Today's work focused on long transects east of the Mirak humus and sand mines, north from the Kasakh River bridge to just south of Mirak Village.
I was reminded that this is an area heavy with tuff mining activity along the gorge terraces. Here we also had some obsidian scatters and ceramics, none of which were particularly diagnostic, save one Levallois, Mousterian core. We covered the territory of the sand mine burial cluster (Ar/Mi.ICL14.12) without identifying any new tombs.
The biggest find of the day was the exploration and surface collection of a large cave south of Mirak in the Kasakh Gorge (Ar/Mi.AG17.08). It has a broad, south-facing opening. We saw this large cave in 2016, but were unable to investigate further due to the presence of cattle. Today, we were able enter it and estimate that it measures approximately 10m wide at the mouth and 6m deep. It is probably 8m tall from floor to ceiling, with an enclosure wall of boulders and cobbles that runs from one edge of the mouth to the other. There is a clearly significant collapse layer present, but the cave is a prime candidate to have a Stone Age occupation layer.