Georgia has one of the world’s richest and oldest history, stretching back to the prehistoric times. The rise of the early Georgian states of Colchis and Iberia in c.2000 BC formed the unique Georgian civilization which achieved its renaissance and golden age in 12-13th century. The history of Georgia was marked by invasions and subjugation by foreign empires. However, throughout the long history of turmoil, the Georgian statehood and the Georgian nation has endured and preserved its national identity.
The region was settled sometime between 6000 and 5000 B.C. by a neolithic culture. Numerous excavations in tell settlements of the “Sulaveri-Somutepe-Group” have been conducted since the 1960s. In the 1970s, archaeological excavations revealed a number of ancient settlements that included houses with galleries, carbon-dated to the 5th millennium BC in the Imiris-gora region of Eastern Georgia. These dwellings were circular or oval in plan, a characteristic feature being the central pier and chimney. These features were used and further developed in building Georgian dwellings and houses of the ‘Darbazi’ type. In the chalcolithic era of the fourth and third millennia B.C., Georgia and Asia Minor were home to the Kura-Araxes culture, giving way in the second millennium BC. to the Trialeti culture. Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of settlements at Beshtasheni and Ozni (4th – 3rd millennium BC), and barrow burials (carbon dated to the 2nd millennium BC) in the province of Trialeti, at Tsalka (Eastern Georgia). Together, they testify to an advanced and well-developed culture of building and architecture.
Between 2100 and 750 B.C., the area survived the invasions by the Hittites, Urartians, Medes, Proto-Persians and Cimmerians. At the same period, the ethnic unity of Proto-Kartvelians broke up into several branches, among them Svans, Zans/Chans and East-Kartvelians. That finally led to the formation of modern Kartvelian languages: Georgian (originating from East Kartvelian vernaculars), Svan, Megrelian and Laz (the latter two originating from Zan dialects). By that time Svans were dominant in modern Svanetia and Abkhazia, Zans inhabited modern Georgian province of Samegrelo, while East-Kartvelians formed the majority in modern eastern Georgia. As a result of cultural and geographic delimitation, two core areas of future Georgian culture and statehood formed in western and eastern Georgia by the end of the 8th century B.C. The first two Georgian states emerged in the west known as the Kingdom of Colchis and in the east as Kingdom of Iberia.
