Drawing on the experience of two recent international projects – the SAR advanced seminar "Mesopotamia in the Era of State Formation" (Rothman 2001) and the ARCANE project (Lebeau et al. 2011) – which aimed at producing a common chronological framework and a shared terminology for the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in the Near East on the basis of a synchronisation of the different regional periodisations, the paper discusses whether, and to what extent, a similar enterprise may be worth attempting for the South-Caucasian region. Here, the problem of conflicting and ambiguous terminologies is especially felt due to the region's position at the crossroads between the Near East and the world of the Eurasian steppes, and to the presence, in the area, of researchers belonging to different schools of research. The main sources of confusion and misunderstanding are identified and discussed by the help of relevant examples, e.g. the different uses of traditional techno-chronological terms such as "Chalcolithic" and "Early Bronze Age". After trying to evaluate how much of this huge diversity simply stems from old scholarly habits, and how much of it is, on the contrary, intrinsic to the nature and limits of the available archaeological documentation or to the existence of different research perspectives, a number of possible approaches to an agreed solution of the problem are offered for discussion.

A Unified Terminology for the South-Caucasian "Early Bronze Age": A worthy and achievable target?

ROVA, Elena
2020-01-01

Abstract

Drawing on the experience of two recent international projects – the SAR advanced seminar "Mesopotamia in the Era of State Formation" (Rothman 2001) and the ARCANE project (Lebeau et al. 2011) – which aimed at producing a common chronological framework and a shared terminology for the 4th and 3rd millennia BC in the Near East on the basis of a synchronisation of the different regional periodisations, the paper discusses whether, and to what extent, a similar enterprise may be worth attempting for the South-Caucasian region. Here, the problem of conflicting and ambiguous terminologies is especially felt due to the region's position at the crossroads between the Near East and the world of the Eurasian steppes, and to the presence, in the area, of researchers belonging to different schools of research. The main sources of confusion and misunderstanding are identified and discussed by the help of relevant examples, e.g. the different uses of traditional techno-chronological terms such as "Chalcolithic" and "Early Bronze Age". After trying to evaluate how much of this huge diversity simply stems from old scholarly habits, and how much of it is, on the contrary, intrinsic to the nature and limits of the available archaeological documentation or to the existence of different research perspectives, a number of possible approaches to an agreed solution of the problem are offered for discussion.
2020
Der Kaukasus swischen Osteuropa und Vorderem Orient in der Bronze- und Eisenzeit: Dialog der Kulturen, Kultur des Dialoges
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/3686952
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