"Take a close look because you'll probably be the last Westerner to see these petroglyphs. They'll probably be gone tomorrow,” Dr. Pavel Avetisyan told me, shaking his head sadly. Dr. Avetisyan, an archaeologist at the Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, had taken me on a field trip to the Armavir region to see a breathtaking example of 6,000 year old rock art near Aghavnatun.

He was pointing to pictures of prehistoric people and animal scenes carved on what is now a small active tuff mine that is slowly devouring the artistic works of some of Armenia's most ancient farmers.

I recently had the privilege of spending 10 months in Yerevan working and learning from my Armenian mentors and colleagues while completing my Ph.D. on the Bronze Age of south Caucasia. But you don't need to be an archaeologist to realize that wherever you look in Armenia, you will find evidence of its rich prehistoric past. The good news is that, in many respects, the future of Armenian archaeology in the 21 century has never st looked brighter.

Unfortunately, just as Armenia's rich archaeological heritage is beginning to gain the recognition of the international scientific community, many of its exposed and unprotected sites are under constant threat of from construction projects, erosion, and vandalism. And for sites that are properly excavated, there is no funding available in Armenia to properly house and protect the unique artifacts recovered by scientists.

Although laws designed to preserve archaeological and historic sites have existed since Soviet times, problems arose in Armenia and other newly independent republics as a result of the quick privatization of lands in the early 1990s. Still facing a daunting range of developmental issues following independence and the conflict in Karabagh, it is perhaps not surprising that the Armenian government lacks the funding or political will to alleviate the mounting threat to Armenia's archaeological heritage. However, Armenia has an estimated 33,000 known archaeological monuments within its borders, under the jurisdiction of the; Agency for Preservation of Historic and Cultural Monuments, with new ones discovered regularly and often destroyed before valuable information can be retrieved. Unlike a wheat field or fruit orchard which can be cleaned up and restored to a useful state, once an archaeological site is damaged it is a resource that is lost forever.

A perfect example is the spectacular 200 hectare site of Agarak, an open-air site and ritual landscape that has been inhabited, with brief hiatuses, since the Early Bronze Age (about 2,900 B.C.). The site was cut in half during construction of the main Yerevan-Gyumri highway, and although it was made a national park in 2001, there are currently no means for protecting the site from the elements or for creating interpretive signs for the increasing numbers of tourists visiting Armenia. (According to the Ministry of Trade and Economic Development website, the number of tourists to Armenia has increased from 31,804 to 206,094 between 1998 and 2003.)

With tourism becoming one of the major sources of income for Armenia, and with an increasing percentage of non- Armenian visitors seeking tours to archaeological sites, according to Liana Akhiyan of Menua Tours, the need to discover and preserve such monuments has never been greater.

An appreciation for Armenia's long, storied history, with its many accomplishments and tragedies, is part of what ties Armenians across the globe together in a common identity.

For the thousands who visit Armenia from the Diaspora, and the increasing number of otars seeking new adventures, a visit to Armenia is in many ways a visit back in time. The sharp-eyed traveler will find symbols of Armenia's ancient past on practically every corner of Yerevan. In fact Armenia's antiquity is the first to welcome visitors landing at Zvartnots International Airport, named for one of Armenia's oldest and most unique churches and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

While relaxing over a café glace at one of the charming outdoor cafes at the Cascade, one need only look up the colossal staircase to see one of Yerevan's most prominent reminders of its colorful past: the tall white obelisk topped with a signature Urartian icon looming over the Cascade was erected in the 1970s to commemorate 50 years of Soviet Armenia, and successfully brings together both ends of Armenia's long history as a revolving door of imperial occupation.

While the Soviet Union used symbols of Armenia's history for its own political messages, today they are used as potent marketing tools. It is not difficult to miss the ads for Garni cigarettes, Noy bottled water, and the sparkling lights above Kino Nairi. Restaurants such as ArtBridge, a well-known tea and book shop in Yerevan, adorn their tables and walls with replicas of Neolithic rock carvings, Bronze Age artifacts, and Urartian murals.

In addition to the swelling tourist trade, Armenia is increasingly becoming renowned in the scientific community as well. During the last 10 years, exciting new discoveries and opportunities for international collaboration have made Armenia an important new global center of archaeological research.

Like many recent developments in Armenia, it has been slow and without much fanfare. But in 2004 alone, archaeologists and graduate students from respected research institutions in the United States, France, Canada, Germany, Austria, England and Italy worked alongside Armenian archaeologists to study a diverse array of sites including Classical and Urartian cities, Late Bronze Age fortresses and Neolithic villages. Previously, such collaborations had been forbidden during Soviet rule since the 1930s when Stalin outlawed associations with Western scientists.

However since the fall of the Iron Curtain, archaeologists from Europe and the U.S. have been reaching across the cultural and linguistic divides seeking partnerships with their Armenian counterparts at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in order to study some of the most pressing questions not only of the prehistory of Armenia, but of all of humanity.

For example, the rich varieties of wheat, barley, grapes and other foods native to the south Caucasus have made Armenia an important new center in the study of the “Neolithic Revolution” – the period signifying the shift from huntingand- gathering to farming – a field that has traditionally been focused in Palestine and the “Fertile Crescent” in modern Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Exploring how these changes occurred in Armenia, an Armenian-French team just completed excavations at the 8000 year old village of Aratashen (located near Ejmiadzin with a wonderful view of Mt. Ararat), where among the circular adobe houses were found amazingly well-preserved spoons, shovels, and other household tools carved from animal bone; long, razor sharp obsidian blades; and burned grains of domesticated barley harvested by the region's earliest farmers.

Another international collaboration, the Armenian-American team of Project ArAGATS, has been excavating Late Bronze Age fortress settlements built around 1500 B.C. on the north slope of Mt. Aragats.

Since 1998, Project ArAGATS, the only collaboration between American and Armenian archaeologists currently excavating in Armenia, has been working steadily to understand this period when the earliest political institutions in the south Caucasus were forged amid the clash of bronze swords and axes in the shadow of imposing hilltop stone fortresses, centuries prior to the arrival of Urartu.

Focusing their research within the Tsaghkahovit Plain northwest of Aparan, the team recently uncovered a large shrine at the fortress of Gegharot, whose altar was surrounded by the remnants of many large ceramic pots. Vast quantities of sheep and goat bones indicate that people from around the region were coming to make offerings to the shrine. This incredible discovery stunned the archaeologists, once they realized that they may have uncovered the regional center of ancient religious life 3500 years ago. (For more info, see the Project ArAGATS website at http://acc.spc.uchicago.edu/~atsmith/Pages/Aragats.html.)

Despite the recent flurry of scientific activity, interest in Armenia's archaeological heritage is not as new as it may seem. In the late 1800s, Russian and European aristocrats and explorers, through amateur excavations and plundering, were the first to describe the ruins of the famous Greek-inspired temple of Garni. For a time they even contemplated moving all the fragments of Garni's enormous columns to reconstruct them in Tbilisi, the cultural and administrative center of the Caucasus during the Russian Empire, before realizing the impossible scale of such a task!

At the same time, mining and construction projects in northern Armenia began to expose Bronze Age burials, highlighting the south Caucasus, including Armenia's rich copper regions, as one of the earliest centers of ancient metallurgy beginning some 8000 years ago.

At the turn of the 20th century, digs th at the medieval Armenian capital of Ani became a training ground for the first generation of professional Armenian archaeologists. And later, as archaeology advanced as a scientific discipline during the Soviet period, the landmark excavations at Karmir Blur, Erebuni, Metsamor, Dvin, and other sites provided the general picture of Armenia's ancient past which continues to develop more and more each day thanks to the dedication and perseverance of Armenia's scholars.

Despite this general interest in Armenia's ancient past, very few Armenian students have been interested in seeking training as archaeologists, preferring more lucrative opportunities in law, medicine, or business. The troubles of the early 1990s led to a “brain drain” in many scientific fields, during which promising scientists left Armenia seeking better economic opportunities abroad, or else joined the growing ranks of the unemployed. And there are few from the younger generation ready to take the place of scholars that remained.

New international collaborations are beginning to make up for some of the dried up government funding in archaeology. However, the three biggest problems facing Armenian archaeology today continue to be (1) the lack of funding for research and modern technical analysis, (2) the lack of suitable, modern curation and conservation facilities, and (3) a widening generation gap resulting from the above, threatening the very future of the discipline in Armenia.

To help address these problems, Project Discovery!, an independent, nonprofit organization dedicated to the discovery and preservation of the archaeological and cultural legacy of ancient Armenia was formed in 2003. The aims of the organization are many and include facilitating academic scholarship and research in the archaeology of Armenia; supporting the publication of archaeological research in Armenia; support the preservation and conservation of Armenia's archaeological heritage; and foster public awareness and appreciation of the archaeological and cultural legacy of Armenia.

The organization has a diverse executive body composed of internationally renowned archaeologists from Armenia and the U.S. who are familiar with the problems facing Armenian archaeology today and who are working toward their solution.

With the help of private donations, Project Discovery! currently offers funding opportunities to Armenian archaeologists and graduate students for digs, for high-tech analytical techniques available outside of Armenia, or for travel abroad to participate in conferences.

In addition, for those interested in assisting with excavations, Project Discovery! has summer archaeological programs for enthusiasts.

At a time in Armenia's history when its doors have been opened wide to the international scientific community for a chance to add, through archaeological studies, to the understanding of humankind, the role of Project Discovery! could not be more crucial.

For more about Armenian archaeology, and to find our more about the organizations discussed in this article and how you can be involved and make a difference in exploring Armenia's ancient past, please visit the Project Discovery! website at http://www.projectdiscovery.net/index.html

Ian Lindsay is an archaeology graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has been coming to Armenia regularly since 2000 as a member of Project ArAGATS and is currently finishing his Ph.D. on the study of Late Bronze Age fortress communities in the Armenian Highlands.