The Project

Background

The Middle–Upper Paleolithic is of major interest for the research of past environments inhabited by early humans, because it overlaps the Marine Isotope Stages 3-2, a turbulent period with higher incidence of abrupt climate shifts that gradually led to the extreme cold conditions of the Last Glacial Maximum. In this context, the importance of caves is twofold: 

• Firstly, they are excellent continental environments to preserve climatically-relevant archives within their deposits, such as sediments, speleothems, fossil bones, bat guano, or ice.

• Secondly, caves provided optimum shelters to early humans, especially during the severe cold intervals of the Pleistocene.

Mission

This research project aims at investigating the cave deposits from a Western Carpathians cave site, where clear evidence of early human presence was found. The project constitutes the first dedicated study of this cave, to extract from its archives as complete information as possible about the Quaternary environmental changes, more evidence on the human presence and, hopefully, cave site occupation.