At the Northern Frontier of Near Eastern Archaeology: Recent Research on Caucasia and Anatolia in the Bronze Age/An der Nordgrenze der vorderasiatischen Archäologie: Neue Forschung über Kaukasien und Anatolien in der Bronzezeit
During the last two decades, the southern Caucasus (or “Transcaucasia”) has become the focus of intensive archaeological research by international teams of specialists from different countries. This recent activities had the effect of re-evaluating the position of this important cultural area, during the prehistoric and pre-classical periods, as a contact zone between the neighbouring regions.
The Venice conference will focus on the role of the southern Caucasus during the Bronze Age as a contact area between the northern sections of the Near East (esp. Anatolia down to the coast of the Mediterranean sea), and the Northern Caucasus. It will bring together scholars from, or carrying out research in or about, the present countries of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and the Caucasian republics of the Russian Federation. Participants will be archaeologists specialising in prehistoric or pre-classical archaeology of the different areas and periods involved, joined by specialists in the prehistory of the surrounding areas (Europe, Central Asia), who may contribute new theoretical frameworks and comparative evidence to the discussion, by specialists in the history and languages of the ancient Near East, and by specialists in archaeometallurgy and archaeometry, disciplines which have both yielded some of the most innovative discoveries and results in this field of studies during the last years.
From the point of view of chronology, discussion will concentrate on the Bronze Age, i.e. on the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC, but will include the important formative phase represented by the Late Chalcolithic period (4th millennium BC), and the transition into the following Iron Age (late 2nd-early 1st millennium BC).
CONFERENCE SESSIONS
SESSION 1: Opening Lectures
SESSION 2: The Late Chalcolithic and the transition to the Early Bronze Age
SESSION 3: The Early Bronze Age
SESSION 4: The Middle Bronze Age
SESSION 5: The Late Bronze and the transition to Early Iron Age
SESSION 6: Metallurgy and circulations of metal ore and metal objects
SESSION 7: Long-term developments in the settlement system and in the use of territory, landscape archaeology
POSTER SESSION
