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Archaeologists confirm exact age of cave engravings on Kola Peninsula

At present, research in the area of Lake Kanozero continues

MURMANSK, June 19. /TASS/. Researchers on a summer archeological expedition reporting to the St Petersburg-based Institute for the History of Material Culture have found ancient artefacts in the course of works on the Kola Peninsula that confirm the age of cave engravings discovered here earlier, Vladimir Perevalov, the director of the Petroglyphs of Lake Kanozero Museum told TASS on Tuesday.

"Archeologists’ efforts and finds have made it possible to confirm the supposition that the petroglyphs on Lake Kanozero are 6,000 years old," he said.

In the course of the current expedition, the first one since 2015, the archeologists from St Petersburg discovered the rudimentary tools, with the aid of which the engravings had been made.

Also, they found the fragments of ceramics and mica flakes that appeared in the process of incising the drawings on the stones, as well as other artefacts.

At present, research in the area of Lake Kanozero continues.

Kanozero petroglyphs are on the list of five most crucial monuments of the New Stone Age era. The unique complex is located on the islands of the lake and along the perimeter of its shores. It has more than 1,200 engravings depicting animals, people, lunar and solar symbols, as well as the scenes of hunting and fishing.

The first drawings were discovered in 1997. Judging from a range of factors, the researchers have arrived at a conclusion that all of them were made in the 4th millennium B.C.