Mikheil Elashvili
Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
Invited professor, Bartlett College of Science & Mathematics, Bridgewater State University, MA, USA
Director, Cultural Heritage and Environment Research Center, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

RESEARCH TOPICS
Paleoenvironmental reconstruction, Human–environment interaction, Geophysics, Gearchaeology, GIS, Remote Sensing, and AI-based spatial modeling

WORK IN PROGRESS (Ongoing Research)

Caucasus Crossroads - Climate Change and Culture Connections (2025): An international interdisciplinary initiative integrating glacier ice archives, environmental proxies and archaeological–historical data to reconstruct human–environment interactions in the 
Caucasus during the Holocene (team leader from Georgia, project lead by AOROC - CNSR PSL, PSL Global Seed Fund)

Climate and Environmental Changes in Javakheti Highland: Insights into Bronze Age Megalithic Culture (2025–2028): integrated GIS, sedimentary, and Geoarchaeological analysis of Bronze Age megalithic landscapes (PI; in collaboration with University of Cologne and Tallinn University).

EnviroLink: Linking Research, Education, and Technology in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences (2025–2026): development of cross-disciplinary Environmental research and training platforms (team leader from Georgia, University of Cologne International Forum).

Holocene Glacier–Climate Reconstructions in the Greater Caucasus (2024–2026): combining remote sensing, field glaciology, and paleoclimate archives.

The Georgia Historical Ice Core Project - GHICP (2020-2023) understanding and promoting a vanishing climate and cultural history of central Eurasia. In collaboration with University of Nottingham, UK and Climate Change Institute, University of Maine, USA. (Co-PI from Georgia)

DEGREES 
M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics and Informatics, Tbilisi State University
Ph.D. in Solid Earth Physics (Geophysics), Institute of Geophysics, Georgian National Academy of Sciences
Postdoc, Landscape evolution in Colchis lowland, University of Tallinn

SCHOLARSHIPS / AWARDS
•  Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme (FMSH), PSL ENS (2025)
•  EU Fellowship for Georgian Researchers, University of Cologne, PSL ENS, DAI (2023)
•  Fulbright Scholarship, Bridgewater State University, USA (2022)
•  DAAD Research Scholarship, University of Cologne (2014)
•  Junior Faculty Development Program (JFDP), MIT, USA (2012)
•  INTAS Young Scientist Fellowship, Athens Geophysical Observatory (2002–2003)

WORKSHOPS / CONFERENCES
•  Co-Convener - NH6.4 Session: Remote Sensing & Cultural Heritage, EGU 2020
•  Co-Convener - NH6.8 Session: Remote Sensing & Cultural Heritage, EGU 2021
•  Session Chair: ASOR 2021, Interdisciplinarity at SiMUR - the Shiraki International Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Project (Virtual)
•  Session Chair - Interdisciplinarity at SiMUR - the Shiraki International Multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Project (Workshop), American Society of Overseas Research, 2022 Fall Meeting
•  Co-Organizer - Workshop hosted by the Ilia State University “Georgia Historical Ice-Core Project (SHICP): Pilot Publications and Next Stages”, July 2023.
•  Co-organizer - Workshop hosted by the École Normale Supérieure, Paris “Climate Change and Human-Environmental Interaction in Caucasus”, Dec 2023.
•  Session Co-Chair - Archaeology of the Black Sea and the Caucasus, American Society of Overseas Research, 2025 Fall Meeting

BIBLIOGRAPHY (selected)

• Research papers:

Laermanns, H., Elashvili, M., Brückner, H., 2025, Bronzezeitliche Siedlungshügel der Kolchis, Zeugen früher Besiedlung in Westgeorgien, Kulturen im Kaukasus. Spuren zwischen Bergen und Steppen. Editor: Sabine Reinhold. Special Issue, Archaologie in Deutschland, 33, pp 75-78

Losaberidze, L., Kirkitadze, G., Akhalaia, M., Lobjanidze, M., Zimmerman, M., and Elashvili, M, (Last author), 2024. New insights into complex social organization in the southern Caucasus Late Bronze Age–Early Iron Age settlement patterns in the Shiraki Plain (southeast Georgia), E&G Quaternary Sci. J., 73, 145–158, https://doi.org/10.5194/egqsj-73-145-2024

Loveluck, C. P., Tielidze, L. G., Elashvili, M., Kurbatov, A. V., Gadrani, L., Erb-Satullo, N., von Suchodoletz, H., Dan, A., Laermanns, H., Brückner, H., Schlotzhauer, U., Sulava, N., & Chagelishvili, R., 2024. Rapid Climate Change, Integrated Human–Environment–Historical Records and Societal Resilience in Georgia. Sustainability, 16(16), 7116. https://doi.org/10.3390/su16167116

Gademann, D., Ustiashvili, N., Adikashvili, L., Navrozashvili, L., Erb-Satullo, N., van der Meij, M., Kirkitadze, G., Koff, T., Elashvili, M., Brückner, H. and Laermanns, H., 2024. The Lake Paravani archive a contribution to the late Quaternary landscape evolution of the Lesser Caucasus (Georgia), Boreas, 53: 655-672. https://doi.org/10.1111/bor.12669

Laermanns, H., Elashvili, M., Kirkitadze, G., Loveluck, C. P., May, S. M., Kelterbaum, D., Papuashvili, R., & Brückner, H. 2024, The Bronze Age occupation of the Black Sea coast of Georgia - New insights from settlement mounds of the Colchian plain. Geoarchaeology, 39, pp. 335-350, https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21994

Koptekin D, et al… Mikheil Elashvili (55 coauthors) 2023, Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in human mobility patterns in Holocene Southwest Asia and the East Mediterranean, Current Biology 33, pp. 41–57. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.11.034

Frodella, W., Mikheil Elashvili, Daniele Spizzichino, Giovanni Gigli, Akaki Nadaraia, Giorgi Kirkitadze, Luka Adikashvil, Claudio Margottini, Nikoloz Antidze and Nicola Casagli, 2021, Applying Close Range Non‐Destructive Techniques for the Detection of Conservation Problems in Rock‐Carved Cultural Heri / tage Sites, Remote Sensing 2021, 13(5), 1040. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs13051040 ;

Frodella, W., Mikheil Elashvili, Daniele Spizzichino, Giovanni Gigli, Luka Adikashvili, Nikoloz Vacheishvili, Giorgi Kirkitadze, Akaki Nadaraia, Claudio Margottini and Nicola Casagli, 2020, Combining InfraRed Thermography and UAV Digital Photogrammetry for the Protection and Conservation of Rupestrian Cultural Heritage Sites in Georgia: A Methodological Application, Remote Sensing, 12(5), 892; https://doi.org/10.3390/rs12050892 ;

• Books / Monography:

Coauthor: Materials for the Archaeological Map of Colchis in the 5th-1st cc BC, 2017, ILIA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS, ISBN 978-9941-18-277-8
Coauthor: Textbook “Climate Change and Sustainable Development”, 2016, Heinrich Boll Foundation. ISBN:978-9941-0-9545-0
Coauthor: Atlas of Natural Hazards & Risks of Georgia, 2012, CENN, ISBN 978-9941-0-4310-9, 2012