Azykh Cave

The Asych Cave ( Armenian Ազոխի քարանձավ ) is a cave system consists of six chambers, which is known as a yard of Stone Age people. It is located 3 km northeast of the village tugh in Nagorno-Karabakh. Since an extensive investigation by archaeologists in the 1960s, the cave is one of the oldest proto- human habitations in Eurasia. A jawbone found in 1968, which is similar to that of a Neanderthal, is estimated to be over 300,000 years old and is therefore one of the oldest proto- human relic on this continent. His discovery has coined the term Asych - man.

According to archaeologists, the findings in the lower layers of a cave pre- Acheulian culture can be assigned, with an age of 730000-1500000 years one of the world's oldest, which identifies many parallels to the Oldowan culture in Tanzania's Olduvai Gorge. In addition, traces of a culture of Mousterian were discovered.

The excavations in the 1960s were inadequate for the precise chronology of the individual layers, so that the mid-1990s again new excavations were taken. Discovered in 2002, led by an international research group Tanya King undestroyed sediment deposits at the entrance and in the deeper part of the cave, as well as animal remains and stone tools. Although few human remains were discovered, there are many indications that the area was populated over a period of almost two million years of Hominini.