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When the Sakdrisi complex was discovered and its importance fully apprehended more than 15 years ago, no one realised at the time how much valuable information was to be harvested from field and laboratory work as a result. It is a recognised fact that mining, metallurgy, settlement and societal structures are related to each other as contemporary features: this opens up various new approaches towards understanding a gold-mining society of the late 4th millennium BC. The entire production evidence from the Kura-Araxes production chain will be described in an overview, beginning with the mining, the ore-dressing, the ore-milling and the smelting. This valuable evidence has also enabled the research team to understand the importance gold production once had in daily life and how this influenced the ritual habits and the social system. One basic question is whether the production of gold was at this time a permanent or a part-time activity, especially as there is some ambiguity concerning the way of life of the groups involved in gold production at the beginning: were they mobile or sedentary? This question should be approached not only through qualitative but also quantitative aspects: what labour force was necessary to produce one gram of gold from a rich gold-hematite deposit like Sakdrisi? The research team approached this question by a series of experiments and was able to establish a detailed quantitative calculation of the production steps (the “Paravani calculation”, named after an archaeological site where a golden earring was found). These quantitative data will be used to model the different steps of the work carried out at Sakdrisi and Dzedzvebi and to help us understand the societal consequences that it once entailed.
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