With Bryan Fagan newly arrived this morning from the U.S. to join us on survey, Elizabeth stayed home to get him settled, which left me and Salpi to work in the field today (Karen remains house bound with his foot injury). We spent our time ground-truthing and exploring Aparan 3, the west bank Kasakh site toward the southern end of the Aparan Reservoir. Unfortunately, all of the eastern survey area ground-truth points, except for those high in the Tsaghkunyats that we were not able to visit today, turned out to be rock piles, sand mines, or bedrock formations.
Moving west, we then investigated the site of Aparan 3, the final known Bronze Age settlement within the survey area that we have yet to investigate this season. We identified Ruben and Armine's 2005 trenches and and surface collected materials from both there and along the reservoir shore further north and east. Significant amounts of eroding EB and 1st mill (I3?) pottery were collected there, as well as a good amount of obsidian debitage. We followed the material scatter to approximately halfway between the northern edge of the tree line and Aparan 2. There is a clear line of distinction, where one site ends and the other begins. Thus, local occupation appears to have shifted back and forth between the two sites between the 4th and 1st millennia BC. This presents a fantastic opportunity for long term multi-site, diachronic excavation, except for the threatening nature of changing lake levels and erosion.
After attempting some additional ground-truthing west of the M3 in the vicinity of Tsaghkashen, we returned to Aparan and reviewed the most recent survey obsidian coding, done by the Fagans.