Georgia and Anatolia in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC. Which Relations?,

In the attempt to draw a synthesis of the relations between "Georgia" and "Anatolia" in the Late Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, the paper first of all tackles the question of how to define these regions when dealing with the late prehistoric periods. In doing this, it considers geographic and cultural borders, as well as communication corridors, and cultural sub-regions, and thereby highlights gaps in our present knowledge. It then concentrates on the role of two specific border areas – the Malatya/Elaziğ (Upper Euphrates) and the Kars/Erzurum provinces – with respect to the diffusion of two main cultural phenomena of the 4th-3rd millennia BC: the so-called "Chaff-Faced Ware horizon" and the Kura-Araxes culture and its aftermath, in the wider framework of the changing relations between different cultural macroareas: Upper Mesopotamia, the Southern Caucasus and Anatolia.