I spent this morning droning 4 batteries worth of Vardenut with Arsho, while Elizabeth supervised transect walking west of Kuchak, west of Kuchakaberd. With Shujing joining us on Saturday, we were 5 field walkers today, plus Arsho. Hovik rejoined as driver, with Samvel reportedly joining us back tomorrow.
The burials at Vardenut are more extensive than our original evaluation, while it seems as if the settlement may be only minimally visible on the surface and also covered in later(?) cromlechs. The burials extend significantly to the west, so we will return tomorrow for two more flights worth of data collection.
After lunching back in the Aragats quadrant, I rejoined the survey team for Transect walking (84 and 85) N-S, still west of Kuchaka Berd. As the rest of the team had reported, the burial cluster frequencies have ticked up here, and I too recorded multiple clusters on Transect 84. Most of the clusters have been located on the southern and eastern slopes of hillsides, facing Kuchaka Berd, which is either highly interesting, or taphonomically suspect, or both.
At the end of today we drove home via Tsaghkashen village (finally!) and will try to be even more efficient with our driving routes tomorrow.