The regional specialist Alexander Shestakov has made an important discovery on Zyuratkul Lake of the Chelyabinsk Region.

      Jointly with the amateur pilot Anwar Sharifyanov and the actor Vadim Demchog he arranged an aero expedition. 

      The expedition was aimed to continue research of the last year's find – a geoglyph of the Zyuratkul elk - before the mountain slopes were coated with a dense carpet of grass. After viewing the photos the expedition members found a network of regular squares going to the depth of the lake in several shots.

      “We again studied the scientific report of 1968 when the archeologist researcher Gerald Matyushin carried out excavations on the shore of Lake Zyuratkul.  He unearthed remains of an early settlement of the Stone Age on the Dolgy Elnik (Long Fir Grove) cape and dated it to the 12th millennium BC, and the late settlement on Kamenny (Stone) Cape, Mr. Shestakov said. 

      According to his calculations, the Stone Age settlement was two kilometers long and 300 meters broad. There are towns of the similar size in Palestine (Jericho of the 9th century BC) and in Turkey (Chatal-Guyuk of the 6th century BC). 

      The Zyuratkul town, according to researchers, is 3000 years older than the famous Jericho.