in parallel with the 5th millennium Ubaid identities, but seem to have been expressed in different social and cultural context[29]

Apparently the simplification of the culture heritage of the Ubaid era and its local transformation in relatively bac­kward northern Highlands has given rise to cultural innovations, which were revealing a tendency towards chan­ge in the direction of increasing standardization and concern for efficiency, that became the decisive factor in the emergence of cultural identity of the “northern Uruk” type (see, below), referred to by some scholars as the Chaff-Faced ware cultural entity or the oikoumene, one of the main components of creating later the Uruk civilization.

Thirty years ago it was believed that the so-called Leylatepe culture emerged as a result of the migration of new ethno-cultural elements – the tribes of the Ubaid culture from Mesopotamia to Transcaucasia and this view was generally accepted[30]. Nowadays, for some scholars, the fact that the founders of culture Leylatepe were mig­rants from Mesopotamia is without a doubt, but problem now lies with the more precise definition of the time of this migration[31]. New generation of archaeologists unlike their predecessors does not consider the bearers of Ubaid culture as the founders of Leylatepe culture of Transcaucasia anymore, but the bearers of the Uruk tradition. Res­pec­tively, waves of Mesopotamian migrants which were earlier attributed to the representatives of Ubaid cul­ture are mainly determined as belonging to a later, Uruk period, when the Mesopotamian culture spread wide in the wes­tern and north-eastern direction. The term – “Ubaid expansion” was replaced by the concept – “Uruk expan­sion”, to denote, one and the same phenomenon – Mesopotamian ties of Caucasian cultures.

As it has been expected, some archaeologists already began to speak about the penetration of large masses of people – bearers of Mesopotamian, Uruk tradition in the middle of the 4th millennium, who settled down in every region of the Caucasus, in the mountains and plains, fundamentally changing the character of area and directing the economic and social development of the host society along a radically new and progressive path. In Transcaucasia, they have allegedly developed culture of Leylatepe tradition[32], which subsequently have spread from there into the north. In their opinion, the tribes of Leylatepe culture afterwards in the mid-4th millennium B.C. penetrated the northern Caucasus as well in large masses and rather intensively and played an important part in the rise of the northern Caucasian Maikop cultural tradition, covering the entire territory of the Caucasus[33]. Some archaeologists believe that Uruk migrants had learned in the north how to build this type of burial mounds and brought the acquired tradition back to the southern Caucasus[34].

Alhough, already in the mid-70's Russian archaeologists (R. Munchaev, M. Andreeva) noticed among Meso­po­tamian artifacts of the 4th millennium, especially in ceramics, pottery similar to the early period of Maikop and proposed formation of the Maikop culture of the north-western Caucasus in consequence of the infiltration of the Near Eastern/Mesopotamian groups of the population relating to the Amuq F – Gawra cultural complex into the [გვ. 29:] northern Caucasus[35]. But as we could see above, nowadays certain archaeologists tend to connect not only the emer­gence of the Maikop culture to the migration of the Mesopotamian population, but the Transcaucasian Chalcolithic culture as well,

At the same time, in the opinion of C. Marro, the Maikop repertoire as a whole could barely be compared with any of the Upper Mesopotamian assemblages, except for a series of large pithoi, most of the Maikop pottery retrieved from the archaeological excavations in the north-western Caucasus is neither chaff-tempered nor chaff-faced[36]. According to M. Ivanova, the attempts to correlate Maikop and Uruk period cultures proved generally incon­clusive. Genuine Uruk pottery, comparable to finds from Lower Mesopotamia, Syria and Eastern Anatolia (or even its imitations) – mass produced bevelled rim bowls, conical cups with string-cut bases, tall water bottles with bent spout, gray ware, red-slipped pottery, reserved sliped ware – are absent[37].

By the widely held view, south Mesopotamian merchants of the Uruk period, hungry for semi precious stones, timber and metal ores, established a whole range of trading outposts along the routes going to the mountains of Zagros and Taurus and the Caucasus. Basing themselves on G. Algaze’s theory, about the underdevelopment of northern societies and the dominance of southern city-states that obtain desired goods from the periphery through a kind of economic colonial system[38], various archaeological publications appeared about the so-called Late Uruk expansion, most of which were linked with the supposed unbalanced relations between a main center (southern Mesopotamia with its growing cities and administration) and a less developed periphery (Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia): colonisation, search for land, escape from pressure, search for raw materials, etc.[39]. The belonging of the Late Chalcolithic of Transcaucasia to the Uruk world is considered so doubtless that, e.g., K. Pitskhelauri, offering a model of development of the Kura-Araxes culture in its final, “explosive” phase, suggests the simul­taneous participation of Uruk migrants of the southern Caucasus even in this, chronologically such later, process[40].

Furthermore, the authors of similar viewpoints base their concepts on the results of recent archaeological researches in Transcaucasia, where, especially in the Araxes and Kura basins, has been revealed the existence of several Late Chalcolithic sites of the Leylatepe culture, characterized by the typical of the Uruk culture Chaff-Faced ware of Amuq F type (Tekhut, Berikldeebi, Leylatepe, Böyük Kesik, Soyuq Bulaq, Poylu etc.). This type of pot­tery follows the same process of development (or impoverishment) of the repertoires and decorations cha­racteristic of the pottery production of the final phases of the Ubaid period[41] throughout the vast area of the northern Mesopotamia, Syria, and southeast Anatolia.[42] The geographic extension of this ware is usually associated with Uruk culture on a number of sites of eastern Anatolia (at Tepecik, Samsat, Kurban Höyük, Hacinebi etc.) and oc­curs in a context of incipient urbanization and administrative development, hence, this type of pottery played a role in the rise of early complex societies[43]. According to the prevailing opinion, after the formation of the cultural community of the Uruk type, “the Uruk civilization”, i.e., within the context of the Uruk cultural phenomenon, which in addition to Upper Mesopotamia, northern Syria, eastern Anatolia, and western Iran, included southern Tran­scaucasia as well, cultural impulses coming from the more advanced South reached the latter with intensity. Although the date of the above-mentioned Caucasian parallels of the Chaff-Faced ware of Amuq E-F type is determined by experts around the final quarter of the 5th millennium B.C.[44]. Thus, there is an obvious discrepancy of the chronological character.

Still others speak about the Ubaid-Uruk period, which of course means the time of Ubaid/Uruk transition, the cul­tural period in northern Mesopotamia during which S. Lloyd has seen the crucial indicator of new era, [გვ. 30:] unprecedented increase of metal objects[45]. If until recently it was thought that the Urukian levels of Arslantepe VII directly followed the period of Ubaid, nowadays the existence of a new, intermediate cultural period is without any doubt. The research carried out at Arslantepe over the last two decades has shown that the Amuq F horizon probab­ly developed at an earlier date, at least from the beginning of the 4th millennium onwards,  than it was thought before; thus embracing part of the Late Chalcolithic 2 period as well[46]. Excavations at Oylum Höyük (south-eastern Anatolia, to the west of the Euphrates) and Arslantepe VIII revealed the yet unknown horizon[47]. The belief that the Ubaid period was the immediate predecessor of the Uruk horizon, was proved wrong recently by the new data of 14C datings as well[48]. In recent years, a growing body of archaeological data of this type shows that between the Uba­id and the Uruk periods was a time-span, the so-called “post-Ubaid”, covering the Late Chalcolithic 1 and 2 peri­ods of the terminal Ubaid and early “northern Uruk”, during which the significant social shifts and cultural chan­ges took place. In both periods, Chaff-Faced ware constitutes a major component of the ceramic assemblage[49]. However, there does exist certain continuity between these two great periods. The Arslantepe VIII-VII sequence provides evidence for a continuous development of the Chaff-Faced ware tradition out of an earlier, final Ubaid-related tradition of mass-produced chaff-tempered bowls[50]. This wide highland zone, within the boundaries of the Chaff-Faced ware horizon, in the opinion of some researchers, should be called “northern Uruk”[51].

It is interesting that the earliest ceramic assemblages of Oylum Höyük and Arslantepe VIII (together with other eastern Anatolian sites with the Chaff-Faced ware) find technological, morphological and decorative parallels in the material from Ovçular Tepesi (Nakhchivan, Azerbaijan)[52], pointing to the fact that the emergence of this cul­tu­­re takes place simultaneously within a vast area of the northern Highlands. In C. Marro’s opinion, an ancestor to the later Amuq F/Leylatepe repertoire could be the Chaff-Faced ware from Ovçular Tepesi and thus the overall Chaff-Faced ware assemblage should be divided into an early (Ovçular) and late (Amuq F/Leylatepe) components[53].

But similar division of the Chaff-Faced ware assemblage in two – an early and late type, gives us a favorable possibility to suppose a spread of the Chaff-Faced ware during the earliest stages of evolution in the late part of the 5th millennium B.C. from the regions located north of the Oriental Taurus range to the south. The latter at that time was still under the strong influence of the Ubaid world[54].

Nowadays more and more scholars believe that the lowland Mesopotamians did not dominate the people of distant peripheries. If G. Algaze’s theory based on the supposed unbalanced relations between a main center (sout­hern Mesopotamia with city-states) and a less developed periphery (Upper Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia and bey­ond) led to the creation of the popular viewpoint about the Late Uruk economic colonial system and its expansion at one and the same time (see, above), later, when B. Peasnall and M. S. Rothman, studying scrupulously the Tepe Gawra excavation reports in the funds of Pennsylvania Museum and not only that, found reasons to challenge G. Algaze’s theory and proved that economic and political complexity in the North were developing before intensified interaction with the South[55]. It is hard to disagree with the point of view of some scholars that the time has come for the formation of a new and a more balanced view on the problem of the relationship between the South and the North.[56] G. Algaze admits that recent archaeological work in the Upper Khabur basin (at Tell Brak and Khirbat al-Fakhar), leaves no doubt that parallel and quite comparable trajectories toward urban-scale societies existed in both southern and northern Mesopotamia for much of the first half of the fourth millennium B.C.[57]. [გვ. 31:]

The recent discoveries made in Upper Mesopotamia at Brak and Hamoukar, added to those made long ago at Tepe Gawra, showed that, already in the beginning of the 4th millennium, the region was far more developed than expected. The local Middle Chalcolithic saw a pace of development comparable with that of the South, with chief­doms attested in the evidence from a range of excavated sites[58]. Comparisons of local context and Uruk show that peaceful interaction between them, which lasted for 300-400 years, seems to have been in the form of symmetric economic and political relations rather than colonialist dominance[59].

The distance-parity interaction model characteristic of the Uruk colonies proposed by G. Stein[60] better explains the organization and long-term effects of cultural contact between complex societies and less developed neighboring polities than the hegemonic control by the core area as postulated in the alternative G. Algaze’s world system theory[61]. According to G. Stein, the leveling effects of distance give rise to a highly variable social landscape in which the smaller, less complex polities of the “periphery” of the Uruk period could and did play an active role in structuring networks of inter-regional interaction[62]. If with increasing distance it becomes difficult for Mesopo­tami­ans to dominate local communities, e.g., in south-eastern Anatolia etc. and retaining economic autono­my in the Uruk enclaves there[63], it would be even more difficult, of course, to maintain such dominance in the Caucasus of the Chalcolithic Age.

Timely remark was made by P. Kohl, that the well-known Uruk expansion has its predecessor, though it has left far less footprints for its presence in the Caucasus and therefore “no Habuba Kabira has been uncovered in the Caucasus region, and its discovery would be most unlikely”[64]. But who was this predecessor? We ought to take into account the facts of the discovery of Kura-Araxes pottery of the advanced stage in the layers of late Middle Uruk and Late Uruk colonies along the Upper Euphrates (see, below). It is now clear that the later stage of Middle Uruk and the Late Uruk period are contemporary with the Kura-Araxes culture of the advanced stage and that it is impo­s­sible to determine the date of the archaeological material comparable with the culture of Uruk and found at the Cauca­sian so-called Chalcolithic sites of the pre-Kura-Araxes time by the Late Uruk period. These facts are apparent indications of the discrepancy of chronological character. Therefore, it is quite impossible to imagine that the “resettlement” of Uruk colonists in the Caucasus, reliably assigned to pre-Kura-Araxes times, took place in the Late (or even Middle) Uruk period. The conclusion can only be one: the aforementioned parallels of the pre-Kura-Araxes period relate mainly to the Early Uruk or better to say to the pre-Uruk/Ubaid period. It is not very difficult to guess that the evidence of some Transcaucasian sites with import or imitation of Ubaid pottery are quite impos­sible to fit with the era of expansion of the Uruk culture outside its Mesopotamian homeland from the chrono­logical point of view.

Terms such as “post-Ubaid” or “pre-Uruk” make perception of cultural transition from one period to another, smoother and softer, but, in general, there is a gradual replacement of one big era – Ubaid with another one – Uruk. Altho­ugh there is one more point, the term “pre-Uruk” was distinguishing this transition period of time from the period of Late Uruk expansion towards the Upper Euphrates area, which, as so often pointed out above, could not be used to explain Mesopotamian-Caucasian connections, even from pure chronological reasons. This is quite obvi­ous: the Late Uruk expansion is in reality much later phenomenon than Caucasian ties of Mesopotamian archaeo­logical material.

Therefore, it is quite logical that lately, more and more archaeologists are rejecting the idea of the expansion of the Uruk colonists to Transcaucasia. In their opinion, it would be wrong to attribute the emergence of the Chaff-Faced Ware horizon in the Caucasus to the “Uruk expansion”. They are considering this horizon as a vast Keramik-Provinz, which were encompassing Upper Mesopotamia and the Highlands north and north-east to it, and they are sure that there is no substantive evidence that the Caucasus in the second quarter of the 4th millennium B.C. was involved in the network of “Uruk expansion”[65].

C. Marro comes to the conclusion that the discovery of ceramic assemlages related to the “Mesopotamian” Chaff-Faced ware of Amuq F type in the so-called Leylatepe culture of Transcaucasia do not result, contrary to a [გვ. 32:] recently widespread opinion, from the migration of Mesopotamian groups into Transcaucasia and should not be con­sidered as foreign within their Caucasian environment. Rather, this ware is certainly rooted in the local substratum and developed from a local evolution dating back at least to 4500 B.C. and thus the cultural influence and technological innovations came in reality from the opposite direction, from the north, reducing the significance of the hypothesis of migration from south to north[66]. The center of gravity of this type of pottery she puts some­where in the northern Highlands between the Upper Euphrates and the Kura basins, but not in the Fertile Crescent[67]. According to C. Marro, there are increasing pointers showing that at that time, major changes were taking place in the Highlands and that this newly formed entity was creating some kind of a new, polymorphous cultural oikou­mene, developed as a mixture of Ubaid-related features (occasional tripartite buildings) with cultural elements that are at home in the northern Highlands. Such new cultural elements were, e.g., the so-called Canaanean blades and the Chaff-Faced ware, the presence of the latter confirmed at Aknashen-Khatunarkh (in the plain of Ararat, Armenia) already since the end of the 6th millennium B.C. (Horizon III)[68].

In connection with the problem of Mesopotamian-Caucasian interrelation, B. Lyonnet’s observations are also stimulating. B. Lyonnet places the Caucasus within the “pre-Uruk” expansion phenomenon, the nature of which, in her words, is still to be understood and which now needs to be placed earlier (beginning of the Uruk period) and far­ther north (the Caucasus). B. Lyonnet emphasizes the importance of the Caucasus in the formation of the Uruk culture of Mesopotamia. The “center and periphery” explanation is regarded by her as a far too simple solution, the­se influences were reciprocal and more indicating on the relations of “equal” type between both areas, each bor­rowing something from the other[69]. In her opinion, it is difficult to consider Transcaucasia only as a periphery which provided raw materials and that such an opinion does not fit well with its level of development reached during the Neolithic, with the complexity of the burials and their wealth during the Chalcolithic and what is known about metal production there. Even more, several innovations that appear at that time in Mesopotamia seem to have been borrowed from the Caucasus area because of their long tradition there, like the use of firing in a reducing atmosphere, the polishing on ceramics, the combed decoration, the so-called “Cananean” blades or the introduction of sheep-breeding for the production of wool[70].

As we can see, more and more facts contradict the assumption of the existence of Urukian colonists in Transcaucasia. If Uruk colonies, as a rule, are distinguishable from the indigenous settlements around them by a complex of material culture: pottery and other artifacts, architecture and graves, the situation we have in the Cau­casus is quite different. It was already stressed above that increasing amount of sites belonging to the culture of Ley­latepe are detected every year in southern Transcaucasia[71] and therefore to speak only about some outposts of Uruk colonists become quite irrelevant. It should be noted that Transcaucasian Chaff-Faced ware of the Amuq F type, widely distributed at northern Syrian and Upper Mesopotamian sites, is not characteristic at all for the “ge­nu­i­ne” Uruk pottery assemblages. Moreover, the Chaff-Faced ware is considered as typical of the “indigenous” Late Chalcolithic faciés in contrast to “foreign” Uruk pottery assemblages (cf. Marro 2010: 36). In reality, the matter of fact that very few remain clearly identifiable with the Uruk culture, found north of the Upper Euphrates basin[72], makes an assumption about the Uruk colonization of the Caucasus completely unfounded.

The dynamics of social and technological change in the highland zone were as much a stimulus towards the evolution of early social complexity as were developments in the, far better known, lowland societies. The re­la­tionship between Iran and Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium, according to some experts, also was as between two sophisticated and highly changeable political units which had something to offer and to gain from the mutual interaction, rather than one that can be characterized as core-periphery[73]. [გვ. 33:]

Although the culture of Uruk or Uruk civilization was distributed over a wide area from the Levant to central Iran by local traders and colonists, causing the emergence of new colonies with local economies, the problem of its ori­gin is still controversial. We should also take into account that initially H. Frankfort tied it to the migratory movements from the westernmost part of Anatolia, because he had noticed certain peculiarities in the culture of Uruk for which he could not find prototypes in the preceding Ubaid culture. This Anatolian characteristics were the use of clays of purposedly different composition to obtain the red color, muffled firing to obtain the grey ware, the use of a slip, the vertical piercing of the lugs, and the occurrence of stone vases[74]. Later became a popular concept expressed by A. J. Tobler, Braidwoods etc., according to which, the Tepe Gawra XIA cultural complex belonged to the newcomers in Upper Mesopotamia[75].

From a historiographical point of view, perhaps, should be mentioned that in my books published already in the beginning of 80’s, I tried to determine the age of Tekhut, on the basis of the dating of the cultural complex of Amuq F/Tepe Gawra XIA and paying attention to the problem of its origin. This cultural complex had exposed so­me hereditary ties, though perhaps not direct, with the traits typical for Tekhut. Then I considered this cultural com­plex as an intrusive at Tepe Gawra and Amuq valley;[76] though, at that time, nearly all important cultural innovations in the Caucasus were attributed to the impulses coming from the Near East.

It was observed long ago that a study of ceramic change in the Ubaid and Uruk periods of Mesopotamia had illustrated how the “degeneration” could be correlated with the development of complex societies in the region. Bet­ween the Ubaid and Uruk layers is visible obvious and sudden change in pottery:  fabric becomes “decidedly in­fe­rior”, shapes – crude, profiles – irregular; almost all distinctive Late Ubaid forms disappear; painting ceases and no other ornamentation takes its place until painted pottery regains popularity in the latest Uruk/early Jamdat Nasr le­vels. The emergence of “Uruk civilization” is seen as the result of a gradual transition from domestically pro­du­ced on a slow wheel painted pottery to a mass-produced by craftsmen on a fast wheel unpainted pottery, though in stra­ta XIA tournette used less often than in XII[77]. Sufficient to say, that even the wide distribution of the Ubaid-like pot­tery is connecting, by the experts, with the introduction of the tournette or “slow-wheel” used in the manu­facture of pottery[78]. But is the development of complex societies only responsible for such changes and are these cha­nges always the result of natural, local development, without the intervention or stimulus from the outside world?

The data of the Transcaucasian archaeological material and the northern Highlands in general, as we saw above, contradict with the viewpoint of pure technological explanation of the derivation of Uruk pottery and its subsequent distribution from Mesopotamia to the Caucasus. At the time, I believed that the admixture of a new population primarily could be the main reason for this change in culture, revealed by material of the type of Tepe Gaw­ra XIA[79]. Some similarities can be seen between pottery and figurines of Tepe Gawra XIA and Tekhut. At the same time, it should be noted that the sharp contrast is noticeable between the pottery of Tepe Gawra XII and XIA levels[80]. In these levels the transformation or change from Ubaid with a more “sophisticated” ceramic assemblage to externally “primitive” Uruk pottery is relatively well visible. With regard to architecture, if rectangular houses were typical of Tepe Gawra XII, in the next level, Tepe Gawra XIA, appeared round houses[81], which were characteristic of the early farming communities of Transcaucasia. It is also interesting that the population of Tepe Gawra XII and XIA used different types of copper ores; however, copper of the later level differs in the high content of arsenic[82].

The choice of Tepe Gawra for the observation has a certain value, as it is located in Upper Mesopotamia, on the outskirts of civilized South, and immediately south of the eastern part of the mountain range of the Taurus, where the Chaff-Faced ware of the relatively underdeveloped northern Highlands were extended. Hence, there the signs of a mixture of these two worlds are most easy to detect. [გვ. 34:]

If we assume on the basis of the foregoing that in the shaping of the Mesopotamian Uruk culture attended the cultural component of Upper Mesopotamia and northern Highlands in general, then the influx of Caucasian origin in it should not be excluded. The population of Transcaucasia at that time certainly stood at a lower level of cultural and social development, compared to a population of Upper Mesopotamia, but they already had enough human and economic potential to participate in the processes, that took place in the northern Highlands[83].

What was the cause of the spread of the northern type of culture in the more advanced South. I think that, as always in history, backward but more warlike people were trying to overcome the more advanced community of people. This is the fate of every civilization, after their long existence for centuries, eventually to get into the hands of the “barbarians”. Yet, in this case, there is another side of the coin: the newcomers have given the natives a new energy and impetus for the further development; new generation, the mix of newcomers and natives, coming out of the ruins of the destroyed civilization and charged with the renewed entrepreneurial spirit, created a new civilization on the ruins of the old.[84]

It seems that the earliest archaeological materials of Tekhut and other Late Chalcolithic sites of the Leylatepe culture of pre-Kura-Araxes period of southern Transcaucasia is an integral part of the cultural complex of the “northern Uruk” type of Upper Mesopotamia. This fact, makes impossible to date this Transcaucasian materials by the Late (or even Middle) Uruk period (see, above). Sufficient to say, that the later stage of Middle Uruk and the La­te Uruk period are contemporary with the Kura-Araxes culture of the advanced stage. Hence, the archaeological ma­terial comparable with the culture of Uruk and found at the Transcaucasian sites of pre-Kura-Araxes time of the Leylatepe culture have nothing to do with the well-known phenomenon of the “Late Uruk colonisation” to the north in the middle and second half of the 4th millennium B.C. The dating within the late 5th and the early 4th millennia, on the grounds of the aforementioned parallels of this culture, should be entirely fitting. However, one conclusion could be with certainty drawn: the pre-Kura-Araxes period of southern Transcaucasia relate mainly to the material of the cultural complex of the “northern Uruk” type.

The definition of the date of the Leylatepe culture by the rather early period of time, already raises the possibility of high dating of the initial date of the subsequent Kura-Araxes culture.

The determination of the chronological position of the Kura-Araxes culture of the Caucasus bears major importance for the establishment of a common chronological system not only for the Caucasian Early Bronze Age but for the Ancient Near East and neighboring regions. I have in mind, the spread of this culture simultaneously over a large area[85], where cultural remains are dated mainly due to the use of geochronological methods, on the one hand, and in some regions, dated using historical chronology of the Near East, based on literary sources of Meso­po­tamia and Egypt, on the other. The chronological conclusions reached this way, that is by correlation the data of ar­chaeological materials with geochronological analyses, represent the decisive factor for the formation of relative and absolute chronologies of the Caucasus of the Early Metal Age and determination of their chronological place in the Ancient World. This has a paramount importance for the archaeologists working on problems of the Near Eastern archaeology, and relying upon the recent researches in Transcaucasia and eastern Anatolia of the Late Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age. One of the most important aims of the future researches, is to elaborate a common periodisation and chronological construction for establishing the links between the cultural and social develop­ments in different regions of the Near East (i.e., southern and northern Mesopotamia, the Levant, eastern Anatolia, western Iran) and Transcaucasia.

The Transcaucasian population, bearers of the Kura-Araxes cultural traditions, was extensively spread in the Near East. They migrated mainly to the south, west, south-west and south-east, from the Transcaucasian–north-eastern Anatolian homeland of this culture, towards southern Palestine, central Anatolia and north-western and central Iran.[86] However, Transcaucasia (including the Turkish part of it, to the north of Erzurum and east of Bayburt) is generally accepted to represent the core area of the initial formation of the Kura-Araxes culture. [გვ. 35:]

The spread of the bearers of the “Kura-Araxes culture” is a typical case when archaeological data can bring closer both sites of the fault line or something similar to chronological gap between the two regions (see, above). It goes without saying that the dating of the Transcaucasian archaeological material is in most cases possible by the con­sideration of the dates of similar materials from well-dated Near Eastern strata. The dates obtained for the archaeological material of the Kura-Araxes origin detected in the context of the Near Eastern cultural layers, constitute an important argument per se to demonstrate the necessity of considerable shifting back of the tradition­nal­ly accepted dating of Caucasian cultures, and enabled us to suggest the urgent need for shifting back towards older times the chronological scale of the Transcaucasian Kura-Araxes culture, as the latter being earlier than the Near Eastern sites with the “Kura-Araxes” materials; therefore, this could be done even without using the calib­rated 14C dates.

From the end of the 70’s I have been trying to propose higher absolute dates for the Early Metal Age cultures of Georgia and generally of Transcaucasia not only on the basis of calibrated radiocarbon dates but as well, and perhaps mainly, by the data of relative chronology of Kura-Araxes culture spreading throughout the Near East, extre­mely favorable circumstance, as noted above, from the point of view of chronological studies. At that time such conclusion was mainly obtained according to the data of western Iranian archaeological sites (Geoy Tepe, Godin Tepe etc.) [87].

In the western part of central Iran, the Late Uruk colony (or an implanted Uruk-related fort within a purely local community) in Godin Tepe V ceased its existence as the result of the invasion of the “Kura-Araxes” popula­tion east of the site, in the Hamadan valley, cutting commercial routes to the east. It was observed that “significant percentages” of recognizable Kura-Araxes wares first appear in the final Godin V levels[88]. After a short interval of time Godin IV emerged, with the material of the Kura-Araxes culture of the Yanik Tepe I type. We can say that the Late Uruk date for the intrusion of the bearers of the Kura-Araxes culture in the Near East is, quite independently from sites of other parts of the Near East, obtained according to the western Iranian “Kura-Araxes” layers.

This phenomenon has a parallel in eastern Anatolia. At Arslantepe, Kurban Höyük, Samsat, Jebel Aruda, Hassek sherds of the Red-Black ware typical of the Kura-Araxes culture were found[89]. The intrusive character of the Kura-Araxes culture in this area became quite clear after the exposure of the stratigraphical sequence documented at Arslantepe, where level VIB1 containing the material of this culture interrupted the preceding (level VIA) and following development (level VIB2) of local horizons with the Reserved-Slip pottery. Besides the Red-Black ware, the “Kura-Araxean” character can also be proved by the architectural data of the Arslantepe VIB layers, subsequent to the Arslantepe VIA: there a double line of post-holes was found, indicating the building technique typical of the Kura-Araxes culture. It is difficult not to agree that the appearance of the VIB1 period hut village upon the razed ruins of Arslantepe VIA epitomizes the recession of the Late Uruk world almost contemporary with the expansion of the Transcaucasian groups[90]. Along with the Red-Black, hand-made burnished pottery and the “wattle and daub” houses the high-arsenic copper metallurgy, certain types of metal artifacts, typical graves and a strong indicator of this culture – the particular type of hearths came into sight. It seems that Caucasian metallic ores and metallurgical traditions were particularly prevalent in the Near East at that time. It was also emphasized that at the same time copper artifacts with a high arsenical content, cast in open and two-piece moulds, appeared in the Elâziğ region[91]. It is quite probable that the economical importance of Late Uruk enclaves and outposts such as Arslantepe VIA, Hassek Höyük 5, Habuba Kabira-Tell Qanas, Jebel Aruda, Tepecik 3 was the reason of their violent destruction by the intruders from the north – the bearers of the Kura-Araxes culture. It is clear that on both – western and eastern – sides of the northern periphery of the Near East the activity of the bearers of the Kura-Araxes culture could be tra[გვ. 36:]­ced.[92] According to M. S. Rothman, the expansion of Transcaucasian peoples, linked to migration waves and chan­ging economic strategies, was timed as well to coincide with the activation of trade routes, early at Arslantepe, later at Godin in the Zagros[93].

New data have been accumulated during the last decade concerning the absolute and relative chronology of the Near Eastern and Transaucasian cultures and the chronological relationship of archaeological materials of both these regions, too. First of all, we have now a much wider set of the dates received by the 14C technique; secondly, the­re are new indications of the overlapping in time of the Kura-Araxes and Uruk cultures, which have been re­ve­a­led in last years with greater intensity than earlier, and which poses not only the problem of relation between these cul­tures but gives possibility to reconsider the character of cultural and social developments between the highly ci­vi­lized societies of the core area of the Near East and its Northern Frontier and the regions located beyond the latter.

At first glance, all these facts give us a very good chance to date contacts of the Transcaucasian population in the Malatya-Elâziğ area of eastern Anatolia by the Late Uruk period. But the fact is that in the older layers of Arslantepe VII, which belong to the Middle Uruk period, were found sherds of the Red-Black, hand-made but of the high technological level burnished pottery of the “Kura-Araxes” type. They appear gradually at Arslantepe in period VII, which is otherwise composed of typical Amuq F Chaff-Faced buff or red-slipped ware that are generally linked to the northern Syria-Upper Mesopotamian environment. In the opinion of M. Frangipane, this finding clearly points to the fact that even at the end of period VII in Arslantepe local population was in contact with the communities of the Kura-Araxes cultural traditions[94], the circumstance which permits us to propose the existence of the bearers of the latter traditions already at that time, i.e., during the Middle Uruk period[95]. At the same time, we should keep in mind the fact of the chronological significance that the Red-Black type pottery of the Kura-Araxes cultures is a sign not of earlier, but of the developed stage of this culture[96].

If we shall take into account the date of the Middle Uruk period, placed in the first half and middle of 4th millennium B.C., the necessity of pushing back the traditional low date of the Transcaucasian Kura-Araxes culture becomes even more urgent than earlier. As we already know, the fact of the Transcaucasian origin of the Kura-Araxes culture and its later spread to the Middle East, where archaeological strata are more accurately dated than in Transcaucasia, gives us a favorable opportunity to determine the starting date of this culture in Transcaucasia. The dating of the first obvious signs of the Kura-Araxes culture found in situ in the layers of local cultures of the Near East represents the terminus ante quem date for similar and antedating archaeological artifacts of Transcaucasian Kura-Araxes culture. As the date of late Arslantepe VII should be considered as the terminus ante quem date for those layers of Kura-Araxes culture which were characterized with the high quality Red-Black ware and which existed outside of the Malatya-Elâziğ area (supposedly somewhere north-east from it), there is a rather high probability to shift the initial date of the Kura-Araxes culture of Transcaucasia to the late part of Early Uruk period, i.e., in the early part of the 4th millennium. Thus, the reconsideration of the Near Eastern varieties of the Kura-Araxes culture, combined with the new chronological data of Transcaucasian archaeological material, could offer us an opportunity to revise the starting date of the Transcaucasian Kura-Araxes culture and put it earlier than I had it in my previous publications[97].

Most recent discoveries from Areni-1 cave put the bar even higher, demonstrating that the origin of the distinctive Kura-Araxes cultural artifact assemblage lies within the time-limit of the late 5th to early 4th millennia [გვ. 37:] B.C.[98]. In the opinion of the members of excavating team, Areni-1 can be placed in the putative hiatus between the Sio­ni complex and the fully developed Kura-Araxes culture[99]. The so-called “Sioni culture”, or central Transcau­casian Middle Chalcolithic (=“Middle Eneolithic”), as it was already mentioned above, mainly belong to a time rather later than the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture and is more or less contemporary with southern Transcaucasian sites, such us Kültepe, Teghut etc. It should also be borne in mind that Velikent, the site of Kura-Araxes culture on the Caspian Plain of southern Daghestan which does not belong to the initial area of this culture, had been inhabited since rather early times – ca. 3600–3500 B.C.[100].

An extremely high date for the expansion of the Kura-Araxes cultures from Transcaucasia to the south, was obtained on the basis of recent excavations of Ovçular Tepesi of Nakhchivan - the end of the 5th millennium B.C.[101], where a typical Red-and-Black Burnished ware assemblage was found dating back to the end of the 5th millennium B.C. This pottery was scattered over the floor of a house dated to the Late Chalcolithic, in an otherwise Chaff-Faced ware context. According to C. Marro, most of the evidence points to the Transcaucasian origin for the eas­tern Anatolian Early Bronze Age, and that Red-and-Black Burnished wares, besides other cultural traits, such as me­tal artifacts or portable hearths, do have a strong links with Transcaucasia. In Marro’s viewpoint, the Kura-Araxes culture, which marks a sharp break in almost every field in the material sequence with the previous Late Chal­colithic culture, most probably followed an east to west trajectory, from the Caucasus to eastern Anatolia, further into the northern Levant, and also to the southeast, to Iran[102].

On the other hand, in the opinion of P. Kohl, the Red-and-Black Burnished wares may actually have originated at some sites beyond the Kura-Araxes river basin in northeasternmost Anatolia and subsequently spread east into Transcaucasia; there seems to have been fairly rapid intra- and inter-cultural communication among these contiguous regions, having led relatively quickly to the emergence of a Kura-Araxes koine[103]. G. Palumbi also stresses that the absence in the northernmost regions of eastern Anatolia of the the chaff tempered ware horizon, so common in the southernmost areas, is indicating the basic difference between the Chalcolithic ceramic traditions from the northern and southern areas and perhaps points to the existence of different cultural developments and se­pa­rated networks of interaction. G. Palumbi supposes, that the north-eastern Anatolian Chalcolithic pottery tradi­tions – such as the grit tempered Black or Dark Burnished Wares – had their cultural contribution in the formation of the Kura-Araxes cultural phenomenon and that the Red-and-Black Burnished ware of this culture may have first developed in these areas[104]. S. Batiuk and M. S. Rothman also share the opinion that the black-red pottery may have originated in north-eastern Turkey and then it was extended, first in Transcaucasia and later to the south[105].

From the point of view of the historiography of the problem, perhaps, should be mentioned that, already, G. Arsebük tried to connect the mica-wash Dark-Faced Burnished ware found at Tepecik and Tülintepe of Altınova region with the origin of the Karaz (=Kura-Araxes) type of pottery. He took into account the fact that the mica-wash ware was an integral part of both, the Dark-Faced Burnished and Karaz wares[106]. Though, as recently C. Marro concluded, the Dark-Faced Burnished ware from Tülintepe, which is considered as burnished and grit-tempered, is in reality chaff-tempered and chaff-faced and that, in fact, some of the Dark-Faced Burnished ware potsherds from Tülintepe, being fairly light-colored and little burnished, would be perfectly at home within Transcaucasian Chaff-Faced ware context[107].

Some authors have noted that the Kura-Araxes cultural phenomenon in eastern Anatolia and Transcaucasia, exhibited both local aspects as well as the widespread presence of uniformly distributed elements that were broadly shared in geographically distant areas with different cultural backgrounds[108]. The northeasternmost Anatolia, same Erzurum region or Turkish Transcaucasia, is the westernmost part of the Kura-Araxes basin and, of course, it had always had intensive relations with the middle reaches of both these rivers.

If in Ovçular Tepesi the typical Red-and-Black Burnished ware was found side by side with the Chaff-Faced ware context, in Tsopi (the southernmost part of central Georgia) similar ware, considered as Urukian, coexisted [გვ. 38:] with local pottery genetically related to the previous Sioni culture[109]. In Tetritsqaro (the southern part of central Georgia), the lower (A) horizon were characterized only by so-called “Urukian”[110] chaff tempered orange and gray­ish-pink pottery with scratched ornamentation, and on the upper (B) horizon the typical dark burnished Kura-Araxes ware appears, decorated with relief spirals[111]. In the lowest V level of Berikldeebi (central Georgia) together with Chaff ware a minor amount of the “proto-Kura-Araxes” pottery was detected[112]. Apart from that, evidence of some multilayered sites of Ararat valley: Dzhraovit, Mokhra-Blur, Arevik, Elar etc., which provide a basis for chro­nological constructions of the Kura-Araxes culture in Armenia, indicate that among the excavated data, there stands out the ceramic assemblage of the early stage of this culture, which is typologically close to the pottery of the Didube-Kiketi group of central Georgia[113]. Moreover, it is possible to assume that in north-western Iran there were two main streams of Kura-Araxes culture, the earlier type connected with the emergence of Geoy Tepe K culture and relatively late, which obviously relates to the genesis of Early Bronze Age culture of Yanik Tepe, revealing the characteristics of the developed stage of the Kura-Araxes culture[114]. However, the pottery resembling that of Uruk (i.e., Leylatepe type) coexisted with the pottery of Kura-Araxes culture, but of its early stage, at a number of sites of the Caspian sea littoral of north-eastern Azerbaijan and in Derbent area of Daghestan[115]. The­re­fore, it would be premature, to develop far-reaching chronological conclusions on the basis of above-mentioned stra­tigraphic data of some single, isolated settlements.

However, in general, an urgent need to make older the chronological constructions of Transcaucasian cultures of the Neolithic and Early Metal Age has been for at least the last thirty years quite clear[116], and leaves no doubt presently[117]. The data of relative chronology, as it had already stressed above, for a long time indicated the need to revise the traditional chronological position of the Transcaucasian Kura-Araxes culture even independently from the results of geochronological studies. I mean not only the dates obtained for those Near Eastern layers con­taining the remains of Kura-Araxes culture and which were pointing at the Late Middle Uruk/Late Uruk period as to the time of the initial distribution of the Kura-Araxes culture or the penetration of its bearers in the Near East but the stadial proximity between the Georgian Kura-Araxes and Early Kurgan metalworking (and even of some artifacts) and those of the Near East of the Late Uruk-Early Dynastic periods as well[118].

At the same time, I cannot agree with the point of view that, before receiving the large series of radiocarbon dates from the Georgian and the adjacent sites of the Kura-Araxes culture, it is premature to consider the reliability of the calibrated 14C dates for this culture[119]. First of all, the “widely accepted” absolute chronology of the Kura-Ara­xes culture in the third millennium as well as of the preceding, so-called Eneolithic culture in the 5th-4th millen­nia and of the subsequent Trialeti culture in the first part of the 2nd millennium B.C. is based mainly on uncalibrated “traditional” radiocarbon dates[120]. The given by itself rises the necessity to reconsider the “widely accepted” [გვ. 39:] chronological framework. Also the proposal to recalculate the 14C dates by the new period of half-life, which would make dates 200 years older[121], has no sense from the chronological point of view because of the variations in concentration of radiocarbon with time on the earth[122]. The statement that the calibration curves and tables based on the dendrochronological scales of the Californian pine have not received full acknowledgement, and that therefore it is better to refrain from their use[123], after the publication of the calibration curves based on the joint American and European data (the real witnesses of the simultaneous fluctuation of the content of carbon-14 in the northern hemis­phere), must be considered as completely obsolete. The different calibration curves were during last thirty-thirty-five years officially recommended for the correction of the 14C dates. It is sufficient to say, that already in 1981 at the symposium in Groningen (Netherlands), the use of the available calibration curves for the preliminary cor­rection of the 14C dates was officially suggested[124]. Unfortunately, uncertainty caused by the different approaches to the problems of the chronology of the Early Metal Age is in the extreme form reflected in some important pub­lications concerning the Caucasian archaeology. E.g., in two volumes of “Archaeology of Georgia”[125], some authors are operating with calibrated 14C dates, others based themselves on the uncalibrated ones[126].

Much later than in Anatolia or Iran the pottery of the Kura-Araxes culture of the eastern Anatolian-Tran­scaucasian tradition, known as the so-called Red-Black Burnished ware of the Khirbet-Kerak culture, is well represented in Palestine and the Amuq (Phase H-I) region. The lower limit of the Khirbet Kerak culture, prevalent in Palestine, is dated to the end of period II of the Early Bronze Age of Palestine. It should be noted that in the Amuq area the ‘Kura-Araxes’ pottery begins to appear already in the period of the existence of the Amuq G layers[127].

An overview of the relevant chronological data, the above-mentioned fact of the Transcaucasian (including its Turkish part) origin of the Kura-Araxes culture and its spread from the core area of its initial formation to the Near East, where archaeological strata were more accurately dated than in Transcaucasia, are giving us a favorable opportunity to determine the starting date of this culture in Transcaucasia sometime in the early part of the 4th millennium B.C.; most likely the initial time of this culture was more or less contemporary of the late part of the Early Uruk period.

The particularly wide diffusion of the Kura-Araxes culture in the Near East, dated mainly to the first half and the middle of the 3rd millennium B.C., appears to be contemporary with the following period of cultural deve­lopment of the Caucasus – the era of local early kurgan tradition (kurgans of Martqophi and Bedeni groups). Such an early date for the Early Bronze Age kurgans of central Transcaucasia is substantiated by the typological parallels between the metalwork finds in this phase[128].

But recently excavated kurgans at Soyuq Bulaq in western Azerbaijan and at Kavtiskhevi in central Georgia are dating to the pre-Kura-Araxes period and it is a real puzzle. Archaeologists came to the conclusion that the practice of kurgan burial had been already well established in Transcaucasia during the Late Chalcolithic, the pottery from burials shows the affiliation with Late Chalcolithic 2-3 pottery from northern Mesopotamia[129]. These kurgans belong to the Leylatepe culture which is considered to be connected with the Uruk tradition (see, above). It seems that this type of burial construction in Transcaucasia started nearly 1000-1500 years earlier than it was traditionally.[130]

However, this very complex and controversial issue – the origin and spread of the tradition of burial mounds or kurgans – requires a full and comprehensive study of archaeological data of the vast areas of the Eurasian step[გვ. 40:]­pes. The kurgans as burial markers are so inherentand and even dictated by the local topography that it is rather difficult to imagine how they could have originated in any other type of environment. This issue needs a much broader scope of research integrity than we have at our disposal today. Undoubtedly the future research will take a substantial step beyond previous studies together with the accumulation of new archaeological data not only in the Near East and the Caucasus but in the common Circumpontic area as well.

New chronological definitions received for the regions located north of the fault line in the Caucasus and the Balkans, as we have already had the opportunity to notice (see, above), gave us a chance to reconsider the character of relations of these regions with the Near East, its societies and cultures.

 

 

 

 

 

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42.     Burleigh, R., Symposium at Groningen, Netherlands, Antiquity, 56, 1982, 138-139.

43.     Chataigner, Ch., Avetisyan, P., Palumbi, G. et al., Godedzor, a Late-Ubaid-related settlement in the southern Cau­casus. In R. A. Carter, G. Philip (Eds), Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehis­toric societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, 63. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago). Chicaho, Illinois: The University of Chicago, 2010, 377-394.

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56.     Kavtaradze, G. L., Die frühesten Metallobjekte Zentral-Transkaukasien. In I. Gambashidze, A. Hauptmann, R. Slot­ta et al. (Eds), Georgien - Schätze aus dem Land des goldenen Vlies. Bochum: Deutsche Bergbau-Museum, 2001, 136-141.

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65.     Lyonnet, B., Introduction. In B. Lyonnet (Ed.), Les cultures du Caucase (VIe-IIIe millénaires avant notre ère): Leurs relations avec le Proche-Orient. Paris: CNRS Editions, 2007, 11-20.

66.     Lyonnet, B., Late Chalcolithic cultures in Western Azerbaijan: Recent excavations and surveys. In P. Mat­thiae, F. Pinnock, L. Nigro, et al. (Eds), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the archaeology of the ancient Near East, 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010, 357-368.

67.     Lyonnet, B., Akhundov, T., Almamedov, K. et al., Late Chalcolithic kurgans in Transcaucasia. The cemetery of Soyuq Bulaq (Azerbaijan), Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 40, 2008, 27-44.

68.     Lyonnet, B., Guliev, F. Recent Research on the Chalcolithic Period in Western Azerbaijan. In R. Matthews, J. Curtis (Eds), Proceedings of the 7th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 3.Wiesbaden, 2012, 85-98.

69.     Lyonnet, B., Guliyev, F., Helwing, B., et al., Ancient Kura 2010-2011: The first two seasons of joint field work in the Southern Caucasus, Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 44, 2012, 1-190.

70.     Marro, C., Where Did Late Chalcolithic Chaff-Faced Ware Originate? Cultural Dynamics in Anatolia and Transcaucasia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (ca 4500-3500 BC), Paléorient 36 (2), 2010, 35-55.

71.     Marro, C., Eastern Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE), Oxford, 2011, 290-309.

72.     Marro, C., Is There a Post-Ubaid Culture? Reflections on the Transition from the Ubaid to the Uruk Periods along the Fertile Crescent and Beyond. In C. Marro (Ed.), After the Ubaid, Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500-3500 BC): The Post-Ubaid Horizon in the Fertile Crescent and Beyond (Varia Anatolica 27), 2012, 13-31.

73.     Matthews, R., Fazel, H., Copper and complexity: Iran and Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. Iran, 42, 2004, 61-75.

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75.     Muhly, J. D., Review: E. S. Elster, C. Renfrew, Prehistoric Sitagroi: Excavations in Northeast Greece, 1968-1970, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 06.21.2004.

76.     Museyibli, N., Soyugbulaq report on excavations of Soyugbulaq kurgans at Kilometre Point 432 of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus pipelines right of way. Baku: Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, 2008.

77.     Nissen, H. J., The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 BC, Chicago, 1988.

78.     Oates, J., Tell Brak: The Fourth Millennium Sequence and Its Implications. In J. N. Postgate (Ed.), Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East, Warminster, 2002, 111-148.

79.     Özgen, E., Helwing, B., Engin, A., et al., Oylum Hoyuk 1997-1998: Die Spatchalkolitische Siedlung auf der Westterrasse, Anatolia Antiqua 7, 1999, 19-67.

80.     Palumbi, G., The Red and black: Social and cultural interaction between the upper Euphrates and the southern Caucasus: Communities in the fourth and third millennium BC. Sapienza Universita di Roma, Dipar­timento di Scienze Storiche Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell’Antichita. Studi di Preistoria Orientale (SPO), 2. Roma: Sapienza Università, 2008.

81.     Palumbi, G., The Chalcolithic of Eastern Anatolia. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE), Oxford, 2011, 205-226.

82.     Parzinger, H., Studien zur Chronologie und Kulturgeschichte der Jungstein-, Kupfer- und Frühbronzezeit zwischen Karpaten und mittlerem Taurus. Mainz am Rhein, 1993.

83.     Peasnall, B., Rothman, M. S. One of Iraq's earliest towns: Excavating Tepe Gawra in the museum archives, Expedition, 45 (3), 2003, 34-39.

84.     Perkins, A. L., The comparative archaeology of Early Mesopotamia. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 25. Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1949.

85.     Pitskhelauri, K., Uruk migrants in the Caucasus. Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, 6 (2), 2012, 153-161. [გვ. 44:]

86.     Pitskhelauri, K., Towards the Ethnocultural Genesis of the Population of the 4th-1st Millennia in the Central Part of the South Caucasus), The Kartvelologist: Journal of Georgian Studies 3, Tbilisi, 2012, 32-54 (in English and Georgian).

87.     Porada, E., The relative chronology of Mesopotamia, Part 1. Seals and trade (6000-1600 B.C.). In R. W. Ehrich (Ed.), Chronologies in Old World Archaeology. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1965, 133-200.

88.     Potts, D. T., A companion to the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Chichester (West Sussex), Malden (MA): Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

89.     Renfrew, C., The tree-ring calibration of radiocarbon: An archaeological evaluation. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 36, 1970, 280-311.

90.     Renfrew, C., Before civilization: The radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe. London: Jonathan Cape, 1973.

91.     Rothman, M. S., Ripples in the Stream: Transcaucasia-Anatolian Interaction in the Murat/Euphrates Basin at the Beginning of the Third Millennium B.C., in A. Smith, K. Rubinson (Eds), Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond. Los Angeles, 2003, 94-109.

92.     Rothman, M. S., Interaction of Uruk and Northern Late Chalcolithic Societies in Anatolia. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE). Oxford, 2011, 813-835.

93.     Schachner, A., Azerbaycan: Eine terra incognita der Vorderasiatische Archaologie, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 133, 2001, 251–332.

94.     Stein, G. J., Economy, ritual, and power in Ubaid Mesopotamia. In G. Stein, M. Rothman (Eds), Chiefdoms and early states in the Near East: The organizational dynamics of complexity (Monographs in World Pre­history 18). Madison (WI): Prehistory Press, 1994, 35-46.

95.     Stein, G. J., World systems theory and alternative modes of interaction in the archaeology of culture contact. In J. Cusick (Ed.), Studies in culture contact: Interaction, culture change, and archaeology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Archaeological Investigations, 1998, 220-255.

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103. Wilkinson, K. N., Gasparian, B., Pinhasi, R., et al., Areni-1 cave, Armenia: A Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus. Journal of Field Archaeology, 37 (1), 2012, 20-33.

104. Yakar, J., The later prehistory of Anatolia: The Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. British Archaeo­lo­gi­cal Reports, Inter. Series, 268. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1985. [გვ. 45:]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

giorgi qavTaraZe

ivane javaxiSvilis saxelobis Tbilisis saxelmwifo universitetis

ivane javaxiSvilis istoriisa da eTnologiis instituti

 

 

kavkasiis qronologiuri monacemebis  mniSvneloba

axlo aRmosavleTisa da aRmosavleT evropis erTiani

qronologiuri sistemis dafuZnebisaTvis

 

neoliT-adreliTonebis xanis arqeologiuri masalisaTvis kalibrebuli radio­nax­Sir­baduli (14C) TariRebis gamoyenebam gamoiwvia miaxloebuli istoriuli TariRebis mqo­ne mxareebis daSoriSoreba upiratesad amave teqnikis saSualebiT daTariRebuli re­gio­nebisagan. amis Sedegad axlo aRmosavleTi daSorda Tavisave CrdiloeT periferias da maT Soris warmoiqmna qronologiuri „rRvevis zoli”, romlis gadalaxvac uka­nas­kne­li aTwleulebis manZilze arqeologiuri kvleva-Ziebis umniSvnelovanes amocanas war­moadgenda.

garda balkaneTis naxevarkunZulisa, erT-erTi aseTi regioni, sadac „rRvevis zo­li” warmoiqmna, iyo kavkasia da uSualod mis samxreTiT mdebare teritoriebi. „rRvevis zo­lis” orTave „napirze” mdebare regionebis arqeologiuri kulturebis qronolo­giu­ri adgilis gansazRvras gadamwyveti mniSvneloba eniWeba axlo aRmosavleTisa da aRmo­sav­leT evropis erTiani qronologiuri sistemis CamoyalibebaSi; sistemisa, romelic, Ta­vis mxriv, Zveli samyaros erTiani qronologiuri sistemis ZiriTadi qvakuTxedia.

„rRvevis zolis” CrdiloeTiT mdebare mxareebisaTvis miRebulma axalma qro­nolo­gi­urma gansazRvrebebma SesaZlebloba mogvca gadagvexeda axlo aRmosavleTTan, mis sa­zo­gadoebebTan da kulturebTan zemoaRniSnuli mxareebis urTierTobisaTvis da ax­le­bu­rad gagveazrebina maTi urTierTmimarTebis Taviseburebani.

 

 

 

 

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[1] This term has been borrowed from a geological fault line, when a part of the terrain falls from another and geological layers are moved to form a gap between them.

[2] Renfrew, C., The tree-ring calibration of radiocarbon: An archaeological evaluation, Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 36, 1970, 280-311, cf. Renfrew, C., Before civilization: The radiocarbon revolution and prehistoric Europe. London: Jonat­han Cape, 1973, 104f., figs 20, 21.

[3] Muhly, J. D., Review: E. S. Elster, C. Renfrew, Prehistoric Sitagroi: Excavations in northeast Greece, 1968-1970, Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 06.21.2004.

[4] Лещаков, К., Може ли да се разчупи „Линията на хронологическата грешка”, Минало (Бг-Клио), 2 (10), 1997.

[5] Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии эпохи энеолита и бронзы Грузии. Тбилиси: Мецниереба, 1983, passim; Kavtaradze, G. L., The impor­tance of metallurgical data for the formation of Central Transcaucasian chronology. In  A. Hauptmann, E. Pernicka, Th. Rehren et al. (Eds), The beginnings of metallurgy: Proceedings of the international conference “The Beginnings of Metallurgy“, Bochum 1995 (Der Ansch­nitt, Zeitschrift für Kunst und Kultur im Bergbau, 9. Veröffentlichungen aus dem Deutschen Bergbau-Museum, 84). Bochum: Deutsche Bergbau-Museum, 1999. 67-101; qavTaraZe, g., palestinis, anatoliisa da amierkavkasiis adreuli brin­ja­os xanis kulturaTa qronologiuri urTierTmimarTebis sakiTxisaTvis, d. baazovis saxelobis saqar­Tve­los ebraelTa istoriul-eTnografiuli muzeumis Sromebi, 4, 2006, 107-126.

[6] Лещаков, К., op. cit., 4-17.

[7] Parzinger, H., Studien zur Chronologie und Kulturgeschichte der Jungstein-, Kupfer- und Frühbronzezeit zwischen Karpaten und mittlerem Taurus. Mainz am Rhein, 1993.

[8] Лещаков, К., op. cit.

[9] The area approximately between Artvin, Kars, Erzurum and Bayburt.

[10] The last two regions are separated by the middle flow of Terek.

[11] Cf. Kavtaradze, G. L., op. cit., 70.

[12] Kavtaradze, G. L., Die frühesten Metallobjekte Zentral-Transkaukasien. In I. Gambashidze, A. Hauptmann, R. Slotta et al. (Eds), Geor­gien - Schätze aus dem Land des goldenen Vlies. Bochum: Deutsche Bergbau-Museum, 2001a, 136-141.

[13] Чубинишвили, Т. Н., Челидзе, Л. М., К вопросу о некоторых определяющих признаках раннеземледельческой культуры VI-IV ты­сячелетий до н. э., Мацне, серия истории, археологии, этнографии и истории искусства, 1, 1978, 66; Челидзе, Л. М., Орудия труда энеолитического поселения Арухло I. Материалы по археологии Грузии и Кавказа, 7, 1979, 30.

[14] Мунчаев, Р. М., Кавказ на заре бронзового века: неолит, энеолит, ранняя бронза. Москва: Наука, 1975, 128f..

[15] Just as the painted pottery, typical of the lower levels of Dalma Tepe, provides a chronological link to Mil-Karabagh sites and Kültepe I, similarly, do the Impressed Wares, characteristic of Late Dalma, found in Ilanlytepe and the sites of Misharchai and Guru Dere I in the steppe of Mughan, Azerbaijan (Мунчаев, Р. М., op. cit., 128-130; cf. Schachner, A., Azerbaycan: Eine terra incognita der Vorderasia­ti­sche Archaologie, Mitteilungen der Deutschen Orient-Gesellschaft zu Berlin 133, 2001, 274-277). The layers of Dalma Tepe and con­temporary Transcaucasian sites containing Early and Late Dalma ware can be dated to the first half and middle of the 5th millennium B.C.

[16] Мунчаев, Р. М., Амиров, Ш. Н., Взаимосвязи Кавказа и Месопотамии в VI-IV тыс. до н.э. В кн.: М. Н. Рагимова (Ред.), Кавказ: Археология и Этнология. Международная научная конференция. Материалы конференции (11-12 сентября, 2008, Азербайджан, Шамкир. НАН Азербайджана, Институт археологии и этнографии). Баку: Чашыоглу, 2009, 45.

[17] jafariZe, o., kavkasiis wina aziis samyarosTan urTierTobis sakiTxisaTvis, Ziebani, 20, 2012, 179.

[18] Palumbi, G., The Chalcolithic of Eastern Anatolia. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE), Oxford, 2011, 209.

[19] Lyonnet, B., Guliyev, F., Helwing, B., et al., Ancient Kura 2010-2011: The first two seasons of joint field work in the Southern Caucasus, Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 44, 2012, 177f.

[20] Зардарян, Д., Гаспарян, Б., Культурные взаимосвязи позднеэнеолитических обитателей пещеры Арени-1 (на основе керамических материалов). В кн.: М. С. Гаджиев (Ред.), Новейшие открытия в археологии Северного Кавказа: исследования и интерпретации (XXVII Крупновские чтения. Материалы международной научной конференции, Махачкала, 23-28 апреля 2012 г.) Махачкала: Мавраевъ, 2012, 48; Зардарян Д., Расписная посуда конца V – начала IV тыс. до н.э. из пещеры Арени-1. В кн.: В. Е. Родникова, А. Н. Федорина (Ред.), Новые материалы и методы археологического исследования. Москва, 2013, 49f.

[21] Lyonnet, B., Guliyev, F., Helwing, B., et al., op. cit.

[22] Some experts based on data of Godedzor, located at 1,800 m in altitude, suggest the existence of small single-period sites in the highlands interacting with sedentary settlements in the low plains (Marro, C., Where did Late Chalcolithic Chaff-Faced ware originate? Cultural dynamics in Anatolia and Transcaucasia at the dawn of urban civilization (ca 4500-3500 BC), Paléorient 36 (2), 2010, 51f.).

[23] E.g., Chataigner, Ch., Avetisyan, P., Palumbi, G. et al., Godedzor, a Late-Ubaid-related settlement in the southern Caucasus. In R. A. Carter, G. Philip (Eds), Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, 63. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago). Chicaho, Illinois: The University of Chicago, 2010, 379, 391.

[24] Мунчаев, Р. М., op. cit., 120.

[25] Cf. Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 58.

[26] Алмамедов, Х. И., Крашеная и расписная керамика Азербайджана эпохи энеолита. Автореферат диссертации на соискание ученой степени кандидата исторических наук. Баку, 2008, 19f.

[27] Palumbi, G., op. cit., 212.

[28] Алиев, Н., Нариманов, И., Культура Северного Азербайджана в эпоху позднего энеолита. Баку: Агридаг, 2001.

[29] Stein, G. J., Özbal, R., A tale of two oikumenai: Variation in the expansionary dynamics of ‘Ubaid and Uruk Mesopotamia. In E. C. Stone (Ed.), Settlement and society: Essays dedicated to Robert McCormick Adams. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA & Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2007, 342; Stein, G. J., Local identities and interaction spheres: Modeling regional va­ria­tion in the ‘Ubaid horizon. In R. A. Carter, G. Philip (Eds), Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, 63). Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2010, 23-44.

[30] Нариманов, И. Г., Об энеолите Азербайджана. В кн.: К. Пицхелаури (Ред.), Кавказ в системе палеометаллических культур Евра­зии. Тбилиси: Мецниереба, 1991, 32.

[31] Алмамедов, Х. И., Крашеная…, 21f.

[32] Мунчаев, Р. М., Месопотамия, Кавказ и циркумпонтийская металлургическая область, Российская археология, 2005, 4, 13-24; Мунчаев Р. М., Урукская культура (Месопотамия) и Кавказ, Археология, Этнология, Фольклористика Кавказа. Махачкала, 2007, 8; Мунчаев Р. М., Амиров, Ш. Н., Взаимосвязи Кавказа и Месопотамии в VI-IV тыс. до н.э. В кн.: М. Н. Рагимова (Ред.), Кавказ: Археология и Этнология. Международная научная конференция. Материалы конференции (11-12 сентября, 2008, Азербайджан, Шамкир. НАН Азербайджана, Институт археологии и этнографии). Баку: Чашыоглу, 2009, 41; Japaridze, O., op. cit., 184-186; Pitskhelauri, K., Uruk migrants in the Caucasus. Bulletin of the Georgian National Academy of Sciences, 6 (2), 2012, 154-156; Pitskhelauri, K., Towards the Ethnocultural Genesis of the Population of the 4th-1st Millennia in the Central Part of the South Caucasus), The Kartvelologist: Journal of Georgian Studies 3, Tbilisi, 2012, 32-54; ficxelauri, k., kavkasiis da wina aziis kultu­re­bis urTierTobis problema Zv. w. IV aTaswleulSi, analebi, 8, 2012, 443-462.

[33] E.g., Museyibli, N., Soyugbulaq report on excavations of Soyugbulaq kurgans at Kilometre Point 432 of Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and South Caucasus pipelines right of way. Baku: Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, 2008, 22; cf. Мунчаев, Р. М., Амиров, Ш. Н., Еще раз о месопотамско-кавказских связях в IV–III тыс. до н.э., Российская археология, 4, 2012, 37-46.

[34] E.g., Ахундов, Т., Динамика расселения на Южном Кавказе в эпоху неолит–ранняя бронза (центральный и восточный регионы). В кн.: Г. Гамбашидзе (Ред.), Международная научная конференция «Археология, Этнология, Фольклористика Кавказа». Сборник кратких содержаний докладов. Тбилиси, 25-27 июня 2009 г. Тбилиси: Меридиани, 2010, 61-65.

[35] Cf. Мунчаев, Р. М., op. cit., 328-334, 375-377; Андреева, М. В., К вопросу о южных связях майкопской культуры, Советская архео­логия, 1, 1977, 56.

[36] Marro, C., op. cit., 40.

[37] Ivanova, M., The chronology of the “Maikop culture” in the North Caucasus: Changing perspectives, Aramazd, Armenian Journal of Near Eastern Studies 2, Yerevan, 2007, 17. Although there are certain similarities of the Chaff-Faced ware with the pottery of later, Novosvo­bodnaya stage of the Maikop culture.

[38] Algaze, G., The Uruk world system. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993passim.

[39] Cf. Lyonnet, B., Late Chalcolithic cultures in Western Azerbaijan: Recent excavations and surveys. In P. Matthiae, F. Pinnock, L. Nigro, et al. (Eds), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of the archaeology of the ancient Near East, 2. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2010, 358.

[40] Pitskhelauri, K., Uruk migrants…, 153, 157f.; ficxelauri, k., kavkasiis..., 443, 451, 454f.

[41] By the opinion of G. Palumbi, this process appears to be related to the transformation of the role, function, and meaning of the ceramics, reflected in the extreme simplification of the decorative motifs and the increasing standardization of the formal repertoires, tending toward greater specialization (Palumbi, G., op. cit., 212).

[42] It stretches from the Mediterranean coast in the west to Transcaucasia in the north and into the northern Zagros Mountain range in the east and including to the south, the northern Mesopotamian urban centers in the Jazirah (the river plain of Upper Mesopotamia) and the eastern Tigris (Helwing, B., Late Chalcolithic craft traditions at the north-eastern ‘periphery’ of Mesopotamia: Potters vs. smiths in the southern Caucausus, Origini 34, 2012, 204).

[43] Cf. Marro, C., op. cit., 36.

[44] Cf. Palumbi, G., op. cit., 211. Though the Late Chalcolithic Chaff-Faced ware in both Transcaucasia and Upper Mesopotamia developed from a local cultural genesis, the most part of the parallels between the Trancaucasian and Syro-Mesopotamian ceramic assemblages was related to the Amuq F repertoire (cf. Marro, C., op. cit., 39, 42).

[45] Lloyd, S., The archaeology of Mesopotamia. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, 75.

[46] Frangipane, M., “Non-Uruk” Developments and Uruk-Linked Features on the Northern Borders of Greater Mesopotamia. In J. N. Postgate (Ed.), Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East, Warminster, 2002, 123; Marro, C., op. cit., 36.

[47] Özgen, E., Helwing, B., Engin, A., et al., Oylum Hoyuk 1997-1998: Die Spatchalkolitische Siedlung auf der Westterrasse, Anatolia Antiqua 7, 1999, 19-67; Balossi-Restelli, F., The Beginning of the Late Chalcolithic occupation at Arslantepe, Malatya. In C. Marro (Ed.), After the Ubaid, interpreting change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the dawn of Urban Civilization (4500-3500 BC): The Post-Ubaid horizon in the Fertile Crescent and beyond (Varia Anatolica 27), 2012, 235-60.

[48] Marro, C., Is there a Post-Ubaid Culture? Reflections on the transition from the Ubaid to the Uruk periods along the Fertile Crescent and beyond. In C. Marro (Ed.), After the Ubaid, Interpreting Change from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia at the Dawn of Urban Civilization (4500-3500 BC): The Post-Ubaid Horizon in the Fertile Crescent and Beyond (Varia Anatolica 27), 2012, 31.

[49] Marro, C., Where did…,  48.

[50] Trufelli, F., Ceramic Correlations and Cultural Relations in IVth Millennium Eastern Anatolia and Syro-Mesopotamia, Studi Micenei Ed Egeo-Anatolici 39 (1), 1997, 5-33.; cf. Helwing, B., op. cit., 204.

[51] Oates, J., Tell Brak: The Fourth Millennium Sequence and Its Implications. In J. N. Postgate (Ed.), Artefacts of Complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East, Warminster, 2002, 111-148.

; Helwing, B., op. cit., 204.

[52] Marro, C., Where did…,  52.

[53] Marro, C., Where did…,  46.

[54] Cf. Marro, C., Where did…,  51.

[55] Peasnall, B., Rothman, M. S., One of Iraq's earliest towns: Excavating Tepe Gawra in the museum archives, Expedition, 45 (3), 2003, 38.

[56] Even the most Mesopotamian among all the other artifacts, the cylinder seal, may have appeared in the north of Mesopotamia before the south (Matthews, R., Fazel, H., Copper and complexity: Iran and Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. Iran, 42, 2004, 61).

[57] Algaze, G., The End of prehistory and the Uruk period, H. Crawford (Ed.), The Sumerian world. London, New York, 2012, 69.

[58] Stein, G. J., Economy, ritual, and power in Ubaid Mesopotamia. In G. Stein, M. Rothman (Eds), Chiefdoms and early states in the Near East: The organizational dynamics of complexity (Monographs in World Prehistory 18). Madison (WI): Prehistory Press, 1994, 35-46; Lyon­net, B., Late Chalcolithic..., 358f.

[59] Stein, G. J., From passive periphery to active agents: Emerging perspectives in the archaeology of inter-regional interaction (Archeology division distinguished lecture AAA annual meeting, Philadelphia, December 5, 1998), American Anthropologist, 104 (3), 2002, 903-916.

[60] Stein, G. J., World systems theory and alternative modes of interaction in the archaeology of culture contact. In J. Cusick (Ed.), Studies in culture contact: Interaction, culture change, and archaeology. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, Center for Arch­a­eo­lo­gical Investigations, 1998, 220-255.

[61] In the opinion of G. Algaze, a synthesis of Uruk-related work in core and peripheral areas is not still easily accomplished

(Algaze, G., Ancient Mesopotamia at the dawn of civilization: The evolution of an urban landscape. Chicago, London, 2008, 163).

[62] Stein, G. J., World systems..., 220, 246f.

[63] See Stein, G. J., World systems...

[64] Kohl, P. L., op. cit., 168.

[65] E.g., Ivanova, M., Kaukasus und Orient: Die Entstehung des „Maikop-Phanomens“ im 4. Jahrtausend v. Chr., Praehistorische Zeitschrift 87(1), 2012, 22f.

[66] Marro, C., Where did…,  35, 46; Marro, C., Is there…, 30.

[67] Marro, C., Where did…, 52. C. Marro offers two possible scenarios of explanation in relation to the problem under discussion: either the Chaff-Faced ware originated somewhere in the highlands and afterwards spread into Upper Mesopotamia; or the Chaff-Faced ware cul­tu­ral province developed simultaneously over both the highlands and the lowlands, considered by her as a single, large territory (Marro, C., Where did…,  47). C. Marro gives preference to the second scenario, implemented in her theory of the Standardized ware oikoumene or of the cultural horizon characterized with the “Mesopotamian” Chaff-Faced ware of Amuq F type and developed from a local evolution during the second part of the 5th millennium B.C. and spreading on the vast area, included Upper Mesopotamia, eastern Anatolia, Tran­scaucasia and probably the northern Urmiah area as well.

[68] Marro, C., Where did…,  35f., 51f.; Marro, C., Is there…, 28ff.

[69] Lyonnet, B., Introduction. In B. Lyonnet (Ed.), Les cultures du Caucase (VIe-IIIe millénaires avant notre ère): Leurs relations avec le Pro­che-Orient (pp. 11-20). Paris: CNRS Editions, 2007; Lyonnet, B., Late Chalcolithic..., 358f..

[70] Lyonnet, B., Introduction; Lyonnet, B., Late Chalcolithic..., 362f.

[71] See Алмамедов, Х. И., Археологические исследования Гарабагской неолит-энеолитической экспедиции в 2010 году. В кн.: AFpoliQRAF mətbəəsində çap olunmuşdur. Bakı, 2012.

[72] Marro, C., Where did…,  52.

[73] It seems that the communities of the Iranian plateau were in control of a large-scale copper production industry long before 3500 B.C. and the probable products of that industry were integrated within the social structure of sophisticated neighboring lowland communities, such as Susa in the Late Ubaid period (Matthews, R., Fazel, H., op. cit., 61-63, 73).

[74] Frankfort, H., Archeology and the Sumerian Problem (Studies in Ancient  Oriental Civilization, 4). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1932; cf. Hutchinson, R. W., Uruk and Yortan, Iraq, II (2), 1935, 211-222.

[75] Tobler, A. J., op. cit., 24-26; Вraidwood, R. J., Braidwood, L. S., Excavations in the plain of Antioch: The earlier assemblages. A-J (Oriental Institute Publication, 61). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960, 513.

[76] qavTaraZe, g., saqarTvelos eneoliT-brinjaos xanis arqeologiuri kulturebis qronologia axali mona­ce­mebis Suqze. Tbilisi: mecniereba, 1981, 46f., pl. III, IV; Kavtaradze 1983: 56f.

[77] Falconer, S. E., Rethinking ceramic degeneration: An ancient Mesopotamian case study, Atlatl/Arizona Anthropologist, 2, 1981, 54, 59f.

[78] Nissen, H. J., The Early History of the Ancient Near East 9000–2000 BC, Chicago, 1988, 46.

[79] Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 56. If nowadays the existence of a new cultural period between the Ubaid and Uruk periods is without any doubt (see, above), the relations with Gawra XI-IX though, were and are still problematic (Balossi- Restelli, F., Post-Ubaid occupation on the Upper Euphrates: Late Chalcolithic 1-2 at Arslantepe (Malatya, Turkey). In H. Kuhne, R. M. Czichon, F. J. Kreppner (Eds), Proceedings of the 4th International Congress of the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East 2: Social and cultural transformation: The archaeology of transitional periods and dark ages (Freie Universitat Berlin, 29 March - 3 Apri1 2004, Excavation Reports). Wiesbaden, 2008, 21).

[80] Perkins, A. L., The comparative archaeology of Early Mesopotamia (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, 25). Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1949, 165-167; Porada, E., The relative chronology of Mesopotamia, Part 1. Seals and trade (6000-1600 B.C.). In R. W. Ehrich (Ed.), Chronologies in Old World Archaeology. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 146.

[81] Cf. Tobler, A. J., Excavations at Tepe Gawra. Philadelphia: University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1950, pl. VI, VIII.

[82] Tobler, A. J., op. cit., 212; Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 56, n.144, n. 146; Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance of..., 73.

[83] B. Lyonnet emphasizes the importance of the Caucasus in the formation of the Uruk culture of Mesopotamia (cf. Lyonnet, B., Late Chal­colithic..., 363).

[84] The main case of the conflict was not so much the rivalry between nomads and sedentary farmers, as between the “haves” and “have nots”, the conflict thus being economically motivated: one group trying to improve its living conditions at the expense of the other one (cf. Kavtaradze, G. L., Georgian Chronicles and the raison d'etre of the Iberian Kingdom (Caucasica II), Orbis Terrarum, Journal of Historical Geography of the Ancient World 6, 2000. Stuttgart, 2001, 179, 225).

[85] This culture covers a much larger area than the land between the two Transcaucasian rivers, the Kura and the Araxes; actually it covers an important part of the Middle East (see, below). Therefore it is obvious that the term “Kura-Araxes culture” is not a precise one; it has not a special territorial meaning and is rather symbolic, pointing to the area where this culture was first discovered.

[86] Much later than in Anatolia or Iran the pottery of the Kura-Araxes culture of the eastern Anatolian-Transcaucasian tradition, known as the so-called Red-Black Burnished Ware of the Khirbet-Kerak culture, is well represented in Palestine and the Amuq (Phase H-I) region. The lower limit of the Khirbet Kerak culture, prevalent in Palestine, is dated to the end of period II of the Early Bronze Age of Palestine. It should be noted that in the Amuq area the “Kura-Araxes” pottery begins to appear already in the period of the existence of the Amuq G layers (qavTaraZe, g., palestinis..., 107-125).

[87] qavTaraZe, g., saqarTvelos...; Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…; Кавтарадзе, Г. Л., Некоторые вопросы хронологии Грузии эпо­хи энеолита-ранней бронзы. В кн.: К. К. Пицхелаури, Е. Н. Черных (Ред.), Кавказ в системе палеометаллических культур Евра­зии: Материалы I симпозиума – “Кавказ и Юго-Восточная Европа в эпоху раннего металла” (Телави-Сигнахи 1983). Тбилиси: Мецниереба, 1987, 10-16; Кавтарадзе, Г. Л., Вопросы этнической истории Кавказа и Анатолии и проблема хронологии и периодизации (VI-I тысячелетия до н.э.). Диссертация на соискание ученой степени доктора исторических наук в форме нау­ч­ного доклада. Тбилиси: Мецниереба, 1992.

[88] Badler, V. R., A chronology of Uruk artifacts from Godin Tepe in Central Western Iran and implications for the interrelationships between the local and foreign cultures. In J. N. Postgate (Ed.), Artifacts of complexity: Tracking the Uruk in the Near East. Iraq Archaeological Reports 5. Wiltshire, England: Aris & Phillips, 2002, 83, 107, Fig. 16; cf. Kohl, P. L., Origins, homelands and migrations: Situating the Kura-Araxes Early Transcaucasian ‘culture’ within the history of Bronze Age Eurasia, Tel Aviv, 36, 2009, 253.

[89] Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance of..., 78f.

[90] Conti, A. M., Persiani, С., When worlds collide, cultural developments in Eastem Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age”. In M. Frangipane, H. Hauptmann, M. Liverani et al. (Eds), Between the rivers and over the mountains: Archaeologica Anatolica et Mesopotamica Alba Palmieri Dedicata. Rome: Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell’Antichita, Universita di Roma “La Sapienza”, 1993. 406.

[91] Yakar, J., The later prehistory of Anatolia: The Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. British Archaeological Reports, Inter. Series, 268. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1985, 276.

[92] It is possible that the result of expansion of the bearers of this culture are the data showing the growing Mesopotamian sea commerce in the Arabian Gulf of the Jamdat Nasr period can be used. This event seems to be caused by the changed political conditions in eastern Anatolia, northern Syria, western Iran and the desertion of the Uruk sites in these areas and as a consequence the passing of the dis­tribu­tion of traded ores and artifacts to local control (Moorey, P. R. S., The archaeological evidence for metallurgy and related technologies in Mesopotamia c. 5500-2100 B. C. Iraq, 44, 1982, 15).

[93] Rothman, M. S., Ripples in the Stream: Transcaucasia-Anatolian Interaction in the Murat/Euphrates Basin at the Beginning of the Third Millennium B.C., in A. Smith, K. Rubinson (Eds), Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond. Los Angeles, 2003, 94-109; Rothman, M. S., Interaction of Uruk and Northern Late Chalcolithic Societies in Anatolia. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE). Oxford, 2011, 829.

[94] Frangipane, M., The Late Chalcolithic/EB I sequence at Arslantepe: Chronological and cultural remarks from a frontier site. In C. Marro, H. Hauptmann (Eds), Chronologies des pays du Caucase et de l'Euphrate aux IVe-IIIe millénaires. Actes du Colloque d’Istanbul, 16-19 décembre 1998 (Varia Anatolica, 11). Institut Français d'Etudes Anatoliennes d'Istanbul. Istanbul/Paris: De Boccard, 2000, 443f.

[95] By C. Marro’s viewpoint, the Red-Black type pottery from Period VII and VI A may have been produced by semi-nomadic Kura-Araxes groups living in the vicinity of Arslantepe, only occasionally interacting with the Late Chalcolithic villagers, just as at Ovçular Tepesi, where the presence of such pottery constitutes an odd find within an otherwise Late Chalcolithic settlement (Marro, C., Eastern Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age. In S. R. Steadman, G. McMahon (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Anatolia: (10,000-323 BCE), Oxford, 2011, 295).

[96] qavTaraZe, g., palestinis..., 114-117.

[97] Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance of...; Kavtaradze, G. L., The chronology of the Caucasus during the Early Metal Age: Observations from Central Trans-Caucasus. In A. Sagona (Ed.), A view from the highlands: Archaeological studies in honour of Charles Burney (An­cient Near Eastern Studies, Supplement 12). Leuven: Peeters, 2004.

[98] Wilkinson, K. N., Gasparian, B., Pinhasi, R., et al. Areni-1 cave, Armenia: A Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age settlement and ritual site in the southern Caucasus, Journal of Field Archaeology, 37 (1), 2012, 20.

[99] Wilkinson, K. N., Gasparian, B., Pinhasi, R., et al. op. cit., 30, cf. Kohl, P. L., The making of Bronze Age Eurasia: An archaeological narrative of cultivators, herders, traders and smiths (World Archaeology Series). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 69f.

[100] Cf. Kohl, P. L., Origins…, 246, 255.

[101] Marro, C., Where did…,  52.

[102] Marro, C., Eastern Anatolia…, 291-293, 295.

[103] Kohl, P. L., Origins..., 249.

[104] Palumbi, G., op. cit., 214-216.

[105] Batiuk, S., Rothman, M. S., Early Transcaucasian cultures and their neighbors: Unraveling migration, trade, and assimilation, Expedition 49 (1), 2007, 10.

[106] Arsebuk, G., Altınova'da (Elazığ) koyu yuzlu ackılı ve Karaz turu canak comlek arasındaki ilişkiler, VIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi 1, 1979, 81-92, pl. 1-8.

[107] Marro, C., Where did…,  50.

[108] Palumbi, G., op. cit., 217.

[109] Небиеридзе, Л., Цквитинидзе, Н., Первые следы урукской культуры на Южном Кавказе, Археология, Этнология, Фолькло­рис­тика Кавказа. Тбилиси, 2011, 178-180.

[110] Cf. Pitskhelauri, K., Uruk migrants…, 156; ficxelauri, k., kavkasiis..., 450.

[111] gobejiSvili, g., TeTri wyaros nasoflari. Tbilisi: mecniereba, 1978, 55-82, 111f.

[112] Palumbi, G., The Red and black: Social and cultural interaction between the upper Euphrates and the southern Caucasus: Communities in the fourth and third millennium BC. Sapienza Universita di Roma, Dipartimento di Scienze Storiche Archeologiche e Antropologiche dell’Antichita. Studi di Preistoria Orientale (SPO), 2. Roma: Sapienza Università, 2008, 34.

[113] Cf. Kushnareva, K. K., The Southern Caucasus in Prehistory: Stages of Cultural and Socioeconomic Development from the Eighth to the Second Millennium BC, Philadelphia, 1997, 53.

[114] Cf. Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 78.

[115]  Мунчаев, Р. М., Амиров, Ш. Н., Магомедов, Р. Г., Восточный Кавказ и проблемы кавказско-месопотамских связей в IV-III тыс. до н.э., Исследования первобытной археологии Евразии, Москва 2010, 320; jafariZe, o., op. cit., 186.

[116] See Edens, C., Transcaucasia at the end of the Early Bronze Age, Bulletin of the American School of Oriental Research, vol. 299/300, 1995, 56; Kohl, P. L., Archaeological transformations: Crossing the pastoral/agricultural bridge, Iranica Antiqua, 37, 2002, 160f.; Kohl, P. L., The early integration of the Eurasian steppes with the ancient Near East: Movements and in the Caucasus and Central Asia. In D. L. Peterson, L. M. Popova, A. T. Smith (Eds), Beyond the steppe and the sown. Proceedings of the 2002 University of Chicago conference on Eurasian archaeology. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2006, 17.

[117] Cf., e.g., Potts, D. T., A companion to the archaeology of the ancient Near East. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 676; Palumbi, G., The Red…, 13f.; see here also about other studies related to the same problem.

[118] Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 85-104, 109-115; Кавтарадзе, Г. Л., Некоторые…, 12-15; Кавтарадзе, Г. Л., Вопросы…, 46-50; cf. Мунчаев, Р. М., Куро-Араксская..., 17.

[119] Мунчаев, Р. М., Куро-Араксская культура. В кн.: К. Х. Кушнарева, В. И. Марковин (Ред.), Ранняя и средняя бронза Кавказа, Археология. Москва: Наука, 1994, 17; Ахундов, Т. И. Памятники Южного Кавказа в свете проблем Майкопской традиции и связей Кавказа с Анатолией. В кн.: Proceedings of the International Archaeological Symposium “Problems of Maykop Culture in the Context of Caucasian-Anatolian Relations”. Tbilisi, 2013, 52; see also M. Andreeva’s criticism of my book, published in 1983 (Андреева, М. В., Рецензия на книгу: Кавтарадзе Г. Л. К хронологии эпохи энеолита и бронзы Грузии. Тбилиси, 1983, Советская археология, 4, 1987, 273–283) and my reply (Кавтарадзе, Г. Л., По поводу рецензии М. В. Андреевой, Амирани, Вестник Международного Кавказологического Научно-исследовательского Общественного Института, III, 2000, 5-33. Link: www.scribd.com/doc/2535923/ (27.02.2013)).

[120] Мунчаев, Р. М., Куро-Араксская..., 16; cf. Кушнарева, К. X., Чубинишвили, Т. Н., Историческое значение Южного Кавказа в III тысячелетии до н. э., Советская археология, 3, 1963,16f.

[121] Мунчаев, Р. М., Куро-Араксская…, 16.

[122] Cf. Кавтарадзе, Г., К хронологии…, 18f.

[123] Cf. Мунчаев, Р. М., Куро-Араксская…, 17.

[124] Burleigh, R., Symposium at Groningen, Netherlands, Antiquity, 56, 1982, 139. The first calibration curve officially recommended for the correction of the 14C dates was published in the journal |”Radiocarbon”, 1993 (Stuiver, M., Reimer, P. J., Extended 14C data base and revised calib 3.0 14C age calibration program, Radiocarbon, 35, 1993, 215-230).

[125] saqarTvelos arqeologia, 1: qvis xana. o. lorTqifaniZe. (red). Tbilisi: Tbilisis universitetis gamom­cem­­loba, 1991; saqarTvelos arqeologia, 2: eneoliT-adre brinjaos xana. o. jafariZe. (red.). Tbilisi: Tbi­lisis universitetis gamomcemloba. 1992.

[126] See Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance of..., 80f.

[127] E.g., qavTaraZe, g., palestinis..., 107-125.

[128] Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance..., 80-85. Although the Kura-Araxes burials with a rather poor inventory are in sharp contrast to the luxurious and monumental burial mounds (kurgans) of the immediately following Kurgan culture of central and eastern Transcaucasia or northern Caucasian Maikop culture, P. Kohl hopes that our understanding of the Kura-Araxes “phenomenon” is incomplete and surprises, such as the burial of 'Signore di Arslantepe' providing the evidence of the accumulation of wealth by its rich collection of weapons, still are waiting for us (Kohl, P. L., Origins…, 251).

[129] Lyonnet, B., Akhundov, T., Almamedov, K. et al., Late Chalcolithic kurgans in Transcaucasia. The cemetery of Soyuq Bulaq (Azer­baijan), Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 40, 2008, 27-44; Museyibli, N., op.cit., 22.

[130] Archaeologists came to the conclusion that the practice of kurgan burial had been already well established in Transcaucasia during the Late Chalcolithic, the pottery from burials shows affiliation with Late Chalcolithic 2-3 pottery from northern Mesopotamia (Lyonnet, Akhundov, Almamedov, et al., 2008; Museyibli, N., op.cit., 22).