The Archaeology of the Caucasus
From Earliest Settlements to the Iron Age

This conspectus brings together in an accessible and systematic manner a dizzy array of archaeological cultures situated between several worlds.

Antonio Sagona (Author)

9781107016590, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 30 November 2017

562 pages, 131 b/w illus.
25.9 x 18.5 x 3 cm, 1.33 kg

In The Archaeology of the Caucasus, Antonio Sagona provides the first comprehensive survey of a key area in the Eurasian land mass, from the earliest settlement to the end of the early Iron Age. Examining the bewildering array of cultural complexes found in the region, he draws on both Soviet and post-Soviet investigations and synthesises the vast quantity of diverse and often fragmented evidence across the region's frontiers. Written in an engaging manner that balances material culture and theory, the volume focuses on the most significant sites and cultural traditions. Sagona also highlights the accomplishments of the Caucasian communities and situates them within the broader setting of their neighbours in Anatolia, Iran, and Russia. Sprinkled with new data, much of it published here for the first time, The Archaeology of the Caucasus contains many new photographs, drawings and plans, many of which have not been accessible to Western researchers.

1. The land and its languages
2. Traillblazers: the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic foundations
3. Transition to settled life: the Neolithic
4. Far-flung networks: the Chalcolithic
5. Encounters beyond the Caucasus: the Kura-Araxes culture and the early Bronze Age
6. Dolmens for the dead: the Western Caucasus in the Bronze Age
7. The emergence of elites and a new social order
8. From fortresses to fragmentation: the Southern Caucasus in the Late Bronze Age through Iron Age I
9. Smiths, warriors and womenfolk: the Koban culture of the Northern Caucasus
10. A world apart: the Colchian culture
11. The grand challenges for the archaeology of the Caucasus.

Subject Areas: Environmental archaeology [HDP], Landscape archaeology [HDL], Archaeology by period / region [HDD]