The excavations
The cave has been excavated since 1996. The work is organised by the Archaeological Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia and the Institute of Prehistory and Quaternary Geology in Bordeaux, and led by Nikolay Sirakov and Jean-Luc Guadelli.
The excavations have revealed a Late Palaeolithic culture of the 37th–34th millennium BC. It differs greatly from the finds of the same time in the caves Temnata Dupka and Bacho Kiro, and is like cultures that spread in Western Europe several thousand years later.
The oldest traces of humans in Europe?
The cave was also lived in during the Middle Palaeolithic, but the lowest layers, dated to 1.4 million years ago, matter most. A tooth of a member of the genus Homo, perhaps Homo erectus, was found in them. If the dating is right, this is the oldest evidence of humans in Europe.
Another find is disputed too: several bones 1.2–1.4 million years old that bear rows of cut marks. The archaeologists who lead the excavations hold that the marks were made on purpose and are not a chance result of cutting meat. The idea is disputed, because the prevailing view is that symbolic thinking appeared only with Homo sapiens, 50 thousand years ago.