The Chronology of the Caucasus
during the Early Metal Age:
Observations from Central Trans-Caucasus
by Giorgi L. Kavtaradze
http://rbedrosian.com/Classic/kavtar.htmThe Caucasian Chronology as a Part of the Old World's Common Chronological System
In order to integrate a Caucasian chronological scheme into the common Near Eastern - east European chronological system, it is necessary to address the five aspects:
1. The methodological study of the different Caucasian cultural-geographical regions, outlined above.
2. The formation of the common Trans-Caucasian (south Caucasian) as well as the common north Caucasian time-scales.
3. The pan or common Caucasian chronological scheme has to be constructed, connecting Trans-Caucasian and north Caucasian time-scales with each other on the basis of coincidences of archaeological materials.
4. On the basis of the north Caucasian evidence, this common Caucasian chronological scheme can be interconnected with the sites of the north Pontic - south Russian steppe and on the basis of the Trans-Caucasian evidence - with the east Anatolian - north Iranian sites. Relative and absolute, as well as historic, data have spanned the chronological 'fault line'. And absolute dates for the Caucasian time-scale of the Early Metal Age can be argued with some confidence.
5. The Caucasian chronological scheme, thus established, can be integrated with the evidence of the north Pontic region, the Balkan Peninsula and south-eastern Europe. Dates obtained for south-eastern Europe and western Anatolian contexts can, in turn, be evaluated and incorporated.
One might also consider fluctuations of the Black Sea levels and the corresponding phenomena observed for the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas. Such changes could be assessed against the background of the archaeological record and the common chronological system.
The dates for the northern fringe cultures of the ancient Near East when correlated with the historical chronologies of Egypt and Mesopotamia, constitute per se the necessity to shift back the dates for the whole of Caucasia, inclusive of its northern part. Therefore, one can now argue that the so-called "North Caucasian Culture" of the post-Maikop period, which at the same time retained many traits of the preceding culture, must be synchronous with the "Royal tombs" of central Anatolia.
At the same time, it is possible to relate the Hatti population of central Anatolia--whose language displays definite affinities to the Abkhazo-Adighean languages--to the culture of central Anatolian "Royal tombs." The latter, for its part, shows some structural and material similarity, namely in the arrangement and contents of these tombs, to the kurgans of the northern stock-breeders. The appearance of the Hattians in central Anatolia seems to have been connected with migrations from northern Caucasia in the "Maikop", or, more probably, in the early "post-Maikop" period. [p. 551]
The question arises as to the ethnic affinity of the central and northern Anatolian pre-Hatti population. In this connection the non-Indo-European stratum in Hittite, which has no explanation in Hattic, should be considered. It is probable that this language was substrative for Hittite and possibly for Hattic as well. Considering these linguistic data and also the existing similarities between the Hattic and Kartvelian languages, we can suggest that Proto-Kartvelian tribes settled in Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age.
Ultimately, an Anatolian homeland for Proto-Kartvelians receives corroboration through the results of recent studies, which associate Hattic language directly with Northwestern Caucasian, and Hurro-Urartian language with Northeastern Caucasian groups within the north Caucasian linguistic family. In such a scenario, there would be no place for Kartvelian, not only in Caucasia, but also in the regions south-west and south of it. Instead, these areas were inhabited by the Hattian-Northwestern Caucasian (Abkhazo-Adighean) and Hurro-Urartian-Northeastern Caucasian (Nakho-Dagestanian) entities.
Western Trans-Caucasia and eastern Anatolia were the contact zones between three important cultures of the northern periphery of the Near East, in the late fourth-early third millennia B.C. They are the "Büyük Güllücek," the Maikop and the Kura-Araxes cultures, which can be identified, albeit within indistinct perimeters, with the ancestors of South (Kartvelian), Northwestern and Northeastern Caucasian languages.
Not only the territories inhabited by Northeastern Caucasian languages speakers coincided with the Caucasian homeland of the Kura-Araxes culture, but also the Hurrians, living in upper Mesopotamia in the late-third millennium B.C., may have had their earliest homeland in eastern Anatolia, in one of the earliest centres of the same culture. C. Burney was the first to put forward the suggestion that the people of eastern Anatolia in the Early Bronze Age could be identified as Hurrians and that they were the main population component of the Early Trans-Caucasian or Kura-Araxes culture (57). Over time, the material culture of the Hurrians became, all but indistinguishable, from other Near Eastern cultures where they settled (58). Their characteristic painted ware was similar to other contemporary, Near Eastern painted pottery types (59).
Under the weight of a revised chronological framework, we are led to a reassessment of a number of cultural-historical, ethno-genetic and social-economical events. In so doing the interrelationships between the ancient Near Eastern and east European societies appears in a rather different light. [p. 552]
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