The issue of the shaft-hole and blade weapons made of bronze in the Caucasus revisited

The paper analyzes finds of large bronze flat axes and pick-axes in the South Caucasus, which have been discovered in the Yerevan hoard in Armenia as well as the hoard of bronze flat axes and daggers near the city of Dvin, Armenia. Most likely, both hoards date to the time prior to the period when the Maykop culture emerged in the Fore-Caucasus and the Kura-Araxes culture appeared in the South Caucasus. The paper also focuses on the find of a clay casting mould used to produce a hammer-axe at the Dzedzvebi site in the Bolnisi district in Georgia. This site has been attributed to the Sioni culture. The household pit where the casting mould was found dates to the second half of the V millennium BC. The elemental composition of the hoard metal demonstrates the use of arsenic bronze. Besides, shafthole axes with a shortened butt one of which was included in the Yerevan hoard began to be made in this period. On the whole, the examined materials enable us to argue that at the end of the V - early IV millennia BC the metalworking tradition of the Danube Chalcolithic population influenced the spread of dual purpose axes in the South Caucasus.