Kuftin Boris

Kuftin Boris (1892-1953), Russian archeologist and ethnographer. Academician of the Academy of the Sciences of Georgia (1946). Born in Samara, Russia. From 1919 he held the position of a professor of Moscow University. In 1933 – 1953 he was employed at the State Museum of Georgia. From 1933 onwards, he mainly explored Georgian archeological artifacts. B. Kuftin was engaged in researching the periodicity and chronology of the history of Georgian and Caucasian object cultures. He discovered and explored the Trialetian Culture and published the results of his research in his work Archeological Excavations in Trialeti (vol. 1, 1941), for which he was awarded the State Prize in 1942. B. Kuftin also identified the Culture of the Mtkvari-Araqs Rivers. He recorded the results of researching the archeological artifacts of Western Georgia in his two-volume work Materials for Colchis Archeology (1949– 1950).

Contrary to the theory of migration of Georgian tribes to the Caucasus, B. Kuftin believed that the ancient culture, discovered by him, belonged to the sedentary population of South Caucasus and that the culture in question had cropped up exactly on that territory. Consequently, according to B. Kuftin, South Caucasus was the ancient homeland of Georgian people.

B. Kuftin died in Leningrad (presentday St. Petersburg).