The Sioni Cultural Complex: Cultural complexity and interaction during the Transcaucasian Chalcolithic

Abstract

In the past, the Chalcolithic period (c. 5000-3500 B.C.E.) in the Transcaucasus represented a poorly defined “interlude” between the Late Neolithic and the Early Bronze Age. An understanding of this period was hindered by a lack of reliable chronological frameworks, radiocarbon dates, stratified cultural deposits, and adequately defined local and regional assemblages. However, within recent research, the Chalcolithic has emerged as a distinct chronological period within the Transcaucasus and is characterised by the appearance of new material assemblages, a shift in settlement patterns and subsistence strategies, and a trend towards increasingly complex socio-economic dynamics. These develop..