The Oldest Settlement of the Prehistoric Man Discovered in Armenia

The settlement was unearthed during excavations in one of the caves of the Lower Paleolithic. The exact location of the excavation site is not indicated.

The Lower Paleolithic is a period in the history of mankind which began with the end of the Pliocene Epoch. Between 2,6 million and 150 thousand years ago, Homo habilis were, in general, similar to Dryopithecus and Australopithecus, but their social structure was more complex and intelligence was more developed.

The ancestors of modern humans lived at the expense of nature and started to use stone tools and fire. Their main activities were hunting and gathering. Then came fishing.

Among the main cultures of the early Paleolithic, the Olduvai, Acheulean, and Abbeville cultures are distinguished. The former is the most ancient of them – it originated about 2.5 million years ago. This was an extremely primitive culture of stone processing: in order to get a sharp edge, stones were usually split in half without additional refinement.

According to Vladimir Lapshin, the discovered temporary settlement is one of the oldest among all known to archaeology. The scientist says that specialists did not expect to see anything like that in the Transcaucasia at all. Now, archaeological excavations continue under the direction of Vasily Lubin.

Source:naked-science