The teachers of the Department of History and Archeology of Khazar University – PhD in History Yagub Mammadov and PhD student Orkhan Zamanov participated in the research carried out in the Damcili and Dash Salahli caves located in the Gazakh region of the Azerbaijan-Japan "Damcili international archaeological expedition" from August 2023 to September 14. In general, in 2022-2023, the expedition was conducted from the Azerbaijani side under the leadership of Y. Mammadov (scientific workers Ulviyya Safarova, Orkhan Zamanov). From the Japanese side, the research was led by Professor Yoshihiro Nishiaki of the University of Tokyo.

Note that in 2015, a joint Japan-Azerbaijan international expedition was organized based on the memorandum signed between ANAS Institute of Archaeology, Ethnography and Anthropology, the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the University of Tokyo. Damcili cave was recorded by S.N.Zamyatnin and M.M.Huseynov in 1953, and it was then that the initial research was carried out. Thus, the basis for the study of the Paleolithic period in our country was laid. In 1956-1957, archeological excavations in Damcili cave were continued under the leadership of M.M.Huseynov. As a result, more than 7,000 different types of stone tools and technical waste, as well as fauna remains, were discovered from the Neolithic, Mesolithic, Upper and Middle Paleolithic cultural layers in the area near the spring in the area. However, the mixed cultural layers did not allow to determine the stratigraphy of the monument.

The main goal of the research conducted in 2016-2019 and 2022 was to study the transition from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic in the Middle Kura Basin of the South Caucasus region, as well as to obtain information about the socio-economic life of Mesolithic and Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. One of the main achievements of the restored archaeological research was the discovery of unmixed cultural layers in the newly selected excavation area of the monument. The studied cultural layers cover a wide period (from the middle of the 7th millennium BC to the end of the 17th century). For this reason, scientific interest in the monument was fully justified. All researches were conducted using modern multidisciplinary methods.

Employees of "Avey" State Historical-Cultural Reserve were also involved in the research. A monograph on the results of the conducted research is being prepared for publication and it is planned to be published in England.