Piera Allegra Rasia

researcher

Venezia, Italy

Paleodemography of the Late Bronze-Early Iron Age Populations
of the Southern Caucasus in a Comparative Study

This paper is the first to examine the demographic profile has the aim of examining demographic profiles and trends in the populations of South Caucasus in the Late Bronze-Early Iron Ages.
Here are represented by populations from the burial grounds of Doglauri (n=32), Safar-Kharaba (n=39), Tserovani (n=44) from Georgia and Bardzryala (n=44), Bover (n=55) and Bageri Chala (n=32) ) from Armenia. The cemeteries of Doglauri and Tserovani are located on the territory of Shida (Inner) Kartli in the Karelian and Mtskheta municipalities, respectively, and sSafar-Kharaba in the Tsalka municipality of Kvemo (Lower) Kartli. Unlike the Georgian cemeteries Bardzryal, Bover and Bageri, three Armenian necropolises are located in the Lori region of Armenia.
The comparison of this material from such a distant period is extremely interesting for us because in antiquity the sites belonged to the same territory with no modern geographical borders to separate the two countries. Paleodemographical studies provide important information about ancient populations, such as the sex and age structure of the population, mean age at death, life expectancy, sex ratio, life expectancy at birth. In addition to the mortality of all age groups of the population, the probability of survival, generation length, average family size, and infant mortality, can also be estimated.  The demographic profile of the populations and their socio-cultural adaptation in the South Caucasus in antiquity can be judged estimated from these parameters.
In this study, we compared the demographic characteristics of the inhabitants buried in the cemeteries of Doglauri, Safar-Kharabа, Tserovani, as well as in the cemeteries of Bardzryal, Boveri and Bageri Chala, and finally, we determined the demographic profile of the Late Bronze-Early Iron populations of the South Caucasus. research has shown that there is a very large variation in some parameters: in the distribution of mean age at death, both considering and not considering child mortality, in life expectancy at birth, in mean family size, in the percentage of individuals aged 15 years and older, as well as in the percentage of individuals over 50 years of age; in the percentage of child mortality and, within narrower limits (25-28 years), in the variation in generation length. There is a general trend: the probability of death increases with age, and the probability of survival, on the contrary, decreases The survival and mortality curves mentioned are of the same type, but these processes proceed at different rates in all populations.
It is also worth noting that the Lori populations buried in the three different cemeteries are similar in several demographic characteristics, as are the Doglauri, Safar-Kharaba and Tserovni populations, although the Tserovani and Bardzryal populations are the closest to each other. This interesting fact could be explained in the light of archaeological context and genetic data, which is a task for future research.

Keywords: Paleoanthropology, Paleodemography, Late Bronze-Early Iron, South Caucasus.