Dating Tabakoni: the chronology of a Bronze Age settlement mound in Colchis

Between 2011 and 2017, excavations by a joint German-Georgian team at the Tabakoni settlement mound in the Colchis lowlands of western Georgia uncovered complex wooden constructions preserved in the waterlogged soils. Combined radiocarbon and dendrochronological dating, the first undertaking of its kind in Colchis, reveals that construction on a stable foundation for the site began in the twentieth century BC and identifies early evidence for the cultivation of millet. Subsequent occupation phases saw the careful levelling of previous structures and the addition of backfill, gradually building up the mound until it was ultimately abandoned in the second half of the first millennium BC.