The Bronze Age occupation of the Black Sea coast of Georgia—New insights from settlement mounds of the Colchian plain

Along the lower course of the Rioni and several minor rivers, more than 70 settlement mounds (local name: Dikhagudzuba) have been identified by field surveys and remote sensing techniques. They give evidence of a formerly densely populated landscape in the coastal lowlands on the Colchian plain (western Georgia) and have been dated to the Bronze Age. As yet, limited information is available on their internal architecture, the chronology of the different layers and their palaeoenvironmental context. Based on archaeological sources, remote sensing measurements of three mounds and sediment cores from one mound and its closer surroundings, our study presents a review of the relevant literature and reveals the internal structure, distribution and spatial extent of the mounds. Geochemical and sedimentological analyses of element contents (X-ray fluorescence) and granulometry helped to identify different stratigraphical layers and differentiate between natural facies and anthropogenic deposits; using the Structure-from-Motion technique the mounds' dimensions were calculated. The studied settlement mounds had relatively small dimension (varying from 30 to 100 m in diameter) and were similar in their stratigraphy. Measurement of elements that can identify types of human activity, notably metals and phosphorus, suggest changing intensities of human occupation, pastoral agriculture and metalworking through the occupation sequence. According to the ¹⁴C chronology, the formation of the settlements occurred during the first half of the second millennium B.C., which confirms the archaeological interpretation of their Bronze Age origin. The narrow age difference between the lowermost and uppermost anthropogenic layers indicates an intentional construction of the mounds, rather than a successive accumulation of construction debris due to the disintegration of loam bricks by weathering. Therefore, they are indeed mounds and not tells. It is most likely that the characteristic circular moats that surround them were the source of their construction material. Fluvial and alluvial processes in a warm and humid climate dominated the environment of the mounds.