5000-Year History of Gold Extraction from Sakdrisi Deposit? Discussion Based on Multidisciplinary Investigation

Abstract

Based on multidisciplinary analysis, the article discusses whether it was possible to extract gold from the Sakdrisi hydrothermal ore deposit (Caucasus, Georgia) 5000 years ago, as argued in a number of recent publications (Stollner et al., 2008; Hauptmann, Klein, 2009; Ghambashidze et al., 2010; Stollner et al., 2014). In order to establish the validity of their assertions, the author has studied and researched the oldest metallurgical centers in Caucasus, history of archaeological studies of Sakdrisi mine, method of radiocarbon (14C) dating, geological type of Sakdrisi deposit, types of gold mineralization, methods of gold extraction from ore deposits and their history. The results obtained are analyzed from two perspectives: 1. the possibility of extracting gold from the hydrothermal ores at the turn of the 4th-3rd millennium BC) and 2. the reliability of results obtained through radiocarbon dating for the Sakdrisi mine (14C).

The paper argues that the above-mentioned publications have not dealt with the question of gold extraction from the Sakdrisi deposit on a sufficiently strict professional level. It explains in detail that gold mining from deposits of the Sakdrisi type is only possible by chemical or biological methods,
which were discovered in a considerably later period, and therefore, could not have been used earlier. The paper points out that the charcoal found in the Sakdrisi mine has already been contaminated due to a number of factors, and consequently, all the results of the radiocarbon dating is to be considered
wrong in any case. Taking into account the geological and mining data and the established unreliability of radiocarbon dating, the paper excludes the possibility of gold extraction from Sakdrisi hydrothermal ore deposit at the turn of the 3rd Millennium BC.