The Araxes River in Late Pehistory: Bridge or Border ?

The Araxes River acts as a passageway between Iran and the Caucasus but also as a frontier between two distinct universes. The geo-political complexity of the middle Araxes basin has gradually become more and more evident as archeological investigations on both sides of the river have multiplied over the last 10 years, whether it be in Iran, Armenia or Azerbaijan. The two faces of this region are particularly apparent in Nakhchivan, where the Djolfa pass provides a major access to the south, thus linking Iran with the Caucasus and Anatolia over the millennia. But inter-regional exchanges between the Middle-East and the Caucasus have no doubt greatly varied in intensity over time, as they evolved alongside a number of parameters that need to be analyzed. Inter-regional dynamics over the longue durée must be analyzed from different angles in order to bring out the underlying mechanisms at work in these contrasting areas during the Late Prehistory.