In 2009, excavations began at Kamiltepe in Azerbaijan. The collaborative project between the Tehran Branch of the DAI and the National Academy of Sciences in Baku was initiated to shed light on the early settlement history from the 6th to the 3rd millennium BC in the southern Caucasus, till then a little-researched field.
Remains of mudbrick architecture from the 6th millennium BC (Photo: Hellen Taylor) 
Photogrammetric image of an Iron Age burial at Kamiltepe (Photo: Jan Krumnow, DAI) 
Survey on horseback (Photo: Andrea Ricci, Eurasia Department)
The excavation has since grown into a Franco-German research project encompassing the region of the Mil Steppe and looking into human interaction with the environment, exploitation of raw materials, pottery production, and the mobility of communities. An interdisciplinary project, it also includes archaeological surveys, which, on the southern Caucasian steppe where there are few roads, are best done on horseback.