Mount Chikiani Obsidian Sources (Lesser Caucasus, Georgia)

The scope of the surveys carried out during the last week of July and the first ten days of August 2023 was to improve our knowledge of the presence of knapped obsidian artefacts in the high-altitude stone-walled Bronze Age villages and kurgans located within a radius of some 50 km from the obsidian mines located on the Eastern slopes of Mt. Chikiani, and to improve our knowledge of the circulation and trade of this important knappable raw material. During the 2023 season a Garmin GPS and a non-professional drone (DJI Mini 2) were systematically employed to locate and photograph the archaeological structures. Among them are dozens of kurgans, some of which were discovered on the Western slopes of Mt. Paravani at c. 2500 m a.s.l. (fig. 1). Artefacts knapped from obsidian obtained from both Mt. Chikiani and the Armenian source of Ashotsk were found in this area.