substantiate Kozenkova’s idea that this funerary custom arrived from the West European steppes, from the territory of the Timber Grave culture.41

Although, on the surface, the northern Caucasus and western Georgia display a general uniformity in range of tomb types and funerary rites, close and detailed inspection reveals dissimilarities. Mortuary practices alone should not be taken as an argument in favour of uniting the Colchian and Koban cultures.Wealthy tombs aside, the general uniformity of grave finds, irrespective of tomb type, does not argue for different peoples as much as a shared ideology based on the ‘currency’ of the day – metalwork.

Tin in the Caucasus?

In the previous chapters we discussed the appearance of tin bronzes in the southern Caucasus in the third millennium and the implications for long-distance exchange networks.The question of Bronze Age tin supplies to the Near East has been hotly debated and involves hypotheses of exchange stretching from the lands of central Asia through Anatolia to territories beyond.42 Despite conflicting views on whether or not the Caucasus Mountains have tin deposits, the region has lain in the shadow of mainstream discussions.43 Apart from tantalising glimpses of early tin bronzes such as the copper bead from Neolithic Arukhlo, direct evidence for mining and production has been lacking.Yet the sheer quantity of tin bronzes during the Late Bronze Age through Iron Age I period suggests mines were close by.While it is possible that tin was imported in the form of ingots from distant locations, it is unlikely, given the quantity that would have been required, that it would have arrived as cassiterite ore. Moreover, if tin did arrive from the east during the second half of the second millennium, it does not seem to have been accompanied with the flow of other material things.

Western Georgia is richly endowed with copper ore deposits.They are complemented by hundreds of smelting sites, many attributed to the Late Bronze Age–Iron Age I period and located in isolated locations, which collectively reflect a high level of metallurgical activity and know-how.44 Amongst the metalworking debris are large numbers of crucibles bearing slag residues from copper production. A recent study of these slags and ceramics fragments carried out by Nathaniel Erb-Satullo and his team has delineated various stages in the process.45 First, large slag cakes were left in sizeable vessels to cool, they were transferred then to smaller crucibles to be refined in the second step of the process.The result was a copper-rich metal relatively free of iron.

41Kozenkova 2004: 153.

42For a succinct summary of views, see Erb-Satullo et al. 2015: 261.

43Courcier 2014.

44Khakhutaishvili 2009; Erb-Satullo et al. 2014.

45Erb-Satullo et al. 2014