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Landscape and Tenure in Middle Bronze Age Central Transcaucasia

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Landscape and Tenure in Middle Bronze Age Central Transcaucasia doi: 10.2143/ANES.49.0.2165720 ANES 49 (2012) 61-94 Power and Presence: Landscape and Tenure in Middle Bronze Age Central Transcaucasia Jessie BIRKETT-REES Classics and Archaeology School of Historical and School of Historical and Philosophical Studies European Studies (Archaeology) The University of Melbourne La Trobe University Victoria 3010 Melbourne, Victoria 3086 AUSTRALIA AUSTRALIA E-mail: [email protected] E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This paper addresses the archaeological record of the Middle Bronze Age in cen- tral Transcaucasia, around Tbilisi, within the context of physical and social landscapes. Archival research and field survey have brought together the archaeo- logical record of the Tbilisi region, resulting in a comprehensive digital database of all recorded archaeological features in the area. This paper examines the Middle Bronze Age features in the landscape and investigates how concepts of tenure may be active in the nature and location of these features. Introduction The natural landscapes of the Caucasus are legendary, at once imposing and inviting to human inhabitants. The commanding mountain range fea- tures in local mythologies and permeated the mythic cycles of distant civi- lisations, famously bound with the Titan of Greek legend, Prometheus.1 In local variations, a Promethean figure named Abrskil or Amiran is the 1 The Caucasus is a recurring locus in Greek mythology, including parts of the Argonau- tica and of Zeus’ pursuit of Thetis in the Achilleus cycle. Tuite has also drawn parallels between the Greek goddess Thetis and her warrior son Achilleus and the Caucasian goddess Dael and her heroic son, Amiran: Tuite 1997. Also, see Charachidze 1986, for a detailed comparison of Greek Prometheus and Svanetian Amiran. 95256_Anes_49_003_Birkett.indd 61 16/08/12 10:34 62 J. BIRKETT-REES benefactor of humankind, ridding the fields of choking undergrowth so they can be tilled.2 The surviving mythologies surrounding the Caucasus, ‘father of the rivers of the East’,3 speak to the significant relationships between people and the environment in historic periods. Yet the archaeo- logical landscapes of Transcaucasia, created by the human use and re-use of the region over millennia, have received little attention.4 The following research addresses the Mtkvari (Kura) River valley in central Transcaucasia in which the modern capital of the Republic of Georgia, Tbilisi, continues to develop and expand (Fig. 1). In the current environment of rapid urban- isation it is timely to consider the palimpsest of the present day landscape and the ways in which the previous tenants of the Mtkvari valley conveyed their presence in this region.5 Often described as a crossroads between Asia and Europe, the physical geography of the Southern Caucasus (Transcaucasia) offers limited passages through the mountains, river valleys and high plateaus and provides local inhabitants with natural strongholds and rich resources. The central Tran- scaucasian landscape of the Kura valley has been populated by Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities, the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes peoples, the Middle Bronze Age early kurgan cultures of Martkopi and Bedeni and the second millennium Trialeti culture.6 The Late Bronze-Early Iron Ages saw competing polities establish in the valleys of the region, including the Samtavro culture and the Lchashen-Tsitelgori culture, whose communities both settled the Tbilisi region.7 During the late first millennium BCE and early common era, the imperial rivalries of Rome, Persia and Byzantium were played out across Transcaucasian territory. At this time Transcaucasia was also the location of significant local powers, including the Colchian and Iberian kingdoms in what is now modern Georgia.8 The wealth and diversity of the Transcaucasian landscape combined with this long and dynamic human history has resulted in a rich record for archaeological investigation. 2 Abrskil features in the Abkhaz tradition, Amiran in Svanetian legends. Lang 1966, p. 71; Lang and Meredith-Owens 1959, p. 469. 3 Kingsley 1980, p. 170. 4 Notable exceptions are the publications of the ArAGATS team, working in Armenia, including A. T. Smith et al. 2009, and the Deutsches Archäeologisches Institut, DAI 2011. 5 Palimpsest: the successive superposition of one landscape on another, sometimes associ- ated with the removal of earlier landscapes by later landscapes: Crawford 1953, p. 51; Hicks 2007; Maitland 1988 [1897], p. 15; Roberts 1987, p. 80; Wilkinson 2003, p. 7. 6 For cultural surveys of these periods see Akhvlediani 2005; Dzhaparidze 1994; Kigu- radze 1982; Kohl 2007; Munchaev 1982; 1994; 7 Lordkipanidze 1991: 7–92. 8 Lodkipanidze 1991: 93–176 95256_Anes_49_003_Birkett.indd 62 16/08/12 10:34 LANDSCAPE AND TENURE IN MIDDLE BRONZE AGE 63 The Caucasus has strong academic traditions informed by its European and Soviet twentieth century history and, in the current environment of renewed international collaboration, is positioned at a crossroads between differing schools of archaeological theory and method. The work of archae- ologists in Transcaucasia is gradually reaching a broader international audi- ence and progressive ventures are resulting from interaction between differ- ent schools of research.9 The present study draws on developments in landscape archaeology and geographic information science to investigate the relationships established between people and landscape. Whilst ‘land- scape’ has become an increasingly popular term in Anglo-American archae- ology in recent decades, the archaeological record of central Transcaucasia is yet to be examined in this context. Substantial archaeological sites and assemblages in central Transcaucasia have received attention but studies addressing these sites in relation to each other are rare.10 Examining the assemblage of archaeological finds en masse in the context of the regional landscape allows us to look for interrelationships between sites and to con- sider the various ways in which people interacted with the landscapes of the Kura valley. This paper begins with a discussion of the theories of landscape and place in the social sciences and their relationship to investigations of terri- toriality or tenure in the prehistoric record. Following an introduction to the Middle Bronze Age of central Transcaucasia, I address the record of the Kura River valley at Tbilisi. This archaeological landscape is dominated by prominent burial mounds, clustered in the Digomi Plain. These construc- tions are investigated with regard to their form and location, in relation to each other and in the context of other local landscape features. The Digomi Plain is identified as a demarcated place within the valley, in which tangible social engagement sheds some light on the relationships established between people and landscape. Of the many meanings built into the burial mounds, I examine their role in projecting and prolonging group tenure in the local and regional landscape. 9 Amongst these projects are Project ArAGATS in Armenia (The Institute of Archaeol- ogy and Ethnography, Armenian National Academy of Sciences and the University of Chicago); the Georgian-Australian Investigations in Archaeology (GAIA) project (National Museum of Georgia and The University of Melbourne); excavations of Tachti Perda and Aruchlo in eastern Georgia by the National Museum of Georgia and the Eurasia Department of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin; the Udabno Project conducted by Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ) Ankara in cooperation with Georgian archaeologists. See Sagona 2010 for a list of current excavations in the Trans-Caucasus. 10 R. Abramishvili 1978; Burney and Lang 1971; Kuftin 1946; Kushnareva 1997; A. T. Smith 1999. 95256_Anes_49_003_Birkett.indd 63 16/08/12 10:34 64 J. BIRKETT-REES Locating landscapes This investigation of the use of space over time in the Tbilisi region draws on recent research in which the archival records of archaeological research in Greater Tbilisi were integrated with new field survey data to form a comprehensive Geographic Information System (GIS) for the region.11 The integration of existing archaeological legacy data with modern GPS field survey methods, digital mapping and analyses offers a new per- spective on the archaeological record of central Transcaucasia and under- scores the value of landscape as an analytical paradigm.12 One of the princi- pal goals of this broader research project is the collation of information on archaeological features in Greater Tbilisi. The integration of legacy data with fresh survey results, including GPS locations for existing and newly located archaeological features, presents the only appropriate assemblage of records for the investigation of the regional use of the landscape. The mid- dle Kura valley at Tbilisi has been addressed by archaeologists for over a century, predominantly in single-site excavations and investigations initi- ated due to urban development.13 The legacy data resulting from these investigations is drawn on in the 1978 publication ‘Tbilisi I’ but, since then, has substantially increased with modern urban expansion. Over this same period, archaeologists have become increasingly inter- ested in the significance of space, of place and of landscape, both as meth- odological models and as conceptual loci for theory and interpretation.14 This interest builds on concurrent theory and research in other social sci- ences, including anthropology, geography,
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