European Kingdoms

Gubs Culture (Mesolithic / Neolithic?) (North Caucasus)
c.11,200 - 5000? BC

Mesolithic & Neolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The Upper Palaeolithic and Upper Mesolithic Epigravettian culture was one which emerged in Southern Europe shortly before the Solutrean was succeeded across much of the north by the Magdalenian culture. To its west was the Azilian, with these all forming some of the last of Europe's Palaeolithic cultures.

On the Eastern European fringe of these advances there appeared a number of more or less contemporaneous Epi-Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic cultures. This mainly took place in the steppe zone across the northern Black Sea region. Each was somewhat limited in terms of territory (perhaps the first time such varied localisation had appeared), but each used similar chipped-stone forms of industry, and each emerged by transforming local Epigravettian complexes.

In the Caucasus mountain range the Gubs culture emerged in today's western Georgia, close to the country's north-eastern coast and with some sites which appear to have been shared with sister cultures.

Some have placed it under the rather questionable umbrella of the Trialetian tradition, although this has not received universal acceptance. The Trialetian counted the Near East's Baradostian culture as a forebear, and the Levant's Natufian culture as an influence, even while the Epigravettian may also have played a part in influencing it.

In the past, archaeological cultures were usually identified not on the basis of clearly defined typological characteristics, but often by intuition. In this way, most of the Upper Palaeolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the Caucasus were originally identified: the Black Sea, Chokh, Gubs, Imereti, and Trialetian (the Kobuleti is not part of this group).

The type site for the Gubs culture are the Gubs rock shelters in the north-western Caucasus. This series of shelters on the left bank of the Borisovskoe Gorge, along the Gubs river valley, are important in Middle Palaeolithic and Upper Palaeolithic archaeology. Gubs Rockshelter 7 is also known as the Satanai rock shelter, on the left bank of Gubs Gorge.

Much research has been published about the importance of this gorge and its rock shelters in terms of helping anatomically modern humans to pass from the earliest Near East settlements into Eastern Europe. Far less research is available for the same area in the Mesolithic.

Archaeological finds are constantly being made, and archaeological cultures are frequently being updated with new information. Get in touch here if this page also requires updating.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information by ChatGPT 3.5 (base notes only), from The Magdalenian Settlement of Europe, Quaternary International Volumes 272-273 (2012), from Wine grapes were first domesticated 11,000 years ago, gene study says, Joel Achenbach (Washington Post, 2 March 2023), and from External Links: Mesolithic Settlements of the Ukrainian Steppes: migration as sociocultural response to a changing world, Olena Smyntyna (British Archaeological Reports, International Series, 2456, 93-98, January 2013, and available via ResearchGate), and Mesolithic Period (Science Direct), and Cultural resilience theory as an instrument of Modelling human response to global climate change. A case study in the north-western black sea region: on the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, Olena Smyntyna (Odesa I I Mechnikov National University, January 2016, and available via ResearchGate), and Early Mesolithic (Indo-European.eu), and On the Cultural Geography of the Eastern Caucasus and Southern Caspian in the Mesolithic, H A Amirkhanov (Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia, 2022;50(1):39-47), and The Palaeolithic of the Western Steppe Zone, Karol Szymczak (Reference Module in Social Sciences, 2023, available via Science Direct), and A problem of the bullet shaped cores: a global perspective, Karol Szymczak (University of Warsaw, 2002, and available via Academia.edu), and Caucasus Mesolithic (Indo-Europeans and Uralic Peoples), and Adaptation and some aspects of the genesis of archaeological cultures. Evidence from the Caucasian sites of Early Holocene, Hizri Amirkhanov (Preistoria Alpina - Museo Tridentino di Scienze Naturali, Vol 28, pp199-206, 1992, and available to download from MPA Solutions), and The Stone Age: Part 2, Mesolithic (History and Culture of Ancient Civilisations).)

c.11,200 BC

The wide-ranging Epigravettian culture is beginning to shrink back towards the Carpathians. In its wake it is leaving behind many localised variations along its former eastern stretches.

Borisovskoe Gorge in Georgia is where the Gubs rock shelters are located, having provided a home to the Mesolithic hunters and foragers of the Gubs and other local cultures

These are appearing especially in the steppe zone across the northern Black Sea region and into the North Caucasus, with the Danubian Iron Gates culture and the Crimean Shan Koba culture appearing early.

In the Caucasus mountain range into which the Gubs culture emerges there are also influences coming from the Near East and, in this case, from the Trialetian industry in the South Caucasus which itself is being fed from the Near East. The other Trialetian cultures include the Black Sea, Chokh, and Imereti.

c.9000 BC

The one grape species which is suitable for wine producing, Vitis vinifera, is first cultivated around this time by the people of two separate geographic areas. The first area is in the Caucasus region of modern Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

With conditions perfect in the South Caucasus, it was Mesolithic hunters and foragers who were amongst the very first humans to domesticate the grape

The second is a little under a thousand kilometres away in western Asia - potentially close enough to have been inspired by the same influences (see feature link). While the grape is hermaphroditic and can reproduce itself, it takes a further three thousand years for the initial cultivation to turn into early wine production in Georgia (around 6000 BC).

c.8000 - 7100 BC

The Preboreal period sees the climate become significantly warmer (notably in the Baltics). Birch and pine forests start to spread, and elk, bears, beavers, and various species of water birds migrate into the region from the south. During this period the Trialetian fades, presumably to be absorbed in part by the Chokh and Imereti.

c.6400 BC

The Neolithic Farmers of the Criş / Körös culture have been heading northwards from the Middle Danube, following the Mureş and Körös rivers into Transylvania where they likely encounter Molodova-Kichkine foragers, possibly for the first time.

Although culturally and technologically continuous with Palaeolithic cultures, Mesolithic cultures quickly developed diverse local adaptations for special environments, as this map shows (click or tap on map to view full sized)

Perhaps around this time, Neolithic influences from the Near East are also making themselves felt in the Caucasus. The upper (later) archaeological layers for the Chokh culture exhibit influences in the form of new tools and even the beginnings of house-building, although traditional Mesolithic tool-making continues.

Dates for the Gubs culture are far less clear, although excavated deposits do seem to point to a similar timeline for both cultures, along with those of the Black Sea and Imereti.