Šalitrena Cave () is located in the boundaries of the atar municipality

Brežđe Brežđe () is a village in the Mionica municipality, Kolubara District in Serbia. Šalitrena Cave Šalitrena Cave () is located in the village area, in the gorge of the Ribnica river. The name means "Saltpeter Cave" in Serbian. It is the ...

, about 6 km from

Mionica Mionica ( sr-cyr, Мионица, ) is a town and municipality located in the Kolubara District of western Serbia. , the population of the town is 1,590, while population of the municipality is 12,061 inhabitants. Geography The township of Mionic ...

and 3 km upstream from the Ribnica Monastery and Ribnica Cave. It is the richest

Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...

find of the central and west

Balkan Peninsula The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

, a valuable source on the material culture and spiritual life of the Paleolithic humans. The cave is also the only

Gravettian The Gravettian is an archaeological industry of the European Upper Paleolithic that succeeded the Aurignacian circa 33,000 years BP. It is archaeologically the last European culture many consider unified, and had mostly disappeared by ...

find in the west Balkans and one of the richest and most important finds of the

Upper Paleolithic The Upper Paleolithic (or Upper Palaeolithic) is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. Very broadly, it dates to between 50,000 and 12,000 years ago (the beginning of the Holocene), according to some theories ...

in the

Southeast Europe Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe is a geographical sub-region of Europe, consisting primarily of the region of the Balkans, as well as adjacent regions and Archipelago, archipelagos. There are overlapping and conflicting definitions of t ...

Analysis

The oldest remains were from occasional habitation by prehistoric hunters during the

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle P ...

, 80,000-40,000 years ago. It is also the only

site in the west Balkans and one of the richest and most important sites of

. A technological and typological analysis of the discovered materials, numerous stone artifacts and fauna remnants, and the subsequent accelerator mass spectrometry method, established that the cave was already inhabited in the

, 38,000 years ago. Materials discovered in the chronologically younger layers belong to the major

cultures of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Aurignacian The Aurignacian () is an archaeological industry of the Upper Paleolithic associated with Cro-Magnon, Early European modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the L ...

(31,000 years ago) and

(25,000 years ago). It was used as a hideout in troubled times during the 4th century, and then again from 12th to 15th century, which is documented by archaeological findings. It was officially discovered during the reconnaissance of the valley by a group of young researchers from

Valjevo Valjevo (Serbian Cyrillic: Ваљево, ) is a List of cities in Serbia, city and the administrative center of the Kolubara District in western Serbia. According to the 2022 census, the city itself has a population of 56,145 while the city admini ...

during the 1970s.

References

{{Reflist Prehistoric sites in Serbia Archaeological sites in Serbia Caves of Serbia Paleolithic