Re: [tied] obscure languages - Kaskian, Hattic,

The only evidence that we have in the Eastern Black Sea region for a 'kingdom' in ancient times is Colchis, rather later in time than the period we are considering.  Here we have to rely in part on Greek myths (the Jason and the Argonauts legend).  In the late 1980's and early 1990's some very interesting archaeological work was carried out in western Georgia by David Braund of the  University of Exeter ['Georgia in Antiquity', publ. Clarendon Press, Oxford (1993)]. Ch. 1 of this work gives a quite useful overview of the whole historico-geographical area, though the work deals principally with the period 550 BC - CE 562.  I have no information on comparable archaeological work in NE Turkey.