Scientists Found an 8,000-Year-Old Figurine

There’s no face on the oldest piece of art—a small sandstone figurine of a human from the Mesolithic era—ever found in one region of modern-day Azerbaijan.

In a study published by Archaeological Research in Asia, a team of archaeologists from both Japan and Azerbaijan showed how they used technology to investigate the details of the stone figurine that helps tell the story of the cultural shifts from Mesolithic to Neolithic.

“Its stylistic features considerably differ from those of Neolithic human figures in the region,” the study authors wrote, “providing a valuable reference point for understanding the cultural processes in symbolic aspects during the Mesolithic-Neolithic interface in the South Caucasus.”

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Back in the USSR

 

In the decades after it was established, the Russian-dominated Soviet Union grew into one of the world’s most powerful and influential states and eventually encompassed 15 republics:

1. Russia
2.  Ukraine
3.  Georgia
4.  Belorussia
5.  Uzbekistan
6.  Armenia
7.  Azerbaijan
8.  Kazakhstan
9.  Kyrgyzstan
10.  Moldova
11.  Turkmenistan
12.  Tajikistan
13.  Latvia
14.  Lithuania
15.  Estonia

In 1991, the Soviet Union was dissolved following the collapse of its communist government. 

The post-Soviet states, also known as the former Soviet Union,  the former Soviet Republics and in Russia as the near abroad , are the 15 sovereign states that emerged and re-emerged from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics following its breakup in 1991, with Russia being the primary de facto internationally recognized successor state to the Soviet Union after the Cold War while Ukraine, by law, proclaimed that it is a state-successor of both the Ukrainian SSR and the Soviet Union which remained under dispute over formerly Soviet-owned properties. 

The three Baltic states were the first to declare their independence, between March and May 1990, claiming continuity from the original states that existed prior to their annexation by the Soviet Union in 1940.The remaining 12 republics all subsequently seceded. 12 of the 15 states, excluding the Baltic states, initially formed the CIS and most joined CSTO, while the Baltic states focused on European Union and NATO membership.