CULTURE
Paleolithic dwelling site- Gazma Cave
Baku, March 9, AZERTAC
Gazma Cave is an archeological monument, which dates back to 100-90 thousand years ago and has a special place not only in Azerbaijan, but also in world archeology as a human settlement.
Gazma Cave (Azerbaijani: Qazma mağarası) is a Paleolithic dwelling site discovered between Ordubad and Sharur districts in 1983.
This monument is one of invaluable sources for studying Azerbaijan’s pre-writing and post-writing history. Gazma Cave, a stone monument of the history in the territory of Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, is one of such monuments. The entrance to the cave stretches in the form of a corridor 6 meters wide and 2 meters high and is divided into 2 branches.
Palynological and granulometric analyses of Mousterian deposits at the Gazma Cave site demonstrate that the Middle Paleolithic humans of that region lived not only in forests but also in the oak and juniper woodlands of the arid zone. At that time, the climate was less arid than it is today. Human settlement of the Gazma Cave began at a time when aridity was decreasing and the cave was abandoned as aridity levels increased.
