{"title":"Building the Lesser Caucasus Monumental Landscape during the Bronze Age: Life and Death on the Javakheti Plateau (Georgia)","authors":"Paolo Biagi ","doi":"10.1163/15700577-20232916","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>Surveys carried out in the Javakheti Plateau during the last decade have improved our knowledge of the Bronze Age archaeology of this highland zone of the Lesser Caucasus of Georgia. Surveys have been conducted all over the area surrounding the Mt. Chikiani volcano, along the southern terraces of the Tsalka Reservoir, and some of the north-western slopes of Mt. Paravani. All these territories have yielded impressive evidence of megalithic monuments, stone-walled villages, <em>kurgans</em>, basalt and schist quarries, as well as obsidian extraction and production areas. Among these latter is an important circular platform made of basalt boulders, above which a workshop for the manufacture of obsidian bifacial arrowheads and spearheads was discovered. All the aforementioned features have been <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">GPS</span>-recorded and photographed with the use of a non-professional small drone. They show that the entire region is a monumental landscape, which most probably started to be built around the beginning of the Bronze Age, as many of the lithic finds would suggest.</p>","PeriodicalId":41854,"journal":{"name":"Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2024-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15700577-20232916","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Surveys carried out in the Javakheti Plateau during the last decade have improved our knowledge of the Bronze Age archaeology of this highland zone of the Lesser Caucasus of Georgia. Surveys have been conducted all over the area surrounding the Mt. Chikiani volcano, along the southern terraces of the Tsalka Reservoir, and some of the north-western slopes of Mt. Paravani. All these territories have yielded impressive evidence of megalithic monuments, stone-walled villages, kurgans, basalt and schist quarries, as well as obsidian extraction and production areas. Among these latter is an important circular platform made of basalt boulders, above which a workshop for the manufacture of obsidian bifacial arrowheads and spearheads was discovered. All the aforementioned features have been GPS-recorded and photographed with the use of a non-professional small drone. They show that the entire region is a monumental landscape, which most probably started to be built around the beginning of the Bronze Age, as many of the lithic finds would suggest.
期刊介绍:
Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia is an international journal covering such topics as history, archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy, papyrology and the history of material culture. It discusses art and the history of science and technology, as applied to the Ancient World and relating to the territory of the former Soviet Union, to research undertaken by scholars of the former Soviet Union abroad and to materials in collections in the former Soviet Union. Particular emphasis is given to the Black Sea area, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Siberia and Central Asia, and the littoral of the Indian Ocean.