People and exotic animals lived on territory of Akushinsky district 2 million years ago

Makhachkala, August 21, 2015. The archaeological finds in Akushinsky districts of Dagestan pushes the history of Russia back in time for a million years, the Chairman of Dagestan Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, the corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Khizri Amirhanov says.

Khizri Amirkhanov has been leading the excavations in Akushinsky district of the republic for more than 10 years. The object of the archaeological site is located near the village of Aynikab. There are two teams of archaeologists from the Department of Archaeology, Institute of History Archaeology and Ethnography of Dagestan Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Archaeology RAS.

The sites are called Muhkay 1 and Muhkay 2. The thickness of 34 layers of earth gave the researchers more than 1.2 thousand artefacts, 15 species of animals such as elephant, giraffe, zebra-like horse, etc. There are also many varieties of stone tools. The monuments relate to the Paleolithic era - the Stone Age. The age of the finds is more than 2 million years.

The uniqueness of the excavations, according to Amirkhanova, is in the fact that there are hardly a dozen of similar archaeological sites all over the world. In Russia this is the single object of such significance. Scientists say that people and absolutely exotic animals lived in the territory of the district 2 million years ago. The archaeologist works will last for at least two years more.