Areni-1 Cave

If G. Algaze's theory based on the supposed unbalanced relations between a main centre (southern Mesopotamia with city-states) and a less developed periphery (northern Mesopotamia, Iran, Anatolia and beyond) led to the emergence of a number of archaeological publications about the Late Uruk economic colonial system and its expansion at one time, now when B. Peasnall and M. S. Rothman found reasons to challenge above-mentioned theory and proved that economic and political complexity in the north were developing before intensified interaction with the south, the time has come for the formation of a more balanced view on the problem of the relationship between the south and the north. As the later stage of Middle Uruk and the Late Uruk period is contemporary with the Kura-Araxes culture of the advanced stage, it is impossible to date the archaeological material comparable with the culture of Uruk and found at the Caucasian so-called Cha/eolithic sites of the 'pre-Kura-Araxes'time by the Late (or even Middle) Uruk period. Therefore, the conclusion can only be one: the aforementioned parallels of the pre-Kura-Araxes period relate mainly to the Early Uruk or pre-Uruk/Ubaid period, if we assume that in shaping of the Mesopotamian Uruk culture attended cultural influx of Caucasian origin.