Archaeological Survey in the South Caucasus (Samtskhe-Javakheti, Georgia)
2014
Varia
William Anderson, Jessie Birkett-Rees, Michelle Negus Cleary, Damjan Krsmanovic and Nikoloz Tskvitinidze
The Landscape Archaeology in Georgia Project (LAG) is a multi-period archaeological survey that operates within Samtskhe-Javakheti province, also known as Meskheti, in southern Georgia (Fig. 1). The region shares political borders with Turkey to the west and southwest and Armenia to the southeast. Its mountainous geography provides natural connections across these modern boundaries, linking the Kars and the Armenian highlands with southwest Georgia, each sharing a similar topography, elevation, ecology and hydrology. The Kura River (Mtkvari), which is within the study area, is a significant feature of the Caucasus region, rising in northeastern Turkey and crossing into Georgia where it cuts a deep course through the highlands before flowing out into the plain at Kashuri and continuing toward Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea.
The LAG project aims to enrich understanding of the archaeological landscape of the southern Caucasus; to contribute to thematic debates on occupation of highland environments; and to investigate settlement patterns and material culture of the prehistoric, classical, medieval and modern past. Particular research themes we are concerned with entail movement and interactions at a local and regional scale. Whilst gathering accurate spatial data on archaeological features, a variety of methods and recording techniques are being tested that capture different scales and qualities of information, including systematic site recording and intensive surface artefact survey. Further, by documenting and assessing the condition of sites and features, the project makes a contribution to heritage management in present-day Georgia.
In this report, we outline the project’s background, its methods, and its preliminary findings made during two seasons of fieldwork in 2012 and 2013. Surveyed areas are discussed in a series of sketches which address physical and archaeological aspects of distinctive localities, sites and features. These raise a number of research questions regarding the chronology and usage of the landscape, and its modification over the short and long term. By arranging our preliminary results according to location and context, our aim is to introduce the diversity and complexity of archaeological remains which will be the subject of more detailed thematic and chronological investigations in future seasons.
Here
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Landscape Archaeology in Southern Caucasia Finding Common Ground in Diverse Environments
Proceedings of the Workshop held at10th ICAANE in Vienna, April 2016
Approaching landscapes of infrastructure: methods and results of the Vayots Dzor Silk Road Survey
Kathryn J. Franklin
Astghik Babajanyan
Abstract: Within this chapter we will lay out a discussion of why landscape-scale archaeological research is so crucial to scholarship moving forward, particularly focussing on high and late medieval (12th –15th centuries AD) Silk Road heritage within the Republic of Armenia. We will provide a brief overview of how the methods and research priorities of the first seasons of the Vayots Dzor Silk Road Survey (VDSRS) emerged from historical data pertaining to that landscape, as well as perceived obligations to heritage management concerns at the local and institute level. Ultimately,this chapter will attempt a preliminary synthesis of the VDSRS data, with the aim in mind of (re)characterising theVayots Dzor section of the Silk Road Corridor as an object of study both in terms of its particular history and also with an awareness of the contemporary relevance of archaeological research in this region.
Keywords: Medieval landscape; Armenia; Silk Road Heritage; Infrastructure
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