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IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI TBILISI STATE UNIVERSITY

IVANE JAVAKHISHVILI INSTITUTE OF HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY


ISSN 1987-6564


XII-XIII
THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE
OF HISTORY AND ETHNOLOGY
XII-XIII

75
Dedicated to the 75th year anniversary
of Professor Tamaz Beradzes birth

Tbilisi
2012/2013
:
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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
, 2014

............................................................................................................................................................ 9
- 75

............................................................................................................................ 10
-
( ) ............................................................ 12

Giorgi L. Kavtaradze
On the Importance of the Caucasian Chronology for the Foundation
of the Common Near Eastern East European Chronological System........................................... 23


() ............................ 46

..................................................... 50



................................................................... 64
Vazha Kiknadze
The Saga of Yngvar the Traveler and Georgian Chronicle................................................................ 73

XIII-XIV ........................................................ 78

II-
I- .................................................................. ............. 81


1380
XII-XIII
(H-171)
V- (1366/1367-1387 .) VII- (1387-1407 .) ....................... 85

. ( K-38)
( ,
- ) ........................................................................................ 188
,
.......................................................................................... 234

,
,
......................................................................................................................... 258

1667
............................................ 332


.............................................................. 351


...................................................................................... 369

,
(1802-1815 .) .............................................. 379

XIX 50-70- ............................................................. 398

` ~
(1918-1919 .) ............................................................................................................. 404

(1921 .)
............................................................................................................ 435



........................................................................................ 445

............................................. 459
,
............................................. 467

,,--- ....................................................................... 478

,
.............................................................................................................................................. 487

................................................................................. 494

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2011-2012 .................................................................................... 505


- -
( ) ................................................................. 527


. (12.1.1897 _ 15.10.1958)
( ) .............................................. 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 Beradzes 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 () 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 Uvali (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 Years 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)
(bersetztung und Vorwort von Nugzar Papuashvili) ................................................................................... 536
[. 10]
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10
arqeologia
[. 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 (
14
C) 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
14
C 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 inter-
mediate 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 (C
14
) 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
(
14
C) 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 conseq-
uence of this study the cultural horizons of Europe, a chronology of which was determined primarily by phy-
sical 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-
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.
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[. 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
14
C 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
14
C 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 con-
structions 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
14
C 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
14
C 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
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.
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
. [. 25:]
In the Caucasus and the Balkans, except the comparison of
14
C 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.
4 , ., , (-), 2 (10), 1997.
5 , ., . : , 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 fr Kunst und Kultur im Bergbau, 9. Verffentlichungen 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 , ., op. cit., 4-17.
7 Parzinger, H., Studien zur Chronologie und Kulturgeschichte der Jungstein-, Kupfer- und Frhbronzezeit zwischen Karpaten und
mittlerem Taurus. Mainz am Rhein, 1993.
8 , ., op. cit.
The inclusion of the Caucasian chronological evidence into the common Near EasternEast 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 va-
lidity of these dates and to receive, at the same time, a tentative common Circumpontic chronological framework.
[. 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 ar-
chaeological 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 6
th
millennium to the early 5
th
millennium B.C. There were detected
some indications about typological and perhaps cultural closeness of this culture with the Near Eastern cultures
of the 7
th
-6
th
millennia. Only calibrated
14
C dates could partially solve the discrepancy between these Near
Eastern parallels and the uncalibrated C
14
dates of the Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture which were earlier largely
placed in the 5
th
millennium. I bear in mind the assumption about the special closeness of this culture in all
9 The area approximately between Artvin, Kars, Erzurum and Bayburt.
10 The last two regions are separated by the middle flow of Terek.
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 Kltepe 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 Kltepe 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 Kltepe 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 Kltepe 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 5
th
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 Kltepe 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
. [. 27:]
Drastic changes in the ceramic material and architecture of the central Transcaucasian sites (e.g., in Men-
teshtepe, 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 5
th
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
11 Cf. Kavtaradze, G. L., op. cit., 70.
12 Kavtaradze, G. L., Die frhesten Metallobjekte Zentral-Transkaukasien. In I. Gambashidze, A. Hauptmann, R. Slotta et al. (Eds),
Georgien - Schtze aus dem Land des goldenen Vlies. Bochum: Deutsche Bergbau-Museum, 2001a, 136-141.
13 , . ., , . .,
VI-IV . ., , , , , 1, 1978, 66; , .
., I. , 7, 1979, 30.
14 , . ., : , , . : , 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
Kltepe 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 (, . ., 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
, . ., , . ., VI-IV . .. .: . . (.),
: . . (11-12 , 2008,
, . , ). : , 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, Archologische Mitteilungen aus Iran und Turan, 44, 2012, 177f.
20 , ., , ., -1 (
). .: . . (.), :
(XXVII . ,
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 5
th
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 Kltepe 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 Transcau-
casian 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 Kltepe 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 [.
, 23-28 2012 .) : , 2012, 48; ., V IV .
.. -1. .: . . , . . (.),
. , 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), Palorient 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 , . ., op. cit., 120.
25 Cf. , ., , 58.
26 , . ., .
. , 2008, 19f.
27 Palumbi, G., op. cit., 212.
28 , ., , ., . : , 2001.
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 5
th
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 4
th
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-4
th
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
.
29 Stein, G. J., zbal, 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 , . ., . .: . (.),
. : , 1991, 32.
31 , . ., , 21f.
32 , . ., , , , 2005, 4, 13-
24; . ., () , , , .
, 2007, 8; . ., , . ., VI-IV . .. .: . .
(.), : . . (11-12
, 2008, , . , ). : , 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.
Alhough, already in the mid-70s Russian archaeologists (R. Munchaev, M. Andreeva) noticed among
Mesopotamian artifacts of the 4
th
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 [. 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. Algazes 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, Byk Kesik, Soyuq Bulaq, Poylu etc.). This type
of pottery follows the same process of development (or impoverishment) of the repertoires and decorations cha-
racteristic 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
, . ., , . ., - IVIII . .., , 4, 2012,
37-46.
34 E.g., , ., (
). .: . (.), , ,
. . , 25-27 2009 . : , 2010, 61-65.
35 Cf. , . ., op. cit., 328-334, 375-377; , . ., ,
, 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)
associated with Uruk culture on a number of sites of eastern Anatolia (at Tepecik, Samsat, Kurban Hyk,
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 5
th
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,
[. 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 4
th
millennium
onwards, than it was thought before; thus embracing part of the Late Chalcolithic 2 period as well
46
.
Excavations at Oylum Hyk (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
14
C 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 Hyk and Arslantepe VIII (together with
other eastern Anatolian sites with the Chaff-Faced ware) find technological, morphological and decorative
parallels in the material from Ovular 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. Marros
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 zgen, 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.
opinion, an ancestor to the later Amuq F/Leylatepe repertoire could be the Chaff-Faced ware from Ovular
Tepesi and thus the overall Chaff-Faced ware assemblage should be divided into an early (Ovular) 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 5
th
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. Algazes 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. Algazes 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
. [. 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 4
th
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.
Algazes 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
53 Marro, C., Where did, 46.
54 Cf. Marro, C., Where did, 51.
55 Peasnall, B., Rothman, M. S., One of Iraqs 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.
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 4
th
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 [. 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
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.
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 6
th
millennium B.C.
(Horizon III)
68
.
In connection with the problem of Mesopotamian-Caucasian interrelation, B. Lyonnets 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 facis 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 4
th
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
. [. 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
.
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 millnaires avant notre re): 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 , . ., - 2010 . .:
AFpoliQRAF mtbsind ap olunmudur. Bak, 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.
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 80s, 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
75 Tobler, A. J., op. cit., 24-26; raidwood, 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 90002000 BC, Chicago, 1988, 46.
79 , ., , 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; , ., , 56, n.144, n. 146; Kavtaradze, G. L., The importance of..., 73.
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. [. 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 4
th
millennium B.C. The dating
within the late 5
th
and the early 4
th
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.
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 detre 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.
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. [. 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
14
C dates.
From the end of the 70s 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 Hyk, 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
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...; , ., ; , . .,
- . .: . . , . . (.),
: I - (-
1983). : , 1987, 10-16; , . .,
(VI-I ..).
. : , 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.
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 Elzi region
91
. It is quite probable that
the economical importance of Late Uruk enclaves and outposts such as Arslantepe VIA, Hassek Hyk 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[.
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
14
C 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-Elzi 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
90 Conti, A. M., Persiani, ., 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 dellAntichita,
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 lEuphrate aux IVe-IIIe millnaires. Actes du Colloque
dIstanbul, 16-19 dcembre 1998 (Varia Anatolica, 11). Institut Franais dEtudes Anatoliennes dIstanbul. Istanbul/Paris: De
Boccard, 2000, 443f.
95 By C. Marros 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
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 4
th
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-Elzi 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 4
th
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 5
th
to early 4
th
millennia [. 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 Kltepe, 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. 36003500 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 Ovular Tepesi of Nakhchivan - the end of the 5
th
millennium B.C.
101
, where a typical Red-and-Black Burnished ware assemblage was found dating back to the
end of the 5
th
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 Marros 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
.
Ovular 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.
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. Arsebk tried to connect the mica-wash Dark-Faced Burnished ware found at Tepecik and Tlintepe of
Altnova 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 Tlintepe, 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 Tlintepe, 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 Ovular 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 [. 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
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., Altnovada (Elaz) koyu yuzlu ackl ve Karaz turu canak comlek arasndaki ilikiler, VIII. Trk Tarih Kongresi 1,
1979, 81-92, pl. 1-8.
107 Marro, C., Where did, 50.
108 Palumbi, G., op. cit., 217.
109 , ., , ., , , ,
. , 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 dellAntichita. Studi di Preistoria Orientale (SPO), 2. Roma: Sapienza Universit, 2008, 34.
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
14
C 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 5
th
-4
th
millennia and of the subsequent Trialeti culture in the first part of the 2
nd
millennium B.C.
is based mainly on uncalibrated traditional radiocarbon dates
120
. The given by itself rises the necessity to
reconsider the widely accepted [. 39:] chronological framework. Also the proposal to recalculate the
14
C
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
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. , ., , 78.
115 , . ., , . ., , . ., - IV-
III . .., , 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 , ., , 85-104, 109-115; , . ., , 12-15; , . ., ,
46-50; cf. , . ., -..., 17.
119 , . ., - . .: . . , . . (.),
, . : , 1994, 17; , . .
. .: Proceedings of the International Archaeological Symposium Problems of
Maykop Culture in the Context of Caucasian-Anatolian Relations. Tbilisi, 2013, 52; see also M. Andreevas criticism of my book,
published in 1983 (, . ., : . . .
, 1983, , 4, 1987, 273283) and my reply (, . ., . .
, , -
, III, 2000, 5-33. Link: www.scribd.com/doc/2535923/ (27.02.2013)).
120 , . ., -..., 16; cf. , . X., , . .,
III . ., , 3, 1963,16f.
121 , . ., -, 16.
122 Cf. , ., , 18f.
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
14
C 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
14
C
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
14
C 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-Tran-
scaucasian 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 3
rd
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
123 Cf. , . ., -, 17.
124 Burleigh, R., Symposium at Groningen, Netherlands, Antiquity, 56, 1982, 139. The first calibration curve officially recommended
for the correction of the
14
C dates was published in the journal |Radiocarbon, 1993 (Stuiver, M., Reimer, P. J., Extended
14
C data
base and revised calib 3.0
14
C 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), Archologische 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).
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[. 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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