Drawing on theories of comparative regionalism, this article examines the construction of regionalist frames in Azerbaijan covering the period from 1993 to mid-2023. By examining more than 60 text passages from presidential speeches and statements, the study identifies two framings of regionalism that have dominated presidential discourses in Azerbaijan: the discourse of Turkic solidarity or unity (in the political-security domain) and the narrative of an East-West corridor or the revival of the Silk Road for transport of cargo and hydrocarbon resources (in the economic domain). By constructing these discursive frames, Azerbaijani state leaders crafted an alternative regional order reconstituting the geographic category of “South Caucasus” into a new, spatially broader area. In this formulation, “South Caucasus” is viewed as a central pillar of the Silk Road, and Azerbaijan as one of its focal points or nodes. While the study underscores a key role that actors and ideas play in the formation of regions and regional institutions, it also highlights how social construction of regional identities is embedded in and shaped by historical experiences and country-specific political-economic conditions such as historical memories, experiences of war, collective identities and cultural affinities, geographic location, domestic political economic structures, and international linkages.

Recent years have seen the rapid expansion of airborne and spaceborne remote-sensing products adopted by archaeologists for interpreting ancient landscapes and managing heritage resources. A growing and increasingly specialized literature attests to the promise and availability of commercial and publicly funded satellite imagery, as well as UAV-mounted sensors across a range of resolutions and price points. In the South Caucasus (including the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), a growing commitment to landscape approaches in archaeology is stimulating the adoption of satellite remote sensing as an important new tool for identifying and managing archaeological resources while tracing the impact of historic land-use alterations in survey areas. Nevertheless, budgetary challenges and a lack of training opportunities among international partners and heritage organizations outside of the funding streams of large academic institutions can lead to widening technological gulfs in the discipline that reinforce colonial relationships. Building on recent technical articles covering specific imagery datasets, this article aims to address this by providing a general review of free or low-cost remotely sensed datasets available to archaeologists, with the aim of broadening awareness of these important tools and their vocabularies, and illustrating them with recent published examples from the South Caucasus.

This article examines the Russian investigation of the death of Hedayat-Allah Khan, who ruled Gilan from the mid-1750s until his death in 1786. Using Russian consular reports and records of the 1795 Russian investigation of his death, the article offers two major conclusions. First, Hedayat-Allah Khan ruled a Caspian-centered polity linked to the Russian consulate and trade through partnerships with merchant intermediaries. As Qajar hegemony in Iran emerged by 1786, the consulate and merchants threw their support to Aqa Mohammad Khan. Second, the 1795 Russian investigation of his death was opened by Catherine II to solidify alliances in response to Qajar claims to Tiflis in 1795. Shifting Russian strategic priorities under Emperor Paul removed the need for this investigation.

Recent years have seen the rapid adoption of digital site recording strategies following the proliferation of GPS-enabled mobile devices and data collection apps. Much of the emerging literature on digital—or paperless—archaeology, however, has focused on excavation contexts, with fewer discussions of mobile-GIS solutions on archaeological survey. This article discusses the design and implementation of a site survey workflow based on Esri's ArcGIS Collector mobile app in the context of Project ArAGATS's Kasakh Valley Archaeology Survey in northwestern Armenia. The Collector app provides a simple, map-centric user interface that allows surveyors with little-to-no GIS experience to record site locations, enter attribute data on customized digital forms, and attach photographs. With a network connection, the Collector app instantly uploads site information as GIS data to the project geodatabase and refreshes the data across surveyors’ mobile devices. Although the Collector app lacks certain GIS features and requires an institutional Esri license, we found that the native integration with our project GIS and broad access to visualization and recording tools in the app made in-field decision-making and interpretation more collaborative and inclusive across the survey team.

The European human rights system has long been seen as one of the greatest European achievements, with its European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) as the world's leading human rights court. Current turbulent times, however, pose serious challenges to the European system, which is increasingly being contested by the deepening ‘implementation crisis’. The absolute obligation of member states of the Council of Europe (CoE) to abide by ECtHR judgments under Article 46 of the European Convention on Human Rights has been increasingly compromised by the selective approach of states, often resulting in minimal, dilatory, lengthy or even contested compliance with ECtHR judgments. As the implementation backlog has grown largely after the accession to the CoE of the newly emerged states, as aspiring democracies, in the late 1990s and early 2000s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, this article analyses the compliance behaviour of these states by looking at the South Caucasus states: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The research findings suggest that partial compliance is a very likely form of compliance in the South Caucasus states as democratising states, and that some of the factors that explain such behaviour discussed in the article may be distinctive of states that joined the CoE as emerging democracies after the collapse of the Soviet Union. These states continue to display various vulnerabilities in the areas of human rights, the rule of law and democracy. This, in turn, has serious implications for the whole European human rights system and its ability to ensure that states’ commitments to the CoE are duly respected in the longer term.

The South Caucasus has been largely absent in broader discussions of prehistoric population aggregation in Greater Eurasia. The authors use remote sensing, surface collection and magnetometry to investigate two hilltop fortress settlements at the margins of the Kura River Basin, with a particular emphasis on satellite settlements around the main hills. The results support a model of settlement growth in which previously mobile groups settled around the fortress, while maintaining a degree of spatial and social separation. The use of multiple survey techniques reveals a complex picture of settlement organisation, with implications for comparative analysis of prehistoric population aggregation models.

The South Caucasus occupies the divide between ancient Mesopotamia and prehistoric Europe, and was thus crucial in the development of Old World societies. Chronologies for the region, however, have lacked the definition achieved in surrounding areas. Concentrating on the Tsaghkahovit Plain of north-western Armenia, Project ArAGATS's multi-site radiocarbon dataset has now produced Bayesian modelling, which provides tight chronometric support for tracing the transmission of technology, population movement and social developments that shaped the Eurasian Bronze and Iron Ages.

The republics that make up the South Caucasus today gained brief independence after the fall of the Tsarist Empire, before the integration of the region into Bolshevik Russia. This period, even though short, gives interesting historical background to understand the present. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to study the South Caucasian republics from 1918 to 1921 at the regional and international levels, paying particular attention to the historical continuities with the contemporary era (since 1991). The results of the study show three main parallels between the early twentieth century (1918–1921) and the present. First, the region is still internally divided (e.g. the unresolved conflicts). Second, externally, it is torn between sometimes opposing powers (e.g. Russia and the Western powers). Finally, third, the partnerships with international or regional powers still remain asymmetrical; consequently, the need to cooperate with Russia exceeds the aspirations of the Western powers toward the South Caucasus. Based on archival research, this study contributes to the historiography of the region and gives a framework for understanding the South Caucasus in contemporary international relations.

The nature and timing of environmental changes throughout the last glacial-interglacial transition in the South Caucasus, and more widely in eastern Europe, are still not fully understood. According to certain pollen records, forest expansion occurred in many areas several millennia after what is considered worldwide as the onset of the Holocene. The current problem we face is that the time lag in forest expansion varies from one sequence to another, sometimes with no delay at all. Moreover, the potential forcing/controlling factors behind this complex pattern, contrary to the almost synchronous global Holocene warming, are still a matter for debate. Accordingly, we revisit the issue of forest expansion through vegetation history obtained in the South Caucasus using a new pollen record, retrieved from the Nariani paleolake (South Georgia). These data attest to a steppic phase, initially dominated by Amaranthaceae-Chenopodiaceae (12,700–10,500 cal yr BP), then by Poaceae (10,500–9000 cal yr BP), culminating with a more forested phase (9000–5000 calyrBP). Although some palaeoclimatic regional reconstructions show a wet early Holocene, we interpret the delay in forest expansion recorded in Nariani (2500 years) as the result of reduced spring precipitation, which would have limited forest development at that time.

For more than a quarter-century, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been one of the most important factors influencing the political map of the South Caucasus. On 12 May 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire agreement that ended military operations in the conflict zone and has been observed until recently. Negotiations for a peaceful settlement have been underway within the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia, and France since 1992, but society and the elite in Armenia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Azerbaijan remain largely unprepared for compromise. Considering the settlement process a zero-sum game, they have generally accused one another of escalating the conflict and of a lack of willingness to restore peace. Other countries and international organizations involved in the negotiations do not share a vision of the future and frequently pursue their own interests. Accordingly, the Karabakh conflict could remain unresolved for decades more. The aim of the paper is a general assessment of the current stage and dynamic of this conflict and the impact of new trends and old obstacles on the prospects for further settlement.