A high-altitude plateau in southern Georgia, long dismissed as too remote and too harsh to have supported complex ancient life, has yielded 168 archaeological sites spanning more than four thousand years of human activity.
The finds include massive stone fortresses, a finely decorated bronze solar disc, and clay plaques painted in red, white, and dark blue that may mark spaces of ritual significance.
The findings, published on 18 April in the journal Antiquity, come after eight years of fieldwork by the Samtskhe-Javakheti Project, a Georgian-Italian collaboration involving researchers from Tbilisi State University, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, the University of Siena, Sapienza University of Rome, and Roma Tre University. The team, led by Roberto Dan and colleagues, argues that the Javakheti Plateau was never the cultural backwater that historians assumed. Instead, it functioned as an active frontier between the Caucasus highlands and the Eurasian steppes: a place of encounter, exchange, and adaptation from the Early Bronze Age through to the medieval period.
The plateau sits at the southern end of Georgia, bordered by Armenia and Turkey, at elevations exceeding 3,000 metres. The winters are long, the summers short, and the vegetation predominantly steppe. Those conditions partly explain why systematic archaeological research in the area was, until recently, almost nonexistent.
The Samtskhe-Javakheti Project set out to change that.
Using satellite imagery, GPS mapping, and geographic information systems, the team has now documented a landscape scattered with cyclopean fortresses — massive structures built from unworked stone blocks without mortar — alongside burial sites, domestic areas, and evidence of repeated seasonal occupation stretching back to around 3500 BCE.
One of the most significant excavations is at a site called Baraleti Natsargora. The name translates loosely as “hill of ashes,” and the archaeology confirms the description. Beneath the mound lie multiple occupation layers, each marked by evidence of burning. Defensive walls, domestic structures, and clay installations dated between approximately 3500 and 500 BCE suggest a community that was repeatedly destroyed and rebuilt — a cycle the researchers interpret as reflecting both human conflict and environmental pressure.
From this site came the most striking single object recovered by the project: a bronze solar disc, finely crafted and decorated with concentric rings, angular motifs, and carefully spaced perforations.
The Baraleti disc belongs to a tradition of solar metalwork found across southern Georgia, where comparable objects have typically been recovered from burial contexts associated with women. The disc appears to have originated from a funerary setting nearby, though the grave itself has not yet been located.
Further east, at Meghreki Fortress, excavators found a continuous occupational sequence running from the Early Bronze Age through the Iron Age and into the medieval period. The site was exposed accidentally during road construction and has since revealed perimeter walls, storage areas, and domestic buildings rebuilt across multiple phases.
Inside two of the domestic structures, researchers recovered clay installations alongside decorated plaques carrying incised geometric designs with traces of red, white, and dark blue pigment. Painted decorative objects of this type are uncommon in the South Caucasus. The study suggests they may have marked spaces of particular status or ritual function within domestic settings.
Taken together, the survey data and excavation results challenge the longstanding picture of the Javakheti highlands as an isolated, marginal zone. The researchers describe a settlement pattern shaped by mobility and reuse rather than permanent occupation: communities that returned repeatedly to the same elevated, defensible positions across millennia, shifting between highland and lowland as conditions demanded. The distribution of artefacts and architectural types points to connections with neighbouring regions across the South Caucasus, including cultural contacts that may have extended into Anatolia and the Eurasian steppe.
Further work is planned, including expanded excavations, radiocarbon dating programmes, and environmental analysis aimed at reconstructing the seasonal movement patterns that appear to have structured life on the plateau. Ceramic analysis and more detailed study of the symbolic objects are also under way.
Sources
Dan R, Chilingarashvili T, Vitolo P, et al. “Layers of stone and ash: new perspectives from the Samtskhe-Javakheti archaeological project.” Antiquity. Published online 18 April 2026. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2026.10331
Quotes in this article are drawn from the paper published in Antiquity on 18 April 2026.
Jane holds a BSc in Biology from the University of Regina and a Master of Science in Bioscience, Technology and Public Policy from the Univesity of Winnipeg. Her reporting interests include Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and the Cosmos.