Prehistoric Georgia

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For the prehistory of the U.S. state of Georgia, see
Prehistory of Georgia (U.S. state)
.
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The prehistory of Georgia is the period between the first human habitation of the territory of modern-day nation of Georgia and the time when Assyrian and Urartian, and more firmly, the Classical accounts, brought the proto-Georgian tribes into the scope of recorded history.

Paleolithic, Mesolithic

Homo erectus fossils found at Dmanisi
currently held in the Cantonal Museum of Geology, Switzerland. (2009)

Humans have been living in Georgia for an extremely long time, as attested by the discoveries, in 1999 and 2002, of two

H. e. georgicus) at Dmanisi in southern Georgia. The archaeological layer in which the human remains, hundreds of stone tools and numerous animal bones were unearthed is dated approximately 1.6-1.8 million years ago (since the underlying basalt lava bed yielded an age of approximately 1.8 million years). The site yields the earliest unequivocal evidence for presence of early humans outside the African continent.[1]

Later

handaxes
were found at 2400 m above the sea level.

The first uninterrupted primitive settlement on the Georgian territory dates back to the

Imeretia, Abkhazia
and other areas.

Buffered by the

Southern Caucasus from the severe climatic oscillations and allowed humans to prosper throughout much of the region for millennia.[2]

Satsurblia,[3] Devis Khvreli, Sakazhia, Sagvarjile, Dzudzuana, Samertskhle Klde, Gvarjilas Klde and other cave sites. A cave at Dzudzuana has yielded the earliest known dyed flax fibers that date back to 36,000 BP.[4][5] At that time, the eastern area of the South Caucasus appears to have been sparsely populated in contrast to the valleys of the Rioni River and Kvirila River in western Georgia. The Paleolithic ended some 10,000-12,000 years ago to be succeeded by the Mesolithic culture (Kotias Klde[6]). It was when the geographic medium and landscapes of the Caucasus were finally shaped as we have them today.[7]

Neolithic

Signs of

Shulaveri-Shomu culture. Radiocarbon dating at Shulaveri sites indicates that the earliest settlements there date from the late sixth − early fifth millennium BC.[9]

In the highlands of eastern Anatolia and South Caucasus, the right combination of domesticable animals and sowable grains and legumes made possible the earliest agriculture. In this sense, the region can justly be considered one of the "cradles of civilization".[10]

The entire region is surmised to have been, in the period beginning in the last quarter of the 4th millennium BC, inhabited by people who were possibly ethnically related and of

Eneolithic
.

Bronze Age

Early metallurgy started in Georgia during the 6th millennium BC. Very early metal objects have been discovered in layers of the Neolithic

Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture. From the beginning of the 4th millennium, metal use became more extensive in East Georgia and in the whole Transcaucasian region.[11]

From c. 3400 BC to 2000 BC, the region saw the development of the

Kura-Araxes or Early Transcaucasian culture centered on the basins of Kura and Aras. During this era, economic stability based on cattle and sheep raising and noticeable cultural development was achieved. The local chieftains appear to have been men of wealth and power. Their burial mounds have yielded finely wrought vessels in gold and silver; a few are engraved with ritual scenes suggesting the Middle Eastern cult influence. This vast and flourishing culture was in contact with the more advanced civilization of Akkadian Mesopotamia
, but went into gradual decline and stagnated c. 2300 BC, being eventually broken up into a number of regional cultures. One of the earliest of these successor cultures is the Bedeni culture in eastern Georgia.

At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, there is evidence of considerable economic development and increased commerce among the tribes. In western Georgia, a unique culture known as

culture of Trialeti
reached its zenith around 1500 BC.

Archaeological sites in Klde, Orchosani, and Saphar-Kharaba were revealed by the BTC pipeline construction.[12]

Iron Age and Classical Antiquity

Further information:
Caucasian Iberia, and Lazica

By the last centuries of the 2nd millennium BC, ironworking had made its appearance in the South Caucasus, and the true Iron Age began with the introduction of tools and weapons on a large scale and of superior quality to those hitherto made of copper and bronze, a change which in most of the Near East may not have come before the tenth or ninth centuries BC.[10]

During this period, as linguists have estimated, the ethnic and linguistic unity of the Proto-Kartvelians finally broke up into several branches that now form the

Zan, the basis of Mingrelian and Laz
, had become a distinct language. On the basis of language, it has been established that the earliest Kartvelian ethnos were made up of four principally related tribes: the Karts, the Zans (
Svans – which would eventually form the basis of the modern Kartvelian-speaking groups.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ Vekua, A., Lordkipanidze, D., Rightmire, G. P., Agusti, J., Ferring, R., Maisuradze, G., et al. (2002). A new skull of early Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Science, 297:85–9.
  2. ^ Bar-Yosef, Ofer; Belfer-Cohen, Anna, and Adler, Daniel S. (2006), The Implications of the Middle-Upper Paleolithic Chronological Boundary in the Caucasus to Eurasian Prehistory Archived 2010-06-13 at the Wayback Machine. Anthropologie XLIV/1:49-60.
  3. ^ Qiaomei Fu et al. The genetic history of Ice Age Europe, 2016.
  4. PMID 19745126
  5. PMID 19745144 Supporting Online Material
  6. PMID 26567969
    .
  7. ISBN 978-3-515-12057-9
  8. ^ Aruchlo: An Early Neolithic Tell Settlement of the 6th Millennium BC Archived 2008-05-16 at the Wayback Machine. Deutsches Archäologisches Institut. Retrieved on May 4, 2007.
  9. ^ Kiguradze, T. and Menabde, M. 2004. The Neolithic of Georgia. In: Sagona, A. (ed.), A View from the Highlands: Archaeological Studies in Honour of Charles Burney. Ancient Near Eastern Studies Supplement 12. Leuven: Peeters, pp. 345-398.
  10. ^
    ISBN 0-253-20915-3
  11. ^ Thomas Stöllner, Irina Gambaschidze (2014) THE GOLD MINE OF SAKDRISI AND EARLIEST MINING AND METALLURGY IN THE TRANSCAUCASUS AND THE KURA-VALLEY SYSTEM Archived 2015-11-18 at the Wayback Machine
  12. ^ "Ancient Heritage in the BTC-SCP Pipeline Corridor". Smithsonian. Archived from the original on 20 April 2017. Retrieved 21 Apr 2014.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Prehistoric Georgia.
  • Kushnareva, Karinė Khristoforovna (1997; translated by H. N. Michael), The southern Caucasus in prehistory : stages of cultural and socioeconomic development from the eighth to the second millennium B.C..
    ISBN 0-924171-50-2
    .
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