Arsho and I completed our droning of Vardenut this morning, using two additional batteries before rejoining the rest of the survey team west of Kuchak Berd, where we continued to walk transects today.
After Varedenut, we droned Kuchaka Berd and performed separate photography of the long southwestern fortress wall, which sits at a poor angle for capture by terrestrial photography. In examining that long wall further, we realized that: (1) there is a significant amount of boulder fall on that side of the hill, meaning the original foundation wall stood at least two meters tall, and (2) that the builders made acute use of bedrock to fortify the hilltop, blending the fortress walls in with the surrounding outcrops.
Transects 86 and 87 found some additional burials, connecting Kuchaka Berd further to the mortuary landscape to its west. We also identified several additional cromlechs from the aerial drone photos, just south of Kuchaka Berd, on a slope we will leave to next year (this was the last survey day this season at in the Kuchak quadrant).
Following lunch we walked Transect 88 north of the forrest preserve, completed our GPS outline of the preserve fence, and examined a second site within the preserve, identified as Kuchak Settlement 05. The site initially eluded our detection, as it is quite embedded within a landscape of amelioration, Soviet picnic site, and modern preserve. It consists of at least 10 house outlines and basement pits, standing walls, and intervening spaces that resemble streets or alleys (about 1.5 ha in total size).