Russian archeologists claim that the Russians were the first people on the planet to cultivate land, breed cattle and make earthenware.

Russian tribes inhabited Khabarovsk Region in the Stone Age, the archeologists said after finding a 15,000-year-old hunters' settlement on the bank of the Amur River in Khabarovsk.

Stone axes, knives, scrapers, arrowheads and baked earthenware have so far been unearthed in the area.

"It was the first earthenware on the globe, and though it was primitive, with plain decoration, and poorly baked, yet it was a significant landmark in the history of mankind," said Andrei Malyavin, an employee of Khabarovsk Archeology Museum.

Firing shaped clay is among the possible first steps toward social organization, or society. The production of earthenware shows that the group had moved beyond simple farming, and into some specialization.

Khabarovsk is the administrative center and the largest city of Khabarovsk Krai, Russia, located some 30 km from the Chinese border.

HRF/JG/RA