Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and BeyondAdam T. Smith, Karen Sydney Rubinson Set on a broad isthmus between the Black and Caspian Seas, Caucasia has traditionally been portrayed as either a well-trod highway linking southwest Asia and the Eurasian Steppe or an isolated periphery of the political and cultural centers of the ancient world. Archaeology in the Borderlands: Investigations in Caucasia and Beyond critically re-examines traditional archaeological work in the region, assembling accounts of recent investigations by an international group of scholars from the Caucasus, its neighbors, Europe, and the United States. The twelve chapters in this book address the ways archaeologists must re-conceptualize the region within our larger historical and anthropological frameworks of thought, presenting critical new materials from the Neolithic period through the Iron Age. Challenging traditional models of economic, political, cultural, and social marginality that read the past through Cold War geographies, Archaeology in the Borderlands provides a new challenge to long dominant interpretations of the pre-, proto-, and early history of Eurasia, opening new possibilities for understanding a region that is critical to regional order in the post-Soviet era. This collection represents the first attempt to grapple with the problems and possibilities for archaeology in the Caucasus and its neighboring regions sparked by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent states. |
Contents
Archaeology in the Borderlands | 1 |
New Evidence | 9 |
The Technology and Value of | 22 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
Achaemenid ancient Aragats Araxes archaeological Armenia arsenic bronze Arslantepe artifacts assemblage Assyrian Ayanis barrow Bedeni burial Caucasus cemetery century BC ceramics Chalcolithic Çilingiroğlu citadel Colchis complex copper Courtesy of Karagündüz decorated Early Bronze Age east eastern Anatolia evidence excavations Figure fortifications fourth millennium Gadzhiev and Korenevskii Georgia Georgian State Museum Gora Güney Tepe Hasanlu highlands horizon Horom Höyük inscription Iran Iron Age Karagündüz project Karashamb goblet Kuftin Kültepe Kura-Araxes Kura-Araxes Culture Lake Lake Van Late Bronze Age Late Chalcolithic Malatya Mesopotamia metal metalwork Middle Bronze Age migration millennium BC mound Murat River objects ornaments Plate political pottery production region Rothman Rusa Sagona Salvini settlement pattern Sevin sherds Sioni social sociopolitical sources southern Caucasia steppes stone suggests Tbilisi temple tin bronzes tion tomb Transcaucasia Trialeti Culture Tsakahovit plain Tsetskhladze Urartian fortresses Urartu Urmia plain Velikent wall ware Zimansky