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Excavation

  • Kozarnika Cave
  • Belogradchik
  •  
  • Bulgaria
  • Vidin
  • Belogradchik

Tools

Credits

  • The Italian Database is the result of a collaboration between:

    MIBAC (Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Direzione Generale per i Beni Archeologici),

    ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) and

    AIAC (Associazione Internazionale di Archeologia Classica).

  • AIAC_logo logo

Summary (English)

  • KOZARNIKA CAVE (Nikolai Sirakov – nikolaysirakov@gmail.com, Jean-Luc Guadelli) The Lower Paleolithic Sequence in the entry gallery was explored. Stratum 11b was thoroughly explored in Sectors 7 and 8 and the exploration of Strata 11c and 12 begun, both of them dating to the transition from the early to the middle stages of the Lower Paleolithic period. Facieses in Stratum 13 were explored in Sector 12, dated to the early stages of the Lower Paleolithic period. The explorations of the earliest stages of human occupation in the cave indicated the decrease of the quantity of anthropic traces (flint artifacts and faunal remains), probably reflecting the demographic situation with the first settlers in Europe: early Homines whose populations were too small in number. Splinters, scrapers and awls prevailed among the retouched flint tools. A bone artifact with incised parallel cut-marks originating from Stratum 12 deserved special attention. It corresponded to two other artifacts from the same context dated to the early phases of the Lower Paleolithic period, which displayed similar organization and technique of the cut-marks. All these artifacts were specified as a unique group displaying the earliest expressions of symbolic behavior during the Lower Paleolithic period known so far. According to the osteological analysis, the following animals were identified: Equus stenonis, Bovidae, Panthera cf. Schaubi, Vulpes alopecoides, and Ursus etruscus. The early stages of the Lower Paleolithic period in the Kozarnika Cave were related to zones 18 and 17 of Guerin, i.e. to the middle of the Early Pleistocene (1.6 – 1.4 Ma BP). The Middle Paleolithic period in the cave interior was explored. Middle Paleolithic assemblages, related to the Balkan Mousterian with prevailing Levallois technique, were explored in Sector 71. The presence of Ursus spelaeus during 40,000 – 30,000 BP was documented and in that period Upper Paleolithic human groups already occupied the entry gallery of the cave for at least several millennia.

  • Nikolai Sirakov - Archaeological Institute with Museum 
  • Jean-Luc Guadelli - PACEA/IPGQ–UMR CNRS 5199, Université Bordeaux I 

Director

Team

Research Body

  • Archaeological Institute with Museum
  • Université Bordeaux I

Funding Body

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