I quantitatively analyzed male morphology of two closely related rhinoceros beetles species (Chalcosoma caucasus F. and Chalcosoma atlas L.) in 12 allopatric and seven sympatric locations throughout Southeast Asia. The qualitative features and the magnitude of intraspecific variation of each species were unaltered between allopatric and sympatric locations. Across allopatric locations, body siz...

The problems of weak state structures, including state territoriality, in the South Caucasus has highly influenced political developments and the building of a democratic state. This paper explains the difficulty of recovering statehood in the cases of Armenia and Georgia, both in the context of post–Soviet state transformation and post–conflict state-rebuilding. It argues that recovering state...

The origins of Ashkenazi Jews remain highly controversial. Like Judaism, mitochondrial DNA is passed along the maternal line. Its variation in the Ashkenazim is highly distinctive, with four major and numerous minor founders. However, due to their rarity in the general population, these founders have been difficult to trace to a source. Here we show that all four major founders, ~40% of Ashkena...

The “crossroads” is a recurring trope in popular and academic writing on the South Caucasus. This can conjure simplistic explanatory frameworks of timeless “silk road” connectivity, or region as meeting point East West, democracy authoritarianism, Christianity Islam. However, it also evocative powerful ways that movement people, goods, ideas across have shaped its past present. In this contribu...

Aim . Questions about the invasive flora of Caucasus regions are a most important issue under discussion. The aim research is to identify species composition family Poaceae, which alien Western Caucasus, and their distribution over floristic Caucasus. Material Methods Material: Disturbed communities. Methods: analysis herbarium collections, route reconnaissance studies territory Eastern detaile...

The systematic excavations at Ortvale Klde rockshelter and Dzudzuana Cave in Western Georgia uncovered an occupational sequence spanning the Late Mousterian and Early Upper Paleolithic. The cultural break between the two entities is dated to ca 36–34 Ka BP and reflects a relatively late survival of Neanderthals in this region; similar results were reported from Mezmaiskaya cave on the northern ...

The Kura-Araxes cultural tradition existed in the highlands of the South Caucasus from 3500 to 2450 BCE (before the Christian era). This tradition represented an adaptive regime and a symbolically encoded common identity spread over a broad area of patchy mountain environments. By 3000 BCE, groups bearing this identity had migrated southwest across a wide area from the Taurus Mountains down int...

Currently, 47 species of the genus Platypalpus are known from the Caucasus including fourteen species recorded herein for the first time: P. albicornis (Zetterstedt, 1842), P. baldensis (Strobl, 1899), P. caroli Grootaert, 1987, P. ciliaris (Fallén, 1816), P. clarandus (Collin, 1926), P. collini (Chvála, 1966), P. cothurnatus Macquart, 1827, P. infectus (Collin, 1926), P. longicornis (Meigen, 1...

In this chapter, I explore the impact of the post-Soviet political and socioeconomic transitions on women in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus. I review the impact of Soviet policies on gender roles and relations in order to contextualize post-Soviet developments. The central segment, which examines gender roles and relations after socialism, is divided into two secti...

Forensic Computing is a new and quickly developing field. It is in the process of becoming an academic discipline or sub-discipline with all the features from full undergraduate and postgraduate course provision to conferences and journals. An important question in this process of turning into an established discipline is whether it will coincide with the recognition of the graduates as profess...