The post-Kura-Araxes period in the Southern Caucasus: Reflections on definitions and terminology, and a view from Shida Kartli

One of the main problems in the study of the post-Kura-Araxes period in the Southern Caucasus is the persisting lack of precise and shared definitions of the different local “cultures” of the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. The paper highlights several cases of ambiguous and conflicting definitions, thereby suggesting how they may have originated and how they may be solved. In particular, it focuses on the definition of the period’s different ceramic assemblages (“Late Kura-Araxes” vs “Martqopi” and “Bedeni”, etc.), on funerary customs and on landscape occupational patterns. Insufficient appreciation of the fine-chronological variability of material culture at a regional/sub-regional level is another important source of problems. As a first step toward solving these difficulties, the paper presents some still partially unpublished data from sites in the Georgian province of Shida Kartli investigated during the last decade by the “Georgian-Italian Shida Kartli Archaeological project” (Natsargora and Aradetis Orgora settlements; Natsargora, Doghlauri and Okherakhevi cemeteries) and discuss them the framework of the evidence from other sites from the same region and elsewhere.