Sampling for palaeoenviromnental research, archaeometric analyses, radiometric dating

    Sampling for different types of scientific analyses was also carried out in the course of the season, in order to implement the corpus of data collected during the previous years in the Shida Kartli region with the aim of investigating the relation of the ancient inhabitants of Georgia with their natural environment and their use of available natural resources.
    Ca 25 samples of Late Chalcolithic sherds from Tsiteli Gorebi 5, together with a few Late Bronze, Hellenistic and Medieval sherds, were selected for archaeometric analyses. 30 obsidian samples were collected for provenance analysis (to be carried out by Bernard Gratuze, IRAMAT, Institut de Recherche sur les Archéomatériaux, Centre Ernest Babelon, C.N.R.S., Université d'Orléans, France).
    We also collected samples for soil micromorphological analysis (to be analysed by Giovanni Boschian) and palinological analyses (to be processed by Eliso Kvavadze, Georgian National Museum) from the sections of the Soundings. Unfortunately, remains of organic materials were extremely scanty, so that very few 14C samples (to be analysed by Elisabetta Boaretto, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel), mainly consisting of animal bones, could be collected from the site. Sample of animal bones were also collected with the aim of subjecting them to stable isotopes analysis (by prof. Paola Iacumin, University of Parma, Italy) in order to trace movements of people and animals, as well as herding systems in the Chalcolithic periods, and to DNA analyses (by profs. Ino Čurik and Vlatka Čubrić Čurik of the Agronomski Fakultet of Zagreb University, Croatia) in order to reconstruct the diffusion of domestic animal races.