Colchis is an isolated region in the western part of the Republic of Georgia, bounded by mountains on the north, east, and south sides, and by the Black Sea on the west. It remained largely peripheral to major Bronze Age cultural phenomena such as the Early Bronze Age Kura-Araxes complex, the Middle Bronze Age Trialeti complex, the Late Bronze Age empires of Anatolia and the Near East, or contemporary developments in South Russia. In the mid-first millennium B.C. a complex society emerged in Colchis, among whose defining characteristics are rich élite graves, fine metalwork, and abundant evidence for interaction with the North Pontic, Mediterranean, and Near Eastern worlds. This talk addresses the utility of regional survey as a strategy for examining the development of this society, focusing on the area around Vani, a major Colchian site.