Today marked the completion of our initial work in the northern survey area before shifting focus to points south of Aparan. We walked a single N-S transect along the right bank of the Kasakh River in the Mirak quadrant, checked on two burial clusters in the area of the Mirak dirt and sand mines, checked on Mirak Settlement 01 between Mirak and Aparan, and surveyed the gorge bottom, where possible, between the southern entrance to Mirak Village and the Kasakh's E-W passage underneath the M3 highway. We also revisited our the burial cluster south of Melikgyugh Village and concluded that the cluster consists of land amelioration rock piles, not burials.
Our morning transect (24) recorded some tuff mining on the right bank Kasakh terrace, as well as Soviet era irrigation equipment that moves water from the Mirak Reservoir to Aparan, but little else in the form of interesting archaeological results.
In the accompanying Kasakh gorge, Salpi and Karen encountered a cut, exposed by the river, that produced a great deal of obsidian debitage from a clear Paleolithic site. A cave with excellent, broad morphology was also noted in the northern half of this gorge section. However, active use by shepherds and animals prevented examination today.
We confirmed as well today, that the burial cluster proximate to the largely out of use Mirak sand mine (Ar/Mi.ICL14.12) is not currently in danger of further destruction, although it is significantly impacted already.
In examining Mirak Settlement 01, southeast of the sand mine and across several Kasakh tributaries, we agreed that the architecture there matched most closely that of Nigavan Settlement 01, across the river to the west. The site is composed of at least two primary room blocks, with the rooms cut deeply into the local sediments, and potentially bedrock. Several consist of two-room sectors split by rockier dividing berms. Numerous hard-to-understand rock concentrations are also scattered about the architecture and at least one open space for the settlement is visible.
Finally, we visited the burial cluster south of Melikgyugh (Ar/Mg.ICL14.02) as rain began to fall between 2 and 3 PM. As suspected after reviewing the burials cluster(s) recorded in 2015 in the Aparan survey quadrant (Tsaghkunyats foothills north of Aparan), these features appeared to be Soviet era rock piles, clearance piles, etc. Little earth appeared to be present between the stones, rose bushes and other large plants grew between them, and they were placed in suspiciously regular rows.