BORDERS AND FRONTIERS

unaffected by this expansion, for reasons discussed further on, and the formidable Greater Caucasus Mountains, though traversable, acted as an effective barrier to the settlement of the Eurasian steppes to the north.

Within this divided landscape, these pioneering farming groups are today represented by mound sites, mostly small hamlets between 1 and 2 ha in size. These have only one or two periods of occupation and are almost never sandwiched between the cultural debris of other periods. Shengavit in the Ararat Plain, with its 3.5 m deposit and 6 ha spread, is an exception.11 Sites with similarly deep deposits are located on the fringe of the Ararat Plain or in Nakhichevan and the middle Araxes Valley, around Lake Urmia, where Yanik Tepe and Gijlar Tepe are found, or in the Turkish Upper Euphrates region, where the co-mingling of several cultural traditions has been attested.

Kura-Araxes communities settled at a range of altitudes, from coastal plain (not well populated) along foothills and valley floors to the highlands proper, reaching lofty heights around 2,000 m above sea level. In this sense, they followed the pattern already set by the bearers of the Chalcolithic Sioni tradition. Stephen Batiuk concluded that geography can account in part for the choice of land, and that most Kura-Araxes communities preferred valley floors and foothills, within the 400–600 mm isohyet zone of precipitation, the most conducive for rain-fed agriculture.12 Although human activity during the Holocene period has dramatically changed the physical landscape of the Near East, especially the woodlands, broad ecological niches can still be discerned. Outside the Caucasus, the clear majority of Kura-Araxes communities (76 per cent) preferred territories with arable land suited to farming. Only a very small proportion (15 per cent) of sites are located in pastureland, and even fewer (1.3 per cent) in areas of rough grazing.13 While this patterning could reflect the ‘invisibility’ of transhumant sites, evidence is mounting that the communities of the KuraAraxes opted for territories that were well suited to a low-risk, mixed farming economy. Even so, we should bear in mind the difference between herd mobility and community mobility. It is possible, for instance, that a fully sedentary agricultural community practised transhumance, the seasonal migration of the livestock and a few herders between higher and lower pastures.

Georgia

The north and north-eastern boundary of the Kura-Araxes culture province is defined by the mountains of Dagestan, Chechnia, and Ingushetia. In

11Simonyan and Rothman 2015: 12.

12An isohyet is a line connecting points on a map that have the same amount of rainfall. Batiuk (2005: 79–80) groups sites according to quantity of Kura-Araxes material culture: predominant (class 1), substantial amount coexisting with other ware types (class 2), in the minority (class 3), and funerary sites (class 4).

13Batiuk 2005: 83–4; fig. 7, table 3.

Dagestan, most of the sites are positioned along the narrow coastal littoral, such as Velikent, north of Derbent, with a few following the watercourses up into the foothills.14 From the adjacent territory of north Ossetia down to the districts around Kutaisi there is another cultural frontier, namely that between the Kura-Araxes and the Maikop traditions, where Sachkhere represents the pre-eminent site.

Interestingly, most of western Georgia, drained by the rivers Rioni and Inguri and their tributaries, has no Kura-Araxes sites. This boundary could simply stem from an aversion to the wetlands of western Georgia, where the rich red soil, mild temperatures, and high precipitation nurtures sub-tropical vegetation within a system of marshes and lagoons.A social explanation, however, is more likely. Indigenous communities in this triangular wedge of land, who pursued their own distinctive cultural trajectory throughout the Bronze Age (the so-called Proto-Colchian, Chapter 10), quite possibly posed a formidable barrier that thwarted the expansion of Kura-Araxes values. There are a few sites in the eastern half of western Georgia, to be sure, which do bear Kura-Araxes affinities and show some form of co-existence. The site of Qanobili near Abastumani, for instance, is a striking example of a boundary site, comprising a mixture of Kura-Araxes elements intermingled with those of the Zemo (Upper) Imereti cave cultures.15

In Georgia,there are several settlement nodes,specifically along the lowlands of the Kura River (Shida and Kvemo Kartli). Significant settlements in the environs of the modern towns of Urbnisi and Gori include the stratified sites of Berikldeebi, Kvatskhelebi, Khizanaant Gora, Natsargora, and Gudabertka.16 Other locations are dotted across the plain, with a good number strung along the Liakhvi River, which cuts through South Ossetia to meet the Kura River. Further east, sites are located in the narrow valley of the Aragvi River, especially around Dusheti.17 In Kvemo Kartli, the early settlements of Didube and Treligorebi are situated on opposite banks of the Kura River within the environs of Tbilisi; both were discovered as part of modern building operations.18 Further south in the plain of Marneuli, fed by the Khrami and Algeti Rivers, we have a number of significant villages – Ghaitmazi, Dangreuli Gora, Kiketi, and Koda.19

14Gadzhiev et al. 2000; Magomedov 2006; Kohl and Magomedov 2014.

15Pkhakadze et al. 1982.

16Dshawachischwili 1998 (Berikldeebi); Dzhavakhishvili and Glonti 1962 (Kvatskhelebi); Kikvidze 1972 (Khizanaant Gora); Puturidze and Rova 2012b (Natsargora); Mindiashvili et al. 2012 (Gudabertka).

17Gogochuri 2008.

18Kiguradze and Sagona 2003 (Didube);Abramishvili and Gotsiridze 1978 (Treli).

19Glonti 1975 (Ghaitmazi and Dangreuli Gora); Pkhakadze 1963 (Kiketi); Pkhakadze 1976 (Koda).