YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian-German joint expedition made interesting and valuable discoveries in the Yeghegis-1 cave-dwelling located in Yeghegis community of Vayots Dzor province.

Speaking to ARMENPRESS, head of the expedition Karen Azatyan said this year’s excavations discovered around 7000 animal bones, some of which have already been identified.

“These are bones of 6000-year-old cats, bears, and cattle. The fact is that the Yeghegis-1 cave has been used as a temporary shelter”, he said.

Karen Azatyan said that back in 2019 they have tried together with biologist, Professor Levon Yepiskoposyan to find traces of ancient human habitation in Vayots Dzor.

“Together we did a short exploration to find cave-dwellings as the experience showed that ancient people firstly temporarily settled in cave-dwellings. A small rock-covered cave was found in an area between the Shatin-Yeghegis village, where obsidian stone tools were found on the surface of the ground, and as a result of their typological analysis we assumed that it could be an ancient site belonging to the Stone Age phase”, the archaeologist said.

“In 2021 we sent the material to Germany for radiocarbon analysis, and this year we got a response that the findings date back to BC. 4000 years old. So, our assumptions connected with the Eneolithic period were right”, he said.

He stated that in Vayots Dzor there was only Areni-1 cave of that period.

“This year as well we carried out exploration works and discovered the second cave-dwelling in the village of Shatin. There is no date yet, but the typological analysis again shows that it belongs to the same period almost by 50%”, the archaeologist said, adding that in addition to Areni, Shatin, the Yeghegis Gorge has also been one of the migration routes of the Eneolithic man.

“The excavations in Yeghegis have already been completed, but they will definitely continue in the next years”, he stated.