This publication makes the evidence for early iron smelting in Georgia available in English for the first time. It presents the results of excavations carried out between 1960 and 1984 on 9 clusters of iron-working sites in western Georgia. The features described here are remarkably consistent in their layout and the results of the present publication indicate a large, well developed industry. Further survey work should give us a better idea of just how large this prehistoric iron industry was, but it is already clear from the results reported in this book that the furnaces varied in size, with some being very large.