ISSUES IN THE HISTORY OF TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURE IN TAO-KLARJETI– HORTICULTURE AND FARMING

Abstract

Since time immemorial, agricultural life and pastoral culture have coexisted in the Kura, Chorokhi, Tigris, and Euphrates basins. These river basins were inhabited by culturally related peoples who led sedentary lifestyles and thus formed the forerunners of an agrarian civilization as early as the end of the Eneolithic era. The Chorokhi basin, where one part of the Georgian feudal provinces, including Tao and Klarjeti, formed in the Middle Ages, was of special importance in this river system.
Agriculture was a leading economic branch among Caucasian and Anatolian peoples. Accordingly, husbandry was vital to the social and economic life of this vast ethno-cultural region. The economic way of life of the people of Tao and Klarjeti, like other parts of historical Georgia, mirrored the economic life of the mountains, the foothill line, and the plains.
The economic zones in Tao and Klarjeti were well-organized. Vegetable gardens and orchards were planted in artificially fenced terraces around the farmsteads, followed by meadows and floodplains on the slopes and riverside hills a short distance away. The irrigation system’s efficiency was critical for the agricultural life of the people of the settlements near the gullies. Tao-Klarjeti was a hot, rocky terrain with a lot of water, which doubled the irrigation prospects and importance in the area. Terraced farming presented a challenge to man in terms of irrigating the terraced land. Natural needs, among other things, led to highly developed irrigation farming in Asia Minor – Anatolia, and in Georgia, particularly in Tao and Klarjeti.
In the Caucasus and Asia Minor - Anatolia, particularly in Tao-Klarjeti, not only technologies reflecting human labor activity developed, but also forms of cereal crops proper, many of which are considered endemic varieties. The crop plots were intended for cereal cultivation, while the floodplains were used for haying and making winter stock for farmed animals.