Results and Future Perspectives

    The second season of the "Georgian-Italian Lagodekhi Archaeological Project" confirmed the interest of the Lagodekhi region for a long-term project of archaeological investigation. Large-scale excavations at Tsiteli Gorebi 5 confirmed the presence, for the first time in the region, of rectilinear architecture of the Chalcolithic period, and allowed for a better understanding of the general layout of the settlement. Unfortunately, however, they also confirmed the limited thickness of the anthropic layers, the extensive damage caused to it by Soviet-times and later mechanised agriculture, and the generally poor preservation of the Chalcolithic remains due to both soil and climatic conditions.
    It also allowed to implement the assemblage of Chalcolithic artefacts (ceramics, lithics and worked bone material) recovered in 2018 for chrono-typological analysis aiming at a better contextualisation of Tsiteli Gorebi 5 within the Chalcolithic cultures of the Southern Caucasus, and to collect further samples for reconstructing the palaeoenvironment and subsistence economy of the ancient population and for absolute dating.
    To the present stage of research, artefacts from the site look very similar to those from the other sites of the Tsiteli Gorebi cluster and would suggest a rough contemporaneity with them. This may indicate a pattern of occupation, as previously suggested for different Ceramic Neolithic cultures from Upper Mesopotamia to the Caucasus, where the same community occupies a small territory by settling in small, ephemeral and frequently shifting settlements. Other elements of continuity with the Ceramic Neolithic tradition can be seen in the presence of ditches, as well as in some features of ceramic production. All this would suggests a date in the early 5th millennium BC which, if confirmed by ongoing 14C analysis, would allow to identify a previously unknown phase between the Ceramic Neolithic and the still elusive “Sioni Culture”.
    The next campaigns of the Georgian-Italian Lagodekhi Archaeological project will focus on better understanding the general settlement pattern of the Chalcolithic period in the Tsiteli Gorebi region by carrying out soundings at other sites attributed to the same general period with the aim of highlighting possible chronological differences and/or mutual relations among them. In particular, it is our intention to carry out some investigations at site LS023, where surface material suggests the presence of wattle-and-daub structures (i.e. built in a different building technique) associated with pottery and lithics at first sight resembling those from Tsiteli Gorebi 5. The survey campaign which is foreseen to take place in October-November 2019 will hopefully allow to highlight further topics of investigation, to be followed during the next field seasons.