A Diachronic Perspectiveon the Birth of Militarisation in the Southern Caucasus

This contribution aims at a precise investigation of the archaeological evidence relating to war and the aspects of militarisation associated with the communities that lived in the Southern Caucasus between the Early Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The picture that emerges according to our reconstruction hypothesis differs significantly from what has been proposed and accepted by a large part of the academic community, especially as regards the methods and timing of the onset of the beginning of the militarization processes. In fact, we think that the Middle Bronze Age played a much more important role in these processes than has been generally believed to date. Militarisation, from the data presented, would no longer seem to have been a sporadic and rather random process but rather a gradual and constant development that reached its peak, in the time frame examined, with the birth of the state of Urartu.