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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)

  • EXPLORATIONS IN THE KOZARNIKA CAVE (Nikolai Sirakov – nikolaysirakov@gmail.com, Jean-Luc Guadelli) Sectors 3 and 4, first and middle stages of the Upper Paleolithic period. Levels VI, VII and VIII were explored on an area of 6 sq. m. Several leaf-like flint points with biface retouching and eight Helices with pierced openings, most likely used as pendants, deserve attention among the finds from level VII. They emphasize the ingenious character of the assemblage, specified as an early stage of a cultural phenomenon with its own designation (‘Kozarnikien’). A lithic technology and Gravettian shapes, Levallois nuclei and products with Middle Paleolithic appearance, and biface leaf-like points were attested in level 6/7. They date to 42 – 43 ka BP and display the transition between the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic periods. Presumably, there was a technological disruption between the Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic components. On the other hand, the leaf-like points have parallels in the lower Mousterian and the later Upper Paleolithic assemblages. Sector 16, Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods. Deformations were explored in layers 11b – 5c. The deformations were result of tectonic activity that occurred in the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, between 39 and 36 ka BP. The bio-stratigraphic zones were compared to the Plio– Pleistocene zones in Europe. Zone B2-2, typical with the presence of Procamptoceras, Hemitragus orientalis, Ovis sp. and Soergelia, correlates with zone 17 of Guerin. Therefore, layers 13 and 12 from the beginning of the Lower Paleolithic in the Kozarnika Cave come from the Early Pleistocene, between 1.6 and 1.4 Ma BP. A burial of a man, c. 25 years old, with an iron arrowhead in his cervical vertebrae, discovered during the previous seasons, dates to AD 1553 ± 45, after the radiocarbon dating.

Director

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

Team

Research Body

  • Archaeological Institute with Museum
  • Université Bordeaux I

Funding Body

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