Kura-Araxes culture

The Kura-Araxes culture or the Early trans-Caucasian culture, a civilization that existed from 3400 B.C until about 2000 B.C. [1] The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 B.C., and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1000 km by 500 km. [2]

This is all quite unknown from any classical historic records, their name (given by modern archaeologists) comes from the Kura and Araxes river valleys where they developed. The territory they inhabited are generally thought to be present day Armenia, Georgia and the Caucasus. [3] It may have given rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.