The main aim of the season was to resume the field activities (excavation, survey, prospections, etc.) of the expedition, which had been interrupted since October 2019 because of the COVID emergency, exception made for a short study season, which took place from January 16th to February 1st 2021. It was dedicated to completing the study and the documentation of the finds from the 2019 season (both from the excavation and the survey) and to collecting casts of microlithic finds (obsidian and flint) from Tsiteli Gorebi 5) to be submitted to trace analysis (by. D. D’Errico) in Italy. Participants were Elena Rova, Flavia Amato and Vanessa Perissinotto).
Autumn 2021 field activities were considerably hindered by the unfavourable weather conditions (three weeks of almost continuous rain, which flooded the low-lying sectors of the Alazani plain and made access to the sites impossible for several days), but the members of the expedition exploited the occasion to devote themselves to other research activities (sampling for archaeometric analysis, study of museum collections, experimental archaeology and didactic activities for local high school students).
Excavation activities concentrated on Tsiteli Gorebi 5, one of a cluster of Early Chalcolithic sites (5th millennium BC) located in the territory of the present village of Ulianovka/Tsitelgori in the southern part of the Lagodekhi Municipality (Fig. 1), close to the border with Azerbaijan. The 2018/2019 excavations had revealed the existence, there, of a single-period settlement dating back to a phase which is very poorly attested all over the Southern Caucasus: the very beginning of the Chalcolithic period (5000-4800 BC), sandwiched between two much better known periods: the Ceramic Neolithic (6th millennium BC) and the Late Chalcolithic (second half of the 5th-first half of the 4th millennium BC). They had brought to light, on a low mounded area in the northern part of the site which apparently represented the centre of the ancient settlement, some remains of rectilinear architecture and a portion of a contemporary ditch. Unfortunately, these had been deeply affected by modern mechanical agriculture in the course of the Soviet period and later, to the point that no in situ material could be recovered from them, although a coherent assemblage of contemporary artefacts (mainly pottery sherds, obsidian tools and a few bone objects) could in fact be collected all over the excavation area.
The 2021 season aimed at defining the outer limits of the Chalcolithic village and better understanding its topographical layout. At the very beginning of the season, a short geomagnetic survey was carried out. This proved very successful, in that it showed the existence of a number of circular ditches surrounding small areas within the ancient settlement, and oriented the development of the following weeks, which were partially dedicated to opening small geological soundings (for a total of five) in different areas of the site, in order to verify the existence and the date of the latter.
Excavations were continued at the site from August 31st to October 5st. They aimed at verifying the presence of hopefully better preserved occupation, contemporary to the one unearthed in 2019, in the southern part of the site, where surface investigations carried out in autumn 2019 had put into evidence two concentrations of Chalcolithic pottery, obsidian and reddish clayish material (daub). Two different excavation areas (Fields B and C) of 10 x 5 m each were thus opened, with the intention of widening them in the case of very promising results. This was unfortunately not the case, as in both areas the archaeological levels turned out to have been almost completely obliterated by modern disturbances and, furthermore, to be almost completely devoid of artefacts. Field C was thus abandoned, whereas the excavation area in Field B was expanded of two additional 5 x 5 m squares in order to intercept some other features highlighted by the geomagnetic prospection.
In spite of this, the excavation was successful in that it confirmed that the site, as hypothesised at the end of the 2019 season, occupied a much larger area than hitherto supposed, and consisted of small island-like raised areas surrounded by circular ditches, on which the now disappeared buildings and installations were located in order to protect them from water stagnation. Another important achievement of the joint study of the results of geomagnetic prospection and excavation was to prove that the Chalcolithic settlement had not been the earliest human occupation in the area. It had in fact been preceded by a layer of pits extending all over the site’s territory, whose date is still uncertain but to judge from the scanty material recovered, was not much earlier, although it was separated from it by a series of sterile layers of possible alluvial origin.
Work on the season’s finds (both artefacts and ecofacts) proceeded in the expedition house at Lagodekhi at the same time as the excavation. Samples for radiometric dating, soil micromorphology analysis and archaeometric analyses were also collected in the course of the season.
Besides investigating Tsiteli Gorebi 5, the expedition carried out the following activities;
1) in spite of the difficult working conditions (the area was partially flooded until the very last days) the archaeological survey of the Lagodekhi Municipality was successfully continued, from October 10th to October 21st. The coverage of some parts of the region which had not been, or had only cursorily been visited during the previous seasons was implemented, and locations suggested by the locals as possible sites were also visited. This allowed to add 10 new, mostly previously unknown archaeological sites to the survey list and to get a more reliable idea about how archaeological sites are distributed on the territory;
2) prof. Giovanni Boschian continued the geo-archaeological research in the southern part of the Municipality. He supervised the excavation of geological soundings in the Tsiteli Gorebi area, as well as at two sites (Nos LS034 and LS075 of the Lagodekhi survey) located deep in the forest flanking the course of the Alazani River to the north;
3) ground-penetrating radar profiles were made at one of the large 3rd millennium kurgan of the Ananauri group (Ananauri kurgan 9, site LS034);
4) Flavia Amato completed the analysis of the lithic finds from Aradetis Orgora and Doghlauri, now stored in the Georgian National Museum at Tbilisi and in Kareli local Museum;
5) Giovanni Siracusano took samples for isotopic analyses from the animal bones excavated by the expedition at Aradetis Orgora (Kareli municipality) in 2013-2016, now stored at the Kareli local Museum;
6) prof. Ivana Angelini took samples of beads of artificial materials (so-called “paste”) of Kura-Araxes period from Aradetis Orgora and other sites at both the GNM in Tbilisi and the Kareli local Museum;
7) prof. Francesca Bertoldi and prof. Liane Bitadze took samples for stable isotope analysis of human bones and teeth from the Doghlauri excavations at Tbilisi University;
8) Davide d’Errico carried out preliminary trace analyses on flint and obsidian artefacts from the 2021 season at Tsiteli Gorebi 5, as well as from flint and obsidian artefacts from the 2013-2016 excavations at Aradetis Orgora, and took casts of them, to be analysed in Italy;
9) in connection with the latter activity, the members of the mission carried out experimental archaeology; some modern replicas of ancient chipped obsidian tools were created, and different materials were worked with them. Davide D’Errico produced casts of the used replicas to be submitted to trace analyses in Italy;
10) the members of the expedition exploited some of the days of forced absence from the field because of the bad weather conditions to carry out some research in the local museum of the Kakheti region, with the aim: a) to identify the present location of the materials from Varazashvili’s excavations at Tsiteli Gorebi in order to examine and re-study them and, b) to identify other interesting lots of materials for future studies. The museums in Sighnaghi, Gurjaani and Dedoplitskaro were visited. Materials from Tsiteli Gorebi 5 exhibited at Sighnaghi were fully re-studied; the rest was ascertained to be deposited in the reserve collections of Gurjaani Museum, but to be presently inaccessible;
11) experimental 3D scansions of artefacts (pottery, obsidian, bone and metal objects) were carried out under the supervision of Flavia Amato on items stored in different museums of the Kakheti region (Lagodekhi, Sighnaghi and Gurjaani);
12) a series of two lessons of “Introduction to Archaeology” for local high school students were carried out by the members of the expedition on October 5th and 12th at the Lagodekhi local Museum.
13) some materials from Tsiteli Gorebi 5 were selected to be exhibited at the Lagodekhi Musuem and the relevant explanatory texts were prepared.
14) On October 9th, some members of the expedition paid a visit to a “field of Kurgans” in the region of Gardabani (Kvemo Kartli) discovered by Levan Losaberidze and Mariam Eloshvili and took GPS points of them and drone photos of them.
The following paragraphs contain a detailed description of these activities.
