This season’s main objective was to complete the excavation of layer A9.
The results provided more evidence regarding the organisation of the groups of Neanderthals who occupied the cavern. The excavation also recovered more bird bones.

Two more hearths were exposed, attesting the intense activity involving the cooking or smoking of food which took place at the cave entrance. Each of the hearths was sectioned, recorded and sampled in order to collect the maximum information about the wood (larch and pine) used, the possible use of herbs and animal fat, combustion temperature and possible reuse of the structures during the various seasonal occupations of the cave. Flint blades and points were recovered from around the hearths together with numerous bones of herbivores such as deer and megalocerus (extinct in the Pleistocene period), roe deer and ibex.

Other faunal and bird remains of various sizes and species were collected and are being studied at the archeo-zoology laboratory of the Pigorini Museum in Rome.