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219West and Central Asia. Solo performance and monodic musical structure (factors 1 and2) inherent in the rural music-cultures of Armenia, Azerbaijan, West and Central Asia arealso characteristic of the Kartli-Kakhetian “long” songs. Tetrachordal system in the scalesof “long” songs (factor 3) is the system on which songs from the music cultures ofArmenia, Azerbaijan, and the peoples of West and Central Asia are based (Kushnarev,1958:11-12). Ornamentation and recitation in the melodies (factor 4), freely improvisedrhythm (factor 5), non-metric time organization (factor 6) and non-repetitive improvisedform (factor 7) are characteristic traits of the rural music-cultures of the peoples ofArmenia, Azerbaijan, Central and West Asia as well as well as of the Kartli-Kakhetian‘long’ songs.” (Tsitsishvili, 1998:137).The most plausible historical explanation of these contacts comes from thearchaeological records. According to them, there had been two major waves of migrationon the territory of Georgia in the 3 rd and 2 nd millennia B.C. These migrations brought toGeorgia a totally new type of material culture, social organization, burial rites, and a newpopulation with a different physical type. Archaeologists believe these migrations wereconnected to the appearance of Indo-Europeans on the territory of Georgia (Japaridze,1976). As time went by the mixture of the old and new populations and cultures becameevident. The new Indo-European population must have brought to Georgia the new typeof musical culture as well, most possibly close to the musical styles of some other Indo-European peoples of the neighboring regions – like Armenia and Iran. These are musicalcultures based on a monophonic singing style with an emphasis on solo performance,richly ornamented melodic lines, tetrachordal scales, free rhythm and non-metrictime organization.Most importantly for our topic, these migrations and major cultural andpopulation changes during the 3 rd -2 nd millennia involved only the territory of EastGeorgia, while the territory of western Georgia, situated on the other side of the Likhimountains (the dividing mountain range between the eastern and western Georgia)remained virtually unaffected (Japaridze, 1976; Abdushelishvili, 1964, 1966); Alexeev,1974a).Richly ornamented and freely flowing “long” table songs are not the only witnessof the ancient external influence of the monophonic musical cultures of West Asia andCentral Asia on East Georgian musical culture. The singing traditions of Kartli andKakheti (two central regions of the East Georgia) also contain a special genre of solomonophonic working songs, known under the generic names “Orovela” [meaning isunknown] and “Urmuli” [lit. bull-carter’s song]. These are important groups of songs ofpurely monophonic music, with richly melismatic melody, free rhythm, non-metric timeorganization and “oriental” tetrachordal scales with augmented seconds. In Georgia“Orovela” and “Urmuli” songs are found exclusively in the plain regions of East Georgia(Kartli and Kakheti). There are no signs of Orovela and Urmuli type songs in westernGeorgia or the mountain regions of eastern Georgia. At the same time, outside Georgiathe same type of agricultural working songs (based on tetrachordal scales with theaugmented seconds, melismatic melodic line and free metric organization) are found inneighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan, West and Central Asia. Even the generic Georgianterm “Orovela” finds parallels with the solo working songs from Armenia (“Horovel”),Azerbaijan (“Holovar”) and even with the texts of Central Asian solo working songs(Tsitsishvili, 1998:139).