the discussions.8 But the interchange these core areas had with communities situated on their periphery, in south Caucasia, has seldom been discussed.9 Even less attention has been devoted to the degree of interaction the south Caucasian farmers had with their neighbours beyond the mountains to the north, whose lifestyle drew on influences from the Eurasian steppes.

THE FIRST FARMERS

The Neolithic arrived in the Caucasus some 3500 years after the earliest manifestations in south-eastern Anatolia.10 When farmers began to settle in the Kura-Araxes interfluve they brought with them traditions altogether different to those found in Anatolia and the Zagros Mountains. Entirely missing, for instance, are the imposing monumental public buildings, vibrant art, and distinctive cultic practices that distinguish Göbekli Tepe and Nevalı Çori. Nor do we find settlements of tightly packed rectilinear houses such as those that feature in central Anatolia. Instead, in the south Caucasus, communities developed their own regional culture that has certain affinities with traditions in northern Mesopotamia and north-western Iran.

Generally speaking, three Neolithic traditions can be distinguished in the Caucasus based on house and settlement types, and their associated cultural and economic traits. From south to north they are as shown in Figure 3.1.

1. The central and southern regions of the south Caucasus. This is the most thoroughly studied tradition. It comprises a cluster of settlements attributed to the so-called Shulaveri-Shomutepe culture,which reached from south-east Georgia and the steppes of western Azerbaijan, through the AraratValley to the region of Nakhichevan.

2. Western Georgia and the Black Sea.This region is poorly understood, but its scattered empirical evidence has fuelled the debate over the existence of a Pre-Pottery Neolithic period. Sites are concentrated in the well-circumscribed area of Colchis, and situated in the foothills rather than the marshy lowlands. Settlements extend along the coast from Novorossiisk to Batumi.

3. The central and northern Caucasus.The area stretches from the Surami massif through south and north Ossetia to the foothills of the northern Caucasus, where a few sites are scattered across the wide piedmont region from Krasnodar to Kalmykia and Dagestan.

8 Matthews et al. 2013.

9 See Helwing 2014 for a recent discussion of the south Caucasian Neolithic within the context of early farming communities east of Anatolia.

10 For nearby Ukraine, we have Kotova 2003.